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The job I didn’t take: a stream of professional consciousness.
Last Monday, I took the El downtown for a job interview. (Is it the “L” or the El? A debate rages on Facebook.) Rewind: A few weeks ago, a woman sent an e-mail to the address I published on my website,...
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On the road: between Chicago and SXSW.
I’m aboard an RV, on a two-lane highway between Springfield, Mo., and Rogers, Ark., and forcing myself to sit and just. type. words. for the rest of the time we’re on the road tonight. It’s 9 p.m., and...
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RVSX rolls on.
The last licks of sunlight are lapping at the horizon as we make our way west on Highway 40 in Oklahoma. Today, the RVSX crew spent the day in Arkansas: We toured the Wal-Mart Corporation Headquarters,...
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RVSX: Short one rider.
Change of plans: A couple of hours ago, I stepped off the plane that brought me back home to Chicago, a full three days early. Exactly when I decided to leave, I’m not sure. But I do know that I had a...
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Vacation: all I ever wanted.
Mark is next to me — practically on top of me, actually — in the window seat. He’s given up on reading his book, a hardcover by Jay McInerney full of essays about wine. The book’s been sitting by our...
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Something shiny.
I’m working with Step Brightly Creative Group and Heather Acton on a brand-new website. I’m so excited, well, I could just about pop. Keep your eyes here for a gorgeous new look right around the...
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Thankful: play. (And a giveaway!)
(Heyyyy, if you’re just in this for the free stuff, scroll down past my heartfelt story for the giveaway!) I’m thankful for a playful spirit, even as I creep toward 30 years old. At my first-ever...
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Thankful: seatbelts and saddles.
On Wednesday, my alarm went off at 5:23 a.m., as it always does. I fought with myself for seven minutes until 5:30 a.m., as I always do. (Well, sometimes longer.) Finally, I groaned and rolled myself...
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Starbucks: the first job I loved.
The first real job I had was in a fur shop. I can’t have been older than 15, and my next-door neighbors owned the shop. I spent a summer sitting on a stool, behind a counter. Occasionally greeting a...
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Visiting Florida for fun and profit.
I’m sipping a $10 hotel margarita, on the rocks, with salt, sitting cross-legged on a chaise longue. There’s red vinyl as far as the eye can see, stretched taut across the rows and rows of...
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On turning 30, from 30,000 feet.
It seems I can only write from the middle seat these days, peering out a tiny window at nothing but sky. This morning, I’m on Southwest flight 185, en route to Albuquerque, New Mexico, a city I’ve...
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A simple (but decadent) night at Battersby.
April 2 was one of the first pleasant days New York saw this spring, and there were about 10 people queued up outside when we found the almost unmarked storefront on Smith Street in Cobble Hill. It was...
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Where inspiration goes to die.
I write all my blog posts as Word documents before I transfer them into WordPress and eventually publish them. It takes me hours to write a post, and I’ve lost enough drafts to the Internet abyss that...
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Something about Boystown. (Dammit.)
Oh, dammit, Doug. I don’t make it to Boystown often, but every time I’m there, I think of you. I had the best dinner tonight; I actually won it. Just for tweeting. I was only beginning to use Twitter...
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Don’t be scared. The next ones will be better.
DON’T BE SCARED! I included a parenthetical pep talk on my legal pad to-do list last Wednesday. The bullet point: 20-minute free write. It’s one of the many items that didn’t get crossed off that day....
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Atrophy is forgetting how to log into your own website.
I’m shoehorned into a narrow seat near the back of an auditorium of Columbia College’s campus in the South Loop, desperate to grab hold of my words as they fly through my head, in front of my mind’s...
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2014 begins: Death Cab be damned.
What an odd feeling: renewal. Between chapters of Danny Meyer’s memoir slash inspirational tome slash bible-for-every-type-of-business, I thumped the hardcover down on the duvet and sprang out of bed....
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Leaving Chicago. (Leaving Chicago?)
Sunglassed and stubbornly coatless, Mark and I sat today at a blue plastic picnic table at Superdawg, surrounded by the Chicago-est of Chicagoans, watching the northwest-side traffic go by and trying...
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Memories like fireflies.
We sat in a horseshoe of high-end furniture on the brick patio of my grandparents’ house, the one they moved into just before my little sister was born. Gam sat in the center — equally composed and...
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T minus 2 months.
Two months from tomorrow, Mark and I will be married. Holy shit. Even a month ago, October 18 felt like worlds away. And suddenly, we’re choosing the song for our first dance (it’s perfect), thinking...
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