First snowmelt, and a month of dry, but the rain finally comes, and everything is flowers, for a time.
Month: April 2021
I first met Julia Galef while reporting a story about rational thinking for Discover Magazine back in 2014. Galef is co-founder of the Center for Applied Rationality, which she was directing at the time. I attended one of the workshops on rationality that CFAR puts on and was instantly impressed with Galef’s ability to question […]
With spring on its way, I feel like a creature coming out of a long hibernation. It’s now been more than a year since I’ve paid for a haircut or eaten at a restaurant, but there are some long overdue tasks I’m getting back on track with. One of those is taking my dog to […]
When I was 16, I went off to be a kayaking instructor at a Boy Scouts camp in Ontario called Opemikon. The camper population was divided into little kids and big kids, and I was the only girl on staff watching the big kids, so I got my own platform tent whereas everyone else had […]
Pete has a poison oak rash in his armpit. The backs of my knees and left shoulder blade are starting to itch. It’s a sign of spring—a sign that last weekend, for the first time in a while, we did something really good. No, not that. Last weekend we hopped fences, clambered over downed trees, […]
I. We’ve been slowly cutting back on meat. It’s better for us and better for the planet. Not to mention the exploited workers on the factory farms—did you see that John Oliver segment? After it came out, we said let’s take things one step further: No more buying meat for our household from the grocery […]
The other day I started counting scissors. Why? Because there’s a pandemic. That should be reason enough. But if you need more, it’s because, spending all this time at home, I got started thinking about how many tools I have that do more or less the same thing. The stand mixer, the hand mixer, the […]
Last spring, I wasn’t sure how to use Instagram. I mean, I technically knew how to use it. When I logged on, it was honestly keeping me going each day, watching everyone try to figure out what to do at home and seeing that they were just as uncertain as I was. People made sourdough […]