I’ve been anxiously anticipating the drafting of this piece for weeks … but especially the last few days, promising myself I’d celebrate the close of 2023 by gushing about my favorite reads of the year. And yay! It’s now December 31, and I’m officially at liberty to take a peek back over my reading from …
I’m currently at a writing retreat in Taos, New Mexico. It’s led by one of my favorite people, and this is my second time attending (last time was in 2019, and you can read my pre-retreat anxiety post here). The differences this time are meaningful. For starters, because I’ve been to this location before, I …
I left my last work role because of decisions made by others, for reasons*. Unpacking the trauma and resulting disequilibrium around that has been the ongoing challenge of my last 16 months or so. Today, I’m not going to write about that unpacking process specifically, but I do want to write a bit (for my …
It took me less than 24 hours at the Braver Angels convention in Gettysburg, Penn., this week to grasp—in a visceral and disappointing way—that the organization and I are not a good fit. I boarded a plane to take me home only a few hours later, flooded with questions about whether I had failed the …
This morning, I finished reading adrienne maree brown‘s short book, We Will Not Cancel Us: And Other Dreams of Transformative Justice. I needed to read this book–and, probably, you do, too. brown’s central thesis is that progress does not happen when we are constantly engaging in call-out culture. brown is focused on the behavior of …
When we’re young, I think we all imagined that one day, we’ll be famous. At least, I know I did. I remember watching The Disney Channel as a kid, especially The Mickey Mouse Club (the early 1990s revival, starring future superstars like Christina Aguilera and Tony Lucca and Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake and Ryan …
After basically just not writing this post last year — why? I have no idea — I’m back for my sixth (mostly) annual installment of my favorite reads from the last year. Before I get started, please note that these are my favorite reads of 2022, not my favorite books of 2022. Why the distinction? …
The Airing of Grievances I’ve never been one to celebrate the secular holiday of Festivus, brought into the public consciousness in the 1990s by Seinfeld. Festivus includes several components: an unadorned aluminum foil pole, an airing of grievances, and a physical strength challenge, along with a meal and labeling easily explainable events as “Festivus miracles.” …
“I know you don’t want to hear this, Liz, but I really think you’re on the spectrum.” A friend said this to me during a particularly tense phone conversation back in the spring. It wasn’t the first time they’d suggested I might have Autistic traits, but it was the most forcefully they’d expressed it. When …
I was chatting with someone a couple of days ago, working through how I’m feeling about this season in my life. For the last few months (let’s call them “summer”), I’ve been faaaaaar less ‘productive’ than my normal pace of life. If you’ve been around for more than a minute, you know that doing a …
