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!

The Vine: May 27, 2009
May 27, 2009 · 74 Comments

About fifteen years ago, my parents split up. They did not divorce and I’ve never really asked why. About a decade ago my dad moved in with a woman I think of as my stepmother.
My …

Incomiiiiiing!
May 26, 2009 · 24 Comments

Welcome, new/temporary readers coming in from Kottke.org.   (And any other new readers, of course.)   Happy to have you, and hear your comments.   New readers and longtime companions, don’t forget to have a …

TV Question Qorner: family affairs, charisma vacuums, and my busted gaydar
May 25, 2009 · 43 Comments
TV Question Qorner: family affairs, charisma vacuums, and my busted gaydar

I moved, I went to California for a week, and I’ve only just now started digging my way out from under a pile of season finales. And I have some questions. Answer them for me, …

The Vine: May 22, 2009
May 22, 2009 · 29 Comments

…Bookfest!
*****
Hi!
I asked a question on Ask Metafilter when it stumped people, one of your readers suggested I send a note to you.I’m looking for a book of short-story mysteries that I read sometime back in …

The Vine: May 20, 2008
May 20, 2009 · 62 Comments

Sars,
Help me.Please.I need to know what to do about my sister.I’m scared for her, and in the meantime, she’s driving me nuts.
The background:she’s in her mid-twenties; she’s always had a conflicted relationship with my mother …

“Hello, Goodbye”
May 20, 2009 · No Comment

The season-finale 90210 recap for SOAPnet:

Weird episode — too much time wasted on the Brenda dream sequence, the stoned Wilsons, and Jen’s wooden rendition of “scheming.” Good acting in the Adrianna subplot didn’t make up …

The Vine: May 15, 2009
May 15, 2009 · 62 Comments

FYI: Wednesday Vines will return next week.   I happened to have cross-country flights on each of the last two Wednesdays, and forgot to mention it here, but the service interruption is a temporary one. …

AIDSWalk: Nap for the Cure
May 14, 2009 · 3 Comments
AIDSWalk: Nap for the Cure

Come celebrate the first ever Team SupersnackAIDS Nap!
AIDS Nap 2009 was conceived during previous AIDSWalk outings, whenmany Supersnackers looked around at the beautiful May day and opined that, whilewalking 6 miles in Central Park was …

“Melo-prom-a”
May 14, 2009 · No Comment

My latest 90210 recap at SOAPnet:

Silver certainly won’t win again next year, since she uses the occasion to deliver a speech about how she’s had a hard year and she doesn’t know who she is …

The Things They Carried
May 11, 2009 · 42 Comments

They’re all dead.But in a story, which is a kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world.

When I open a book and begin to read, and I have …