Finally, we’re nearing the year’s end — a time to rest, reset, and reflect. Even the apps on my phone are eager to review my year, feeding my own data back to me: Strava tells me how many miles I’ve biked, Reddit shows me the number of posts I’ve read, and Spotify feeds me a […]

Navajo legends speak of angry mountains that must be calmed with tobacco offerings. It’s one of the most ancient examples of intergenerational trauma in a people who have experienced plenty more since. The memories of the angry mountain in question have been lost, but a cultural nervousness around the harmless ranges of Arizona and New […]

When you’re exceedingly tiny, you can live almost anywhere – in an eyelash follicle, between grains of sand, or on an insect’s wing. You can probably find food and plenty of it, whether you prefer dead skin cells, blood, sap, or rotting vegetation. You can also get away with almost anything, like the male, deep […]

HELEN: I’m thankful for all the new skills I’ve developed in the last 2.5 years. That’s how I’ve kept myself sane in pandemic times. And I’m using them – I’m trying to make a bunch of Christmas tree ornaments with my quilting and embroidery skills by the first weekend in December, for example, and I […]

I wrote this in 2021 and originally published it in my newsletter. Almost two years later, I am still thinking about it, so please, if you know Crest’s copywriters, please reach out. — For unobservant people (me), product labels are background noise. I don’t pay much attention to the text on a package of toilet […]