(Spoiler: all you need is love) I’m a big fan of lights and sparkle. Holidays offer an opportunity to don a dress and swirl around someone’s apartment (maybe even just my own). My loft is not small but it has no views and only the smallest sliver of sky shows…

I know. (I’m a writer and a stranger just did it for me.) I’m such a big fan of libraries that I once tried to start a hashtag. #LibraryKid felt like something that every adult who had ever been called quirky would jump onto, telling stories about being bullied or…

It is so interesting to re-read classic literature after decades. — I’ve just cracked the spine of Frankenstein — I’ve got a kind of classics book club going with my 17 yr old — and besides an immediate and lengthy debate about the introductory character, a 28 yr old ship captain, lamenting to his sister that he lacks friends (be on…

and how to find them — The deliciously difficult Lithuanian language — which will slay you with declensions, dozens of diminutive suffixes, ten grammatical cases for verbs and adjectives, and seven noun cases, and although every single noun is gendered, there are no articles and very few prepositions — complicated and ancient as this language is…

To be honest, it was meant an artistic joke. An amusement, like the giraffe and the lanternfish and the Venus fly trap. Something creative and fun, acknowledging the irony in the whole of creation. A sort of… metaphor. The deity chose unremitting bitterness as the basic flavor, bitterness being the…

Reality has something to say about the idyllic country life I live in an average co-op apartment in Manhattan with a part-time 70-year-old doorman and no gym, no pool, no public space, and a basement full of collective laundry machines. My front door opens onto lower Broadway where the only…

you’re right, parts of this are hard… Last week, my writing group discussed the difference between a writer and an author. Writers, we decided are creators and artists — the act of writing is what makes you a writer. …

what I learned upon losing a beloved I’m a fairly steady, practical person who had a wonderful albeit irregular relationship with a woman I am proud to be able to call a friend. She and I were very much connected through her son (my husband) and we frequently had long…

a fable for founders Once, there was a man who wandered around a lot. He was a cheerful man, loved people, liked helping out. Everyone liked him because of how enthusiastically he pitched in and helped them solve problems. He was a clever guy and he whistled beautifully. People envied…