This Can't Be Broccoli

Facebook has changed the way we live.  It's altered communication and made it possible for people to connect in ways never thought possible until now. It has also broken ground in one particular area: Letting people know you want to have sex with them. Of course, directness is still not something people exercise a lot of on Facebook, so it can be difficult to tell when somebody wants to have sex with you. That's why I've come up with this guide for people who think other people might be trying to sleep with them, but aren't entirely sure. Example:  "Great seeing you yesterday!  We should hang out soon!" Code for--Yesterday I saw you and remembered how much I want to have sex with you.  We should hang out soon so I can have sex with you.  That would be awesome. Example:  "You suck at everything.  Just thought you should know." Code for--I'm doing that thing kids do on the playground where I pretend not to like you when really we bo...

When I was a kid, I hated going trick or treating. My father could never understand why every Halloween, I would turn into a little old man--begging to stay home and watch television with the lights off instead of having to put on a costume and go door to door for candy. "Every kid loves to trick or treat," he would say, and like many fathers, he could make a sweeping generalization sound like an emperor's edict. "But I don't." I should probably mention that I loved watching televison as a kid, and more than anything, I loved television specials. Every year around Christmas time, I kept a list of holiday specials I HAD to watch before the big day, otherwise my holiday was ruined. One year I forgot to watch "Frosty Returns," and it was as if the Grinch had come down the chimney and taken all my gifts. But back to Halloween-- During the holiday season, it's easy to catch all your favorite specials, but most of the really good Hall...

This Saturday, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert will be joining forces in Washington DC at the Rally to Restore Sanity, but not everyone will be in attendance. Today's news reported that NPR has banned any of its employees from attending the rally.  Other news organizations are allowing their employees to attend the rally, but not participate in any of the events, sign petitions, or donate money. NPR responded by saying that they're instituting the ban to preserve their journalistic neutrality.  Some journalists are countering by saying that it's no longer realistic to expect that journalists not have a bias in the age of blogging and pundits clogging up the airwaves. Even as I was typing out the title for this piece, I thought to myself--What am I saying?  Of course journalists have opinions, and of course they should be able to.  It's just a question of how good they are at hiding those opinions. Nowadays, is there even a point? Everybody knows which way t...

"They're coming." He used to whisper it outside my door.  I'd hear footsteps coming down the hallway, then silence, then a single fingernail sliding down until it hit the doorknob. The knob would rattle, but not open, and I would hear him say it. "They're coming." Then he would take off, and the worst part was, that was when I had open the door and follow after him. . . . . . My brother started having night terrors when he was six.  My mother had a history of sleep walking, but she would always just walk out of her bedroom, pause in the hallway, and then go back to bed.  That was not the case with my brother. He would sit up in bed, eyes wide open, and stare straight ahead as if a murderer were inches away from his face. My youngest brother would report this back to us, as he was the one who had the misfortune of sharing a room with David. The first few times, it only got that far.  David would sit up in bed, stare, breathe heavily, loo...

As the fiasco involving Democratic candidate Frank Caprio and his choice phrase "Shove it" continues to make news across the nation, I find another phrase my liberal friends are using a little bit...hypocritical. I hate to contribute to the in-fighting already going on, but more than once today I've heard Caprio criticized for not having "respect for the office of the President." That's not exactly the terminology I would use if I were to complain about Caprio's inappropriate remark to President Obama, if only because during the Bush years, I can't think of one of my fellow liberals who didn't call our President at least one or two choice words. I, for one, used to refer to him as Huckleberry Hound, which isn't exactly showing respect for his office. Before Caprio's remark, I didn't like him.  He came across as uneducated and blustery, and his remark to President Obama only solidified that.  Still, I wouldn't attack him fo...

The little state I live in is making big news today due to a rare case of publicized fighting within the Democrat party. President Obama is stopping in Woonsocket, Rhode Island today, but his agenda does NOT include endorsing Frank Caprio, a local Democrat and candidate for Governor. Caprio responded by telling the President to "take his endorsement and shove it." As a Rhode Islander, here's how I feel about the situation: Caprio, as you can probably tell, is perhaps one of the worst orators I have ever seen run for political office in my state.  He's running against Lincoln Chafee, who has far more experience and eloquence.  Chafee was ousted during the last election when the idea was to purge all Republicansm, and now he's running as an Independent. Chafee supported Obama in the last election, and now people are accusing the President of supporting his friends over his party. Here's a radical idea:  Maybe he's exercising his right as a...

I've been working at a library for the past nine years.  Recently, I was promoted and I am now in charge of purchasing books for the fiction collection. Up until now, our fiction collection hasn't been very diverse.  The majority of our patrons read mainstream literature like Nora Roberts and Jodi Picoult, but not much else. When I started in my new position, the first thing I wanted to do was try to expand the literary horizons of the people coming into the library. Now I'm not so sure it's possible. Many of the older readers have expressed that they like the authors they already know--even though writers like James Patterson don't even write any of their books as much as they outline them and have someone else take over after that. Nobody seems all that eager to start taking on new and more challenging work by more contemporary authors. As one woman said, "I don't like to think when I read." I didn't even try to digest that statemen...