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Friday, July 19th, 2019 Greetings from Carrboro, I’m not easily impressed. By humans, to be clear. It takes quite a lot to get my attention. For the most part, I reserve any sense of awe for those who craft their life out of passion and a deep sense of purpose – damn the consequences. People […]

Greetings from Carrboro, Tomatocracy (tə-mā-tä-krə-sē) noun — rule by the tomatoes and for the tomatoes. OK. So it’s not a real word. Yet. But, c’mon. “Hangry” wasn’t a word 5 years ago either. And it’s like, everywhere now. I feel the time for tomatocracy may be now. It’s in the air. But being sensitive to this fraught […]

Friday, June 28th, 2019 Greetings from Carrboro, This will shock you. But my family liked to eat. It gave almost any weekend or holiday an ardent culinary theme. My parents took an earnest, multi-pronged approach. The most troubling scenario involved my father with cookbooks and clipped recipes and his stash of coupons dutifully cut out […]

Friday, June 21st, 2019 Greetings from Carrboro, I don’t blame her. My daughter’s verbal assault on the unrepentant nature of a Southern summer is warranted more often than not. Completely useless, but warranted. She dramatically casts the season’s belligerence as some disrespectful and tawdry character in the otherwise unstained story of her life – like […]

Thursday, June 13th, 2019 Greetings from Carrboro, What do you get him? You know, dear old dad. Yes, him. It’s his big day on Sunday, in case you’ve been living off the grid. When I was a kid, Father’s Day, that oh-so-regal holiday, was festooned with an abundance of wrapped neckties and/or calf-gripping black socks. Now, it […]

Friday, June 7th, 2019 Greetings from Carrboro, I get the fantasy. This idea that eating the right food in the right combination will lead to eternal life. The magical allure of ancient grains and fruits and herbs. That somehow kombucha and cold pressed juices were the ingredients missing in our forebearer’s attempted recipe for a lifetime of bliss. That, […]

Thursday, May 30th, 2019 Greetings from Carrboro, Some people’s lives are just too good to be true. Period. You know the ones. I read about them and, bit by bit, feel my native jealousy nefariously creep in. Usually I create a fantasized counter-narrative to balance the scales. Like, you know, I make Lebron James really, […]

Greetings from Carrboro, Facebook gets it. People like to connect. We watch friends’ children grow up on the other side of the country and allow that past investment of intimacy to charge those pictures with a visceral richness that almost – almost – rings true. But it is really only an echo – Narcissus’ jilted lover – that […]

Friday, April 26, 2019   Greetings from Carrboro, It’s hard not to like Oregon. If the state were an actor, it would be Paul Rudd. Am I wrong? Indubitably charming. Hip. But not too hip. Smart. But never annoying. I mean, Oregon is sort of the geographic version of a fantasy BFF. Because really most […]

Greetings from Carrboro, Sometimes English just doesn’t cut it. Nuance demands some other mot juste that feels – I don’t know – right. Take this Thursday, April 25th. Acme is having a righteous party with music and food and lots and, well, lots of rosé. But I can’t just call it a rosé party; the word “party” is way […]