Category Archives: Uncategorized

One of the unexpected joys of parenting has been the extent to which pediatricians seem to feel comfortable raising all sorts of hellish worries based on scant or flimsy evidence. It’s especially exciting when they do this in front of … Continue reading →

The July issue of Bookslut also has my review of Ciaran Carson’s book of poems, For All We Know.  Here’s a taste: The final poem in the collection, “Zugzwang,” captures this perspective eloquently. Zugzwang means “compulsion to move”: it names … Continue reading →

The July Bookslut went live today, and I’m delighted to say that it includes my long interview with Lisa Appignanesi about her recent book, Mad, Bad, and Sad: Women and the Mind Doctors. People who study Freud will know Appignanesi … Continue reading →

A couple of weeks ago, the boy graduated from preschool. Yes, graduated. With cap-and-gown and everything. We went, mostly because he thought his best friend was going to be there (alas, she wasn’t). I don’t mind saying that I’m a … Continue reading →

This list of “The Books That Changed Your Lives” at Lifehacker (via Mel) reminds me of this lyric from The Hold Steady‘s “Hot Fries”: All your favorite books, they wouldn’t seem so well-written, if you were just a little more … Continue reading →

One of the main traffic drivers in my archives has been a frustrated post from a year or so ago about my problems with VitalChek, the public records provider for many states. Well, today someone named RayRay has posted 1) … Continue reading →

[Last year’s switch from MT to WordPress cost me most of my archives. Here’s a post from last spring that still seems to draw traffic, despite its non-existence, so: ] Last week, Dr. Crazy wrote an excellent post about how … Continue reading →

From the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 6th Edition: If a quotation runs to more than four lines in your paper, set it off from your text by beginning a new line, indenting one inch (or ten spaces … Continue reading →

Kudos to my most digitally-orientated student (and frequent commenter), Short Round Alex, for landing an internship with the Consumerist megablog! Not quite sure I understand how one fetches coffee and such in a digital environment, but that’s probably just because … Continue reading →

What else could be behind this evening’s announcement that they’re eliminating profiles? Profiles are essential for any family with movie-watching children, as they give you an easy way to separate movies for everyone from movies for adults.  Likewise, it keeps … Continue reading →