You might think, since I am a man of letters, that I earn my living via some intellectual leechery. Perhaps you have imagined I spend my days in an oak-paneled room, wearing a purple velvet smoking jacket, ruminating on topics of great interest and little importance.
Alas, it is not so. Despite my concerted efforts [...]

Dum dum dum. None. Sorry, I\’d like them to all tie together but it\’s really just a link smoothie. Not so smooth, either. Here you go:
Really, isn\’t all the internet just one big game?

When I was a kid we lived in a student-housing complex near the Saint Paul campus of the University of Minnesota. It was a sprawling layout of town-homes, laid out more or less like a honeycomb. Each cell was made up of two or three long curving rows of town-homes, with a huge green lawn [...]

I am sticking to everything. Or everything is sticking to me. I\’m not sure. Either way, I fear movement; it only increases my chances of touching something.
Please, someone, make me a necklace with a fan at the end. I require a constant flow of air around my body, lest the stank atmosphere cling to [...]

When it comes down to it, the forces of the universe are such bullies, really. Lightning is just God\’s way of reminding you he\’s still much bigger than you. Oh you were sleeping, oh, I\’m so sorry, here POW! Ha! Torched you garage!
I hear all this talk of miracles, but when was the last [...]

Writing is a peculiar thing. It\’s like urinating; most people can only do it under certain conditions. I have a friend who can\’t pee if there are other people at the urinals. It\’s not that he doesn\’t want to; he just can\’t.
Writing is like that for me. I can\’t write if there are people around, [...]

Here is a short, interesting thing:
My grandmother, who arrived from Argentina last week bearing nourishing gifts, was born in 1931. In 1949, a year after my dad was born, six years before my mother\’s birth, my grandma had a pen pal.
A pen pal was a person with whom one exchanged written correspondence, not a criminal [...]

And now, in honor of my brother Grisha, who is at camp, I will proceed to embarrass myself:
If you are Jewish, as I am, at some point in your life someone will decide it\’s a good idea for you to go to Jewish camp. It\’s like the chicken pox, if you\’re lucky, it will happen [...]

July the fourth. More than 200 years ago the good citizens of our fledgling republic went to war to secure the freedoms we now hold so dear. Victory was not assured, survival was not promised. The future lay ahead like a great sprawling minefield, full of danger.
But they were courageous. They fought and won, and [...]

Walking down Como Avenue, the main street in my neighborhood, on the morning of July 4th, 1991, you would have heard what sounded like a hundred miniature motorcycles coming down the middle of the street.
Crackacracka cracka crack…

That was the patriotism of all the neighborhood kids, myself included, being expressed in unison. It was the patriotism [...]