It’s my inner life only that *might* make a good reality show — Although I truly enjoy reading other people’s profiles here, I have procrastinated endlessly about writing my own. I wonder if it’s like trying to come up with a dating profile when you are literally interested in hanging out with anyone and everyone. Maybe not, but here goes nothing — The…

Did someone say stone-cold assassin? — When I read about the new job posting for a “director of rodent mitigation” from the office of New York Mayor Eric Adams, it was all I could do not to pack my bags, my 500 cats, my dynamite, and my Roundup® to head north. Will it be hard? Apparently…

One man’s odd missive to his family sent me down a rabbit hole — Recently, I came across a 2014 query to Miss Manners that surprised me. A woman wrote in to explain that out of the blue, her brother in law sent an email to the family that mandated a dress code for the upcoming family meal which he and the woman’s sister…

And other topics to avoid like the plague at Thanksgiving — It doesn’t seem fair that the US elections fall just before Thanksgiving. The holiday when thousands of people who are both related to each other and bitterly divided on a variety of topics will gather together to break bread — but hopefully no noses. This is a time to give…

And other things I learned from election ads — As you know — or should know as a sentient being — election day in the U.S. is upon us. Maybe you voted early. Maybe you’re going to vote on Election Day. That’s what I do. I like to keep the prognosticators on their toes. Maybe you’re not going to…

A suicide by arsenic preserved the self-confessed assassin — Two weeks after stage actor John Wilkes Booth shot President Abraham Lincoln in the back of the head at Ford’s Theatre, he was cornered in a barn in Northern Virginia and killed by the law. Or was he? The Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth, a book written by…

Like, is every frustrated actor both a sociopath and a Satanist? — I had been meaning to see the original Rosemary’s Baby for years and this season I finally got around to it. The film is both terrifying and infuriating. And John Cassavetes is an excellent actor because I wanted to reach through the screen and kill him myself. The thing that…

You know we’re pirates, right? — So apparently after you write a book you have to publicize it to the world. Who knew? OK, everyone at MuddyUm but me. “We’re pirates with pens, sure,” I said. But press releases are supposed to be newsy, right? Third-person, clean, catchy, and concise? Seems like a tall order. “If…