Elly Lonon's Blog

Be warned, all this looming holiday action has me feeling sentimental. I blame said sentimentality for this post. That and T Kira Madden‘s memoir, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls.

It’s a stunning book that I highly recommend. T Kira’s voice is lyrical, compelling, and unassuming. She’s as generous on the page as she is on the stage. And while there are gobs of gorgeous lines to quote and insights to share but this week I keep thinking about a particular chapter she wrote about her...

I just returned from my mother’s hometown, Dixon, Il. Of her nine siblings that lived to adulthood, only four remain. But holy cow did they procreate so every family gathering is massive.

We rented this 100 year old homestead for our home base. (If you want to see those pics and stories, you can see them on Instagram here.) Mind you, the house I live in every day is 99 years old, so theoretically there shouldn’t have been much adapting right? My house, however, has had people walk through it...

It was another week of gut-wrenching headlines and outrage-inducing events. It was also the first official week of Summer. And maybe you’re having some trouble resolving your conflicting feelings on these very disparate things.

The crazy thing is you don’t have to. In fact, I would argue that you shouldn’t even try. 

Feel it all. If you can bear it, that is. 

I spent an hour this morning tuning Penelope (my summer Waterman ukulele) and singing lazy-groove songs with a friend that makes...

I haven’t written a proper book review in a while. Not that I haven’t read some amazing books since then. I have drafts of about a dozen reviews that I never quite managed to finish. Life kept getting in the way.

But Daisy Jones and The Six? I can’t stop thinking about it.

It has everything I love: music references, witty banter, kickass female characters, subversive political messages. It feels like it’s tailor written for me. I was so riveted I didn’t even stop to mark my favorite quotes. B...

SPRING IS HERE!

This is what you get when you search “running through tulips gif.” I don’t get it. OH WAIT. A River Runs Through It maybe? Is that the name of that movie? I have no recollection of ever watching it so why I have any recollection of what it might be called is a complete mystery. This caption is officially longer than a Fiona Apple album title.

I keep reading articles and blogs on time scarcity. That seems to be what the Universe keeps serving up to me via emails and soci...

Some days you’re the leggings. You’re just phoning it in, knowing that your day is going to involve way more leisure than athletics and she’s really wearing you because she’s too bloated after “Wings and a Pitcher Night” to wear a proper waistband. The pilling of your fabric happening in the inner thigh area is so annoying you almost forget to be upset about the schmear of cream cheese crust that somehow never comes off in the wash. Then some lady writes a letter about your criminally sexy in...

Somehow I though Spring would be greener. But it was light before 6 am this morning so I AM TAKING THE WINS WHERE I CAN.

Do you know what else is a win? Having slightly pushy friends that kick you in the ass when you feel like wallowing in phlegm and self-pity. Friends that say, “YOU HAVE TO DO A UKULELE VIDEO THIS WEEK,” even though your body seems to think it’s possible to expel an ovary via body-racking coughs and insists on trying ad nauseam. Friends that say, “I’LL HELP AND IT’S TOTALLY...

“It was so odd,” my mom pauses her game of FreeCell on her iPad.

“Mmmm,” Dad mumbles from the couch, non committal to contributing the conversation.

“In the locker room, after swimming, Evie was talking about the party again and all the art…”

“She was super fun,” I interrupt.

“She is. I like her a lot. But it was so strange…she was under the impression that the nude in the hallway?”

“Mmmm?” This time in question form. It appears Dad IS contributing to the conversation.

“The charcoal Thom did,...

So my hips are precariously perched on the high edge of one of those wedge pillow things you see advertised in porn mags and fertility literature, trying not to get strangled by the sheet that keeps sliding up around my neck when she says to me…

Discombobulated? Little confused as to what’s happening in the above scenario? Wishing there’d been a little more exposition before I just dove in there?

Yeah. I felt that same way at the imaging center this week. Except I was naked from the waist dow...

Now that I am a New York Times reviewed author, (STILL SCREAMING!!!) I think it’s really important to try and be more professional. Which is exactly why I’m working on a piece about Michael Cohen sex dreams and a cover of It’s Raining Tacos.

Who has two thumbs, a mild obsession with the portrait setting on her phone, and a HIGH LEVEL OF PROFESSIONALISM, BITCHES?

This bitch.

You know what the actual highlight of my week was though? Spending some time with my favorite New York Times reviewed au...