Shut Up, Canice

  • 52 Titles: Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar

    Can you believe I’ve never read this until now? I think a lot of things about this book will only make sense to female readers, much in the way that Joan Didion does. All the details — living with a gaggle of other young women; the oppressive archetypes of the women that surround you; being…

  • A serious question about dogs and wolf howling

    Is it a thing, where dogs’ heads get all twisty when they hear a wolf howl? Some of these mutts seriously look like their heads are going to pop right off. Observe: German shepherd howling: Pomeranian howling: Pit bull howling: I tried this on my my bull terrier, and she did not howl, or even…

  • The hair is always greener on the other side of the fence

    Being Chinese, I’ve received countless compliments about how nice it must be to have pin-straight hair. Fair enough… I came of age in the flat-iron era, when every girl had a freaking ionic ceramic whatever Babyliss with which they enthusiastically straightened their curly/wavy/poofy/voluminous/mostly-straight-but-maybe-kind-of-textured hair into these swingy, horse-mane shags. Like, even the girls with mostly…

  • Living the dream

    If you can forget for a moment that this is an extended commercial for Zara, you will see that this woman is living my dream life. Work in the city. Drop work at will to drive up to the country with a bag full of books. Sit outside your old converted barn-turned-cottage in the hills…

  • A few words about my dog Tucker

    I’d never wanted a fluffy dog, but my mom decided to adopt Tucker from friends. And so, suddenly we had a five-year-old fluff-ball that looked like an Ewok. Or a Wookie. An Ewookie? A Wookiewok? I was horrified to discover on the mantle of the previous family’s home a framed photo of Tucker with long,…

Got any book recommendations?