My Wonderful Life™ (On Instagram)
I’ve come across a number of articles in the media lately criticizing Instagram for giving us all distorted, unrealistically perfect impressions of one another’s lives. In ESPN’s heart-breaking story about Penn student Madison Holleran’s suicide, the author wrote, “Checking Instagram…
Existentialist Crisis 2015, aka San Juan Solstice 50 Race Report
“It’s a waste to chase the pipe dream of a magical tiny theory that allows us to make quick and detailed calculations about the future. We can’t predict and we can’t control. To accept this can be a source of…
Only Small Things: Reflections on Excess
“You think you have to want more than you need. Until you have it all, you won’t be free.” – Jerry Hannan, “Society” This week, I’ll be moving. Again. My ninth move in the past seven years. In the weeks…
The Secret That’s Haunted Me
Once upon a time, a boy I’d recently started dating peered into my eyes and asked me, “What’s your secret?” “Huh?” I said. “Everyone has a secret,” he said. “So. What’s yours?” It was the most intimate question I’d ever…
In Praise of the Desert: A Road Trip
I am not a desert person. I know some of these people—the “desert rats”—who feel at home, at peace, among the sand and stone and open sky. I am not, at least by nature, one of those people. I do…
