Culture

In 2021, I earned more in a month than I had earned in all of 2018. I was 26.  Given all the buzz about oligarchy this year, I’ve been reflecting on the psychological experience of sudden material abundance: Becoming wealthier made me realize how much easier life is when your access to money is practically […]

Originally, this essay was supposed to be about the futility of extreme New Year’s resolutions. There were going to be jokes about announcing your intent to leave Instagram on Instagram; reflections on the cultural amnesia of skidding into yet another January 1 with a vague commitment to “meditate daily,” only to duly abandon it by […]

For the last four years, we’ve spent Thanksgiving with a few of my husband’s brothers and their families in a Colorado ski town (though the trip is far more “cheese boards” than “snowboards”). Every Black Friday after hanging out in the condo’s living room for two days, we venture out to the main village.  There’s […]

The other morning, I woke up with a strange impulse: I wanted to go to the mall. Work had been particularly intense for a couple of weeks, so wandering around a giant commercial space that smells like someone spritzed an Auntie Anne’s pretzel with Chanel No. 5 sounded like irresistible frivolity. This happens every few […]