This post is a guest post I wrote for the “Great Authors” section of Andrea Peskind Katz’s fabulous blog, “Great Thoughts”. When I was in high school, every year the faculty awarded one student a book stamped with a bookplate that showed two children under a tree reading, and the maxim “There is no frigate…
Greece
Deja Vu All Over Again
According to Chinese astrology, every 12 years we repeat certain characteristic patterns. This makes sense, as there are a dozen animals in the Chinese zodiac and they take turns ruling each year, influencing it with their personality; you might radically change your life every dozen years under the influence of the restless, impulsive Tiger, say….
Mini in Miami
Amalía and I are in New York, but we brought a little bit of Miami with us. Two little bits actually: the shiny gold studs in Amalía’s tiny ears. Read all about it in the post “Baby’s First Bling”, which I wrote for the Townies column of the Opinionator blog in the New York Times’…
Spiritual Spring Break
It’s that time of year again–empty beer bottles are sprouting in my garden like so many crocuses, flocks of young chicks in bikini tops and belly rings keep swooping into my neighborhood Starbucks, and, if the boys who have rented the apartment across the courtyard are any indication, young men’s fancy is turning to lust….
Say Hello to My Little Fruit
I once heard novelist Zadie Smith describe the several psychological stages an author goes through while writing a novel. Based on my own experience, she was right on about all of them–the self-consciousness bordering on self-hatred when things aren’t going well, and that experience when things are where everything you see, read, or hear, seems…
Of Holy Mothers and Floating Babies–or Waitin’, Wishin’, and a Hopin’
We’re officially on Amalía Watch 2011. I guess since she’s only going to be born once, it’s Amalía Watch, period, but I like the way Amalía Watch 2011 makes it sound that much more official, like an election or a hurricane. At 35 weeks, one of my doctors told me that given Amalía’s size, she…
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