At the end of the year, many people on social media ask for podcast, music and book recommendations. There are top 10 lists galore. So I help out, I make my recommendations, but no one ever checks them out. Movie recommendations are easier of course, because the selection of available movies to watch is much more limited. But the internet and niche culture has made it so the podcasts and music and books I really love appeal to me and my geeky communities, but not to everyone else.

One of the first airplane trips I can remember was when I was eight. We were going to Pakistan, by way of London, which would mean I’d get to see my cousins in the UK for a bit. I counted down the days until the flight and was so excited to fly for a long period of time. I snuggled deep into blankets and watched movies (on one huge screen at the front of the airplane), and I was disappointed when it was over.

I was sitting with someone recently at a work event, and I was talking about my newborn. “Enjoy it,” he told me. “I wish I had. I was so stressed about everything when my daughter was born. Now I realize, those were the good ol’ days.” It happened again, around the same time. My wife and I were singing to our son and a relative who was staying with us said: “Ah, how wonderful.

+++ title = “12” date = 2018 +++ Many songwriters know this feeling. You write a great song, and you call it a song even though you still need to write a second verse and a bridge. And the thing is, the second verse and bridge are infinitely harder to write. I’ve spent 10 mins on a first verse and chorus before. Any lay person would be fooled into thinking the song was complete.

A sign in a Minneapolis parking garage simply says “watch and wait.” The context of course is that people might be walking by, and we don’t want them to get hit by cars… so watch and wait, and then exit safely. But I love taking signs like these out of context and thinking about how they might apply to other parts of life. For instance, when I became a parent, a piece of advice I was given was: whatever new parent stuff you’re anxious about, you won’t be anxious about it in two weeks.