Morning in Venice

December 22, 2024

On logistics

Thoughts from a catacomb

December 15, 2024

On our first day in Rome, we saw the oldest known image of the Virgin Mary. Here she is on the right: From Wikipedia, as photos aren’t allowed in the...

Bon voyage

December 8, 2024

Thoughts on the eve of travel

Is Substack social media?

December 1, 2024

It certainly wants to be

What life is like without social media

November 24, 2024

The cons are also pros

Rerun: Revisiting "No"

November 17, 2024

My favorite election movie, four years later

There is always a future

November 10, 2024

Lessons from the apocalypse

A spooky season read

November 3, 2024

Yesterday was Day of the Dead, so I’ve been in the mood for art featuring skeletons, ancestors, and just a touch of the unexplained. Unfortunately I have...

On (not) understanding the subconscious

October 27, 2024

How I Finished My Book, Part 4 and Last

Meal planning for writers

October 20, 2024

How I Finished My Book, Part 3

Why I spend every afternoon lying on the floor

October 13, 2024

How I Finished My Book, Part 2

The schedule that supercharged my productivity

October 6, 2024

Part 1 of the How I Finished My Book series

Delivery and acceptance

September 29, 2024

I finally wrote a good book

An instant classic

September 1, 2024

On feuds and dinosaurs

Three writing tips

August 25, 2024

Hard-won lessons from an almost final manuscript

Rerun: The spell

August 18, 2024

Hello! It has, once again, been a while. This time my long break has a happy reason behind it: I am ~one month away from being done with my book! Well, you...

The bros are not ok

June 30, 2024

The gym, or at least my gym, is a bastion of binary gender performance. Without commenting on anyone’s individual workout routines, which are idiosyncratic,...

Black and white, revisited

June 23, 2024

Two years ago, I wrote about grayscaling my phone as a way of nudging myself to spend less time on it: For me, it’s not exactly that grayscaling makes my...

A book to make you love reading again

June 16, 2024

I’ve read less this year than any other time in my life. Reading breaks come for us all, eventually—illness, overwork, overcommitment, bad sleep, the abrupt...

My favorite recipe

June 9, 2024

I’ve gone through a lot of kitchen phases over the last four years. There was the “are you gonna meal plan, or are you gonna die?” phase, the residual...

On (not) watching Bridgerton

May 26, 2024

This year has been one long setback, as the effects of my January round of COVID have slowly but surely played out. The timeline and symptoms are almost...

Movies for brain fog

February 18, 2024

In addition to the vagus nerve exercises, the other activity that routinely eases my brain fog is watching movies. At home in soft pants, in the theater...

In which I become a wellness influencer

February 4, 2024

I recently experienced yet another round of Weird COVID, complete with the brain fog and fatigue I’ve felt after every infection. I was asymptomatic again,...

Anthropology is haunted

January 28, 2024

When I finished my feature about the Morton Collection in 2021, I needed a long break from writing about what I called “the ghosts in the museum”—the bones...

On medical mysteries

January 14, 2024

As previously discussed, I’m terrible at anticipating near-future trends. But allow me one cultural prediction at the beginning of this still young year: The...

Against New Year’s resolutions (and how to make one anyway)

January 7, 2024

It probably won’t surprise you to hear that I’m against the idea of New Year’s resolutions. The resolutions so often sold to us are mired in the quicksand of...

An interview with me, and other cozy week content

December 24, 2023

I hope everyone is settling in for their ideal hibernation week, whatever that looks like for you. In the past, I’ve been very committed to napping as much...

This week in follow-ups

December 17, 2023

I’m on an early holiday vacation, which would usually mean no newsletter. But I’m trying to get back to something close to my previous weekly schedule, and...

Hello from my new home

December 10, 2023

I hold two contradictory truths about this newsletter: I love writing it, and I think about changing it constantly. Should it have more a consistent theme?...

The mystery of maize

December 3, 2023

I live in Mexico so of course I’m obsessed with corn. It’s the foundation of the cuisine and in many ways the culture, and it has been for at least 4,000...

The agonies of transcription

November 5, 2023

If you asked 100 journalists what their least favorite work task is, I’m positive more than 90 would say transcribing. It’s so tedious, it takes so long1,...

How to create more time

October 29, 2023

Long ago, when I thought about what the month before my manuscript deadline would be like, I hoped for a peaceful stroll toward the finish line, full of...

Archaeology's ethics are changing

October 22, 2023

This week I wrote for Science about a debate bubbling up in U.S. archaeology: Is it unethical to publish photos of objects buried with Indigenous ancestors?...

Social media is dead

October 15, 2023

The internet as we knew it is over. That’s been clear for at least a year, but recently it feels like the discourse is catching up. The social media...

Fun with footprints

October 8, 2023

Two years ago, I wrote about human footprints discovered in New Mexico’s White Sands National Park that appeared to be over 20,000 years old. That was a big...

A creative milestone

September 24, 2023

First of all: hi! I’m back. Second of all: I submitted by book manuscript! It was three years, one pandemic, and several life- and deadline-derailing health...

Half-assing my 1000 Words

June 25, 2023

I’m doing 1000 Words of Summer again. The proposition is simple: write 1000 words every day for two weeks. Each day, you get an encouraging email from author...

So far

June 18, 2023

It’s very hot here in Mexico City. The highs have been in the low 30s C/high 80s F, which is not that hot compared to other places I’ve lived—or most other...

Prehistoric Planet’s dinosaurs are different

June 4, 2023

I first heard about Prehistoric Planet, Apple TV+’s CGI dinosaur show, I thought it sounded like a ridiculous gimmick. A nature documentary about animals...

The human sacrifice problem

May 28, 2023

Back in 2018, I published one of my favorite feature stories, about the discovery of Tenochtitlan’s tzompantli in downtown Mexico City. Tzompantlis, or racks...

Tools for embodiment

May 14, 2023

Hello, it’s been a while! It turns out my big problem was not as solved as I hoped, and while I was feeling bad again, I had to commit the self-harm of...

Happy anniversary

April 2, 2023

First of all: I wrote a story! It’s about how people in the past related to the ruins that surrounded them, and what those interactions can reveal about how...

AI sounds like your boss

March 19, 2023

The discourse around the Coming of AI has been inescapable on my internet for several months now, and probably yours too. I haven’t tried Chat GPT, or Bing,...

On solving the big problem

March 5, 2023

In my last newsletter, about working with and through the fatigue caused by hypothyroidism, I wrote: All the tools and tricks I’ve developed for dealing with...

Work in the time of fatigue

December 4, 2022

I’ve been tired lately. Clinically tired. I got COVID (again) in July, it was weird (again), and I haven’t been fully awake since. It’s not Long COVID,...

Talokan Forever

November 27, 2022

As an archaeology writer living in Mexico City, I spend an above average amount of time imagining life in pre-colonial Mesoamerica and early colonial Mexico....

Power, colonialism, and daylight saving time

November 20, 2022

Three weeks ago, Mexico permanently ended daylight saving time. We fell back one last time, and we won’t be springing forward ever again. (In most of the...

Fun with branding

November 13, 2022

Now that I’ve quit Twitter like a rat leaping from a burning ship into the cold, dark, open ocean, it’s time to spruce up my newsletter. My personal brand on...

The sweet release of deactivation

November 6, 2022

I look forward to spending more time on crafts like these. I did it! I quit Twitter. Despite what the timing would suggest, my decision is not (entirely)...

The bleakness of space

October 23, 2022

William Shatner’s essay about going to space on a Blue Origin flight has been bouncing around my internet for the past few weeks, and it’s as good as...