Like so much in life, this story is about dinner. Dinner was how I spent almost 30 years of my life—making dinner, serving dinner and eating dinner with my family. Slipping chopped carrots into the meat loaf so that vegetables would be represented in the meal. Guiding dinner table conversation so that it yielded something loftier than burp jokes. And then, after dinner, overseeing homework, making sure children went to bed at a decent hour. It was the life I had chosen, and I think I was good at it, and most of the time I loved it. So when this ritual ended, I was totally unprepared for the expanse of time it left behind. With a few exceptions, I hadn’t spent an evening alone since my twenties. And now I had this huge hole where dinnertime used to be, this gaping Grand Canyon in which nothing was expected of me. Good Lord, what was I supposed to do?

At first, I couldn’t shake the feeling, hardwired after all those years, that I should be home. The light would fade at dusk, and I’d think, I’m supposed to be… Read the full story at More Magazine.

March 7, 7pm
March 8, 7pm
March 9, 7:30pm
March 10, 3pm & 8pm
March 11, 3pm

Geva Theatre Center
75 Woodbury Blvd.
Rochester, NY

Tickets and more information.

Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 8:00 PM
Royce Hall
Tickets from $20 ($15 UCLA Students)

Join host Rudy Rush of Showtime at the Apollo and Def Comedy Jam fame and a cast of diverse storytellers including prolific essayist and author Jenny Allen, internationally renowned UCLA hand surgeon Kodi Azari, poker champion Annie Duke, Upright Citizen’s Brigade regular and Emmy-nominated writer for The Ellen Degeneres Show Brian Finkelstein and author, journalist and screenwriter Jerry Stahl.

Tickets and more information.

The Moth, hailed as “brilliant and quietly addictive,” by the London Guardian, is an acclaimed not-for-profit organization dedicated to the craft of storytelling. Each show features simple, old-fashioned storytelling on thoroughly modern themes from wildly divergent raconteurs who develop and shape their stories with The Moth’s directors. They’ve presented more than 3,000 stories, told live and without notes, to standing-room-only crowds worldwide through the ongoing programs-The Moth Mainstage, Moth StorySLAMs, MothSHOP Community Program, MothSHOP Corporate, and the Moth Podcast. The Peabody Award-winning Moth Radio Hour airs on more than 200 public radio stations across the country. Join us for this special Moth Mainstage, featuring stories of chasing the ephemeral, battling the ravages of the endless tick tick or begging the universe for just one more second. Put your pencils down. Time’s up.

Coffee Cake, Anyone?
By Jenny Allen

New on Our Morning Menu!

Espresso Doughnuts
Cake doughnut infused with three shots of espresso. (380 calories)
Try with: Doughnut Espresso
Shot of espresso topped with fresh doughnut batter. (380 calories)

Cocoa “Puffs” Puff pastry with all-cacao custard filling. (610 calories)
Try with: Cream Puff Cocoa
Our classic all-cacao cocoa topped with peppermint whipped cream, topped with Cocoa Puffs. (430 calories)

Cappuccino Whoopie Pie-lets
Three espresso-soaked mini chocolate cakes with cappuccino crème filling. (1380 calories)
Try with: Cakey Cappuccino
Our classic cappuccino, topped with…Read more at The New Yorker’s Culture Desk

Excepting Thanksgiving (November 24), here’s the schedule:
Tuesday – 7pm
Wednesday – 2pm & 8pm
Thursday – 8pm
Friday – 8pm
Saturday – 2pm & 8pm
Sunday – 3pm
Also, there may be an additional 7pm performance on November 6.

You can get tickets for any of these dates at Telecharge.

Venue:
Westside Theatre Downstairs
407 West 43rd Street (Between 9th and 10th Avenues)
New York NY 10036

Running Time is 100 minutes, with no intermission. And it may be inappropriate for 11 and under.

Venue: Kaufmann Concert Hall

Location: Lexington Avenue at 92nd St

Event Code: TF11S71535

More information and tickets available here.

Award-winning comedian and New Yorker humorist Andy Borowitz presents an evening of literary laughter and a look at the new Library of America collection he edited, The Fifty Funniest American Writers—a hilarious collection of American humor writing from Mark Twain and James Thurber to David Sedaris and The Onion.

Borowitz, who has been called “one of the funniest people in America” by CBS News Sunday Morning, will be joined onstage by an all-star cast including Alec Baldwin, Calvin Trillin, Jenny Allen, and more.

You know how no one’s making kitten heels this year? It’s so weird—last year every shoe was a kitten heel, and now all the heels are like stilts again. I should’ve bought ten pairs. And now I can’t find the one pair I had. I think my cleaning lady took them. So can I borrow your alligator ones? Just put them by your front door in a plastic bag in case it rains. I’ll swing by as soon as I get a minute…read more.