Category: Essays
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Look Up
“When this old world starts getting me down, and people are just too much for me to face, I climb way up to the top of the stairs, and all my cares just drift right into space…” — Gerry Goffin and Carole King, “Up on the Roof“ I’ve been spending a lot of time on…
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A New Speed
I’ve forgotten how to go to museums — or at least, I’m not good at it anymore. It’s not that I don’t enjoy it, but now that I go to one five days a week for work, I don’t excel at it the way I used to, which makes museum-going as a social activity difficult.…
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Little Big City
Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to grow up in a small town. I don’t mean the relative smallness of my hometown as compared to the city in which I currently live. No, I’m talking a truly small town, like the one where my mother grew up — a rural Kentucky hollow…
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An Introvert’s Christmas Carol
Christmastime is supposed to be filled with warmth and goodwill, hugs from family and friends, the smell of cinnamon and hot chocolate, and, in my formative years, pigs in a blanket and pork tenderloin. It’s supposed to bring a smile to your face and put joy in your heart. But here’s what they don’t tell…
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Good Tidings
With Thanksgiving behind us, it’s officially socially acceptable to spread holiday cheer in all its December glory. But it doesn’t quite feel like the season to be jolly yet, here in the “greatest city in the world” (Full disclosure: I was supposed to write about you’re-living-under-a-rock-if-you-haven’t-heard-of-it-yet Broadway hit Hamilton this week, but I was too overwhelmed by…
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Gumbo Day
Thanksgiving has officially come and gone. Our bellies are still full from the feast, the detritus of which lingers on the dining room table. And in my house, my dad is busy cooking up the traditional Day After Thanksgiving Turkey Gumbo. It’s a time-honored tradition in the Zelda household, handed down from one generation to…
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You’ve Got A Friend
Thanksgiving is just a week away, and for the third year in a row, I will be away from my geographical home for the holidays (granted last year I was able to go home Tuesday and Wednesday, but I spent most of actual thanksgiving in an airport Chili’s, missing both my family Thanksgiving and my…
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Don’t You Just Love New York in the Fall?
It makes me want to buy school supplies, and do all of the things on this list. New York in the fall is New York at its best, conjuring up Nora Ephron and Rob Reiner visions of a city gone sepia-toned. You can keep your summer rooftop bars and your springtime row boats and your…
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Growing Up Won’t Bring Us Down
Zelda and I have hit a milestone lately. We are officially at the age when our friends have begun to get married. Now we haven’t quite hit the point where each week’s mail contains a thick white envelope filigreed with arabesques announcing the union of yet another happy couple. But while we have yet to…
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Opening Doors
Let me preface the following story by saying that I took every precaution to not end up in the situation that I did. But sometimes the universe just conspires against you, despite your best efforts. And that, folks, is what happened to me. After last week’s Z&S meeting, I walked out of my apartment with…
Zelda & Scout 