Life
Why do people stand up the second the plane lands?
It rarely gets anyone off sooner. Why passengers leap up the moment the seatbelt sign goes off, when it's fine to stand, and why…
Subject
Life
The in-between moments, the honest truths, and the life we build as we go.
Life
Is it weird to go to the movies alone?
A cinema is the one social outing where talking to your companion is bad manners. Why going alone is the most natural way to…
Life
Yes, you can ask guests to take their shoes off
Your home, your floor, your rule. Why asking is perfectly reasonable, how much of the world already does it, and how to ask without…
Life
Slipping out of a party is not rude
The long goodbye can cost a party more than a quiet exit. When slipping out is the considerate choice, when it is plainly rude,…
Life
Why do people clap when the plane lands?
The applause on touchdown is rarely about the pilot. It is relief, made public for a moment, by strangers who will never see each…
Life
How to explain a career break on your CV
A gap feels bigger to the person who has it than to the person reading it. How to name it, show what you did,…
Life
Not every hobby has to become a side hustle
Be good at something outside work and someone will tell you to sell it. The case for keeping some pleasures unpaid.
Life
The little treat is doing a lot of work
Nothing is wrong with the pastry. What bothers me is the job it has been given.
Life
Why do we congratulate weight loss before we know why it happened?
“You’ve lost weight — you look amazing!” It is meant kindly. But weight loss has many causes, and some of them are the hardest…
Life
The mother who is never in the photos
In many families, the person taking the photographs is the one missing from them. On mothers, cameras and the quiet decision to stay out…
Life
Eleven minutes later, a colleague says the same thing
A field experiment found a 29.1 per cent callback rate for non-obese women against 21.3 per cent for obese women. What that costs at…
Life
Sunday afternoons belong to me now
It is twenty past one and I have achieved nothing. On rest that is not earned, the four o'clock dread, and why one protected…