Dear Rainy Day, Benjamin Zander tells a story about how his father used to say something along the lines of, “there’s no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.” Having grown up in the mid-west, and participated in my fair share of tornado warnings, I question if there may be exceptions to this rule. For instance, I’m uncertain what quantifies… Read more →
It’s February already; long past the time of ‘new year’s resolutions.’ The truth is, January this year, hit me with a thud. It was both good and wonderful, mixed with sorrow and lament. And so it’s February, and I’m just now writing this entry, although I did think a little about my tradition of ‘choosing a word.’ I have been… Read more →
Conversations about Empathy It was a crisp autumn day in September, and I was walking my local downtown with coffee in hand. On this particular afternoon, I was accompanied by a person (someone I happened to like a great deal) but someone who liked to … we’ll call it “summarize” other people. He had this obsessive habit; he’d pick out… Read more →
So you know when you’re reading textbooks, and they have those little boxes to the side with extraneous information? Say, you’re reading about the revolutionary war, and there’s a little box about Quilting in Colonial America? Or you’re reading about the landing on the moon and you find an aside telling you about Walter Cronkite? They’re the little bits of… Read more →
A while back, I wrote a post regarding empathy and how cultivating empathy was a necessary pathway to wellness. I do not believe empathy is something that immediately comes to people’s minds when they’re talking about wellness. I say, ‘I want to study nutrition’ and you think, Food? Calories? Exercise? Weight loss? And perhaps rightfully so. I think most of… Read more →
I admit I was a latecomer to the resolutions this year. In many ways, 2016 felt like having a child and then refusing to name it until I had a chance to actually see it in action— *sits in arm chair, smoking my pipe, musing with a heavy British accent* ey? maybe I’ll dub thee at the end of the… Read more →
This morning as I opened my Google mail, I was intrigued by an e-mail from The Institute of Functional Medicine regarding a 2012 study published in PLOS ONE. The experiment involved a specific genetic trait and measured the response regarding the placebo effect. Patients with irritable bowel syndrome were put in one of three categories: 1) They were put on a long waiting list for treatment 2) They were… Read more →
I call them the Solomon days. I anticipate your blank stares. What do you mean the Solomon days? I understand. I texted my cousin those words a few days ago, telling him, I was falling into the Solomon days and he said, ‘I don’t know what that is…to the cloud!’ but Google doesn’t seem to have a repertoire or reference… Read more →
A few weeks ago, when I was in Missouri, I was going through stacks of books. My parents basement has an entire closet that is full of boxes of my books. When I moved my space was limited, my destination uncertain, and so it seemed prudent to leave a lot of them in storage. Slowly and surely I’ve moved them…bit… Read more →
Disclaimer: The author spent minimal amounts of time doodling the featured atlas—as such it’s exact and precise validity cannot be fully held to any serious scrutiny. Should a passerby attempt to use this map as any kind of functional guide, they should do so at their own risk recognizing that exact details may, and most certainly will, vary greatly due… Read more →
