I just watched a couple episodes of a Nat Geo mini-series that looks back at those heady days of the dot.com boom. Overall I liked The Valley of the Boom more than I thought I would—generally, I think people who’ve had a front row seat for an event that is covered in the news or […]

This past Thursday three Chicago Police Officers, who had clearly lied in the interest of their fellow officer Jason Van Dyke, were acquitted on all counts. I’ve bounced between furious, disappointed, and plain sad since then. That kind of behavior—the same kind that enables horrific behavior in other institutions like the Catholic Church, Penn State, […]

Last night I woke up in the in the wee hours feeling like a little volcano was erupting in my stomach, forcing nearby areas to evacuate. It might have been something I ate, or a gastrointestinal virus, but at this point it doesn’t matter. I know it wasn’t the flu, because I’m sitting up straight […]

We’re back home in Chicago now, and the magnificent Mondays with Mike post Mike wrote about New Orleans sparked a lot of questions from friends here. What prompted the trip? Do you have family there? What is an herbsaint? Answer to that first question? Kismet. Our friends Steven and Nancy and their dog Doug are […]

…You walk and walk and walk and the next morning your legs are really sore, as if you’d walked all that distance on sandy beach because the sidewalks are so addled with cracks and heaves and missing sections. …The classic New Orleans shotgun cottage your friends secured via VRBO in the Marigny neighborhood has been […]