What’s Normal About Work, Anyway?

JP just returned from a week’s vacation, and needless to say, I am inordinately excited to see him. This isn’t as much of a given as it might seem at first. One of the semi-rules (semi in the sense that I feel free to break them) I have established for myself as a divorced father …

Heavy Weekend Rotation, or: Finding the Zone

I love spending the weekend with my boy. I do. He’s sweet and funny and not especially demanding, as 17-month-olds go. And at the end of it, I feel like I’ve just run the Ironman. My wife and I are, as a couple, not compromisers—we probably are trying to hold ourselves to a standard that’s …

California: the Beauty of Disaster

Last week–the same one in which Theodore was nearly abandoned on this blog, left to do all the important widget-making without us other writers–I was in Northern California. I have lived there for eleven years, on and off and on again, from adolescence into my 20’s. If I often feel like I’m in forced exile …

A Week on the Wagon: Matt on Mars edition

First, before reckoning with any of the posts added to the site this week, I think we have to address something disturbing and a little frightening: Matt chose to take a vacation somewhere that has no Internet access. Now, we all go on vacation from time to time (although why a travel writer needs to …