March 2008
2 posts
It's been a long, long time...
Which, of course, reminds me of Elton John’s “Rocket Man.” “And I think it’s gonna be a long, long time…” Anyway, it has been a long, long time and I apologize to anyone who potentially reads this blog. I’m not sure if that’s anyone. So I may just be apologizing to myself. Anyway, lots has been going on. I’ve been acting in a play...
December 2007
5 posts
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
I am a fast reader. I always have been. But it’s been a long time since I devoured a book this fast. When I wasn’t reading it, I was thinking about it and wondering when I could get back to it. We went to our friends’ house out of town over the weekend, and I brought it with me. Finally I finished it off last night, and it is really a great story. A couple of days ago, I was...
“I am not a benevolent God.
I am watching myself writhe in a puddle of my own...”
– Chuck Klosterman on playing The Sims
Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman
Oh, Chuck. I love your columns in Esquire. I love your essays. And I love your book. I don’t just love your book because it’s hilarious, or because it’s sort of poignant in a campy way, or because you relate the most strange events and objects together in a way that makes them seem cosmically aligned. I love it because you write about Saved by the Bell. That show which no one...
October 2007
10 posts
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
What a very strange book, I thought, as I closed this one. I liked it, sure, but it was very strange. I like talking about books with other people. I mean, I really like it. I think I’m especially fond of it because it’s not very often that I get to just sit and talk books. But my friend Krister and I went to an event about a month ago and on the way home, we were talking books....
Razor clams
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to photograph a razor clam dig. These are really big in Washington state, and I only learned about them when I moved here a little more than a year ago. People here take their razor clams seriously. They dig with special shovels, they use clam guns, and in Ocean Shores, they even host an annual razor clam festival, which got started last year. The...
Sweet apple pie.
I know it seems really random, since this is my word blog, but it does tie in: I am a writer, and as an aspiring magazine writer (aspiring, beginning, whatever) I subscribe to a lot of magazines. Mostly it’s magazines I would like to write for: Budget Travel, Conde Nast Traveler, Travel & Leisure, Coastal Living, Seattle, Sunset etc. But I also subscribe to food magazines. This is for...
Chapter One?
Here is a quick piece of something I’ve been working on. It’s eventually working its way into the shape of a memoir — albeit, a very different one than Gilbert’s “eat pray love.” It’s about my first year on the job, running a small newspaper on the Washington coast. Blue Tongue Today, I went to a management meeting. With a blue tongue. It was a management...
eat pray love
Finally finished “eat pray love,” by Elizabeth Gilbert. It was a really great book. Basically, this woman (Elizabeth Gilbert herself; this book is a memoir) goes through this really terrible divorce and decides that what she needs is to take a year off, travel and get her life back in order. So she spends a year traveling to the three Is: Italy, India and Indonesia. It reminded me a...
August 2007
5 posts
A sad state of affairs
Aberdeen, Washington is my new hometown. I have been living here for more than a year now, and recently I’ve been having some conversations about this town and how sad-looking it is. In addition to that, there is no good place to go shopping, to eat out (well, there are two, but how long can that last you?) and no place cool to hang out. The bars are all sort of sleazy, and there’s...
See Jane Write
See Jane Write: A Girl’s Guide to writing Chick Lit. Sounded like a good idea. And maybe it was, actually. I sat down to read this book - and I love this kind of book because it’s very hands-on, the kind of book you can read in one hand and have a pen and paper in the other, taking notes and scrawling brilliant ideas. The problem was, none of the ideas coming out of my head were very...
A little backlog.
To get us started, I thought I’d update a few things here. Some of the coolest writing I’ve had the chance to do lately was an article on Seabrook, Wash. for Coastal Living magazine. My article ran in the June issue, and could be found in newsstands all over the country. Of course, now they can only be found in my living room, because I’m pretty sure I bought them all. This...