Category: Notions
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On Learning How to Notice
Turns out a daily blogging habit is hard. I had a good run of about a week in November, before I stopped. For me, it’s hard to come up with ideas worth writing about. (Don’t read my morning pages, lest you learn how nonsensical a writer’s sleepy morning thoughts can be.) But when I listened…
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A Cacophony of Collective Nouns
A pride of lions. A school of fish. A flamboyance of flamingos — yep. I had a bee in my bonnet today (not a hive of them, mind you) about collective nouns. I love them. They’re poetic, they’re nonsensical, they’re fun to think about. A shrewdness of apes. A parliament of owls or — alternatively,…
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On Citrus Season
Growing up, calamansi was my favorite little fruit. My mom used in so many Pinoy dishes — in our house, there was always a bit of calamansi steeped in some soy sauce, or sprinkled over garlic rice. The fruit was so sweet, the pith so tart and slightly bitter. When we didn’t buy it from…
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Dispatch | 11.17.19
Raise your hand if you’re tired. That seems to be the current collective, universal state of things. Tiredness knows no creed, no political party, no religion. Tiredness is in the water, it runs to our marrow. And it shows no signs of abating. As the world turns increasingly dark — from here in the U.S.…
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We Should All Be Forest Bathing
Lately, I’ve spent many weekend mornings wandering passed towering steel tracks and shuttered auto shops on the way to Highland Park. Situated on the border of Queens and Brooklyn, Google Maps reveals its a large island of green surrounded by cemeteries of all kinds. Jewish, Christian, non-denominational. It’s not quite an escape from the city…
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WTF is Stock & Flow: On creating a daily blogging practice
So I kinda decided, arbitrarily, to blog everyday. I’m in a new life season — see last post — which means I’ve been more or less trying on new hats and seeing what fits; daily blogging feels like a worthy exercise to blow away some mental cobwebs. I haven’t blogged regularly in, well, ever. For…
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On Transitions
What if I slowed down and actually took time to ride this transition period? What would that look like?
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Chicago, a Love Letter
For the second time in my life, I’ll be leaving the city I love most.
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Dispatch | 11.10.18
This week has felt like a decade. Between the midterm elections (I worked election night in the newsroom), yet another mass shooting, RBG breaking some ribs and near-continuous attacks on the free press, I’ve been high-key anxious all week. There’s been some light, though: I finally got to write and publish a story about a…
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How I learned to love coffee and get over myself
When I was a freshman in college, I was a little shit. I wanted to trade my former good student, Sunday school volunteer life for something else. College was a chance to be a different person, right? But I overcorrected: I was arrogant, entitled, cocky. In a moment of hilarious buffoonery, that changed for the…
Joseph Hernandez 