Author Archive
December 9th, 2006
Here’s my mom, in Victorian drag, as she puts it, for her stint at the Library and Historical Museum. She thinks she looks mean in this photo, but gave me permission to post it anyway. She’s keeping me pretty busy. I had to take her to church last night. It was the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, for godsakes. Now I have to take her again in half an hour for Saturday evening mass so we don’t have to go in the morning so we can go to my brother’s house and see my nieces and nephews.
Here’s my latest PhotoBooth portrait, entitled “family zoned.”
December 8th, 2006
I’m still hanging out at my mom’s. We just went up in the attic to retrieve a hat from her collection. She’ll wear it tomorrow when she greets people at the County Library and Historical Museum as part of the town’s Victorian Christmas shindig. She wouldn’t let me take a picture of her until she has her whole costume on. I’ll do that tomorrow, but for now here’s a preview with me in the hat. Read the rest of this entry »
December 6th, 2006
I’m still at my mom’s. Tomorrow she’s getting a new hot water heater installed, so this afternoon I thought I’d just go down to the basement and clear a path for the plumber. Here I am three hours later. Everyone in my family collects or has collected things. Between my mom’s costumes and hats, my brother’s cars and planes and trains, and stray antiques left over from my dad–plus twenty years of entropy–it was pretty rough sledding. I hardly made a dent.
But look at this. I unearthed this intact jar of pens and pencils from circa 1984. My mom apparently just packed it up and stuck it in a box when she sold our old house. I remember the jar as clearly as I remember my own hand. I even remember each marker in it. Some are from a cool set of Marvy Markers I got when I was eleven. Others my dad stole from the high school where he taught. There’s also a pair of children’s scissors, and one of the red marking pencils that both my parents used to grade papers.
I kept the stoneware jar and the red pencil and tossed everything else.
December 5th, 2006
The panel at Bryn Mawr was really fun. God, that was 5 days ago already. I’ve lost track of time because I’m visiting my mom in Pennsylvania for a while. I’ve fallen into that strange dimension of reality known as the Family Zone, where time passes erratically. If at all.
(Don’t worry. Soon I will tire of the PhotoBooth feature on my new computer.) Read the rest of this entry »
November 30th, 2006
This is me using the PhotoBooth feature on my new mac. I’m in a motel in Albany, on my way to Bryn Mawr. Thank you all for those excellent computer cable management tips. And thanks for passing along Steve Duin’s book column for the Oregonian, in which he said Fun Home should win the Pulitzer.
It didn’t win one, sadly, but I have received a far, far greater honor I must tell you about. I’ve just been invited to join the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary. (I would have used triple exclamation points there, but in my lofty new position of linguistic authority, I feel I should set an example.)
The American Heritage is my absolute favorite dictionary. It’s beautifully designed and has thousands of cool pictures, which I used to refer to constantly in the dark ages before Google Image Search. But the best thing about it is its Usage Notes, which I often read for sport. Here, you can go check one out yourself. Read this fascinating explanation of the problem with the word “deceptively.”
What do members of the Usage Panel do? They get to vote on whether usages like “deceptively simple” are acceptable or unacceptable. I just filled out a ballot consisting of a long list of problematic words. It was the most fun I’ve had in a long, long time. But I must confess—although I’m a social liberal, lexicographically I’m a hard line conservative. I will defend the proper pronunciation and spelling of “chaise longue” to the death.
You can check out a list of who else is on the panel here. Though it’s kind of old and a lot of these people are dead. Guess that’s why I got invited. Or maybe they’re trying to balance out Antonin Scalia. Or maybe it was because they spotted that post from last month where I dressed up like Dr. Johnson.
November 28th, 2006
Today I decided I couldn’t stand the filthy rat’s nest of cables and AC adaptors and dead spiders under my desk for one more second. Here’s a before picture of one small corner of the maelstrom.
Here’s a sampling of the devices I unhooked and dusted off, my own personal electronics warehouse. What the hell are all these freakin’ things?
After. Ahhhh.
That made me feel so good, I also put down fresh duct tape on my splintering plywood floor.
November 28th, 2006
Fun Home made the New York Times list of 100 Notable Books of the Year! Thanks to all the people who alerted me to this fact before I knew it myself.
November 28th, 2006
Hey, on Thursday I’m going to be near Philadelphia, on a panel at Bryn Mawr College’s Center for Visual Culture. Jessica Abel, Gabrielle Bell, Lauren Weinstein and me will be discussing “New Frontiers in Cartooning and Graphic Novels.” The event is free and open to the public, at 8pm in Thomas Great Hall.
I love them Bryn Mawr women. I used to live in a household full of them, one of whom was my girlfriend.
November 21st, 2006
Okay. Here’s number 500. I’m putting it up a week early, just because it’s number 500 and I’m so relieved to be done with it. People have been asking about the fundraiser–the grand total to date is $3081.52. SIX times the $500 by episode 500 that was initially proposed. Thank you all so much. I’m very, very grateful. Read the rest of this entry »
November 17th, 2006
My deadline is looming for episodes 500 and 501, but I’m in a serious procrastination trough. I always have this problem, but it seems worse than usual right now, perhaps due to the daunting evenness of the number 500. I wasn’t going to read the comments people were making about 499 because I didn’t want to be swayed by them. But finally I broke down and looked, and I’m glad I did.
First of all, I’m astonished at how closely you’re all reading everything. That doesn’t help my paralysis. But man, I made so many mistakes in Read the rest of this entry »
