‘Tis the season! In honor of all you fresh-faced grads, still hopeful and not yet filled with self doubt, here is a list of my favorite commencement speeches. Listen, be inspired, and — when you realize that no one cares what you think — don’t let it get you down for...

I heard a story as a child about a Christmas tree that had been selected from a whole forest of trees. It was an honor to have been chosen. But when Christmas Day came and the candles were lit and the family surrounded the tree to sing carols, the tree trembled in fear that a branch would...

I-35 cuts across the U.S. top to bottom – like a scar from open-heart surgery – from Laredo, Texas to Duluth, Minnesota, my hometown. There, it turns into Highway 61 of Bob Dylan fame – the scenic North Shore that hugs Lake Superior all the way up to Canada. Duluth is a quiet, orderly...

Between episodes of The Real Housewives of New Jersey, I’ve been contemplating non-violence.   I recently picked up a copy of The Sociopath Next Door, by Dr. Martha Stout (don’t ask). In it, she discusses an experiment that Stanley Milgram performed in 1961, just a few months after the trial...

I recently stumbled across a video by Professor Brene Brown, who referenced the following statistic by Researcher James R. Mahalik: In the U.S., the top [things womenneed to do to conform to female norms] are be nice, thin, modest, and use all available resources for appearances. For men, the...

I still remember the following poem that I wrote in college. It perfectly embodies my college angst (which I have yet to outgrow). I think I wrote it at Walter Library, where students had to sign into and out of because people had been known to get lost (or perform other shenanigans) in the...

There is a popular poem by Nadine Stair called I’d pick more daisies. My grandma hung a version of it in the guest cabin that someone (my mom?) had hand-written in calligraphy. It had been there as long as I could remember; and I often read it during summer afternoons after escaping from the...

All those years of classical piano behind me, and I can’t really say that I miss it. My Grandpa Clarence was able to play the piano by ear, but I always felt I had inherited too much of my dad’s mathematical mind to just “let go and play.” (He even counts out loud when he dances. The Genovese...

Alice came to a fork in the road. “Which road do I take?” she asked. “Where do you want to go?” responded the Cheshire cat.  “I don’t know,” Alice answered. “Then,” said the cat, “it doesn’t matter.” -Lewis Carrol, Alice in Wonderland Beneath my seemingly sunny personality lurks a pessimist....

I was a little long in the tooth for the typical post-college adventure. I was 27, had already graduated from college, lived in Mexico for a year, and worked as a secretary for several years at an architecture firm. I knew I wasn’t doing anything particularly special with my life, but felt I...

My Grandma Pat died when I was 14. Afterward, my grandpa came across a picture of them on their honeymoon “You never know how good looking you are until it’s too late,” he said. They were in a fancy restaurant in Chicago, wearing, probably, their only extravagant clothing. She never looked...

Is there anything like an old friend? Not the kind you meet for drinks after work.  But the kind who knows what you mean when you say, “I just got off the phone with my dad.”  The kind who knows that grains of my adult self consciousness stem from a boy named Carl who called me a dog at the...

I’m not a vegetarian. When asked as a child what my favorite food was, I said steak. Rare. When I smell meat sizzling over a fire, something is triggered deep in the recesses of my mind. Something about hunting and gathering. Something primal, about survival. My reaction is not something I...

I’ve always been a bit embarrassed by my musical taste. While coworkers share their iTunes libraries and friends stream their playlists on Ping, I minimize my screen when someone walks by, sure of the judgement my iTunes library would invite. After all, one of my top ten songs is the theme...

My grandparents grew up in a generation where their social group was their family. Black and white pictures span decades – 4th of Julys at the cabin, baptisms, birthdays, and picnics of baked chicken up the north shore – involved in each other’s lives. Living across the country, far flung...

Walking into the hostel was like walking into a subculture I never knew existed. A piano stood in the corner, guitars hung from pegs on the wall, and battered couches and chairs were covered with mismatched sheets and blankets. Shelves overflowed with dog-eared travel books. A record player...

Mom sits at the cabin in the screenporch she and dad just remodeled. She sits on the new wicker couch they bought from Pier One. It replaced the orange car seat grandpa put there ten years ago, before he lost his mind and tried to kill grandma. “The neighbor was going to throw it out!” he had...

My parents met when they were both 21. My dad, an avid golfer, saw in my mom an athletic wife who would impress his friends with her ability to drive the ball a respectable distance, as well as the attractive manner in which she filled out her golf pants. “We wanted the same things,” he’d...

I heard a story as a child about a Christmas tree that had been selected from a whole forest of trees. It was an honor to have been chosen. But when Christmas Day came and the candles were lit and the family surrounded the tree to sing carols, the tree trembled in fear that a branch would...