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Uncle Grumpy takes on TV
Being a professional grammar pest is too easy. All you have to do is turn on your TV newscast (assuming you’re not a cord-cutter), and these esteemed professionals will bombard you with garble and nonsense. In the space of about ten minutes this noon, I heard these gems: A weather forecaster said the coming showers… Read more
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Here comes Uncle Grumpy!
People say one of the advantages of growing older is feeling free to speak your mind, say “No!” more often, and generally just not give a hoot about what others think. Of course, I wouldn’t know about that because I’m only 15…well, I would be if I’d been born on Leap Day. But I’m more… Read more
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Chore better or worse
One of the great things about being a blogger is that this wacky ol’ world gives me a constant source of new spins on old ideas. (The more cynical readers might accuse me of not having an original thought in my head, or recycling a bunch of dated bloviations that weren’t even good the first… Read more
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Measles memories
It was supposed to be a vacation. But instead of fishing at the lake with my father, riding the porch swing back and forth, or waiting by the curb for the ice cream truck, I was lying on the couch in pajamas, weak and feverish, with anxious adults hovering and angry little red spots all… Read more
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New Yorker nostalgia
This morning while channeling my inner klutz, I spilled a full cup of coffee right next to my chair, with the splash zone covering the end table, the rug, and a stack of books and magazines. Dryness was soon restored, and most of the mags were old Sports Illustrateds I’d been planning to get rid… Read more
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Remembering
If you have a TV or computer, and a soul, you’ve probably seen and been touched by the poppies around the Tower of London, honoring all the Commonwealth dead of the First World War. We can think about war in the abstract all we want, but like the names on the Vietnam Memorial, these simple… Read more
Stories from the South and the subconscious