When I was about nine or ten years old, my grandmother came to live with us. I had never met her before. For all this time she was a distant relative living with my uncle in Uzbekistan, where we had immigrated from several years before. It wasn’t easy for my parents, both working full-time, to […]
“Twenty-six years ago, you played a game with a little boy down the street. A game with drums.” (Jumanji, 1995) I can remember watching Jumanji as a kid, and getting really into the “horrors” and surprises of the story. Floods! Stampedes! A man trapped in the jungle because of a game! Robin Williams didn’t stand […]
If you’ve lived through what feels like an endless winter haze (like we’ve seen here in the Northeast), the beginning of summer requires a celebration. Even on the sunniest days, it was just too hard to think that a new season was coming, but finally it’s July and the weather is fabulous. The Science of Summer […]
For years and years and years, I kept saying that I would spend some time interviewing my grandparents. They have a tremendous history both in their lives together, and separately. I won’t get into all of it here, except to share a part of an interview with my grandfather. They spent 68 years together and […]
The other night I picked up a phone call from a number that I’d been avoiding. I knew it was my former university calling for donations. A polite freshman introduced herself and asked me about my time there. What was memorable about my college experience? What was I doing now? Afterward she asked if I […]
Photo by Chevanon Photography via Canva
Apparently British people call their mothers at least once a week in the evening, according to a recent study cited by the Guardian. I found this article via Jezebel, and they asked whether this applies to the rest of us. I don’t know how legit this study is, so I’m going to put on my lab […]
Happy birthday to my brother who is actually not little at all — today he’s 21! He’s probably studying right now or making up on lost sleep time, so let me embarrass him quickly. First of all, let me tell you what it’s like having a younger brother. When we were kids, it was someone to […]
The other day I went to Facebook and did something simple: I scrolled through and watched a video someone had posted. What to do after that seemed complicated all of a sudden. I had a lot to say but found myself hesitating. Would this person find it strange that I wanted to leave a comment […]
What are the right questions? Some time ago I was browsing Pinterest and noticed someone shared one of my images. This person was Willo, the creator of LessThan3Questions.com*. When I discovered her site, the concept instantly drew me in. (*For those of you who didn’t grow up on the Internet, the title is actually this: < […]
Love isn’t easy to define. You can say it’s a feeling, or a lifestyle, or just a bunch of neurons going off in your brain. What I believed about how love should be shared has changed a lot since I was a teenager, but I still believe that what it really means is that you’re […]