I try not to use social media, but I can’t bring myself to quit entirely. Despite the evil it has wrought, Facebook remains a good way to keep tabs on friends I otherwise don’t see or connect with often, or at all. I decided a while ago that these sweet updates were worth the otherwise […]
Psychology
This post first appeared in July 2016 and sadly, this is the kind of story we are still having to tell. I was with a group kayaking and camping on the coast of south-central Alaska — seven adults, five kids from four years old to twelve. One of the adults was a muscular late-20s man named Everett, […]
I was having an email exchange with a longtime friend a few months ago, and we got to talking about our long-ago youth—specifically, the workplace where we met, when we were both in our teens. As is often the case in these late-evening conversations, the discussion turned to the subject of who else among us […]
January is such a bitch. I have personal reasons to feel this and so do most of the people I talk to: bad things are happening or anniversaries of bad things have come around again. People are losing their jobs; they’re having non-trivial surgical procedures; kids are having urgent psychiatric problems; relatives are seriously sick; […]
I have a new mantra. Live your life, kids. Sure, have the chocolate muffin for breakfast. Wear the nice shoes on the playground. Use the fine china. Eat the marshmallow. Life is short. You might not get another marshmallow, despite what people tell you, so enjoy what you have while it lasts. My older daughter […]
“Is it okay to still have children?” Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asked her social media followers in 2019. She was addressing a growing reluctance among young people to consider parenting; both because of concerns about overpopulation and because of concerns about what kind of world new children would be coming into. This openness about rethinking parenthood […]
In 2016 America, fitness status was strongly correlated with presidential voting preferences. Citizens of counties with high rates of Type 2 diabetes and obesity tended to vote for Donald Trump, regardless of their race or education level. Citizens of counties with low rates of Type 2 diabetes and obesity tended not to vote for Donald […]
Ann Finkbeiner: My son died, as did my husband; and so did parents and grandparents whom I loved dearly. I’ve written articles and LWON posts about grief, plus a book. So I consider myself a kind of expert, the kind who knows what she’s lived and read and what other people tell her. But I’ve […]
