Design Basics

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.

Dec 23, 2022
1 min

ON A WEDNESDAY MORNING

As I wrap your gift, I have the irrational desire to somehow shield you from the terrible emptiness the holidays can bring. It is an...

Dec 5, 2022
1 min

PLEASE PASS THE BABY

On Thanksgiving, we passed the baby around. We took turns holding her, swaying her in our arms. We ate cheese and crackers, and then we...

Oct 4, 2022
1 min

BEFORE LOVE

If you snip a few of the blooms that grow on the garden edge with sharp shears. If you cut in pursuit of beauty, in the hope of bringing...

Jul 28, 2022
1 min

WHEN WE WERE APART

There were no cellphones back then. Back then, when we were apart, we wrote letters to each other. On legal pads, or binder paper. In...

Nov 11, 2021
1 min

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...

Oct 7, 2021
1 min

THE BODY

When women are together for any period of time, eventually, we talk about our bodies. We talk about our skin, our knees, our hair—so much...

Jul 20, 2021
1 min

VACATION

One summer, we rented a house by the bay. The house was full of spiders and the kitchen smelled of food gone bad. While my husband took...

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 26, 2021
1 min

NOTHING TO READ

I was twelve years old when I read The Old Man and the Sea for the first time. I was terribly moved by it, by its stark beauty and by the...

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...

Jan 27, 2021
1 min

FLORIBUNDA

At dusk, when I step outside to get the mail, a half-moon hangs overhead. This is January in California and the year is 2021. The Santa...

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 10, 2020
1 min

THE LONGING

My life so far can be divided into chapters of longing. Longing for attention, for safety, for being wanted, for babies, for knowing...

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...

Nov 1, 2020
1 min

SOME WITH BLUE BOXES

I sent my son, who is away at college, his ballot. He researched all the propositions, weighed their intentions, thought through the...

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...

Oct 15, 2020
1 min

SCRAWL

I keep two notebooks on my desk. The first notebook is over-sized – I bought it at an extravagant home store and thought, this will...