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Monthly Archives: October 2001

Detritus: What’s Shakin’?

No, seriously — would someone tell me please? We seem to have had an earthquake here in New York again, at about quarter to two this morning. Either that or they finally blew something else up. I can’t stand it. This is the worst possible place to be in the case of an earthquake. All […]

My CCS Div I, Continued: Sociolinguistics of Like

My boss Abby asks me today if I’m a Valley Girl. Yes, I say, and then reconsider, and say No. There are reasons to say Yes, most of them simply linguistic. A former Humboldt County-area boyfriend of mine, visiting my hometown for the first time, remarked with alarm that I turned into a Valley Girl […]

Magical Thinking In The Modern Technolgical Age

The communications karma gnomes have been particularly capricious in the last few days. Today they caused Galataea, my computer, my beautiful blue second mind, to have a catastrophic grand mal seizure resulting in an hour of blankscreen and a mangled article pitch. Yesterday, they tweaked my cel phone so that it rang all squeaky and […]

Squirrels Are Metaphors For People

The guy who is fixing the house came by to bang the storm windows outside off early this morning. As a result, squirrels have taken up residence in the sash gutter of my bedroom window.