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 [...]
chestnuts
Growing up in California, the Christmas lyrics, “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire / Jack Frost nipping at your nose” had very little meaning for me. (The only Jack Frost I was familiar with sold bags of ice.) Here in Chicago, as temperatures dip and people in my office start to talk about snow (“It’s [...]
Things I’ve Learned, Chicago Edition
It’s been a while since I’ve written here. Adjusting to a new pace of life is weird and hard. I find myself working late just because if I come home, I don’t know what to do with myself. (My dishes, floors, and bathroom should be much cleaner than they are as a corollary to this.) [...]
Hollywood:beauty::supermarkets:produce
“I grew up in open land. I’m not comfortable in the city. And until you have walked and worked in the fields of Central California, I’m not sure you can really understand what it is like to see them gone.” — Arthur Parham There’s an earthy realness in a fresh-grown vegetable. You can hear it [...]