Baseball

“I wrote 63 songs this year. They’re all about Jeter.” Just kidding. The game we love, the players we hate, and more.

Culture and Criticism

From Norman Mailer to Wendy Pepper — everything on film, TV, books, music, and snacks (shut up, raisins), plus the Girls’ Bike Club.

Donors Choose and Contests

Helping public schools, winning prizes, sending a crazy lady in a tomato costume out in public.

Stories, True and Otherwise

Monologues, travelogues, fiction, and fart humor. And hens. Don’t forget the hens.

The Vine

The Tomato Nation advice column addresses your questions on etiquette, grammar, romance, and pet misbehavior. Ask The Readers about books or fashion today!

In A Twist
August 19, 2000 · No Comment

I hired an intern recently – namely, my brother Mr. Stupidhead. It’s working out really well; not only can I send him out into the world to deal with obnoxious errands like going to (read: …

Annals Of Birth Control
August 19, 2000 · No Comment

Every twenty-eight days or so, I find myself standing on the sidewalk in front of my neighborhood drugstore, taking deep cleansing breaths and thinking good karmic thoughts so that I don’t blow my stack and …

Arachnophobia
August 19, 2000 · 7 Comments

I’ve probably read Charlotte’s Web fifty times. I love that book, I love Charlotte the spider, and I always cry at the end when her little ballooning babies take to the wind. And I know …

Fashion Plotz
August 19, 2000 · No Comment

I don’t know that I have the necessary qualifications to comment on women’s fashion. Right now, I have on a v-neck t-shirt from J. Crew that dates back to the Bush administration, men’s Gap cargo …

Desert Jewel
August 19, 2000 · No Comment

I went to Las Vegas for the first time five years ago. I worked for the brand-new electronic publishing division of an established publishing company at that time, and two weeks before the Comdex convention, …

The Vine: August 9, 2000
August 9, 2000 · No Comment

Mr. Stupidhead joins me in the booth again today. Two Buntings, no waiting.
Okay, here goes…For the past three years or so, I’ve been friends with this guy I’ll call Ryan. His friends and my friends …

The Vine: August 8, 2000
August 8, 2000 · No Comment

Sars,I have a younger sister, nineteen months younger. I won’t dance around this- she’s a giant BITCH. For seemingly no reason. I don’t know – she could have a good reason to act like the …

The Vine: August 7, 2000
August 7, 2000 · No Comment

Okay, here are the facts.1) I’m 16 years old, and I am naturally introverted. I’m not shy and I’m not a misanthrope, I’m just very quiet and introspective. I detest big loud parties and such. …

The Vine: August 4, 2000
August 4, 2000 · No Comment

Okay, here goes…I go to a bar where friends of mine work the staff. Because I perform at the bar, I’m to get a discount on the drinks. At a certain hour the drinks become …

The Vine: August 3, 2000
August 3, 2000 · No Comment

Dear Sarah,I share a very small one-bedroom apartment with my boyfriend in Boston. We are in the process of looking for bigger digs, but the apartment is not the problem…the problem is my sister.
L’il Sis …