Work is a lot of work. Most of us have to work for about half of our waking hours for about half of our lives. And they’re mostly not easy hours. Work can be full of conflicts, confusion, drama, trauma, and awkwardness. I started writing a work advice column a year ago for Slate to […]
Laura
Bad things happen quickly; good things take time. This isn’t a perfect pattern, of course, but I think it’s real and worth thinking about. A wildfire, explosion, earthquake, pandemic, gunshot, car crash, heart attack—all fast. Cancer typically starts out slow but then gets fast. Climate change seems slow, but the reason it’s so dangerous is […]
Thanking people well is a skill that gets better with practice. So let’s practice.
How have you been sleeping lately? Me, not so great. I do fine during the days, mostly. But then I wake up at 3 or 4 a.m. worried about what’s happening in the world. Here are some strategies I use for distracting myself and getting back to sleep. Maybe they’ll be useful for you? You […]
One of the great joys of gardening is learning how stuff grows. Did you know that green beans are just baby bean-beans? You harvest them when the pods have developed but before the beans inside get plump and then hard. Green peppers are just unripe red (or orange or yellow) peppers. Green olives are just […]
The Scopes Monkey Trial was held 100 years ago this month, but it feels like just yesterday. Actually, it feels like today; it feels terrifyingly like tomorrow. The theocrats are ascendant, friends, and their rejection of evolution is tied to all the other monstrosities they’re imposing on public life. Theodosius Dobzhansky said that nothing in […]
I witnessed a minor Drama in Real Life the other day while biking along the Western Maryland Rail Trail. Several deer were foraging by the side of the trail as I passed them, then I heard a bang and a scream (deer) and another scream (human). A full-grown deer had leapt into the trail and […]
I need your help. I’m trying to find a phrase to describe an important phenomenon and maybe help people recognize it more easily. The phenomenon is this: When we fix a problem, we forget it. I don’t mean you and me in “we” — we, of course, remember. But pop culture forgets, and the mass […]
