SLOW LIFE
I have always been a slow reader. But lately, my pace seems to have slowed even more. One good book can take months to finish. Maybe my...
stories
for the information age
These bite-sized stories chronicle my efforts, both pitiful and successful,
to navigate the rapidly-changing world.
My hope is that they help you do the same.
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- Jul 31, 2021
- 1 min
SLEEP WATCHING
VERB. When you think you’re watching a show, but you’re actually asleep.
- Apr 15, 2021
- 2 min
THE LIFE WE WANT TO LIVE
In each of my childhood memories, smoke plumes across the scene. My parents smoked in the car, tipped ashes out of the triangular window,...
- Mar 26, 2021
- 1 min
NOCTURNE
All day I wait for night -- the cricket whir, the moonlight, the hush. If daylight belongs to all creatures, night is possessive; it...
- Mar 5, 2021
- 1 min
JUST SIT THERE
I read somewhere that 85% of cellphones have fecal matter on them. In other words, touching someone else’s phone is kind of like changing...
- Feb 11, 2021
- 2 min
IMAGE OVERLOAD
It was a cold winter evening when my future husband and I went to the Met with our figure drawing class. The night was brisk, but inside...
- Dec 18, 2020
- 1 min
ARE YOU A PHONE-CHECKER?
PEOPLE WHO DO NOT CHECK THEIR PHONES: Bert & Ernie Elton John, or so he says Virginia Woolf Newborn babies People who do not have phones,...
- Dec 3, 2020
- 1 min
OUT THERE
We are talking, laughing, nodding, pitching in to a communal hum. All of us. Together. Endorphins are being released with each I know...
- Nov 19, 2020
- 1 min
WHICH CAME FIRST?
For years, my friend and I argued over the question of her mother's drinking. Did her mother drink so much because she was in pain? Or...
- Oct 22, 2020
- 1 min
DISTRACTED?
Often, something in the book I am reading reminds me of something I ought to do on my phone. I read the word meteorologist, which prompts...
- Sep 24, 2020
- 1 min
COUNTING SLEEP
It has been one month since I kicked my cellphone out of the bedroom. And since that first evening, I've slept an average of...
- Aug 6, 2020
- 1 min
SLEEP TRAINING
One evening before bed, I get up all my strength and kick my phone out of the bedroom. Night, night, I tell my phone, as I place her on a...
- May 28, 2020
- 1 min
DREAM LIGHT
Daylight, back-of-eyelid light, bath light, kitchen light, fridge light, desk light, screen light, sunlight, daylight,...
- May 15, 2020
- 1 min
SOMETIMES MY SON
Sometimes my son comes into my office and sits down. He sits on the spare chair at my desk and looks at me. I stop what I am doing and...
- Apr 22, 2020
- 1 min
MAGIC 8 BALL
My smartphone is a Magic 8 Ball. It knows the answers to everything, especially now, with so much uncertainty. I just need to ask. I...
- Apr 10, 2020
- 1 min
BOGGLE
I have begun to play Boggle online up to 10 times a day. I am getting pretty good and now routinely beat the computer and earn over 300...
- Dec 31, 2019
- 1 min
THE RABBIT HOLE
I intend to accomplish one small thing, check the weather, for example, but I am waylaid by a text notification from my sister. The text...
- Dec 24, 2019
- 1 min
HATCH A PLAN
I hatch a plan to get my phone out of the bed. I have not slept more than 5 hours in months. I am grumpy and my brain no longer seems to...
- Dec 18, 2019
- 1 min
ONE THING I CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT
I’ve been invited to a holiday party in which the hostess has asked guests to bring “one thing you cannot live without” for a gift...
- Dec 10, 2019
- 1 min
SOMETHING IS EATING ME ALIVE
Sleep deprivation was, allegedly, one of the tactics employed to torture detainees at Guantanamo Bay. To get them to squeal. We can do...