A n n a r c h y

On Monday I had a small patch of skin cancer removed from the bridge of my nose. It sounds like a big deal, but it wasn’t. The procedure itself felt no worse than having an earlobe pierced: There was only a quick, surprising burn as the doctor applied a local anesthetic, but the actual procedure [...]

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In college, I had a friend named Jane. She was the oldest daughter in a family of tennis players, and they all looked like her: tall and willowy, but strong as thoroughbreds, with defined muscles in their long arms and legs; permanently sunburned noses; and an effortless way of moving that was almost heartbreaking to [...]

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It snowed the other morning north of Boston. It was the first, early snowfall of the season, if you take a very literal view of the term “snowfall,” because the flurries that fell didn’t amount to any real accumulation. They stuck tentatively to the ground, in clusters, like they were as surprised to be [...]

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Maybe it’s because the onset of the holidays always puts me in something of a melancholy mood, or maybe because I’m again staring down the barrel of six bleak months of winter, but I can’t help but read lolcats these days without glimpsing at something of the heartache of the human condition.
In a piece [...]

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On the surface, I should like her. Sarah Palin is 44, precisely my age. We were born three months apart. And like me, she’s a mom and works full-time.
We should hang out, clink our highball glasses, and salute the kind of kismet that competent women often need to create real achievement. Except, in her [...]

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Like millions of people around the world who are following the Beijing Olympics, I’ve been watching a lot of TV this summer. Parked on my couch watching the events, it’s alternatively a new experience as well as a shot of nostalgia. Here, in 2008, I’m watching the summer games with my own kids. But I [...]

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