True friends bring you edelweiss
I hadn’t seen Hannah since 2006, but when she came to visit me last weekend, it felt like I’d just seen her a few months ago. (One of the perks of moving all over the country has definitely been getting to connect with friends that I haven’t seen in years.) While we were hanging out [...]
Brr!
One “advantage” to having most of your family in a warmer climate is getting constant reminders of how cold it is where you are. “The Weather Channel says it feels like minus four there,” wrote Mom helpfully in an email to me today. “Do you have plenty of supplies in case you get snowed in? [...]
A resolution of sorts
I have a confession. I’ve always sort of looked down on people who make New Year’s resolutions. I’ve never understood why resolutions should be the sort of thing made only once a year, or why it’s okay to put off doing something you know you should be doing, like getting healthier. I’m a person of [...]
Overheard in the newsroom
The newsroom is a pretty crazy place, and journalists are just a little bit loopy sometimes. Here are a few of the more entertaining things I’ve heard in the past month, including a couple of things from yours truly that got “oh-ayched” on Twitter. “That’s the smell of synergy.” (On how often geeks do laundry.) [...]
On being a woman
Outside Tribune Tower is an enormous statue of Marilyn Monroe. She straddles a giant replica of a subway grate, bent over, head thrown back in the classic Seven-Year Itch pose. (It’s become a favorite game of mine, when I need a break, to go to the lunchroom and see how many people in a fifteen-minute [...]
The sound of Christmas
If you haven’t seen XKCD’s take on Christmas music, you should go look at it now. It’s an amusing, and all-too-true, chart of when the most popular Christmas songs originally aired. The majority are from what’s colloquially called “the mid-century.” You know, the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s. The guys and I were discussing this at [...]
Oh, for the love of God…
Journalism is one of those things that requires a lot of fine-line walking. You look at your own biases so carefully that you almost become afraid of them. This is especially true when your biases — your opinions, hopes, dreams, and beliefs — tend toward the easily caricatured and oft misunderstood. The predominating thought says [...]
Snow!
“25, feels like 16,” I texted my best friend Sarah. “I thought you were talking about ages, not temperatures :-p” was the response. I’d never felt 16 degrees before. To my surprise, it really wasn’t that much worse than 30 (at least until the wind kicked up and went right through my thick wool coat). [...]
Anybody, any time, anywhere
Anyone who knows me well knows that sports are something I enjoy about as much as woolen underpants. I don’t understand most sports’ rules, I can’t sit still that long, and I don’t like the thought of people ripping one another apart over a ball. Despite that, just for a moment, let me raise the [...]
Charcoal and code
All the many strange and difficult-to-explain things that I do can be summed up rather neatly: I am a maker of things. It’s a very generic description, but I have discovered that it is an important distinction. Some people are orchestrators of things, and in fact without them, makers of things would probably never get [...]