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!

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Articles in Stories, True and Otherwise

United States
January 20, 2017 – 10:17 AM | 15 Comments
United States

Have you ever gone to Springfield, IL?

Person, Place, Or Thing
September 10, 2016 – 12:36 PM | 35 Comments
Person, Place, Or Thing

We bought at the bottom of the market but still paid too much for our house, a creaking lemon held together by wood paneling and ancient nests of wiring.

Simon Says Stay Curious
February 10, 2016 – 11:20 AM | 2 Comments
<em>Simon Says</em> Stay Curious

A short film co-starring Dirk Birthworthy.

How I Became A Baseball Fan
September 21, 2015 – 8:36 AM | 32 Comments
How I Became A Baseball Fan

Thanks, Doc.

You Never Know
September 11, 2015 – 9:58 AM | 72 Comments
You Never Know

I take a walk almost every day, usually early, before the day gets hot and busy.

This just in (or, rather, out): Miss Stupidhead
September 16, 2014 – 9:09 PM | 37 Comments
This just in (or, rather, out): Miss Stupidhead

 
Jane Misha Bunting, born 16 September 2014, 10:10 AM, seven pounds, one ounce; and her favorite aunt.

Now That Time Has Run Out
September 11, 2014 – 9:30 AM | 65 Comments
Now That Time Has Run Out

Time is the main topic on a funeral day: the quality of it spent, its scarcity, the odd way it behaves.

All The Crazy Ones
August 12, 2014 – 3:52 PM | 60 Comments
All The Crazy Ones

One of the strange things about my life in writing about TV, if by “strange” you mean “eminently predictable by anyone who finished Psych 101,” is that my parents allowed me to watch almost no …

Byrd, Bex & Cousins Detective Agency, Chapter 2
May 1, 2014 – 7:21 PM | 9 Comments
Byrd, Bex & Cousins Detective Agency, Chapter 2

Sherry went into her bedroom. The livable half, the light coming through the blue tarps, looked like it should be a seafood restaurant called The Mermaid Grotto, and it smelled like a lumberyard.

Byrd, Bex & Cousins Detective Agency
April 15, 2014 – 12:13 PM | 13 Comments
Byrd, Bex & Cousins Detective Agency

Chapter 1.