For years I’ve been mildly obsessed with this idea, that “history” and “story” are related, they’re siblings if not actually the same creature. And that the relation lies in human cultures that didn’t read, didn’t write, communicated only by talking. I’m not sure why that seems so absurd and fascinating, history and story being the […]
Month: June 2026
Lately, I’ve been thinking about the nature of knowledge and how we acquire it. My training as a scientist taught me to revere the scientific method, and I continue to hold science in the highest regard. Science can teach us much about the world and ourselves, and as I’ve written elsewhere, it can allow us to […]
In May, Doug Burgum, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, traveled to the tiny town of Anaktuvuk Pass, Alaska, to announce a new policy: caribou hunters will soon be allowed to use all-terrain vehicles inside the Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve. Under most circumstances this would piss me off—another misguided plan from […]
We first published this conversation 14 years ago. At least half of my peers from high school and university have chosen not to have kids at all. In the end, I stuck with just the one, and so did Michelle. Michelle and Jessa converse about the reasons we chose to stop at one child. Jessa: […]
We have a VACCINE against CANCER. For 20 years now! The first Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, Gardasil, was approved in June, 2006. Since then, the rate of cervical cancer has dropped by 62 percent in the United States. HPV also causes vulvar, vaginal, anal, and penile, tongue, and throat cancers, and the several HPV vaccines […]
Nobody wants to go with me to the shitty behind-the-mall carnival, for some reason. It’s one of those ride-packed parking-lot joints, set up and pulled down stunningly fast with less than a week in between. You, too, went to one like it as a kid, didn’t you? Between rides you filled your belly with overpriced […]
This post originally ran in 2018. Nothing has changed. I still won’t go to bed. YOU CAN’T MAKE ME! Yesterday at 8:23am, my husband texted me a link. No note, just a string of random letters and slashes and dots. I clicked and landed on a research article titled “Why don’t you go to bed […]
Not everything can be awful, right? Not everything can be the worst. Anyway, I have just decided that I refuse to let everything be the worst and to succumb to the idea that no, it is, in fact, the worst. I feel a bit guilty about trying to grasp joy, but what choice does any […]
