Category: Life in America

How I Became a Freecycler!

Or, One Crazy Old Irish Guy’s Junk is One Pikey Couple’s Reusables In case you haven’t heard of this latest craze, Freecycling is the newest thing to hit your neighborhood. It’s bound the be the cause of smothering death of packrats but it is the joy of people like Colin and I who, because of our…

Worm Poop vs. Goliath

Because of the way America is constructed, most of us shop at our local “box” store– Home Depot, Lowe’s, Target, Wal-Mart — for our garden and home supplies. And why not? They’re cheap, close by, and have nearly everything. In the last few years, these stores have really been responding to our demands for more…

A Weekend’s Work in Never Done

Existential Question for the Day, Number 523: Does the American Dream create us, or do we create it? After leaving the confined space of London and the “cultured” space of Europe, Colin and I are handspringing back into the frontier life of the American Dream. On our To Do list, dutifully being followed and checked…

Steve Martin-itis

Or… When Funny and Serious Start Leg Wrestling on the Puce Shag Rug The sucky thing about being human is that even when you are HILARIOUS you aren’t hilarious all the time. Like right now, I am a friggin’ laugh riot, but can you tell? No. Why? Because I am suffering from the appalling and much-talked-about…

A Reason to Work

I was thinking about why I should work. Or why, anyone should work. Why they would want to. I was thinking about what sort of things drives a person to work. You know. Other than hunger and bills. As wealthy and free as we are, why do we work? Offhand, I can think of these sorts…

The Mark of the Bewildered Wild

Now that I live with a mini forest in my backyard, I am seeing an odd sort of wildlife bewilderment reveal itself that I always felt nearby. In London, it was the foxes. Whilst the debate raged in the countryside and in Parliament about the cruelty of hunting foxes with dogs, the foxes themselves (clever…

Love me, Love my Generalization

I am not nice. It’s true. I quite often say not nice things (albeit TRUE things) for the sake of a laugh. Why? Because people are a pain. Not individually, naturally. One-on-one, I quite like everyone. It’s just all these heaving crowds of generalizations I can’t stand! Get them out of here! EAST COAST GIRLS…

EASYNET, BT, and TALK TALK MUST DIE!

… and Other Truths about A Poor and Sodden Nation There are many good reasons that ignorant Americans give to never leave America. Amuuuurrr-ick-cuh’s the best cunt-tree in the whole wide world. Why should I go anywhere’s else? Well, really that boils it down doesn’t it? The truth is, after living three years in one…

Blocking the Deep Field View

Or, Why I Read Orion Magazine, Part 872 Want to have your mind blown? Get this: As of early April 2007, astronomers had found 204 planets outside our solar system. And they just keep finding more. At any given moment, assuming ultra-massive and dwarf galaxies average each other out, there might be 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in…

My Mazda Obsession… Part 2

Ah HAH! I did it! He doesn’t know it yet, but I DID IT! I secretly convinced my husband to buy the car I WANTED and made him think HE WAS THE ONE WHO ACTUALLY THOUGHT OF IT! HAHAHAHA! (evil laugh continues for quite some time….) (and continues…) Here’s my Mazda adventure, part 1. FABULOUS Beginnings……

Sailor’s Delight…

Remember summer? Summer for me is this: Kick the Can in the dusk around “the warehouse”… an old house abandoned house across the street with a grassy lot in front and gravelled alley out back. “Everybody OUTSIDE!” … the sound of my mother’s voice above everything, sending us to where we first were reluctant, but, after,…

At Work again

Today is day two of work. Work. Work.  What is that, you say? Work? Why would I do such a foolish thing like that, when I had the cushy life, sitting around, eating bon bons, sleeping in, and “writing” all day?  Well, it’s a weird thing, but productivity, it seems, begets itself. At least in…

Having a Fit in America

Having landed safely and been released through Homeland Security, it all begs the first burning question: What is the first thing you buy in the Land of Capitalism after living in Europe for three years? That’s right. A car. Tainted by the foolish, small-car-ways of European car makers (they invented something called a “SmartCar” for…

Those Pesky Rose-Coloured Lenses

My good friend, disgruntled commuter has been having a hard time these days being disgruntled of late. I know the feeling. I was out, with a friend at a gallery. We were talking loudish (comparatively, as Americans are wont to do) about the American-themed exhibit, when behold, a stranger. “So,” he said on his distinctly…