I went on a river tour this weekend in Chicago. I listened to the names of the architects, learned the differences between art deco, post modern, neoclassical, buildings referential to their surroundings and those not, anecdotes of moguls who wanted to sit higher and see farther than their competition. Yet in the end, all that [...]
In my dreams, I can fly.
When I was younger, this manifested itself less as flying and more as floating, always with very great concentration and at a very low height. I would scrunch my eyes and curl up like a baby, focusing all my energy on hovering about 6 inches above the ground. I was [...]
With thanks to MF for the conversation that sparked this post.
I had a problem with timing when I was getting ready to take the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT). Having spent the previous ten years studying, and then teaching English, I was unprepared for the rapid-fire of multiple-choice after multiple-choice questions and could never [...]
Riding the Fung Wah bus from New York to Boston is cheap and more interesting than driving alone. Last week I found myself surrounded by the typical mix of ages, languages, food odors and fragments of music leaking from many earphones. I left my iPod in my bag, choosing instead to vaguely fill in a [...]
About a year ago, my father wrote me an email. “You should get some therapy,” he said. “You really need it.” (He said some other stuff too, but we won’t get into that again.)
Of course, I dismissed this as a fake entreaty, bitter retaliation for a Whatsit post I wrote about growing up a child [...]