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It was 4 am when I heard the first beep. I’d already been staring at the ceiling of our darkened bedroom for what felt like an eternity, unable to sleep as Crankenstein performed her usual overnight routine beside me. Her movement and murmurs provided just enough distraction that I wasn’t entirely sure if the noise […]

Freda Payne’s “Band of Gold,” one of my favorite songs of the ’70s, is about a woman’s pain and disappointment after marrying a closeted homosexual. The true meaning of its lyrics escaped some listeners in 1970, and if you heard it on the radio without knowing the artist, you might momently confuse it for a

I’m on day five or six of what Crankenstein believes is an upper respiratory infection. Last night was the most annoying yet — despite OTC meds, I was coughing, wheezing, choking and sputtering, partly because my neck’s still impeding my ability to swallow. I couldn’t sleep, she couldn’t sleep, and we knew this morning was

On the first Christmas Eve that Crankenstein and I spent together, before she went to a midnight church service while I hung out with her cat, we stopped by my parents’ house for dinner. It was a casual, secular affair attended mostly by atheists and Jews — my parents, siblings and maternal grandma — and marked

In which I explain the fate of the Golden Girls episode guide while maligning content-scraping bots and plagiarists.

In which I share a Hanukkah memory and discuss whether Muriel’s being raised Jewish (and reveal her real name).

Prepare to fall asleep! In this, the sixth installment of Crankcast, I discuss a little bit of everything, from site changes and tennis (including the Sabalenka-Świątek rivalry) to starting an antidepressant and whether it’s weird to write personal posts like ‘Gone Girl.’ This was recorded a few weeks ago, prior to the ATP Finals in

The Washington Post has been trying its best lately to make readers cry, between an article about a young Ukrainian couple that died together following a whirlwind wartime romance to breathless coverage of a fabled affair between two blue-throated macaws in Brazil. My eyes have stayed dry so far, but this nearly got me: In

For this week’s Crankcast, no talking, just some pictures from my life. I’ll probably only leave this up for a few days since I’m not big on sharing non-movie images, but it’s a holiday offering of sorts since Thanksgiving will preempt next week’s Crankcast. [Video removed] Most of it’s pretty self-explanatory. If you need any

I’ve written a bit here about Crankenstein and music in the past — see “By Way of Sorrow” and “Jesus to a Child” — and here we are in conversation about one of her favorite genres: depressing and distressing Celtic and Appalachian folk music. There are no explicit lyric warnings on these songs, but would