In October, the world lost the humorist Larry Sloan, best known for creating Mad Libs. In this popular kids’ game, one volunteer asks the players to fill in the parts of speech in a story. Only the volunteer doing the asking knows the story, and the players’ random nouns and adjectives make for some ridiculous prose when everything is read together. I think the game became so popular for two [...]

(Photo by Mr. T in DC) I’m working at an essay on an early Greyhound about to depart Washington for New York City. All of a sudden, the driver stands up.  “Close those hatches, folks. That stuff is going to jump out on you,” he says. Despite the groggy hour, passengers pop up to stuff in their duffle bags and coats and close the gap-toothed smile of the overhead compartments. Soon, [...]

Anyone who has seen my Facebook page, Twitter feed, or blog knows that I teach college English and writing. Fewer know that the posts about my failures and triumphs would have looked like drunken freshman scribbling if not for cyberediting. Since the semester began, I have been checking and double checking the spelling and syntax in every handout or email I write to the students. Then I sleep on them [...]

In August, a group of Gallaudet University alumni, staff members, and supporters traveled to Port-au-Prince to work with deaf and hard of hearing survivors of the earthquake. I traveled with them, as a reporter for the university. During the week-long effort, from August 5 to 12, the group helped to address problems facing deaf people and their families in a tent community in Port-au-Prince, and made connections with others who [...]

My generation was raised to fear cookie dough. Salmonella could lurk in every rubber spatula, and terrible things would befall the child who ate a bite of a raw confection. Only baking could render the dough safe. Thanks to the recall of millions of eggs from Iowa’s Hillandale farms and Wright County Egg this past summer, the fear of uncooked eggs has intensified. According to The Washington Post, an estimated [...]