Today is a two-fer in the Just Ask Challenge! In response to my ealier post about Burger Friday, I received another Just Ask query from Ideas Man (who also wrote an entire post about this on his blog). Leave it to Ideas Man to skip the whole romantic story there and instead ask: How does…
Read MoreSo, I’m kicking off the Just Ask Challenge with a query from the very inventor of the game, Petya. She asks: What is home like? Great question, Petya. Not only do I like the vagueness of your question, but also its form. You don’t ask what home IS, but what it’s LIKE. For me, the…
Read MoreThat image to the left there is a visualisation of the “blogosphere.” There are several such constructions on the web, and even a site that offers an interactive “map” of the blogosphere. Totally fascinating. So, yeah, I intend to keep this little dot in the blogosphere going. That will probably be the one New Year’s…
Read MoreMy family has never really wanted for drama. Sometimes it’s unwelcome and unpleasant, but sometimes it’s the best thing ever. The Friday before Christmas, I met my family for lunch. There’s a really great and pretty fancy steakhouse in town, which is usually only open for dinners, but every Friday afternoon they open for lunch…
Read MoreToday marks the end of my first full year of (relatively regular) blogging. So, I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you who have helped to keep this blog alive and healthy by reading and commenting over the last year. (Especially Kyle, Petya, Chet, bernadette, Booga Face, melanie, kirsten, nazareth, Ideas Man…
Read MoreThe story about my niece yesterday reminded me of another “monkey” story that I had been meaning to post here. But first, you need some background information. Rhodes College, where I teach, is in Midtown Memphis, which just so happens also to be the location of the world-famous Memphis Zoo. The college sits on one…
Read MoreMeet my nieces. They’re 8 and 4 years old, and I am one of those aunts that really believes they are so great that they must hang the moon at night. I never, ever tell them “no” and I am sure that I am contributing to their future as juvenile delinquents. As a matter of…
Read MoreAs much as I love this time of the year, and I genuinely do, I really hate shopping for gifts. I’m not a very enthusiastic or patient shopper, and the malls drive me crazy. Also, I always want to get people the perfect gift, but more often than not find that such gift is either…
Read MoreRemember Han Solo? That smarmy, proud, devil-may-care mercenary from the “Stars Wars” movies? As best I can remember, I think he’s the first “anti-hero” I loved. After Han, I think the next one for me was the narrator of Dostoevsky’s Notes From Underground. Since then, I’ve been collecting them like some sort of neurotic hobbyist….
Read MoreI read Don DeLillo’s 1985 masterpiece White Noise as an undergraduate in an American Lit course at the University of Memphis about ten years ago now. I was still developing my postmodern muscles at the time, and I loved DeLillo’s novel, despite its overly stylized and sometimes too-precious prose. In particular, I loved the very…
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