Waiting to Get There. Usually on the A/C/E in Chelsea, New York City.

The evening of December 23rd, punctured and tired from a lot of couch wrestling atop a minefield of savagely pointy Barbies, ping pong paddles and randomly discarded shoes, we were ready for bed. Ahead of me, Tom crept through our quiet, darkened bedroom illuminated by an eerie glow. It took me a minute to realize someone had abandoned a lit flashlight under a fort of blankets and mounds of Mardi Gras beads. Nerf gun ammo began static clinging to the bottoms of my feet which is why I noticed the stuffed raccoon under the small pile of silverware. Our bedroom was like a woodland refugee camp after a Fat Tuesday dust up.  The finger points to a certain set of culprit cousins. All under four feet tall and high on Christmas. That’s right. December 23rd is one of my favorite nights, otherwise known as Cousins Night. The niece and nephews sleep over and we make them wear safety goggles so we can properly shoot them with submachine ner...

I was listening to this podcast where James Altucher interviewed Sam Harris . Sam Harris said anger burns off really fast. It’s like Sugar Smacks: you get a short sharp jolt and then it turns into nothing before lunch. So, says Sam Harris, if you want to stay angry, you have to re-up. How you re-up is to run through the sequence of events that made you angry. Again. And again. This is probably why they say love and hate are only a whit apart. Because in order to hate, you have to invest a lot of effort. You have to nurture that righteous anger, every day. You have to nurse it and fondle it and rub its belly. Meanwhile, your life slips by. "Tell me, what is it  you  plan to  do With your one wild and precious life "? - Isadora Duncan It is so ironic that people who uncompromisingly refuse to get over it for years aren’t winning any fights. They aren't winning anything. By wasting untold hours stewing in their anger, they sacrifice their lives to their ...

Photo credit: History.com Everything is better when overpowered by wafts of voluptuous Thanksgiving turkey roasting nearby. Especially my new pants. I purchased these pants at REI on Wednesday, full price. Although no one would admit it, we all piled in the minivan and hustled off to REI because we knew if we continued to lush about the house, Grandma would connive us into raking the yard and digging up Azalea bushes. She’s a 99-year-old Type A gardening machine. My new pants came with a small instruction booklet because they have so many features. For example, a pulley system stowed in the cargo pockets runs down each pant leg so I can hike them up while fording streams or showing off a really bold sock. It was all good until Samantha caught me rolling up my pant legs old school and I had to admit that operating pulley system exceeds my capacity for mechanical engineering and/or fashion. Plus I’d already chucked the instruction booklet in the same garbage can as all the t...

J ust because you can find the best buffet line doesn't mean you can operate it. I learned this at the Health Information Technology conference last week. I was inordinately pleased with myself for spying a little annex buffet nestled behind the interoperability booth. No one was over there. Meanwhile, the main buffet suffered a line out the door.  I took a plate and attacked the olives. Slippery little suckers. It was hard to hold a plate, a napkin and brandish a tiny fork like a spear. I became deeply involved in the attempt to capture a medley of olives. A time check boomed over the PA system and everyone started to filter back into the session room for the next speaker. Obviously I couldn't be bothered. I would not let the olives win.  Finally. I pinioned 4-6 olives and grinned like I'd caught lightning in a bottle. I tossed a couple of pita chips next to the olives and grabbed an attractive blue bottle of fizzy water on my way into the session which had alread...

Photo Credit: mehershad.wordpress.com /2007/12/21/more-funny-pics/ A few weeks ago, we were in the Verizon store picking up a new phone. It took four (4) hours. Midway through recalculating the cost of our data plan, Allen, the Verizon guy, stops, his pen poised in the air. He exclaims, "Hey, I have a deal for you. If you get an Android tablet and you get 2 gigs of additional data, then it will cost you $120 less." Tom's eyebrows take on a curl of suspicion. He confirms, "you're not just giving us an Android tablet and 2 extra gigs for free, you're actually paying us $120 to take them off your hands."  Allen nods his head.  Later, when we told Andy about our Verizon-filled afternoon, he surmised, "So basically you spent 1/2 hour getting the details of the deal straight and 3 1/2 hours trying to figure out the catch."  Well put, Andy. And as result of the Verizon Suss-Out-The-Truth-in-Advertising Challenge, I have become ...

There's a website called CourseHorse with like ten thousand adult school classes. You can learn to make kasha varnishkes or ride a horse or reupholster your couch. There's a whole section for writing classes . I decide to take one, mainly because I've never taken a writing class before and, judging by this blog, it's probably fairly evident I have no idea what I'm doing.  Most of the class listings I discard based on my only two selection criteria— a solid mid-morning start time, and a location that does not require me to board a subway line I find annoying. I settle on a 10am class that is eighteen blocks from our apartment. Perfect.  Energetic and Motivated Gotham City Writers Photo credit: whatsgoodinny.com/ 2014/01/calling-all-creative-writers-get.html The class gets off to a rocky start. A Gotham City Writer guy tells me "goodies" are for the taking in the lobby. I envision coffee and maybe a tiny muffin with raisins. My hopes flatten ...

M&Ms. Since when do they taste like chalk with a crunchy exoskeleton? It's like eating a handful of flashy beetles that have been dehydrated with their legs amputated. That 2nd bag of Vanilla tea from Harney & Sons.  The second bag did not live up to my memory of the first bag.  The new Karen O disk. You'd need to be really into Pippi Longstocking cosplay to get it up for a second listen. (Nonetheless my girlcrush on Karen O stands strong.) Jeffrey Campbell Boots from NastyGal. The city ripped them to shreds, the posers. Online, they looked stoic enough to take on this town. Nothing doing. They wilted like a bug-eyed tourist completely unraveled by a sweltering 6 train platform at rush hour. Such a disappointment. Completely disappointing Jeffrey Campbell boots purveyed by NastyGal iPads and iPhones and Computer Monitors. All this blue light terrorizing my humanoid biorhythms. Tom said there's an app for that. I'll be looking...

Photo credit: http://bloggery.undergroundeats.com/2012/10/ The first time the home brew tour was mentioned, we were told that "Tickets sell out fast." I logged on 3 minutes after the virtual ticket window opened. Already sold out. Personally, I was done. Offline, I don't wait on line. Online, I don't participate in "refresh" skirmishes. Tom, on the other hand, succumbed to the whispered lure of malt liquor begat upon the stove in a stranger's domicile. After three months of trying, his nimble fingers scored us tickets. Saturday at the crack of noon, we were on an F-train to Brooklyn. Josh, the tour organizer, proved a righteous shepherd of drunken beer aficionados and those of us who were more like just drunk. He marched at the fore bearing a long stick with a beer can stuck on the end of it. Over the course of four hours, he guided us to the apartments of three home brewers with plenty of product.  Mostly, my fellow beer marchers talke...

Aside from burns and deafness (so prosaic they don't even count), the most common blacksmithing injury is getting cracked in the head by the back of your hammer when it bounces off the anvil. A good anvil, one with a forge-welded rolled steel face plate, packs a fierce kick. It can knock your block right off. This is what I told my nephew Jackson yesterday. He's a newly minted 1st grader and certainly should know these things by now.  I gave Jackson a helmet and safety goggles and told him to put them on. I gave him one  West Chester 6030 Grain Deerskin Leather Top Reverse MIG Welding Glove  so he wouldn't lose his grip and fling the 3lb Norwegian raising mallet I also gave him across the shop and possibly take out a wall. Then I gave him some earplugs, mainly because of Sharon.  We banged on a (cold) piece of pipe for a while. We worked on throwing our body weight into our swing. Good form packs way more juice than arm strength, I informed Jackson. An...

Let me tell you one thing about men. Later.  First let me tell you one thing about me. Moderation is not my middle name. I commit. This is not news. It runs in my family. All you people out there who only buy one bottle of grape juice when the sale price is a veritable steal? You are lackadaisical and complacent. I take after my grandfather. He liked grape juice. During a clearance situation, Grandpa Frank would buy as many bottles of grape juice as could fit into his Datsun. He would haul them home, carry them into the house and duct-tape them to the walls of his hall closet so he could fit more in there. If you're going to do it, you might as well do it right. By now, you must know I'm into audio equipment. Let's start with my passion for headphones. Currently I own three pairs I actually like. My Earbuds: After destroying 18 pairs of earbuds over an 8 year killing spree, I finally found the Klipsch x11i's which I adore. I got these after I ruined ...

Our crotch-height Polish landlady hobbled down the rickety stairs of our walk-up, banged on our door and treated us to a moment of high-pitched hyperventilation. She had pulled this stunt every night for a week. The landlady did not enjoy the stench of burnt microwave popcorn. Neither did my college roommate. This was 1988 and I was in the middle of my popcorn phase. I have gone through a lot of culinary phases. Here are the most notable: The carrot phase The garlic toast phase The peanut butter ball phase The brick of frozen kale phase The Cheerios phase The naan bread phase The chicken liver phase I enjoy a great capacity to eat one food for weeks. Many of you may be daunted by such dedication; you will need to find the light on your own time. Meanwhile, my college roommate feared we would be evicted, so she purchased for me a Black & Decker Handy Pop 'n Serve. It remained functional for 2.5 decades. Until last week, when the engine shrieked like a little ...

Full interview is here:  http://www.timeout.com/newyork/blog/meet-the-undateables-ariana-and-steve My most favorite thing about Steve is his mean streak. He is so charmingly the opposite of self-aware. It is irresistible.  Steve's  ideal date is "Going to her room and getting naked." What a coy little sex pot! I can picture it. He kicks closed her bedroom door and flings off his 50% polyester tartan plaid button-down. Wafting from his slender white chest is so much animal  magnetism  that a girl  could stretch out her two hands, wring it from the air, and mop it back up with a swiffer picker-upper. At least Steve will imagine the scene this way. Chemistry Ariana : “We didn’t stop talking until we left. It wasn’t awkward. He was kind of like a male version of me. My chemistry tends to come from personality, so that was definitely there.” Steve : “She was talking a lot but wasn’t earning the real estate her mouth was snatching. I’d r...

This evening, Tom declares the two of us could write a better sitcom than  Welcome to Sweden . He says the dialog is awkward, the acting is a shitshow, none of the characters are likable and Bruce the American is a real boob. Tom says everybody learns Day 1 you take your shoes off when you walk into someone's house in Sweden. He wonders how it was even possible for Bruce overlook everybody hovering around the doorway hopping around on one foot trying to get their shoes off. Personally, I think Bruce probably did see the shoe-shucking fandango. Bruce's eyes grazed over all the socks just like a clue nobody noticed except Columbo. I think this happens a lot. Like when I corner people at cocktail parties and thoroughly cover one of my favorite topics, such as blog monetization or the magic of a well-balanced compost pile. I might pause briefly at several intervals to insure my victim is still nodding politely, but I tend to disregard their wild darting eyes and murmured prayers ...

It all started with this email from my friend Michael about this new iPhone app for podcast listening: From: Michael To:  stacey Sent: Monday, June 17, 2013 11:26 PM Subject: New Rogue Wave iCatcher will overwhelm you with options and configurability. I love it. Like to listen to WTF at 1.5x speed but Sound Opinions at 1x, no problem. Download all new episodes of Song of the Day but want to pick and choose episodes of Bieber Aficionado, no problem. Options galore. It's great.  http://joeisanerd.com/apps/icatcher Of course, I immediately bought iCatcher and checked how fast I could listen to podcasts. I'm a playah. Andrew is not a contender, in case you were wondering. Michael discussed iCatcher with Andrew but Andrew fully poo pooed the whole idea. Andrew does not understand the finer points of frenetic media consumption. He said as much while power walking back to our apartment after the Swedish Midsummer Celebration in Battery Park at two o'cl...

The full-color head + torso selfie incorporated in the letterhead arrests my attention.      While dining al fresco with Tom last evening, I had the sincere pleasure of opening up this letter. We had carried an armful of unread mail over to the restaurant with us. We sipped minty cocktails and we ate neat rows of handmade pickle spears and we poured over val-packs and condo board audited financial statements. That's how we roll.      Then my world comes to screeching halt as I study The Suit, the centerpiece of this print out of a Word document letter I received. The Suit screams bespoke and fresh from the cleaners. I wish I could catch a glimpse of the jacket lining. Undoubtedly, I think, the silk pattern would be something unexpected. Something dashing but ironic and cavalier. Like little watermelons or grenades on a royal purple background.      I wonder who the random dude in The Suit might be. To my great delight, the letter c...

A short story could easily begin here... My twin sister Meredith's lawn was green. Green because her husband Max fertilized with the passion of a man with nothing better to do. Meredith slipped her squat, middle-aged body through a break in the hedge between our properties. She picked her way over to my garden patch. I watched her out of the corner of my good eye, but I didn't turn my head. I wrestled with handfuls of weeds and plucked a strawberry by mistake. Damn. It was still white, only the tip had ripened to pinkish red. But the strawberry was big and perfectly formed and grown in good soil. I knew after half a day on the window sill it would transform into pure sweetness. Meredith watched me gingerly lay the strawberry aside. She smiled and snorted, "What a sad little white strawberry." I didn't immediately reply. What did Meredith know of strawberries? She was more of an indoor type, an admitted "brown thumb."  I suppose that is my ...

editors note: Hey! I wrote a short story! The Disappearance of Stars     One night last winter, Carla bought an astronomy app. A star chart. She wobbled her face up at the stars and down to her iPhone. She studied the pinpricks of light trembling far apart in a black velvet sky.       Carla stared until she could trace The Big Dipper, the most famous serving utensil in the Milky Way. On it, Carla's imagination forged a shiny copper finish. She let her mind hammer decorations along the handle and tint the ladle with a shadow so it felt more comfortable and real.  Afterwards, whenever Carla looked up into the night, she saw her Big Dipper. She never saw the stars again.       Carla has looked forward to this evening all week. Even more so when she re-reads the text from Joan with the name of the restaurant— Ursa Major. Ursa Major, the star constellation otherwise known as The Big Dipper. The corners of Carla's lips cur...