impudent strumpet

For the past few years I've been uncomfortable about receiving cash gifts from people who are retired when I have a perfectly good job. ...

I stumbled upon a new self-revision technique today: after you have a full target-language draft, revise one page to completion, then do so...

I also have another enlightenment this morning, but I'm not sure at the moment whether it's a good idea to blog about it.

The reality of the whole tsunami disaster thing hasn't sunk in for me yet. I haven't even started absorbing it emotionally. So I s...

The yoga lady on TV says to passively watch your thoughts float by without getting involved. That sounds like a cool skill. But HOW do you...

I am finding it extremely difficult to feel anything but ennui about my job lately. Which wouldn't be a huge problem if my job were mor...

A few random scribbles on religion and fanfic: The important thing to remember is that religion is not a positive experience for everyone wh...

I associate [place where I grew up] with having no control over my own life. Because I spent my whole childhood there, with the perpetual co...

The issue with sharia-based arbitration is not about religion or equality or separation of church and state. The big question is: why are p...

I woke up this morning to the sound of my cellphone freaking out - vibrating madly and playing Pachelbel's Canon at double speed and top...

Harry Potter: July 16, 2005!

At my first job, we had two single-room washrooms. Each contained one toilet and one sink; there were no stalls, just one locking door open...

In a dream I had last night, there was a gumball machine that sold sugar-covered slices of bread. They weren't fried or sticky or anyth...

Backstory: one of the books I'm currently reading is about Michelangelo painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo consi...

You know that Monty Python sketch where they're making an art house movie with the two characters standing in a garbage dump, holding a ...

The Master by Colm Toibin It's a fictional biography of Henry James, which sounds promising, but the book itself doesn't do much. I...

I got to interact with a baby today, which is unusual for me since I don't know any babies socially. One thing I noticed is that the ba...

I know that when you have several utensils at your place setting, you work from the outside in. But when there are some utensils above your...

Lately I have been having this recurring dream where I am a transcriptionist. It's strange, because this dream feels exactly like a war...