March, in theory, is a hopeful month. Spring is coming, they say.Birds are preparing motivational speeches. Somewhere a crocus is bravely sticking its little purple head out of the ground like a tiny optimist. But in reality? March is the month of whiplash. On Monday it’s 70 degrees […]
I saw a quote on LinkedIn the other day that stopped me mid-scroll. “I can’t believe what you say because I see what you do.” Which is a polite, professional way of saying: Sir, the math is not mathing. And it struck me how profoundly true this feels […]
The other day I had a small, suspicious thought. What if some of us are a little bit addicted to sadness? Not the catastrophic kind.Not the kind that requires medical intervention and casseroles. I mean the specific, curated sadness many of us seem to carry around like a […]
Every morningthe birds begin their meetingbefore I do. They chirp with an enthusiasmthat feels slightly unnecessaryfor 6:07 a.m. Outside my windowthey are holding some sort of conferenceabout joy. I listen. But the strange thing isI knowthey are not singing to me. They are singing to a lifehappening somewhere […]
I recently watched Triangle of Sadness, which is not my usual cinematic comfort zone. I prefer my movies with a touch more joy and a touch less existential nausea. But this one? This one stuck. It’s satire with a scalpel slicing into beauty, wealth, class, and the elaborate […]
I read A Confederacy of Dunces years ago and thought it was hilarious. Now I think it’s prophetic. Back then, Ignatius J. Reilly felt like an exaggerated character. He is a pompous, self-righteous, overeducated man ranting about society’s collapse while blaming his digestive system for everything. Today he […]
There is a small monkey in Japan who briefly broke the internet because he coped with loneliness the way many of us secretly do: he found something soft and held on tight. Punch, a young monkey at Ichikawa Zoo, was spotted clinging to a plush toy for comfort […]
There are people who cry at weddings. People who cry at movies. People who cry at tax season. I cry at dog stories. A heroic dog.A rescued dog.A dog reunited with its human.A dog wearing a tiny raincoat. I am emotionally available for all of it. So when […]
What advice would you give to your teenage self? If I could sit across from my teenage self (probably on a twin bed with mismatched sheets, dramatic sighs, and a notebook full of Very Important Feelings) I wouldn’t tell her to change who she was. I liked her.She […]
Somewhere along the evolutionary timeline, humans went from inventing tools to naming them. Not in a practical way. Not in a “this is my truck, Bessie” kind of way. No. We are now giving delivery robots faces, personalities, and apparently emotional backstories. Little sidewalk robots are trundling around […]
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