Look Alive Out There: Essays

There may be a Nurse Ratched–like listing of things that must be done right this moment: foods that must come out of the freezer, appointments that must be canceled or made, hairs that must be tweezed. But you hold an imaginary gun to your head and make yourself stay at the desk. There is a vague pain at the base of your neck. It crosses your mind

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A question women often ask one another is: “What do you do?” It may refer to a skin-care or exercise regimen, or a set of dietary restrictions, or how you manage to get out of the office with zero emails in your in-box, but I think the question—which basically boils down to “How do you live your life?”—is rarely posed out of nosiness. Maybe it’s ge

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Emanating from these lives are larger questions about the measure of a good life and what it means to leave a lasting mark of betterment on an imperfect world: Are achievement and acclaim enough for happiness? Is genius? Is love? Weaving through the narrative is a set of peripheral figures — Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Darwin, Elizabeth Barrett Br... See more

I know now I was grieving something , the death of an ambition. I started attending reading events at Green Apple Books, my local bookstore, because it was something I liked in grad school, and I had to get myself out of the house. Going to those events was (is) a way of traveling without moving; they have afforded me an incredibly valuable educati... See more