About this Burbia Blogger

- added on 02/04/2008

Valerie Block

Valerie Block is the author of the novels Don't Make A Scene (Ballantine, 2007), None of Your Business (Ballantine, 2003) and Was It Something I Said? (SoHo Press, 1998). She lives in New Jersey with her husband, the writer Alexis Romay.

Blogs by Valerie Block

You're Cordially Invited to Recycle -- Or Else!

Nothing is more important to our collective sense of wellbeing than the prompt and efficient removal of waste from our environment. Therefore, the Township Department of Community Services has released new guidelines concerning recycling and solid waste, effective immediately. Recylcing saves tax dollars, reduces waste and conserves ...read more.

Flip-flops, Crocs, Bra-Straps: Are There No Limits to Casual?

There are experts who advise those working at home to sit down at a desk in a shirt and tie, or the female equivalent, in order to take themselves seriously. This at a time when mainstream professional culture has become sporty and relaxed - not to say disheveled - as never before. "Casual Friday" has ...read more.

A Rodent Dies. A Homeowner Cries, NO...I'm Not Picking It Up

"You must do the thing you think you cannot do," Eleanor Roosevelt wrote. On the other hand, as Blanche Wiesen Cooke pointed out in the first volume of her excellent biography, Eleanor Roosevelt ran households with 17 servants. Something tells me that when it came time to picking up dead rodents by the tail ...read more.

Big Brother Knows It: You've Got Mail!

The front door had a slot with a brass plate covering it. But it was a hole into the house, and it had to go. I didn't like the idea of someone's hand in my house. It violated the whole point of the door. So when my husband and I organized the burglar alarm, we also arranged to have the hole ...read more.

A Visit from the God Squad

They come in twos and threes, dressed as if going to church in the south in the 1950s. They are always African American. They frequently have a child in tow, a child who never shouts or cries or goofs off, even though he or she doesn't have a toy to play with. They do not hurry, they do not ...read more.