As I Was Saying…

Chatter, memories and rants. Please, don't stop me if you've heard this one before.





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  • Shameless plug for my daughter Elizabeth's blog...

Confessions from the new New Frontier

“Miss, are you gonna fold the slice?”

Sunday, September 4, 2011 - 5:45 am - I was standing in the pizza place near my school in the Bronx, having just accepted a paper plate full of bubbling cheese. The voice belonged to Astrid, one of my classroommate Vanessa’s advisees. Astrid is a recent NYC transplant from California, and I understood immediately the purpose of her question, which essentially asks, “Are [...]

A Mother’s Day tribute

Monday, May 9, 2011 - 2:43 am - I tend to think that these minor, dare I say manufactured, holidays–Valentine’s Day, Mother’s and Father’s Days–are pretty arbitrary. Did I send my mom flowers this weekend? Of course I did, and I’m glad that there is a reminder on the calendar that I should do something like that. Mother’s Day could be any weekend, [...]

No Cure for “luf-longyng”

Tuesday, January 4, 2011 - 4:16 pm - [NB: This post is a scan of my brain that I don't expect will make sense to anyone who doesn't feel exactly the way I feel and like exactly the same things I like.] Unabashedly, I mostly turn to pop music when faced with life’s most emotional questions. Maybe that is only because my favorite authors [...]

Things my cover letter won’t tell you…

Sunday, September 19, 2010 - 3:49 pm - In the past few weeks, I have invested myself in finding a job worth having. To this end, I have, draft by draft, been fine-tuning the cover letter to an exact science. It goes something like this: Dear Courtesy Title, Expression of interest in specific position and experience in/passion for the general field. Rattle off [...]

About AIWS

Everybody looks good in a tux.By the time you get to be a grownup, you may have been lucky enough to have learned a few things, such as…

  • it’s generally better to be happy than to be right
  • a long life brings blessings youth can’t imagine–and burdens youth couldn’t bear
  • people who ask you to sing never want to listen to you for more than ten minutes
  • when you make a mistake as a parent, apologize to your kid–even if the kid is still a baby, and especially if the kid has reached adulthood
  • good fences really do make good neighbors
  • when people say “How are you?” they don’t really want to know
  • your doctor, however, does want to know
  • if you wear nice cuff links and studs, nobody will suspect it’s a rented tux

I’m not on the after-dinner circuit. I’m not a talk show host, and I’ll never be a preacher.

That pretty much leaves blogging for all my memories, rants and chatter.

So here we go.

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