I am back at revising my novel, hopefully for the final time. Exciting! It has been a long and challenging process, but I think I see the light at the end of the tunnel. This week should hopefully be The Week that I send the damned thing off to agents. Finally. So, in order to […]
I’m sure I’m way late to this party, since I am, as we’ve established on many occasions, old, but I just discovered the iPhone app iMadeFace and it is SO FUN, you guys. It’s an app that lets you make portraits of people, real or imaginary, by choosing from an array of facial features, hair […]
I had heard a lot of buzz about Jennifer Egan’s book A Visit from the Goon Squad before I read it: it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, it’s being turned into an HBO series, it’s incredible, etc. However, despite all of this buzz, I knew almost nothing about the structure or plot of the […]
Al and I have embarked on a month-long detox from booze and in his case, candy, and in my case, cheese and dessert (which are often one and the same with me). This is necessary. Very necessary. I’ve spent the last month and a half flitting from place to place, eating rich food and drinking […]
Yesterday I took a break from writing. Well, not entirely. I wrote a blog post in the morning, and then frittered away an hour reading blogs and news, and then I went to the gym, and then I got a pedicure and had lunch with a friend. And then I came back home and thought, […]
Dear Steph: When staring down the barrel of at least four weddings and three bachelorette parties in the next calendar year, is there any gracious way to decline any of the associated wedding events (engagement parties, showers, couples showers, etc.) without seeming like a total grinch? And is there any way to bring things up […]
Like many other people in the Western world, I’m absolutely fascinated by North Korea, the aggressive “hermit kingdom,” with its showpiece capital, goose-stepping soldiers, nuclear tests, and series of eccentric, wacktastic father-son dictators. I’ve seen pictures of Pyongyang, including the excellent series taken by my friend Sam Gellman, and I follow the news about Kim […]
This weekend, fresh off my safari, I went back to the Drakensberg Mountains with Al and some of his McKinsey colleagues for a so-called “team weekend.” Based on past (semi-traumatic) experiences with McKinsey “teambuilding” “retreats,” I feared that this weekend would involve flow charts, PowerPoint, and small-group breakout sessions. To my relief, it just ended […]
I’m now officially back from my month-long vacation(s); I got back to Joburg from safari yesterday. What a week! My friends and I spent four nights at Elephant Plains Game Lodge, in the Sabi Sand private game reserve just north of Kruger National Park. I had been on safari before, of course, so I thought […]
Hello there! I must apologize, once again, for the intermittent bursts of blogging. I am still mid-vacay and won’t be back full-time for another week, but I wanted to tell you all about the five days I just spent in Cape Town. After Stellenbosch, I bid my in-laws and Al adieu and stayed on in […]