As an actual male fan of the writer/director/actress Lena Dunham, I subscribed to her new email newsletter—called “Lenny”—almost as soon as I heard about it. Dunham’s fame stems from having created the HBO program “Girls,” a critically acclaimed but only marginally popular sitcom that nevertheless serves as one of the primary totems of Millennial culture.…

By Dom Cioffi This is the time of year when the outside temperatures begin to drop to uncomfortable levels, meaning extra care must be taken so life doesn’t get too distressing. Anytime the thermometer settles below the 32-degree mark, you have to grab that cold weather parka, you have to start warming up your vehicle…

By Cal Garrison, a.k.a. Mother of the Skye This week's Horoscopes are coming out under the light of a Capricorn Moon with a bevy of aspects that will see me talking about the same old thing, if I don't find something better to do. Because the Halloween cross quarter is right around the corner, I'd…

By Dom Cioffi I started my to-do list days early because I knew Saturday was going to be my first weekend in months where I had no plans. I wasn’t traveling, my son didn’t have a game, and there were no parties – this was my big chance to knock out all of those things…

  By Madeline Bodin It came from the lake. It is a life form nearly as old as life itself. Living peacefully in the depths for eons, it is awakened by humankind’s abuse of the environment. It strikes out with toxins that attack nerves or the liver. Attempts to kill it only make it more…

Another boring week in the world of Brady, with the exception of one wonderful surprise. I have to say that not having a daunting race to train for makes the world a little more dull. Fewer reasons to get up in the morning and do masochistic things to myself. I have kept running and walking…

The apparent association between craft beer and cycling is one of the more perplexing aspects of microbrew culture. In my early 20s, I noticed that brewery gift shops seemed to sell a surprising number of cycling jerseys—from Allagash to Stone, they’re as ubiquitous as branded pint glasses, and once or twice my brother and I…

By Cal Garrison, a.k.a. Mother of the Skye This week's Horoscopes are coming out under the light of a Capricorn Moon, in the midst of aspects that make me wonder how well anyone who's trying to have a normal life might be coping. So much is coming to a head, our illusions of 'normal' are…

By Laurie Morrissey We call them shooting stars, and they never fail to make us catch our breath in surprise and wonder. But they’re not stars at all. Those bright, brief streaks across the night sky are meteors. Clear skies permitting, the next few months bring three excellent chances to see batches of them. Meteors…

Back in the 1960s when I was old enough to get my license, the high school I attended (Mount St. Joseph Academy, or MSJ) did not have driver education. In my youth there didn’t seem to be the urgency that today’s teens have to get a license. Once you got your license most kids drove…

The next few weeks of my life are going to be boring.  I am ready for boring.  I am doing a bunch of training for a new job (outside sales for residential solar juggernaut SolarCity), and just marking time running and walking 1-5 miles a day.  No eight hour slogs, no running up and down…

The Oscar winner Robert Zemeckis put forth “What Lies Beneath” in the midst of Hollywood’s end-of-millennium resurgence of interest in ghost stories. This period began in 1999 with “The Sixth Sense,” “Stir of Echoes,” “The Haunting,” and “Sleepy Hollow,” and continued into the 2000s with “The Others” (2001) and “The Ring” (2002). Zemeckis, who also…

By Dom Cioffi Several months ago, after finding my son and his two friends indoors playing video games, I demanded that they exit the house. It was a beautiful summer day and they were wasting it staring into a television monitor. I barked something about never being allowed to stay inside when I was a…

By Cal Garrison, a.k.a. Mother of the Skye This week's Horoscopes are coming out under the light of a Libra Moon, with aspects that tell me the next few days are bound to be a little intense. This could get completely out of hand. We could talk about how that makes it imperative for us…

By Dom Cioffi I sidled up to the bar and ordered the cheapest draft beer available. After all, I was a college student on a very strict budget. The $15 I had in my pocket had to last me all night, and that had to include food later in the evening. It was still early,…