Posted by beth on February 9, 2010
I don’t know if y’all have seen or read The Jane Austen Book Club. I thought it was ok, and it was one of those rare occurrences when I liked the movie better than the book, but that is beside the point. Whether you’ve seen it or read it or not, and regardless of how [...]
Posted by beth on February 8, 2010
So I’ve been in Asheville for four Sundays now, and I’ve visited three churches. This church shopping is pretty new for me. When I moved to Raleigh, I got involved with Vintage21 right away. I might have visited a couple of other churches, but I felt at home at Vintage immediately. I knew some people, [...]
Posted by beth on January 21, 2010
If you always want to invite people to church, but always feel tentative about asking and often chicken out at the last minute, here’s a simple five-step process to getting those butts in the pews: List an item for sale on craigslist. Make it ridiculously cheap, like, say a 30″ TV for $25. When your [...]
Posted by beth on January 6, 2010
I thought of something to write earlier. Something good, something deep, something vulnerable and reflective. But then I got distracted by the awesome playlist going on at Borders and an absolutely ridiculous conversation about how I should ask the cute guy next to me what song he’d choose to do a striptease to. I didn’t [...]
Posted by beth on January 5, 2010
On account of it’s her birthday today, and in honor of that fact, I’d like to share with you all this email that my friend Amaris received long, long ago on this dating site that I think her mom signed her up for. Not sure about all the details there, but maybe one of them [...]
Posted by beth on January 4, 2010
Ok, I know I promised you the story of the worst Best Buy salesman ever, and I intend to deliver that to you. I’m just going to warn you that it’s not that great. Much like any solo music made by a Jackson who was not Michael or Janet. Here we go. The only TV [...]
Posted by beth on December 13, 2009
The Rome airport “had a free wifi network.” It was listed in my available networks, it did not require a password, it said it was connected. However, it did nothing. So as much as I wanted to update you all constantly on my travel progress, I could not. These were a few of the highlights. [...]
Posted by beth on November 26, 2009
In Italia, it’s Thanksgiving, but there’s no celebration. Just the usual hum of scooters and midday libations. There’s the cigarette smoke, the faint whiff of trash, The gas man ringing the campanella. There’s the hookers’ white boots, the pizza oven fire, And the shady men whispering, “Ciao, bella.” Happy Thanksgiving, scooters, happy Thanksgiving, wine, Happy [...]
Posted by beth on October 31, 2009
I give up. Is it Pompei or Pompeii? Because in English, it has two i’s, but in Italian, it only has one, so from now on, so as not to offend anyone either foreign or domestic, I’m just going to spell it with the second i in parentheses. Ok, so I spent all afternoon yesterday [...]
Posted by beth on October 20, 2009
FYI, if you ever go to Budapest, I just have a few recommendations for you: Make sure you have someone with you who speaks Hungarian. Give yourself at least four days, preferably a week. Get a good guidebook, and see everything. Ask lots of questions Whatever happens, just go with it (this is my rule [...]