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I love kids. I love my nephew, my partner’s niece, our friends’ kids, unsuspecting four-year-olds that I try to lure into my van with candy, all of them. They bring me joy, they light up my heart, they give me hope for a better world, because as pre-crack Whitney Houston once said, the children are our future. Yes, I love kids. I’ve always loved kids. But after what just happened, I think I may no [...]

My mother has been going through a rather dramatic extended illness this year, and at one point, I announced to my partner, “If I ever get this bad, just hit me over the head with a brick and call it a day.” Of course, I was kidding. A brick is unwieldy, and most people don’t have them just lying around. Sleeping pills are the way to go – you can make pithy last-word proclamations, and [...]

You know those sweet, toothless, double-wide dwelling hillbillies you see on newsmagazine reports who’ve gotten scammed out of their life savings? As an extraordinarily compassionate human being, I used to cluck my tongue at these tragic situations and think, how sad that these idiots are foolish enough to hand their money over to some grifter. How ironic that they’re too clueless to see through the ludicrous promises of extravagant returns. How pathetic that they’re reckless [...]

I’ve always wanted to be a better person. Oh, don’t get me wrong; it’s not that I consider myself unkind, or selfish, or hateful. In fact, I pride myself on hardly ever wishing that selfish drivers or old ladies with coupons were dead. I would just like to be REALLY good, since emanating pure and utter virtuousness would not only feel incredibly fulfilling, it would allow me to rub my moral superiority in other people’s [...]

But I did some NPR interviews that you can listen to on the Media page, if you're hard up for new material on your iPod. www.ericpoole.net/media

The other day, my friend Tracy told me a story about her elderly dad, Ira, who, when Tracy was a toddler in the late 60’s, took up with a neighbor named Lolita (I'm not kidding) and divorced Tracy's mother in order to marry this woman. Naturally, I was all ears at this point, since you know any story about husband stealing involving a woman named Lolita is gonna be juicy. Shockingly, Tracy and her sisters [...]

I've been flying back and forth to St. Louis one weekend a month because my mother is sick. As if this weren't  enough cause for glamour envy on your part, I fly as a non-priority passenger, made abundantly clear by the nonstop parade of First Class, Platinum, Executive Platinum, and Mile High club members who board before me. I can accept that because in a normal year I only fly every couple of months and [...]

A good friend of mine is Chilean. This is, of course, tres exotique, and by all measures should score me impressive brownie points for my magnanimous tolerance of ridiculous foreign cultures. Oh, don’t get me wrong – Chile is, by all accounts, a beautiful and welcoming country with much to offer in terms of art, history and folklore. And they have some tasty cheap wine. But it is also a country where someone who gets [...]