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: March 20, 2003
March 20, 2003 · No Comment

Dear Sarah,
Love your site. Love the cat stories. I wish the Vine had been around when I was 15. This is not really a major issue, just one of those things that annoys me a …

The Vine: March 19, 2003
March 19, 2003 · No Comment

Dear Sars,
I’m writing this letter because I need an objective viewpoint, and everyone I turn to is somehow involved in this. I’ll try to keep it as brief as possible, but it is a bit …

The Vine: March 18, 2003
March 18, 2003 · No Comment

Hey Sars,
In about a month, I’ll be going back to university, which is about a four-hour commute from the city I’m living in now. Campus residence is a lottery
for the privileged, so I’m moving into …

Unsolicited Advice
March 17, 2003 · One Comment

As you probably know, I write an advice column, in which I counsel petitioners on everything from the rules of English usage to break-up etiquette to whether gout is contagious (it isn’t). But over the …

The Vine: March 12, 2003
March 12, 2003 · No Comment

There’s a car commercial running right now — don’t know what the car is — wherein Jeff Goldblum says, “Pretty impactful, huh?”
Chaps my ass every time.
Also, an unrelated but interesting thing: According to my dictionary, …

The Vine: March 11, 2003
March 11, 2003 · No Comment

Dear Sars,
I’m being stalked by a cat. A big gray cat who is most definitely owned by someone in my neighborhood, as it has a collar, but I don’t know who the owner might be. …

Rock, Tree, Fish
March 10, 2003 · No Comment

Madeline went out into the lane in front of the house, turned right, and began to walk down it, off to find Charlie. It was the kind of cold day that didn’t feel all that …

The Vine: March 7, 2003
March 7, 2003 · No Comment

Hi Sars,
All the grammar talk in the Vine recently has reminded me of
something that has bugged me for a while. It seems to me that when I
first met the phrase “free rein” way back whenever, …

The Vine: March 6, 2003
March 6, 2003 · No Comment

Sars,
I just got a cat
about eight weeks ago. She was a poor cat that had been abandoned when her
owner had died, and whoever came to take the woman away didn’t realize the
woman had this cat. …

The Vine: March 5, 2003
March 5, 2003 · No Comment

Sars,
I have a cat-related question, and thought you might be able to help.
I recently moved into a new house with four complete strangers. Surprisingly, that’s not the problem. We all get along quite well. The …