The image of the midlife crisis is so familiar that most of us picture the same scene. Someone buys a sports car. Someone has an affair. Someone walks out of a stable life with a suitcase and a wild look in their eye. It makes for good drama. It ...Read More
I remember sitting in the airport, completely calm, certain I had everything right. I had checked in the night before, eaten something small, found a seat near what I was sure was my gate. It was only when the board refreshed that I realized the gate had changed ...Read More
Try something. Pick a writer whose work you admire — doesn't matter which one — and look up their daily routine. The internet is full of these. There are entire books made of them. The thing you will notice, after the third or fourth one, is that none ...Read More
I was not born in the 1970s. I missed the decade entirely. The closest I have come to a 1970s Sunday afternoon is a few faded photographs of my parents in clothes they would now disown, and the way certain Irish houses still smell on a winter weekend ...Read More
Most people write emails the way they talk. They warm up, drift, circle the point, and trust the reader to keep up. It mostly works. But the people whose emails are genuinely good to receive are doing something different, and once you start noticing it, you can't unsee ...Read More
It's easy to assume articulate people sound articulate. That they have a way with words. That they reach for unusual vocabulary, or speak in tidy paragraphs that arrive fully formed. In practice, the people who are easiest to follow rarely do any of that. Their sentences are often shorter ...Read More