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Finding Kinship in 'The Perils of Girlhood' Sep. 05, 2025
The worries we have as parents are tightly tethered to childhood experiences that shook us. Growing ... Read More
Praying That the Camp Mystic Families Find Meaning in the Madness Jul. 19, 2025
On July 16, 1945, the United States detonated the first nuclear bomb in New Mexico on what's now the... Read More
Stepping Up to the Microphone Jul. 18, 2025
When I was working full time as a professional speaker and make-believe celebrity, people would ask ... Read More
A Good Day and a Bad Night at the Pseudonymous Resort May. 23, 2025
As a speaker, my life involved getting paid to go to places where other people vacationed. Still, I ... Read More
Lunch Lady for a Day May. 17, 2025
Sometimes, I pretend to be a lunch lady. I volunteer for shifts helping out at my boys' elementary s... Read More
A Long, Strange Trip: Stairway to Heaven Version May. 02, 2025
The 60s were an off-kilter adventure (much of which actually happened in the 70s). Imagine yourself ... Read More
Transcript of a Call to an Internet Service Provider Apr. 19, 2025
The following is a transcript of a phone call you made last month to your internet service provider ... Read More
For Non-Depressing, Non-Political News -- Turn to Science Mar. 15, 2025
Maybe you're getting a little stressed out. Let's say it's increasingly difficult to ignore the poli... Read More
Brain Damage: Does Anyone Really Know What Time It Is? Mar. 14, 2025
A while back, I was speaking on an Asian cruise when I realized I could no longer figure out what th... Read More
How I Manage to Afford Santa Barbara Mar. 07, 2025
The aptitude test my high school guidance counselor gave me yielded a long, singularly unappealing l... Read More
Lighting the Torches of Others for Women's History Month Feb. 28, 2025
Just in time for Women's History Month, there's an essay collection called "Fast Famous Women" relea... Read More
Playin' It Safe: One Writer's Guide to Cowardice Nov. 15, 2024
As an enemy of the people, or "journalist" as we were called in the pre-Trumpian eras of light, I am... Read More
It's Jonathan Franzen's Fault That I Don't Like Him Aug. 24, 2024
I hate Jonathan Franzen. I know, I know, he's a Great Author(TM). Super talented, apparently. But I ... Read More
Eulogy for a Mentor Jul. 13, 2024
A mentor of mine died last night. She'd been sick, with leukemia, and had undergone both a stem cell... Read More
Diners and AI May. 17, 2024
Artificial Intelligence is a huge concern among people in my business because first of all, we think... Read More
We All Deserve Space To Pursue Our Dreams Apr. 12, 2024
The Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop saved me from making a huge mistake last week. I emailed my edito... Read More
Erma Bombeck's Great Work Lives On at the University of Dayton Feb. 16, 2024
I was unloading the car I'd rented when my neighbor asked where I'd gone. "The University of Dayton,... Read More
Be Brave And Dream Big This Year Jan. 05, 2024
Cleaning out a storage bin I found one of my journals from high school. The entry on Sunday, Nov. 3,... Read More
In a World Full of Distractions, We Have to Know Our Purpose Oct. 13, 2023
If we don't understand our purpose — why we do the things we do — we allow ourselves to ... Read More
Is Your Company Playing the Name Game? Oct. 05, 2023
Blame it on the internet. If it wasn't for the internet, we wouldn't have giant tech companies and ... Read More
