For my penultimate column, we’re going to time travel. Why? Because, unfortunately, all that’s old is new again. (And also it was better than other suggestions like settling scores and relitigating the 2016 Democratic primary). It’s the early 2010s. Suzanne Collins has just dropped what will be a new kind of Bible for the children…
It was mid-November and I was at the end of my rope. Cards on the table: I’d had a bad six months. I ended the spring with MonoStrep (a simultaneous bout of mononucleosis and strep throat) and started the fall with a cold-turned-lung infection-turned-perforated eardrum. Sexy, I know. Not everything was going wrong—I have a…
When it comes to sports, I was wrong and pretty much everyone else was right. That’s the short version, at least. I grew up in a family of sports fans. Mainly football, baseball, and tennis, but really anything if it was on and exciting enough. My family dragged me to games, and in turn I…
No one knows how eels have sex. Actually, let me be a little more specific. No one knows how European eels (also known as Anguilla anguilla) have sex. I don’t remember where or when I first learned about this—probably from some pretentious podcast or something—but I think about it semi-frequently. I’m bored riding the Comm….
Imagine opening the door of your home to a horde of small, female strangers exuding awkwardness, shoving a dozen donuts in your face and yelling, “These are for you!” Nightmare? Dream come true? Who’s to say? Either way, my neighbors don’t have to imagine—they lived this predicament last Tuesday when they met me and my…
Last year, it seemed that the universe was against me. Or, at least it was against my investigative ventures, all of which ended in failure. I could sense the cosmic tides were changing, though, when the first family dinner of the holiday season coincided with Festivus (arguably the greatest meme holiday of all). To my…
I make myself cry probably once a week. To be clear, it’s not because I’m sad (usually). It’s because I find myself so intensely hilarious that I will laugh until I’m crying profusely at my own joke—a joke that I often don’t even say out loud. I will tell myself a joke, in my head,…
For the past five days, I have been keenly, uncomfortably aware of the fact that there was something I was supposed to do that I decided to forget to do. I’ve been walking around with that kind of guilty, kind of mentally-fuzzy feeling I used to get when my mom asked me to do something,…
Since my last column, I’ve rapidly gained a reputation as the trail-blazing, gorgeous lead reporter covering the skunk beat of Boston College. Two (that’s 2!) strangers approached me about my investigative work, which I’m pretty sure makes me BC famous. At first, I was honored—elated, even; but soon, just like all of the superheroes of…
I stood in front of my closet this weekend with a single question in mind: What does one wear to a skunk hunt? Is it bad, I wondered, to wear all black and blend into the night? After all, I wasn’t trying to hide too effectively and then scare the skunk into spraying me. My…
