February 7, 2020

Historical Museums in New York

bridge under construction

The museums in New York are as varied as the inhabitants of the city. Some locations ooze fancy molding and expensive lunch. Others are blue-haired and tenacious, clenching at their rest-controlled space with a death grip normally reserved for would-be victims of defenestration. Above all, this list is reserved for the elbow-patch wearing, history-obsessed professor set. These museums in New York are off-the-beaten-track. Instead of world class art or cinema displays, they focus on the more obscure aspects of the history of the city. For example, if you are curious about turn-of-the-century religious construction on the Lower East Side or the early life of Theodore Roosevelt, you will delight in…

November 7, 2019

NYC Marathon

statue of liberty

Is this just a gratuitous post so I can show off my pictures of the NYC Marathon, you ask? Yes. Yes, it is. But it will also be interspersed with facts about the history of the race and the current course. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m sort of an ‘interesting-facts-about-various-places-and-activities’ nerd. Luckily, the NYC Marathon is the perfect event to celebrate that affliction. So without further ado: NYC Marathon Interesting Facts and Pictures Staten Island The race starts in Staten Island on the Verrazano Bridge. This bridge provides transit between Staten Island and Brooklyn. It is named in honor of Giovanni de Verrazzano, the Italian credited as the first…

June 23, 2019

The Common Ground of Validation

validation is a balancing act

Writers are constantly scrambling towards the common ground of validation. For example, this weekend I’m attending a writing conference where we are getting feedback on the pitches for our novels. (obsessed with writing conferences lately, see related post here) You can picture it like a workshop for door-to-door sales, but the speech ends with a thoughtfully crafted Central Dramatic Question instead of an offer for a magazine subscription. Pitches are a finicky and endlessly important part of novel writing. (In fact, one of the great ironies of writing is that you spend half of your time locked in a room alone, scribbling in notebooks and mumbling to imaginary people. Then,…

July 14, 2018

Manhattan: Five Fabulous Things (Upper East Side edition)

Moving back to New York I’ve had the wonderful remembrance that there are endless things to do in NYC! The temperature has miraculously stalled out around 90 80-ish degrees, and a breeze has materialized that is actual cool wind, not just the wafting smell of hot garbage floating through the air. I’ve been having the time of my life wandering through the neighborhoods of my childhood, happily fighting discussing with my mother where the grocery store/movie theater/David’s Cookies/pizza shop on our block used to be. The Upper East Side gets a bad rap. ‘Boring’ they say. ‘They’ are idiots! (Aren’t they always?) Here are five things to do in NYC…

March 16, 2014

Dating in New York City

car on street in daytime

As a reminder, my New Year’s Resolution was to start dating in New York City. I know. Yikes.  But now that we are easing into March, I feel have some helpful observations about dating in New York (spoiler alert: people don’t love it)Here’s what I think: Dating in New York City is hilarious.  Here are my favorite new things about dating in NYC: 1) It’s a casualhookup.com world.  It is totally socially acceptable, and almost expected, that 20s and 30s New Yorkers meet strangers on internet dating sites and then text them while intoxicated to meet up. Dinner and a movie?  Not going to happen.  Like NEITHER OF THOSE THINGS WILL…