I love to read. Love love love love love it. I find it to be an incredibly intimate way to share someone else’s thought(s). They wrote it down. They signed it. They hit enter, they hit send. There’s no backing off of that. “This is what happened to me,” they are saying; or, “This is what I imagined into being. This is what I think. This is what I feel.” What a brave and abandoned thing for them to do. What a gift for them to offer. To me, it’s a profound, a mystical, an intimate and vulnerable transaction. I could, but I won’t, say sacred. On my end of the transference, as reader, I become custodian of the thought. Behind the screen of the page (or the literal computer screen). There’s a safety, for the writer, and for me, of that page or that screen coming between us. Both writer and reader stand in naked intimacy, revealed in the light of what’s been shared, but wearing the masks that make it safe. We are hidden each from the other, by the mask of the byline; my anonymity to the writer; the face of the writer’s persona turned toward me. “Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth,” as Oscar Wilde said, wearing his Oscar Wilde mask. Which can all make it sound deadly serious. But to me, it’s just a shitload of fun. I love to imagine. I love to think. I love to feel. When I read, it’s like I get extra shots at these things, more than I’ve earned through my own life’s experiences. I love to let my mind and spirit loose, wandering someone else’s journeys,...

Pennsylvania legalized casino gambling in 2006, but the state’s casinos are about to pass Atlantic City in revenue to become the United State’s second gambling mecca, right on the heels of Nevada.  So, how did my home state turn into a gamblers paradise after years of shooting it down?  Some friends and I took a road trip to find out. The area where I live near New York City is littered with billboards and commercials for tons of casino action.  Take a simple ride on the subway, or a drive through the Holland Tunnel, and you will find ads for the glittering Indian casinos of Connecticut, New York’s Yonkers’ Raceway, several of Pennsylvania’s offerings, and Atlantic City – the giant who used to dominate the ads. Yonkers Raceway, just north of Manhattan, has recently dropped a ton of cash to overwhelm the local advertising, pushing their new craps games. PA’s casinos are right behind.  Emeril Lagasse’s face, touting his Sands’ restaurants and hotel tower, are plastered all over the PATH trains. The mascot squirrel on the craps table for Mt. Airy ads is all over the F train.  Some casinos are even sponsoring the weather on local TV stations, just to get attention. The New York area is definitely being targeted by the several Pennsylvania gaming halls that are just a short drive away.  We went for it, plotted our trip and decided that the best route was to explore the gambling halls in Eastern PA. After departing North Jersey, we went West on I-80 headed for the Poconos.  Our first stop was Pennsylvania’s first casino, Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs. MOHEGAN SUN AT POCONO DOWNS Total Number of Slots: 2,232 Total Number of Table Games: 82 Just a few minutes off of I-81 and the Pennsylvania...

Certain foods inspire an illogical revulsion in me. I find mushrooms, for instance, impossible to separate from the fact that they grow upon decomposing matter. Their very texture conjures up images of rotting meat and dead, wet, brown leaves. For my boyfriend, it’s the sight of bone or cartilage; he can’t stand any sign that the meat he is eating was ever part of a dead animal. Raisins are also a deal breaker in his world. I love raisins, but I can imagine that anti-raisin feelings might be related to their cursory resemblance to rodent droppings, or his aversion to all things dried out. I have a fear of undercooked pork and chicken that is so intense that the mere thought of eating it makes my stomach hurt. I have been faced with social situations in which I have been served pink turkey and basically raw pork, and have had to swallow bits of both. While I did not immediately sicken and die as I feared, my stomach cramped before I had even taken a bite and made the whole experience akin to running a gauntlet. Yet, paradoxically, I welcome bloody beefsteaks and pink in the middle burgers. While canned food frightens me because it has been marinating in its metal casket for months, even years, and tastes like iron to me even after it’s re-cooked. Then there is the creeping realization that any number of ingredients in our food may be tainted with toxic chemicals or fecal bacteria. Buying local or organic ingredients would seem the safe alternative, except for the fact that the cost is generally prohibitive. And there is the sad reality that a certain amount of rat fecal matter is allowed in our food no matter what. Food fears are...