In third grade, we had an in-class, pet chameleon. The day before the chameleon joined us, we all went around the room and suggested potential names. I said that we could call it Mystery, anticipating its ability to change colors and surprise us. Mystery it was. The pathetic thing, we quickly learned, was that Mystery barely even… Continue reading Celebrity Crushes

Last summer, I was hanging out and making videos with my across-the-street neighbor and film co-director, James, when we noticed a visitor on set: a MASSIVE, unmoving turtle. We stopped filming and hovered over the turtle with both confoundment and enchantment: confoundment in that we had no idea how this hulking, prehistoric-looking fella had crawled… Continue reading BE A TURTLE

There’s the old adage that it if ain’t broke, don’t fix it, which makes sense in theory and is comforting to hear when things seemingly ain’t broke. And when applied to this historically good Red Sox team, it can be loosely translated as if you’re on pace to have the best season in franchise history,… Continue reading Not-So-Sweet Caroline

A few weeks ago, one of my mom’s oldest pals, Theresa, emailed me about the Golden State Warriors’ championship parade. Theresa’s a born and bred Bay Area sports nut, a lifelong Warriors fan well before Zuckerberg Silicon Valley, and one of maybe seven diehard Oakland As fans in the Northern Hemisphere. Three days after Kerr… Continue reading First-Half Life Rafts

Two weeks ago, at the start of my first improv class, we went around the room and introduced ourselves and said why we were taking improv. There were a couple seasoned improvisers who had taken classes elsewhere but had recently moved to Boston. There was a professional clown who wanted some non-clown practice. There was… Continue reading In The Driver’s Seat

So you see the imagination needs moodling—long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling, and puttering.—Brenda Ueland   Our coach in college used to give us two weeks off between seasons. You’d finish cross country on, say, November 8th—toenails gone, hips achey, shins splinty— and on November 22nd you were starting to sharpen up again for indoor track.… Continue reading After A Little Break

They say don’t meet your heroes, but I met one of mine last week at school—the Teddy Roosevelt on my Favorite Writer Mount Rushmore—and don’t worry: I’m still here, unscathed, even more enchanted, the opposite of jaded, eager to tell you all about it. Mary Karr, for those unfamiliar, is known in the literary world… Continue reading Take No Guff

There’s a scene mid-way through the pilot of Bill Hader’s new, darkly comedic HBO show, Barry, where Hader’s character, Barry, asks his acting teacher, Gene, whether he was any good in his first class. Gene’s played by Henry Winkler with a coldness and abrasiveness and pretentiousness that only Henry Winkler could make funny. (Also, shout-out… Continue reading “Treat Each Guest Honorably”

A few weeks ago, I listened to Pete Holmes promote the second season of his endearing, funny, deeply self-aware and self-deprecating HBO show, Crashing, on Bill Simmons’ podcast. Simmons is an enigmatic Boston-bred bro/podcaster/writer who’s entertaining but also a lot. Holmes, like me, is a dweeb from Lexington, Massachusetts, and is part of the sneakily… Continue reading Lake Boredom

You have to trust the person you were when you wrote it because you’re actually not that person anymore.—Greta Gerwig     In honor of last week’s Oscar nominations, here are my favorite movies from this past year. NOT Honorable Mention: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri—In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., “I have… Continue reading Favorite Movies of 2017