Category: Paul Gerald Writings

I’ve been sending out Christmas cards since 1988, and this year it’s not happening. Since I’m a little “in my head” about it, and since I attach some significance to this tradition, and since a lot of people say they look forward to it every year, I feel the need to explain myself — even if nobody feels the need to hear it.

The short answer is I just didn’t get my shit together, didn’t get a picture I felt great about, and now that it’s December I don’t want to rush it, to put in all the time and effort and cost to send out 150 cards that I don’t feel that great about, just to keep a tradition going. So I’m taking a year off.

Continue reading “Why There’s No Christmas Card in 2011”

I put up a post on Facebook that got a lot of interest andresponses. And somebody suggested I compile the comments into a list. Thequestion was, “How do you entertain a bored 11-year-old?”

Continue reading “How to Entertain an 11-Year-Old”

I did an article for the Memphis Flyer about best-practices for feeding your dog. Turns out that, depending on various factors, table scraps can be okay. Read all about it!

I don’t mean that in some kind of “player” way, like I’m chasing the ladies around. But this morning I woke up and rolled out of bed — literally, since it’s just a mattress on the floor — and made coffee in my stovetop expresso thing, since that’s all I have. Walked past the pile of artwork that hasn’t been hung because I don’t have any hooks yet, and made some breakfast. That would be two eggs fried in butter (no butter dish, just a wrapper), in the $3.99 pan I got from Goodwill yesterday, stirred with a garage-sale wooden spoon, then eaten right out of the pan with the same spoon. It’s now 9:45 a.m. and I am still in my sweats.

I still don’t have the artwork up, and I still don’t have a cook pot with handles, nor enough spoons and forks for three people to eat, but I am getting in the groove, just a bit.

For one thing, I have done laundry, taken out the trash, and annoyed the downstairs neighbor with loud music. And gotten laid, which really makes it official.

Continue reading “In the Pearl Groove”

This morning, I delivered self-published books to a New Seasons Market. Then I went in to shop and asked for dried cranberries, which I like in the Bob’s Red Mill hot cereal that I buy at Food Front. A staffer with a pierced nose recommended some local, sustainably-grown cranberries as being “nummy nummy.”

I walked outside with my rain hat on, because it’s about 42 and drizzly. On April 6. By the time I walk across the lot to Peets, which of course is full, no seats available, at 10 a.m. on a Wednesday, I have changed into my sunglasses. Continue reading “A Portland Moment”

I haven’t tried ZapHour, but it sounds pretty cool. It’s like Groupon but free and with a time limit. Check out a this story I did on it for Neighborhood Notes.

Always fun to get paid for talking to business owners and entrepreneurs. I got to do it again with this piece in Neighborhood Notes, about business incubators for food-related businesses.

Part 1, by the way, was about social entrepreneurs.

Another fun story about another cool idea in the making: ADX is going to be a collaborative space for designers, craftspeople, and folks who want to be either. Read all about it at Neighborhood Notes.

Maybe you’ve noticed that food carts create a lot of container waste; just look at garbage cans on downtown sidewalks! Well, a woman named Laura Weiss thinks she has a solution. It’s called GO Box, and I just did a story on her and the idea for Neighborhood Notes. Read it here.