May 2013
2 posts
2 tags
“Yours is the Danny DeVito of vetoes.”
– Matt
2 tags
Dog Mom Attachment Parenting
Silas hates bath. HAAAATES bath. He tolerates showers better (my theory is that he’s used to rain, but not being immersed in water).
But my dog has a skin infection. Much like his mother, Silas has thin skin. That makes him more susceptible to skin infections, says the vet. Last time Silas had a skin infection, he was on antibiotics. But he’s a selective genius and learned how to eat...
April 2013
4 posts
3 tags
4 tags
Happy 2nd adoption anniversary, Silas!
Silas and I are celebrating our second adoption anniversary together.
Our second year has been easier and smoother than our first. He’s really mellowed. I mean, he still jumps around like he’s on speed when I come home, but now he leaps in circles instead of scraping my thighs with his claws. Duke’s been a calming influence on him.
In our two years together, Silas has cost...
5 tags
March 2013
6 posts
4 tags
1 tag
And I'm done.
That was surprisingly easy.
1 tag
I'm on jury duty today.
So far I’ve played with my phone for two hours, gotten a pep talk from Georgia’s only Latino judge (according to him), and gone to Chick-fil-a. I hope that I get to go through the juror selection process because I love answering questions about myself, but I really don’t want to end up on a jury. I don’t like arguing with strangers unless they’re the Comcast customer...
30 tags
Interesting Things I've Read This Week
The Atlantic - A Day in the Life of a Digital Editor, 2013
Hypothetically, let’s say you devote an entire month to one single story, betting the house on it. In the very best circumstance, a viral hit heard round the world with a big traditional media push, you’d do maybe 800,000 uniques. And then you’d have to do the same thing the next month.
The New York Times Magazine -...
3 tags
7 tags
Interesting Things I've Read This Week
CNN - Why I’m quitting Facebook
The efforts of a few thousand employees at Facebook’s Menlo Park campus pale in comparison to those of the hundreds of millions of users meticulously tweaking their pages. Corporations used to have to do research to assemble our consumer profiles; now we do it for them.
The Hairpin - Tina Fey at the Paley Center
Tina Fey is sitting on top of...
February 2013
10 posts
2 tags
16 tags
Interesting Thing I've Read This Week
London Review of Books - Royal Bodies
I used to think that the interesting issue was whether we should have a monarchy or not. But now I think that question is rather like, should we have pandas or not?
The New Yorker - The Throwaways
One of the officers threatened Shelly with prison—a particularly terrifying prospect for a transgender woman, who would be sent to a male facility—and then...
8 tags
Bachelorette Weekend in T-minus 25 hours...
My bachelorette weekend begins tomorrow! I’ve been reminiscing about the five bachelorette parties I’ve attended to date. Unfortunately, I cannot share those reminisces with you in full as I would like to continue to be semi-employable.
However! A few snippets…
July 2007, Nashville: I used a sorority sister’s expired driver’s license to go honky-tonking.
March 2009, Atlanta: The...
4 tags
“My boss is like, “Do you want a cookie now, or do you want two cookies...”
– A friend re: her bonus
7 tags
Interesting Things I've Read This Week
Ethnography Matters - Ethnography of Trolling: Workarounds, Discipline-Jumping & Ethical Pitfalls (2 of 3)
They also threatened to rape and murder me, but that was pretty standard; I was mostly concerned about what they might cook up on Photoshop.
The New York Times Magazine - Why Can Some Kids Handle Pressure While Others Fall Apart?
Those with fast-acting dopamine clearers are the...
4 tags
Pro tip: Buy your wedding jewelry just before...
Matt’s gold wedding band was 30% off. Ditto for my earrings. And my bridesmaids are getting nicer-than-budgeted-for presents thanks to Valentine’s Day discounts. That adds up to serious money saved on things I was going to buy anyway.
4 tags
I felt super nostalgic eavesdropping at Forever 21...
Teen girl 1: Oh my God, you have to get that. You look like a model.
Teen girl 2: But where would I wear it?
Teen girl 1: To your job this summer?
Teen girl 2: It's see through.
8 tags
Interesting Things I've Read This Week
Inc. - Confessions of a Corporate Spy
Apparently that store had been having a great year. Best in the region. Hitting its numbers. What numbers? Oh! You must be proud. Any younger folks biting on this new stuff?
Slate - So Your Boss Is Implicated in a Sex Scandal
With a sex scandal, however, your daily phone battles suddenly go nuclear. Not just the number but the intensity of the calls will...
3 tags
“I’m buying American cheese. I’m already compromising.”
– Matt, in response to Boar’s Head cheese “compromise elsewhere” commercials
4 tags
6 tags
January 2013
9 posts
6 tags
First Dance Songs Someone Needs to Use
The downside of choosing a first dance song is that plenty of great options go unused. And I spent a lot of time compiling options! Someone needs to use these. Ideally someone I know so I can be there, but an internet stranger will do just fine, too.
“When You Say Nothing At All” - Alison Krauss
Classic Nashville first dance song.
“Here, There and Everywhere” - The...
6 tags
20 tags
Interesting Things I've Read This Week
The New Yorker - The Science of Sex Abuse
The demand for ways of predicting future criminal behavior has spawned a cottage industry of actuarial instruments, which predict sexual violence about as well as the S.A.T. forecasts freshman grades. Neither correlation is particularly strong. But the instruments confer a stamp of scientific precision on a judgment that psychologists have proved...
5 tags
The End of Courtship? →
The Times has another hand-wringing article out about millennials dating in the age of the hookup. I usually ignore these (as well as any other article including the word “millennial”), but this one especially annoyed me.
Regarding the death of dating among young people:
I call bullshit. The plural of datum isn’t anecdote, but since these articles consist of anecdotes + a...
3 tags
My wedding dress arrived!
Shipped to my parents out of state to avoid paying sales tax, of course.
By the way, it took six months from placing my dress order for it to be made and shipped. All I’m saying is that those obnoxious wedding planning timelines are not completely full of lies.
I wish I could post a photo but Matt is my most loyal reader.
3 tags
Kicking Off 2013 with a Wedding
Allison and Davis were married in Nashville last weekend, January 5. That’s two years running that I’ve attended a wedding in the first week of the new year (last year: Amelia and Curtis). Everybody, keep this up, please. I like partying when it’s cold. It feels festive.
I don’t really know what to say about their wedding, except that it was lovely, and perfect, and I...
10 tags
Interesting Things I've Read This Week
The New Yorker - A Pickpocket’s Tale
At the Rio, a man’s cell phone disappeared from his jacket and was replaced by a piece of fried chicken; the cigarettes from a pack in one man’s breast pocket materialized loose in the side pocket of another; a woman’s engagement ring vanished and reappeared attached to a key ring in her husband’s pants; a man’s driver’s license disappeared from his wallet...
2012 Recap
So! 2012. That was a year. Let’s recap…
January: Amelia and Curtis got married. I turned 25.
February: Matt and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary. Matt adopted Duke.
March: I took the GRE and applied to grad school.
April: Mom, Dad and I traveled to Ireland and Scotland to see Ben. Matt and I got engaged. Silas and I celebrated his adoption anniversary.
May: I was accepted to...
December 2012
16 posts
4 tags
Interesting Things I've Read This Week
The New York Times - Does Couples Therapy Work?
“On the intake I’ll ask, ‘What’s wrong with the marriage?’ and Partner A will say, ‘Bob.’ So I’ll ask, ‘What’s wrong with Bob?’ and Partner A will say, ‘His Bob-ness.’ ”
5 tags
5 tags
You've been spared a post on meal planning.
Over the past few months, Matt and I have completely changed how we do dinner by subscribing to a meal planning service that provides recipes and a grocery shopping list. It has been mostly awesome, and since it’s been taking up brain space I thought I’d write about it.
Then I got hungry and distracted and googled “clean eating side dishes,” and read a couple of blog posts...
6 tags
Merry Christmas!
We are having a heated discussion over which dog managed to shit on the rug next to the couch while we all watched The Godfather. I discovered this occurrence by stepping in it. Obviously Millie, but Mom swears it was Silas. Matt says it must have been Ben because he’s been awfully silent during this discussion.
6 tags
12 tags
Interesting Things I've Read This Week
The Morning News - Therapist, Know Thyself
What was I supposed to do, reveal my own dysfunctional life and plunge my clients into hopelessness and depression?
The Awl - The Internet’s Vigilante Shame Army
Compassion and reason are (kind of) built into the legal system, it should apply to the internet as well.
The Hairpin - My Experience Working at a Marijuana Dispensary
I guess I was too...
5 tags
Silas is on the naughty list.
Three days in Nashville and he’s already…
Crapped in front of the oven.
Started a fight with Amanda’s sweet puppy.
Mounted Granddaddy’s leg.
He’s behaved perfectly with Millie and Hallie (Elison’s dog who Mom is dog sitting), and is sleeping through the night although he typically doesn’t outside home, so that counts for something, right?
3 tags
“How did Methodism come into your territory?”
– Granddaddy to Matt. He does not make small talk.
2 tags
15 tags
Interesting Things I've Read This Week
The Hairpin - Bones, Ghosts, and Paul Koudounaris
There was a bone-encrusted church under their feet and no one even knew it was there!
The Awl - My Superpower Is Being Alone Forever: Newly Single
Merging with another person until you become each other’s spirit animals subtly changes you in a bunch of ways that quietly annoy everyone else. The metamorphosis chips away at any...
2 tags
2 tags
ATTN: I am awesome.
I typically try to save outright bragging for text messages to my parents, but I feel compelled to let everyone know that I made an A- in my first grad school class.
**taking a bow**
Back to work.
27 tags
Vanity Fair - 2 Good 2 Be 4Gotten: An Oral History of Freaks and Geeks
JUDD APATOW: Part of the problem of the show was it should have been on HBO. Everything that’s popular now you might call “independent television.” Mad Men is a little like indie TV. But there was no home for us in 1999. It wasn’t niche television—you were competing against Regis Philbin hosting a game show.
Slate - Stop...
4 tags
Odds and Ends
Duke can fit Silas’ entire head in his mouth. Can’t believe I forgot to share this discovery earlier.
Cyber Monday sales should occur on the first Monday of December. None of this four days before pay day bullshit.
I can already tell that my second tumblr, Kate Has Questions, is going to be more revealing than I mean for it to be.
I’m on Macy’s website constantly since...
6 tags
A Primer on How to RSVP
Ways to RSVP:
Using the information provided on the invitation, respond to the appropriate person via the requested method on or before the requested date.
Ways not to RSVP:
Tell the honoree(s) or their non-host family member(s).
Provide incomplete information, i.e. number attending, entree selection, food allergies.
Reply after the requested date.
Wait to RSVP until hunted down by the...
12 tags
November 2012
22 posts
14 tags
Interesting Things I've Read This Week
The Nation - She Who Dies With the Most ‘Likes’ Wins?
Yes, the more successful you are—or the stronger, the more opinionated—the less you will be generally liked. All of a sudden people will think you’re too “braggy,” too loud, too something. But the trade off is undoubtedly worth it. Power and authenticity are worth it.
The Atlantic - The Bookstore Strikes Back
Finally, I...
4 tags
Asks New York Magazine: Why Do Millennials Love...
Because of this. And this.
And her completely absurd Twitter account where she tweets photos of elaborate dinners in poor lighting, and you can tell she’s getting drunker with each tweet, and then at the end of the night she tweets photos of fireworks.
(Here is NYMag’s theory.)
6 tags
“We did not win the Powerball. Maybe Ben did. A winning ticket was sold in...”
– Matt 