How do you manage stress? People often ask about stress management, as though there’s some magical technique that will make the demands of life evaporate. Meditate for ten minutes! Take a deep breath! Buy a scented candle! Sure. But when people’s livelihoods depend on you, and people’s care […]
I have a problem with big pills. I cannot swallow them. My throat apparently has a strict size limit and refuses to negotiate. So I cut them in half. Sometimes quarters. My preferred pharmaceutical technology? A serrated kitchen knife. Yes, a serrated kitchen knife. Because nothing says responsible […]
I have started rewatching House. Because apparently my idea of relaxing television is watching a curmudgeonly, Vicodin-dependent physician insult patients while trying to figure out why someone is mysteriously dying. It was recently ranked among the top 100 television shows of this century, which I completely understand. But […]
I’ve noticed something at train stations. Nobody uses the handrails anymore. Up the stairs. Down the stairs. Everyone is gripping their phones, their coffee, their bags, their existential dread. But the handrail? Absolutely not. I assume this is a lingering COVID-era thing. We spent two years being told […]
I had a small existential crisis in a restaurant bathroom recently. Not the dramatic kind. There were no tears, no life reevaluation. It was just a quiet, philosophical pause while staring at a dispenser labeled “Healthy Soap.” Now, I’m no contrarian. I’m broadly pro-health. I support vitamins. I […]
There is a very specific, deeply spiritual moment in life that no one prepares you for. Not childbirth.Not falling in love.Not even finding a parking spot directly in front of your destination in Manhattan (which, frankly, deserves its own religion). I’m talking about that moment. The one where […]
There are wrinkles you earn through laugh lines, sun-kissed memories, and the faint crease of “I have lived.” And then there are the other wrinkles. The ones brought to you by that person. You know the one. Actually, you probably know three. A family member who calls only […]
I came across a LinkedIn post the other day that said, “Keep the gap. It’s the engine.” And I had two immediate reactions 1. Wow. That’s beautiful.2. Also, have you met my gap? Because it is not an engine. It is a full-blown emotional support crisis. The idea […]
Lately the news has felt like a slow drumbeat of mortality. You see familiar faces. People you grew up watching, people who seemed woven into the background of your life and suddenly their names are trending next to words like illness, cancer, ALS, loss. You see names like […]
What positive events have taken place in your life over the past year? This past year wasn’t exactly sprinkled with fairy dust or wrapped in a giant red bow. It was more like one of those surprise grab bags where you reach in hoping for chocolate and instead […]
