U.S. News, that is… — In December, I set a goal — very quietly — to get a national byline published in 2022. Through a series of coincidences, I found myself talking to the new editor of the U.S. News Education vertical on January 6. So began a series of conversations, emails, and furious writing…

I normally use Medium to tell stories that I don’t get to tell elsewhere: personal, emotional, and current stories that would be out of date by the time I tried to place them. …

The third year of COVID schooling begins — It hit me two weeks ago, when my kid got a sniffle. His illness seemed completely ordinary. We were more careful than we used to be about a cold — taking his temperature twice a day, asking about taste and smell — but saw no real reason to worry. We…

Once again, parents are a forgotten piece of the economic puzzle. — And so it begins. Faster than you can say “vaccine,” the narrative that unemployment benefits are causing people not to work is creeping into the news. This isn’t new — and it isn’t true, either. While blaming the government for being overly generous and blaming potential employees for being lazy…

A year without school is a year without school shootings — When the tornado sirens went off early last week, it was the height of pandemic excitement. We’ve memorized the routine of our neighborhood after repeating it for 54 weeks, and that routine includes a weekly test of the tornado warning system every Wednesday at noon. “It’s the Wednesday alarm!” …

I got the vaccine the first day I was eligible — Fifty-three weeks to the day after the shutdowns began, I got my first Covid shot. One dose of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine is working its way through my body. I couldn’t be happier. I’m still in disbelief that it happened so quickly. When the vaccines started rolling out in December…

Remembering when we thought Covid might be a temporary inconvenience, and what it became instead — I have a photograph from March 10, 2020 on my camera roll. In it, my kids are pointing at the contents of our pantry that we’d emptied onto the floor. They’d built a tower of cans and peanut butter next to a collection of boxed soups. I’d used the occasion…

A night in March 2020 that was nearly normal — One year ago tonight, I was dancing my ass off at a concert. The local band snarls was celebrating the release of Burst, its first fantastic album, and the music hummed in the humid air while the room buzzed with energy that only just-might-be-about-to-become-rock-stars can pull from a crowd. Fans…

An indoor kids play place near me called Fun in the Jungle has embraced anti-mask wearing fanaticism. They are so proud of their stance that they are giddily sharing their unwillingness to participate in “the Mask Enforcement Party” on all of their social media streams. The language they use to…