When I ask the Biscuit to hold my messenger bag for a second so I can re-layer my clothing or whatever, he often makes a big show of staggering underneath its weight. I usually greet …

My friend Fur and I sit in neighboring cubicles at work, and while we type, we carry on a desultory conversation back and forth over the cubicle partition. Today, we had a few new topics …

7:20 am. Alarm goes off. Surface from a very pleasant dream to hear the words “thank you, Jesus, for this cloudy Monday morning” (radio tuner is set to an FM Christian-witness station, the better to …

Last week, I took an online intelligence test – a big mistake, and one you’d better believe I won’t make again. Not only did I waste forty-five minutes answering incomprehensible questions involving sequential order and …

For four years in college, I had to listen to kids who didn’t know Cape May from Port Elizabeth spout a bunch of ignorant bushwa about how much New Jersey sucked. Everything they knew about …

Dear Amtrak,
Thank you very much for yet another overcrowded, unkempt, and inexcusably tardy train-travel experience. I truly enjoyed rushing to Boston Back Bay Station and dashing through the terminal with my breasts flailing about, and …

I would like to begin today’s column with a disclaimer and an announcement. First, the disclaimer: I do not have the most horrible neighbors in the world. My neighbors do not deal drugs, or discharge …

Recently, I achieved immortality. Yes, you read that right — in spite of wretchedly unhealthy lifestyle habits like smoking a pack a day, drinking beer, ordering my bagels with a sizable cumulo-nimbus of lox spread, …

I can’t count the number of people who, after knowing me for all of twenty overcrowded-cocktail-party minutes, have laughed at one of my wisecracks and said, “Wow, you’re really cynical.” I’ve never understood that, unless …

Welcome to the first installment of The Canon According To Tomato Nation, a list of the books and authors you’ll find on my bookshelves (and in my closet, and stacked in piles beside my bed, …