Everything applies to everyone in one way or another, so why don’t we write shorter things? A war in Ukraine excuses price gouging by billion-dollar gas companies that leads to higher food prices that make your kid’s English teacher quit right before finals to get a better paying job and then the school says they’ll just cancel the English test altogether and you wonder what this…

Part 1: Ask to be let in — A week ago, on the first hot Saturday of the summer, a friend invited me to a rooftop shindig. I had to text my RSVP to a number, get waitlisted and wait several days with my calendar clear. …

Thoughts from a New Yorker on a perfect moment — The color scheme was designed by Magritte, and the sun decided to be hot. Frequently, Springtime sun is wan, sort of like a teenager who knows they have work to do but honestly just can’t be bothered. Today the sun was driven, excited, feeling artistic. …

you might be surprised — I was born in Texas. We had a six-foot rattlesnake in our dryer that my dad killed with a shovel while the four kids watched. When we propped the doors open so the breeze could come in, tarantulas the size of your open palm would lurk in the upper corner…

Twelve years ago, without an MBA or really any kind of administrative experience, I founded a nonprofit. …

Hint: it wasn’t at a coffee shop — I love this City. Passionately love it. I love the weirdos who scream at each other in the middle of the street. I love the trippy architectural details from long-ago myth loving architects. Unfortunately, I live walking distance to City Hall, and with the recent Supreme Court leaks, and typical…

creative writing as an act of courage — Courage is the ability to persist despite insurmountable odds. By logic, that means to be discouraged is to face insurmountable odds and just…stop. Being a writer is a courageous profession. First of all, no one thinks of you as an artist but you. If you’re lucky, friends and family think…

and despair for anything else — Let me begin by thanking you. Writers without readers are a lot like a zoo without any patrons. The cool animals are there and they make the same sounds, stand glamorous on their little hills, preening and flaunting fancy manes or feathers, occasionally bickering and swiping each others’ apple slices…