On patience
For most of my life, I have thought of patience merely as the ability to suppress the expression of one’s impatience. For most of my life, I have been an inept practitioner of patience in this form. Friends call it brutal honesty, family calls it “being German.” There is a Twitter account dedicated to my [...]
Milking memories for all they’re worth
There are a lot of things I do not miss about my days as a student-athlete: Getting up at 4 a.m. to prep for shows, raising money by cleaning up after parties in the football stadium’s skyboxes on Sunday mornings, practice in hundred-degree heat and frigid sloppy rain, running suicides. But there is one thing [...]
The Trials of Being a Considerate Person
I was lucky enough to get to spend part of this week in San Francisco for work. (Yes, I know, my life is so difficult.) Though I’ve never lived in SF or otherwise spent a great deal of time in the Bay Area, I’ve somehow ended up with a disproportionate number of friends there. So [...]
Soaking in the moments, swaying to the music
First irregularly timed Jayhawks (aka Ladies of @tribapps) planning meeting convened at XOCO. Consensus=omg churros! twitter.com/hbillings/stat… — Heather Billings (@hbillings) April 7, 2012 I swore to myself that I was going to leave early for work today in order to attend 7 p.m. Good Friday service. That would leave plenty of time, I decided, to [...]
Little bro is all grown up
Carson has always liked wrapping presents twice (or more), just because it makes it more difficult to open. So I knew when I got an envelope with another envelope inside it that it was from him. “CRAIG SCHOOL OF BUSINESS” read the front of the card. “CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, FRESNO.” My little brother is graduating [...]
Wearin’, seein’, and drinkin’ o’ the green
From the Fourth of July on the steps of the Capitol with Dad, to my first New Years Eve party here in Chicago with Mom (yes, with Mom), this year has been one of celebrating holidays that I normally ignore. (I’m boring. I can’t help it.) Last week, I checked off another unlikely celebration: St. [...]
The Billings kids eat Chicago
I’ve been in Chicago long enough now (six months!) that it seems odd to me to realize that only 3/4 of my immediate family has been to visit me. My brother, stuck in his last semester of college, hadn’t made it out to my new flyover state home — until yesterday. He and fifteen of [...]
Thousand-mile pancakes
Sludge and I went home. We had to think about the case. I made pancakes for myself. I gave Sludge a bone. —Nate the Great and the Stolen Base Nate the Great was one of my most-loved books as a child. (Or maybe it was my dad’s most-loved book. I’m not exactly sure.) Whenever the [...]
Like little balls of sunshine
The Blossom Trail — a 60-some mile stretch through the Central Valley’s orchards — is just starting to kick into gear this time of year. There will be stretches of peach, almond, apricot and plum trees in almost impossibly bright shades for the next month or so. But first, before any of them, come the [...]
Introverts and the people they love
“So, if you feel like an impromptu road trip this weekend…” began the text message. Three days later — this past Sunday — I was speeding across Indiana with my friend Hannah, heading toward Ohio and our good friends Sam and Leen, whom neither of us had seen for nearly six years. I didn’t think [...]