Miette's Bedtime Story Podcast

This story was brought to my attention a few months ago, making its way inbox-ward on the anniversorry of my trip down Amniotic Lane, timing not unintentional. Now, I would share with you my thoughts on why this was selected as a Birthday Story, but that would involve psychographic profiling of the sender’s right eyebrow […]

So it’s summer right now, if you’re with me hemispherically. Although if you were to zoom in a little closer you’d see that in some places, we’re tying up that chapter, it’s cooling down, and that means it’s time to read you some Tove Jansson. Now, I was going to read you something from the […]

In the two days since first reading of tonight’s story, I’ve been deeply ensconced with this idea of show-and-tell, to the irrational (read: batshit) point of showing-and-telling the objects comprising the contents of my desk to the various beasts kicking about the place, or showing-and-telling one runty waterlogged piece of the garden to another. And […]

A couplefew nights ago, catatonic with fatigue after a couple days of travel, I found just the right pace of entertainment watching my cat chase a furry little squeaker all around the place. My conscience wouldn’t let me object– it was nature’s way and the mouse deserved whatever was coming to it, after all… but […]

During a trip by car I noticed a guy on the phone in a parking lot frantically trying to start his car, a kid really, a kid in trouble, just laying into the ignition while the engine was turning halfway over which indicated, to my limited capacity for automotive troubleshooting, that maybe his vehicle was […]

“But when it thinks, I feel like vomiting.” With these words, it is clear that if Nigel Dennis were still around I’d be his groupie. I’d start the FaceBook Club and make mashups on Youtube for him and disguise myself as an editor at Rolling Stone Magazine to obtain his personal email address, which I […]

Were I a listmaker, and perhaps I am, you would be the warm recipient of many reasons to be grateful when the internet goes for broke on Bloomsday. This list, were I to make one, would include the subcategories: FOR ME and FOR YOU. Topping the FOR YOU list, were such a thing to exist, […]

So I read in the news today about the Indonesian macaque monkeys who’ve learned to successfully catch fish, and how exciting this is for biology, and how it’s a living and breathing example of the adaptation of a species to its conditions and environment, and really it was all astonishing stuff to read. But for […]

So, my "identity" was stolen recently. And not for the sake of sordid members-only internet sites or international travel or a weekend of Spitzering other scandalous activities that, if you're going to have your identity stolen, would constitute Theft in Style. No, my identity was used to buy clip art and stock photography and website services, which is about as exciting as cutting school to go and get a root canal, sneaking out of the house late at night to mow the lawn next door. You get the picture. So a personal note to identity thieves in training: when you're done with me, at least return me with a few heavy anecdotes and a thrilling punked-up haircut. OK?

Fishing season began early this year for your Miette, with the streetside discovery of a freshly abandoned goldfish with wonky telescopic eyes, in its bowl and with a note reading: Free Fish! Please Give Steve Buscemi a good home. And of course I did. I found an exceptional home for him, a home where he’s […]

After a week of muscle-burning manual work and long long drives, some of us settle in with a nice cold beer. For others-- maybe like me, who's to say -- it takes more that that... way more, maybe, to relax muscles as sore as these and attempt to put together nerves which have been plucked to the bone. For that reason, perhaps it's best to just shut up and read (if you're me) or grab a beer and listen (if you're you) and maybe write the Pulitzer committee about considering a Podcasting category.

All week I've been wanting to read this to you, waking up more excited than the trashman on the day-after-Christmas, and running into my.... uh... recording studio (read: three paces from the bed) to see if it's quiet enough...

A saw a sign the other day while out on a drive, a sign that said this: Frost Heaves. And I almost had to stop and compose myself, because I was so deeply distressed by the fact that frost can't heave in private (and I'm not a histrionic sort of girl), and saddened that a frost's heave has to be announced clearly for any old asshole who happens to be driving by...

The question that's been asked a few times of me now: why don't I read more African writers? Actually, it's been asked more than a few times... enough times, in fact, to warrant the sort of qualifier most accurately described as MANY.

It's confusing, the name of tonight's author, right? I mean, the better known writer sharing this name didn't bother with a middle pseudonymous initial, and there's a slight tweak to the surname, but we readers would be none the wiser, push-to-shove, and would settle back with a cup of tea and upperclass accent.

A mildly embarrassing problem when getting under way with tonight's story, confessed in full in these lines: when I first sat down to read it to you this evening, I got caught on a raft in a sea of lexical continental drift, and over and over I stammered out the title only to have it read "Roadsome Load." No kidding: again and again.

As I lay writhing on my sickbed I was catching up on my milehigh stack of unread periodicals, and made my way to an article about one of the leading competitors for an upcoming race for a high position of public office in the country in which I'm living...

A few days ago I was driving down the street behind a car which, as was warned by prominent display of rooftop sign, was being operated by a Student Driver... a sign which really wasn't necessary, given the stammering mid-intersection braking and sideview-mirror clipping taking place all the way down the road, and I had this great idea that it'd be a real public service - a true exercise of civic duty - if other drivers could collectively contribute to driving lessons, by driving like raving lunatics around students, just to get them on their toes and on the lookout.

A message from the author of today's story: Do you ever wonder as you are reading a story, or hearing one, such as on a podcast, for example, what or whom has inspired a particular story? Picture this: imaginary "directions" or "instructions" for a story that the author creates-- after the story has been written--or told. Imagine that these "directives" led to this story--which in actuality they did not--well at least the author had no idea of any directives of any sort when the story came into being.

Returning soon with a much-awaited all-new MBSP. Leaving you with a mightylong one to hold you till (the longest yet in one sitting, I think). For Dream, remembered always, and loved even longer.