Every year at Thanksgiving, my mother hauls out the old Spode dinnerware. You may be familiar with the stuffy old English line of creamy white Christmas tree-emblazoned dishes. (And saucers, and tea cups, and glassware, and serving platters, and candy dishes, and soufflée pots and carving knives — she collects it all!) This past year, [...]

I came upon this idea as I was sitting here, sipping my Irish Breakfast tea and waiting for my hair to dry. (Where did my hairdryer go? I think I left it in Crown Heights, along with my lawsuit-happy landlord in that craptastic apartment she rented us.)
I must write a weekly column.
It’s the only way [...]

I think Claire at zulkey.com has the best blog list idea since the Friday Five (which, if you ask me, was getting a little dull). In honor of Thanksgiving, she wants you to make up a list of the five little things you’re thankful for this year. In other words, my list will not contain [...]

I haven’t been able to finish my MFA essays because I’ve spent the last two hours reading about Ellen Feiss, the supposedly stoned high school star of the first round of Mac Switch campaign ads. As amusing as Ellen’s story is, it’s really the monkey switch ad spoof that’s got me writhing in hysterics.
Monkeys. [...]

Is it so wrong to want a 1960s Pierre Cardin cashmere coat? For $1350?
God help me.

I saw him, the ex, the former love, the former fellow co-torturer, at the Bunsen Honeydew show last night. In fact, he was the first person I saw as Jiverson and I strode by the Continental to meet Bonnie and Esther at St. Mark’s Bookshop. There was no one else outside but him and his [...]

Today’s mission in the life of Frances Duncan is particularly funny: I was a fashion model.
My good friend Esther works over at YakPak, the Brooklyn-based homegrown bag company that invented the trendy mini-backpack that you used to see all over every back on the streets of New York. This month, they were shooting a new [...]

I forgot to tell you all about my brush (literally) with fame the other night at the Beacon Theater. Between the Flaming Lips and Beck set, as we were all leaving the auditorium, David Cross brushed up against my arm. David Cross! Mr. Show himself! Oh boy! What reminded me was a link at Maud’s [...]

It is hard for me to feel like an alienated Weblogger when the only people who ever comment on my website are the seven people I know in real life. I mean, c’mon Mom, can’t you use a pseudonym or something?
Anyway, seeing as you all know me, then you’re all aware that that last post [...]

A former sweetheart of mine first introduced me to the term as we sat out yet another night watching a movie in bed, me with a pint of Häagen-Daz Vanilla Swiss Almond, him with a plate of dollar store Ritz crackers with requisite chunks of cheddar cheese.
Some of you may be familiar with the term. [...]