Two months from now, despite my best efforts over the last twenty years to prevent it, I will turn fifty years old. Since my body feels seventy, and my mind feels thirty, if you split the difference that seems about right.

The best thing about approaching fifty is the amount of… Read full post »

I consider myself a spiritually-minded man, even if I’m only occasionally religious. Now I believe that God CAN be everywhere, but I’m not sure God SHOULD be everywhere. Or wants to be. Sometimes I think it’s useful to think of the universe as a big company, with God as more of… Read full post »

Weird name, Elmer. It probably sounded old-fashioned a hundred years ago. But I knew an Elmer once, only thirty years ago. He was my step-dad.

I never knew my biological father, and I deliberately use the word ‘biological’ and not ‘real.’ The man who was ‘really’ m… Read full post »

 Whew. Writing again. Every time I go longer than a couple weeks without posting something, I worry I’ve been stricken with an incredibly specific type of amnesia, one which only erases that part of my brain that knows how to write eight hundred word humorous essays.

“I’m sorry

… Read full post »

I haven’t posted anything lately, because I’ve spent the last three weeks on a much needed…nervous breakdown. And while I was in the middle of it, I didn't feel particularly funny.

This wasn't my first time dealing with anxiety. Several years ago, I called a friend because I was… Read full post »

We are a nation of immigrants, and we have made great strides toward inclusion, but there is still work to be done. For too long, one group of Americans has been ignored despite its contributions, either marginalized or ignored. I’m referring, of course, to Danish-Americans.

A million and a ha… Read full post »

This fall, I’ve been watching the two new science fiction dramas on network TV—Flash Forward and V, and after a few episodes of each, I’ve reached a carefully considered critical opinion—blah. If there were a superlative form of the word ‘blah,’ I would have used t… Read full post »

Apparently, I was confused. I thought Christmas celebrated the birth of Jesus (which, from what I’ve read, was a one-day event), but my local Walgreens is under the impression that we’re celebrating Mary’s last trimester. That’s right; their Christmas items have been on the sh… Read full post »

I have never been what you would call an athlete. My high school sports career consisted of one practice with the junior varsity basketball team. It’s not like I didn’t learn the value of teamwork, though. I was a key member of the Quartz Hill High School Math Team—talk about dealin… Read full post »

During an appearance on Oprah Winfrey’s show, President Barack Obama today resigned from office, claiming he had become “tired of dealing with knuckleheads.” What follows are excerpts from the surprisingly frank hour-long interview:

Oprah: This week is the anniversary of your elec… Read full post »

I’ve never been all that into Halloween. Not sure why, but as a kid I never did the dress up ‘trick or treat' thing, probably because even when I was very young, I was a nerd. I started playing the clarinet when I was ten years old. Instead of, say, learning… Read full post »

I’ve never thought of myself as simply a ‘food writer.’ That’s because prior to September 8^th, I had never written about food. But I sense dozens of  readers clamoring for more, so here’s a companion piece to “Meatloaf Muffins.”

 Yesterday, I had a… Read full post »

Ah, the middle of October, when thoughts naturally turn to ghoulish pumpkins, crunching leaves, and drunk Germans. Unless you live in Minnesota, where we got our first snow a few days ago. Granted, it was only a couple inches, but THAT”S NOT THE POINT! I  want to have burnt sienna tinted… Read full post »

It was inevitable. The backlash had to happen. First, the dominant culture is afraid of the marginalized outsiders. Then, they embrace them, intellectuals praise them, Hollywood makes movies about them. Finally, the overexposure causes the outsiders to resent all of this, criticizing a culture that h… Read full post »

Every so often, a particular word or phrase, something that would not normally bother me, becomes as irritating as a pop-up ad for a Scott Baio marathon. This weeks winner is that old euphemism for dying, when someone says “I lost my mom this week.”

 My mom died… Read full post »

I’ve never been a particularly linear thinker. My mind has never worked that way. And, I might have ADD. This is a challenge if I’m writing, because when people read something, they usually expect it to be in some sort of order. But frankly, sometimes I just have a whole… Read full post »

It was a couple of weeks after my then-friend Kevin had called me and said “Turn on the TV—we’re under attack.” Now, I’m not a morning person, so my first instinct was to hang up. But then I started to assemble the words into some sort of sense—we’re…u… Read full post »

I’m almost fifty years old, and I’m teaching myself how to cook. What’s weird is that I’ve loved the idea of cooking for many years, but for various reasons, until recently, my most advanced culinary exploits involved making an omelet. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve defr… Read full post »

Ever since I read my first book (‘Green Eggs and Ham’), I have been in love with words for their own sake. Sure, you can make some cool things out whole bunches of words, but some words are great all by themselves. ‘Effluvium.’ ‘Nexus.’ ‘Philology.’ &nb… Read full post »

One of the best writers on this site, Verbal Remedy, posted about writer’s block this week, and something must be in the air, because recently, I haven’t been able to write a lick. Nada. My Muse, at this point, is like my first girlfriend after we broke up—yeah, I could call… Read full post »

All the nostalgia for Woodstock this week leaves me a bit cold. Born in 1960, I was nine at the time. Now in 2018, however, although there won’t be an outdoor music festival to commemorate, there will be the fortieth anniversary of me turning eighteen.

 I think we are… Read full post »

On days when I’m inclined to be a hermit, and I’m into my fifth hour of watching Mary Tyler Moore on Hulu, I think about getting a pet. Granted, I have a whole menagerie of pet peeves, but maybe a little interaction would be nice (please see my earlier piece, “i… Read full post »

When it was reported this week that NASA released ‘cleaned up’ footage of the moon landing, it was like Christmas for wackadoo conspiracy buffs (I don’t call them ‘theorists,’ since they’re usually a bit short on that whole evidence thing that makes a theory&hellip… Read full post »

Haven’t posted anything in a couple of weeks, as I’ve been in the process of finding a studio apartment and getting settled. Settled—weird word, since it’s usually a negative (“You settled for this when you could’ve had that?”) Now, I have choice anxiety with… Read full post »

I haven’t posted anything for a while. I’ve been busy making plans for the end of the world, which, as your Mayan friends will tell you, is scheduled for December 21^st, 2012.

I typically don't buy into 'end of the world' scenarios, since, it seems to me, they're usually… Read full post »