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The not quite best of ‘22
or the OLI
This is my sixth year of formally tracking, reviewing and officially selecting the best books of the year. Year one (2017) I used the verbiage notable books, and I included ten books. Each year since I’ve gone with the straightforward best of, and have limited it to five books.BUT– I read so many unforgettable books…
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Tales from an Uber driver
Hell is other drivers I picked a woman up at a coffee shop the other day. She was there with someone, and I was taking her to work. I didn’t know this initially—obviously, she explained everything during the ride. People love to explain things during their ride. I saw them parked in a truck, waving,…
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Tommer Dates Again: Entry 0.01
I’ve been carrying a torch for someone since 2006, and I learned recently that she’s dead. B died in March. I found out last Friday, September 23. I was feeling nostalgic and wanted to see what she was up to on social media. I came across a post from her husband asking for his family’s…
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the queen is dead, boys
I understand the impulse not to speak ill of the dead. It sounds nice. We don’t speak ill of the dead is one of those annoying platitudes that make any objection to it feel inherently immoral, and even worse–juvenile. The same way we never actually call a newborn baby ugly, of course everyone’s baby is…
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Road to Erudition
I read The Sentence last year, and sometimes a book is so bad it lingers, and festers. I’m also frequently reminded of it on Instagram. My IG algorithm is almost exclusively books–-pictures of books, bookstores and booksellers, book quotes, and in general the book aesthetic. There is a burgeoning niche internet book culture, aptly named…
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Tommer Dates Again: Entry 0.00
I found warts on my genitals about four years ago. It had been about four months since my last longish-term (two-year) relationship ended, after my partner semi-dumped me, asked if we could still be together, but differently, went on a weekend trip to visit friends, came back, and, after I drove her home from the…
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Tales from an Uber driver
Death by a Thousand Platitudes “You must love meeting new people”. This is something people (apparently) adamantly believe about Uber drivers. The money is secondary, really, to the opportunity to spend on average 15 minutes with 20 or so strangers a day. This must be true for some drivers, solely because of the sheer amount…
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Maybe the world needs a little magic.
Even though I was involved in the conversation with Tommer that spawned this idea, my belief in the overall idea didn’t necessarily start there. I have tried to live my adult life by the idea that the world needs more magic because it’s mostly absolutely terrible and frightening. I’m obsessed with unicorns, cryptids and the…
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Origin Story 2
I had nothing to do with the creation of Garbage Pail Care Bears. BUT @tommer and I have for some time now thought our conversations worthy of more scrutiny and exploration. Narcissitically we mulled a podcast (that no one would listen to), but have instead landed on a blog (that no one will read). Grantland…