what I learned upon losing a beloved I’m a fairly steady, practical person who had a wonderful albeit irregular relationship with a woman I am proud to be able to call a friend. She and I were very much connected through her son (my husband) and we frequently had long…

a fable for founders Once, there was a man who wandered around a lot. He was a cheerful man, loved people, liked helping out. Everyone liked him because of how enthusiastically he pitched in and helped them solve problems. He was a clever guy and he whistled beautifully. People envied…

“A Scene of Quiet Joy in the Sitcom Called Parenting Teens” SETTING: Interior, New York City. Acluttered home office near an apartment’s FRONT DOOR. A woman types on a LAPTOP, her face a little too close to the screen. TIME: present day, dinner time….well, maybe a few minutes later (a…

(and this is the kind of Spring we can expect) Today is the first day of Spring It is the kind of Spring where you open the window of your apartment and a cold breeze bites through your cozy pajamas, but you leave the window open because everyone says it…

You already knew this, but I bet you haven’t thought about it — Think back to your childhood, however remote or recent it is. I guarantee that at your lowest point, you listened to music. Whether this was an album, an 8track, a cassette or mixtape, or more recently a YouTube video, a playlist, or just a song on Spotify (or whatever the…

because people keep asking — This post is for tourists. Visitors. Couch-surfers and hotel denizens. Day trippers and those that are just passing through. For anyone who has ever stopped in Manhattan for a coffee with me and asked, “What’s it like to live here?” The answer is multifold, like the maps we no longer…

I have always been an avid reader. The first career I wished for, back when my third grade classmates were aspiring doctors or teachers or rock stars was (are you sitting down?) book critic. Yes. Book critic. Some clever librarian in a school library in Texas (or more likely some…

Cannabis takes over Lower Manhattan, in pictures — A Downtown Alliance publication reported that at one City Council hearing Gale Brewer was informed they may be up to 14,000 illegal shops in the city. I can tell you that on my one city block alone, these shops have opened:

learning from collective misery — I have a book club text group. We are avid readers, longtime friends, and truly love ideas. However, we have never managed to discuss a single book collectively because someone in the group was always was too busy to read to the end, and the rest of us have always…