For every story that makes it to print, there are scads that die in the reporting trenches. This is one of those stories. It originally ran in October 2013. In 2001, I moved to Bolivia to become a Peace Corps volunteer and fell deeply in love with the country. In 2010, I returned. I wanted […]
Miscellaneous
On the edge of a calm sea, watching the fog come in and out like a tide, I thought it might be a nice time to revisit this comics poem from December, 2018.
These thoughts on sneezing first ran back in October 2015, and I loved the responses. Feel free to share more examples of achoo styles from friends and family! —— When we were kids, my brother was the sneezer of all sneezers. There was never just one, or even two or three. It was always 17. […]
It’s been said and often quoted that 10,000 hours of doing anything will make you a master. Never mind the squishy definition of mastery that makes it apocryphal, I believe it. When the term mastery is used, I figure it’s not that you’ve risen flawlessly to becoming a great chef or engineer, but that you’ve […]
One of the finest editors I’ve ever known has died, and I’m heartbroken. David Corcoran was my first editor at the New York Times, but over the 12 years that I knew him he also became an advocate and a friend. David was kind and supportive like a good dad. His tenor let me know […]
Tim Ryan–a mostly forgettable startled-looking white man candidate for the Democratic nomination for president–just debuted a new hashtag and some accompanying merch: #YouDontHaveToYell
In 2015, Sarah Grimes picked up this river otter’s carcass on a rugged beach covered in tumbled sea glass. She removed its skin and flesh and soaked its bones first in warm water, then Borax. She kept each section of the skeleton — legs, paws, spine – in a separate mesh bag so the bones […]
Imagine I was to describe a creature to you. Something truly terrifying. Something out of a nightmare that no amount of drunken elves could wash away. It’s small enough to hide almost anywhere in your house but big enough to crawl up onto your bed at night. It drools, shits and pisses everywhere it goes. […]
