There’s no mistaking this month, is there? All that red. All those parties. All those questions. “What are you doing for the holidays?” (Eating gumbo, Brunswick stew and vegetarian chili, […]

They wanted to go to IKEA. And they were driving. You can find me in the cafeteria, I said. I’ll be eating Swedish meatballs and reading something Nordic, because if […]

So we’re driving along, heading back to London’s Heathrow Airport, where we’re to return the rented car, comfortable — finally — with sitting behind a steering wheel on the right, […]

A few mornings ago I woke up to a ticket tucked under my car’s windshield wipers. And it wasn’t even street-sweeping night. That everyone else on the street also had […]

I Am not a Methodist. I do not give thanks to Jesus Christ, though I think I would have enjoyed meeting the man. I’m no maven with a hammer. Not […]

As far as cheap thrills go, I’d rank words — the way they’re spoken, twisted or manipulated — right up there with a good custard pie or egg salad sandwich […]

For people of a certain age, The Big Chill will always have a certain resonance. You know the storyline. Thirtysomething college friends get together after a long absence for an […]

This is the week I finally heard from the other side and it was — gasp — more than a whisper. “I am a tax-and-spend liberal,” said the woman, nearly […]

A wasp bit me on the cheek the other day. And not the White Anglo Saxon Protestant variety, although that has happened in the past, too. This was an angry […]

There’s a lot to keep up with these days. I need more memory. I want a delete key, better hardware, bumped up megahertz, an improved search function. If I call […]

For more than 35 years Michael Ellison stuck to himself. He did his job, moved around a lot and never spoke of his experiences in Vietnam. As a driver in […]

Last week I left town for a few days to join some friends who were walking a segment of the 2,160-mile Appalachian Trail. Instead of spending the night on the […]