I make $100,000 a year.
So why don't I feel rich?
One man's grocery run, one family's monthly arithmetic, and the quiet collapse of the six-figure promise.
8 min read
We used to call people's houses and just hope the right person answered.
The House on Briar Lane
Five houses. Four families. One thing nobody on the street talks about.
More ordinary things we’ve been thinking about
View allsix of these started as arguments in the office
Matchbooks were tiny billboards for a different kind of night.
Free at the register, printed by the thousand, kept for decades in a kitchen drawer nobody opened.
See the collectionGood stories.Once a week.
Stories about the ordinary things that mean the most.
A drive-in movie, 1987.
The Summer We Didn't Want to End
A five-part series about being young, carefree and convinced it would last forever.
I quit the job I'd wanted for ten years.
A personal essay about getting the thing, and then handing it back.
8 min read
Also from the desk
Mix tapes were how we flirted.
Ninety minutes, no undo button, and every song a sentence you couldn't take back.
The appliance that outlived three houses.
It weighs twenty-six pounds, it has one speed that works, and it will be in the family longer than the family.
There were once more than 2,000 of them.
The rise and quiet disappearance of the discount store that anchored a thousand small towns.