But Call Me Betsy

What could that mean? Will someone be killed? Will Kaitlyn's twin show up to say she's the one who slept with Nick? Will Shawn confess that he's secretly married to...Nick's sister? Or will they drag this out for two hours and she'll pick Nick like she's supposed to so they can break up after two covers of US Weekl y and go their separate ways to be on Dancing with the Stars ? Shawn, please stop doing you're hair in that 1950s do-wop soda jerk style. Nick, you are not Nick Carraway. No more bow ties for you. Kaitlyn, stop petting your mom's hair. Kaitlyn's mom is very made up and young looking. She has bangs and may have just had her braces removed. My far-flung reporter, Emily Morgan Brown, aptly describes her as "old-fashioned hoochie mama." That about covers it. Nick shows up first, with his hair distinctly sandier than I remember it. He also has decided to grow a beard He is wearing a wooden beaded bracelet that loo...

We went to see Mr. Holmes at the Princeton Garden Theater last night and it was a lot about regrets and forgetting and getting older and trying to puzzle out a case. Holmes is in his nineties, 93, and he's losing the power of his brain, his greatest asset, though still sharp in some ways (he has the power to deduce where the housekeeper has been by the state of her hair, nails, and dress), he can't recall the details of the case that caused him to quit detective work entirely. The case went so badly, he retired to the country, where he keeps aviaries, and those bumblebees play a big part in the story, these industrious creatures who are mysteriously dying. Then there is his visit to Japan to get a special herb to help his memory from a Japanese man, and there is a mystery there too, because it turns out the man invited him there because he believes Holmes knew his father (and encouraged him to abandon the family--which wasn't true). So, there are four mysteries--the my...

In trying to work on "Real Estate," I'm working on figuring out what home means for this particular character One suggestion I had from Molly Gaudry is to free-write about homes. Here's what I came up with. This is a picture of my grandma in front of one of her homes. Homes I have known and loved and remember: grandma's house with the cement steps where you could swing off the end and the dark wood staircase going up and the kitchen where the activity was and outside was a wide driveway with chained up dogs and John Deer tractors and grease spots in the gravel, There were boys everywhere, as my mom had seven brothers. Omaha and an attic bedroom and a babysitter who had a scary basement. The apartment in Illinois. The first time where I slept on a cot outside of the bedroom by myself, separated from my mom. The house in Schaumburg with the pink and white bedroom and scratchy carpet and the huge flowered wallpaper in the kitchen and the back patio where Don g...

We've had a dog for months and months now, the first dog I've ever owned, though I've always loved them, been a chronic dog-petter of strange dogs. At Penn, I inspired the Take Your Dog to Work idea that is still in effect today. I did that because we had a lot of dog owners and it was the only way I could get more than five minutes with the creatures. I've actually never met a dog I didn't like. I've liked some more than others, but I've liked almost all of them more than toddlers. Before we got the Morkie, I'd heard the comparison between puppies and babies; how puppies were like babies, requiring a lot of care in the beginning. This was true-ish--puppies and dogs in general are way more work than cats. With cats, you just show them the litter box one time, and they are potty-trained for life. Your furniture will get scratched to hell, and you have to make sure they don't run out of the door (as they will not return on their own), and you have ...

Lots of talk these days about Harper Lee's sequel to her much-praised To Kill a Mockingbird . I haven't yet read Go Tell it on the Mountain (isn't that what it's called?) but we were talking today about TKAM, and I had to confess that I don't remember it that well. To admit this is akin to saying you're not sure if Macbeth is a tragedy or that one about the garden gnomes in midsummer.  I know I've read TKAM more than once, but the first time was probably in Mrs. Bytheway's 10th grade AP English class and the second time might have been for about ten minutes at the library. But if you were to ask me what's amazing about it, I would have to make something up, like to say that it's one of the first novels to take on race relations, but I would only be able to tell you that because I heard them talking about it on NPR on the ride home from work today. Here's what I remember about the book. It has a girl in it, and I think her name is Butter...

Okay, the title doesn't completely reflect how I felt about my first airbnb experience, but I will cop to a certain amount of squeamishness about living in a stranger's apartment for two nights. There wasn't exactly filth in the apartment, not at all, but there were particular people's lives there, which was what made it odd. This is not the bathroom we had For anyone who doesn't know what airbnb is, it's an alternative to staying at a friend's house or in a hotel, because it's a service that allows you to search for apartments in a particular relocation, and, in many of the cases, these apartments or homes are typically lived in when not rented out.There are exceptions, and more people now seem to be buying properties solely for this purpose. But most are still places where people live, and for a fee, they agree to stay somewhere else while you're sitting naked on their furniture. There are options to rent just a room with the people living...

Hi, I couldn't help but overhearing the multiple conversations about your weekend that you were having on the phone for the duration of our one hour train ride between Manhattan and Hamilton. You spoke to several people about the same topic and so I really got the gist of the situation. What happened was this: you were on your way back after spending the weekend hanging out with some people along with this guy you really, really like. Let's say his name is Jake, because I've forgotten his actual name even though you said it at every opportunity, because I think you liked saying his name, because you saying his name made the relationship more real; made it seemed like there really was a Jake and you. Wait, now that I'm thinking about it, I think his name was Jason. So, the story went something like this: "Jason came to pick me up at the train station and he looked really cute. He was wearing that scruffy jacket I told him I liked that other time and he just sm...

As per usual, I missed the first few minutes. but here we are, at 8:11 with Ben XYorZ in front of a fake fireplace at a fake inn with a fake frothy glass of Guinness. Ben H. loved his last girlfriend but fears that he is unlovable. He is a software rep, so that is probably a valid phobia. Who uses the word "lovable" unless speaking about a teddy bear? To prove that she finds him as lovable as a Gund, Kaitlyn sticks her tongue down his throat. Kaitlyn then asks him if he's a virgin. Gulp! Quick switch back to the men and the date card. Ashton Kutchner gets the card and it says something about things running amok. Uh-oh, Nick is also a software rep. I find him about 1,000 times more attractive than Shawn, who is breaking out even as he speaks. Back to Ben Hur. Is he a virgin? Uh...No, he's not!!! Here is Shawn: And here's Nick: And here's the guy from Kentucky. When he says that he likes her and she doesn't say anything right away, he goes, ...

 We're in Park Slope for a weekend get-away and decided to see a movie yesterday. Our only choices were Terminator, Jurassic Park Reloaded, three kids movies and Magic Mike, XL. I never saw Magic Mike, Petite, but figured the plot would be easy enough to follow (it was).  It was also ridiculous, sexy, enjoyable, moderately feminist, liberal-leaning and troubling. A brief plot synopsis: Mike (played by thick-necked Channing Tatum in a perpetually sideways turned baseball cap), a former male stripper, has made it out of the scene and now owns his own moving/shelf-building company. But he's not totally happy. His long-term girlfriend left him and this causes him to eat ice cream (not cookies which we find out later are his favorite dessert and they end up being the focus of the last song he strips to, a dumb miss for the writers). Then, he gets a call from his old stripper friends and the road trip movie begins. He meets up with them at a hotel and decides...