It’s easy to buy a gift for the parent who likes you. A mom or dad who adores you will likely adore anything you get them—no matter how shitty the gift is—simply because it came from their beloved child. A far greater challenge is finding the perfect gift for the parent who is actively disappointed in you and the way…

Babies and small children, unfortunately, are ill-equipped to fully appreciate Christmas. Their little hands can’t hold things, nor can they grasp the concept of gifts. They’re built that way, and it’s no one’s fault. While their lack of comprehension doesn’t render them completely useless, it does make it hard to…

Let’s imagine you work at a company. It’s a pretty good company, good enough that it decides, after much talk, to move to a bigger, fancier office. This office is much-heralded by those who have created it. And yet, it is still an office. It still has flaws, like any living, breathing thing.

I hate the gym. Hate is, perhaps, a strong word, but I certainly and adamantly prefer not to be inside one. Unless a person is a fan of group fitness classes, they’re basically misery caves, especially in the winter— sweaty, air saturated with aspirated moisture from the pores of other humans, exertion sounds,…

Somewhere in the tangles of your friend group or your family tree, there is a spooky person. As a teenager they liked — melodramatically loved, perhaps — Tim Burton; as an adult, their tastes hew to Nick Cave, the Criterion collection, and probably stuff with owls on it. It either strikes you as adorable or incredibly…

Sleeping is a wonderful activity, and one of my personal favorites. My editor Erin recently described me as “a sloth trying to accomplish a series of tasks,” which I found very apt and also upsetting. While most healthy adult Americans consider themselves lucky to reach 8 hours, I am always striving for more, more,…

In a piece towards which I felt all the traditional stages of love—surprise, attraction, anger, denial, tentativeness, renewal and then commitment—Mattathias Schwartz, for the New York Times Magazine, wrote a Letter of Recommendation for a vape.

In most cases, Instagram is not real. By that I mean, at this point, it’s pretty widely understood that most people show only the most attractive versions of themselves and the best parts of their lives on Instagram. It’s a bit shallow and borderline sad but, everyone does it!

Hoarding's been having a wild time as of late. Not content merely to make a name for itself by providing the basis for several award-winning and delight-inducing shows — did you see the one with the CATS — hoarding's ditched its previous DSM classification and has burst, debris flying everywhere and smelling faintly…