Years ago, I received some excellent advice. Like any can-do young person, I’d taken all the odd jobs that came my way. If I saw something at work that needed doing, I’d do it – no complaints. I worked long hours, I held down the fort. I made improvements, I took on extra tasks. I…
I don’t like when people say “First world problems” dismissively. I get it: sometimes, people complain about ridiculous things, and it’s fun to make fun of them. I do it too. I like to reference the Mugatu Latte scene from the first Zoolander when I do it, but not always. Sometimes something like this will…
I recently finished reading Eula Biss’ award-winning On Immunity: An Inoculation. A confession: at one point, I bought only expensive dairy products at Whole Foods because I was skeptical of our local dairy industry. I thought, if I paid more for my yoghurt, the cows would be treated better. I also thought: “It can’t be good for me,…
This is the post I wrote before an encounter at the Winners changeroom: The book I just finished (more on that tomorrow) has me thinking about science. I am not a scientist, but I see the appeal. I think of Neil deGrasse Tyson: “The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not…
While part of me – the rational, logical part of me – wants to dismiss that luck exists at all – another part of me – the empathetic, humble, kind part of me – cannot. Often, I’ll think: “‘Luck’, that’s just something we use to explain what science hasn’t figured out yet”; or “‘Bad luck’?…
A piece on the New York Times website gave me pause today, specifically this line: It’s impossible not to have favorites, and we do know that the perception of favoritism is one of the biggest factors in sibling rivalry… Yes – that one sentence is a direct quote from a pediatrician and professor at Johns…
When Fallout 4 came out, M played it a lot. It’s a video game set in the remains of Boston following a nuclear war. There are all sorts of post-apocalyptic beings; ghouls, feral beasts, super mutants. Watching it one day, I was confused. “But this isn’t what would happen after a nuclear apocalypse. Humans wouldn’t…
I follow some news sites, the ones with cool photography archives, on Instagram. The other day, I noticed this comment under one of the New York Times’s posts: The one from “farmers_kitchen” – not the one like: “Oh woah”, or the heart emoticon. I’m looking at the one that says “Lupus can be stopped with…
I once bought a small hematite rock from a crystal healing stand. I’d gone with a friend to have our palms read, and the reader also sold polished rocks that were said to have powers like “help overcome addiction”. At the time, I was working with children between 7 and 10. When they complained to…
