If you haven't downloaded the free livestreaming app Periscope, now's the time! Here it is on Google Play and iTunes. This is the place where you'll get: A lecture (in English!) on digital strategy from a university in Denmark A tour of the Coliseum, where your tourguide greets you and answers your questions while you're still in bed The state of a bulldog in England from his owners Greetings from people in Hawaii just getting off work Musicians in New Zealand jamming That's

Writing is different from wanting to write. Writing is sometimes figuring it out as you go. It took me awhile to accept this-- that I didn't necessarily have to, and actually couldn't, figure out everything perfectly in my head before committing it to the written word. That's not to say I think every thought needs to be published unedited. But there are probably a number of us who think a lot-- a LOT-- about our writing more than we allow ourselves the delicious freedom of ju

Like countless others, I love writing and struggle find time to do it. Last weekend, I had the unusual opportunity to hole up in a cafe on my own for awhile and write. Since it's near the end of NaNoWriMo, this was really useful. I'm facing the facts-- it's going to be very tough to catch up on my word count, but I'm going to try. Listening to Radiolab on the way to the cafe, I had to smile. When I tuned in, the program was investigating how children acquire language, and ask

I've always had a particular appreciation for having a sense of touch. Even as a kid, I loved hands. I admired their structure, the many bones, the sensitivity of fingertips, the marvelous connection they had with the brain so that a hand could cradle an egg or grip a brick-- a feat that apparently computer scientists also appreciate. That appreciation extends to all kinds of physical sensation and abilities of the body. I love dance, a love that was intensified and deepened

A queue for TV I want to see is something like a list for books I want to read. It's full of hope and mystery and anticipation. There might be a time in my life when I can luxuriate enough to watch this and read that! Indulging in these kinds of lists is what makes life worth living. In that spirit, here's my current list. it changes depending on what my friends are watching. Despite that, I still haven't seen The Walking Dead or really much of Game of Thrones. The beauty of

Yoga is a funny thing. I've enjoyed going to classes here and there, but never stuck with a practice. Especially with kids, it always seemed too expensive or too time consuming. I'd tried doing exercise at home with various YouTube channels and DVDs. That didn't stick, either. Sleepy kids would sneak out of their bedrooms at night to see what was playing on the screen. Mornings would get too chaotic to actually finish a workout in time. Should I have woken up earlier, when th

If you're going to pay someone to deliver ingredients and recipes to your door, what can you expect? The right ingredients, recipes you can follow, and a timely delivery so you can put it all together. Blue Apron delivers- at least so far. We've now enjoyed three meals* created from the service, and it's actually been better than I've expected. As promised, there are no wasted ingredients-- there's just enough of everything, as called for in the recipes. We get the four-perso

The grand thing about growing up and being a grown up is that there are fewer rules I balk at following. Mostly, the laws I encounter in my everyday life are ones that seem reasonable. I've got no shell companies or overseas bank accounts, so the laws I encounter are more about slowing down in the school zone. Which I do, which I do. Having kids in elementary school is a return to rules that chafe my soul. Don't get me wrong- I was a rule follower if ever there was one. I was

I never thought I'd take the leap and sign up for one of these ingredient-delivery services. But I don't know why I was slightly resistant. I had, after all, been a pretty regular subscriber to one CSA (community supported agriculture) box or another over the years. This was just one step beyond that. The ingredients were simply measured for a specific recipe instead of being whatever was freshly harvested from the farm. Once I read this post on the Blue Apron website, which

I signed up to participate in Blog Action Day, which was on October 16. Clearly, I'm a few weeks late, but this topic, sadly, is as timely as ever. Writers, still and ever, are key disseminators of knowledge and culture around the world. Control the thinkers' writing, prevent people from becoming readers, and you have the beginnings of basic enforcement of a dictatorship. PEN International has long been an international champion of freedom of speech for writers to "promote li

The thing about these 30 day writing challenges is that it can be so emotionally draining to worry about the writing and to want to, to long to do the writing, that you have nothing left for the writing itself. That's been my deal every year the past few years, and, unsurprisingly, it hasn't been limited to writing challenges. Worrying about planning, worrying about parenting, worrying about working has been such an integral part of my daily life -- along with calming my worr

This isn't my first time at the National Novel Writing Month rodeo. I first signed up on the website four years ago. And I met up with my local group regularly three years ago and again am doing it again this year. I've never "won" (which is what NaNoWriMo calls it when you hit 50,000 words by November 30). But this year, I'm on track to make it! So what's different? - Most important for me: The physical difference. Feeling what it feels like to move my fingers on a keyboard

Though she was born at the end of October, our elder daughter decided to celebrate her birthday this year on November 1st. We spent the day at an amusement park with three of her friends. It was our first time there; we kept the paper map out and spent a lot of time walking back and forth along the same path, seeing new things as we went. November 1, in a way, turned out to be a great day to try something new to celebrate her new year. The start of this particular new month,