Hello, Failure

It shouldn't matter that it was my birthday, but does a little. I had lunch with my friend in downtown Oakland, as I do once or twice ...

There are 2 ways to look at what happened yesterday. I got $20K cash, a 2-week vacation, and a 30% pay increase. I got laid off. Both are tr...

The appraisal guy, hereafter known as the Fucking Fuckity Fucker, just sat on the appraisal for a full seven calendar days, making it imposs...

The surgery went well and easy: no pain and less memory—I recall maybe a total of four minutes of all of Friday. That Ativan is serious busi...

There came to be some doubt over the closing date—our lender suddenly demanded a THIRD appraisal, and after some doing, it wound up happenin...

Because if you’re going to one huge life thing, you might as well do EVERY huge life thing at the exact same time. Welcome back to the tit m...

We’ve booked the movers and given notice to our now very sad landlord. We’re good, tidy tenants and no doubt in this economy he’s not going ...

This is the week we learned that we had missed out on the low, low interest rates that we had heard so much about. Six days before Erin subm...

So, we found a place. It’s spectacular and affordable and in the exact neighborhood where we want to be. We made an offer on Sunday and it w...

Thank god for benadryl—I’m finally getting something like enough sleep, chemically induced though it may be. And it occurs to me: I don’t ha...

I have seriously never had this many people interested in discussing my needs in my entire life. People are appearing out of thin air and as...

I learned what a mortgage broker was when the lady on the phone identified herself as one. Which was just before she pre-approved us for a s...

After putting it off for literally years, Chris and I saw a financial advisor on Saturday. We call him the Money Grown-Up. He told us that i...

My skin? Still hates me. The psoriasis is throwing the mother of all tantrums (which really should be the toddler of all tantrums but whatev...

I absolutely cop to being heavily biased in favor of Darnielle long before starting this book, and I further acknowledge that my opinions te...

Time passes however it damn well chooses. There are weeks that are over before you can finish your Coke, and weeks that you don’t notice and...

I had to have my left breast biopsied today. The doctor emphasized that the dense area of tissue they see on my mammogram and ultrasound is ...

Once upon a time I considered everyone who watched football a cretin. I was young and judgmental and as annoying as we all are at 23. And 33...

Having now successfully completed about 30 percent of my year end dental extravaganza, I am now chin deep in love with nitrous oxide. Even t...

You know the 22 Fillmore? That crazy people mobility machine, that homeless guy motel, that bad smell factory? On the 22 Fillmore this after...

And it’s just that easy. I remember now why I blogged… for those times when it’s slow during the day and both my novel and my current poem s...

Sweet and slender tendrils of vacation smell are wafting up from… you know I don’t know if that's what that smell actually is, but let’s...

I’m in full vacation mode. Our trip isn’t until later this month but it’s a holiday week and most everyone at work took the whole week off, ...

If I had to pick a word to describe the concert the Police put on last night, it would be “enterprise-class.” (That’s what comes from a year...

In his new book (which is just supernaturally good), Michael Chabon says doom is a thick ribbon that marbles all Jewish life. Which goes a ...

We spent a good chunk of last week in Seattle. It was my first actual business trip: Big Software Co. sent me to an all-day copyediting work...

Thanks to Chris’s Great Big Brain, we spent the weekend in Monterey. Our hotel was swank—we could lie in bed and watch the ocean lap the sho...

In The World According to Garp , Garp says of his mother’s death, “I’ll be mourning her privately for the rest of my life. But right now I w...

As though all that new music weren’t enough, this spring is also blooming with new books that are just quivering with promise. The latest Sh...

YAY! Time for new music! I am the latest of late birds on the Modest Mouse bandwagon, I realize. When Good News for People Who Like Bad New...

We saw Zodiac this weekend and enjoyed every minute of it. It occurs to me that watching a sociopath do some fine, fine work maybe should n...

The stars at night might well be big and bright, but I wouldn’t know. Here in San Antonio, at night the sky is too full of screeching bats t...

I love TV. People at work are always surprised by that because I am all literary and arty and junk, but I get all PoMo on their asses and te...

In case you missed it a few entries back, “the year’s Monday” is how I think of January, and this January didn’t much disappoint. Work was s...

I finished The Road on Monday morning, and the thing just absolutely disassembled me. The ending surprised me but it was not unwelcome, and...

Just before new years, we made our trifecta of old stuff replacement. Chris bought our former bed early in the 90s. It was a good bed but it...

RAW RIP .

I've seen many many Web pages. This is the best one. Don't miss the comments, either, especially the one from Your Obedient Serpent...

Sorry… whose idea was it to begin this whole long ordeal we call “a new year” by drinking vodka tonic after vodka tonic * and wandering the...

Chris was a little slow to come to boil this year, but he’s rapidly bubbling now. We zip from place to place in our Vince Guaraldi-mobile an...

The miracle of Las Vegas is that it very nearly pulls off the most sought after vacation of all—the vacation from yourself. It’s a sort of e...

It’s been a very good year for books. New releases from Martin Amis, Haruki Murakami, and David Mitchell were the highlights, but I’ve only ...

Y'know, like, roar. or something. overall place: 222 out of 421 division place: 10 out of 29 gender place: 129 out of 271 guntime: 39:27

I clicked on this story last week on whim, and the name of the guy it is about kind of jumped out at me. I did a little digging it turns ou...

And so I find myself in these, the last days of my 30s, not feeling particularly jarred by the specter of 40, but not entirely untouched by ...

I've spent the last four years writing the first 30 years of my life as a story. Thanks to this tool , I just summed it up in three pane...

Our year of replacing 10-year-old stuff continues. Chris has been very patient; an eagle-eyed A/V club nerd, he’s been witnessing the slow d...

Remember Friday morning? Those were the days, eh? The whole weekend looming before you like an expanse of pure pleasure, the promise of slee...

Seeing a performer in person for the first time is really risky. When the first Harvey Danger record came out in ’98, I was in a full-blown ...

We are dizzy with love! We cannot breathe! The Mountain Goats new CD, Get Lonely , will be released this Tuesday, 8/22. He/They are playing ...

Hey, you know what’s nice? Coming home from vacation and having electricity. At least that’s what I hear. I myself wouldn’t know. Vacation w...

In case anyone is interested, Jpod might be the worst novel ever written. Coupland has never been a great writer; he was mostly only cloyin...

Ahh, that rarest of all things, the paid day off. I lounge. I recreate. I shop for things I need for the cruise. Yes, the cruise. That other...

I’ve kept mum about this until the paperwork was signed and delivered. What you’ve got here is one full-time permanent employee of Big Ass S...