One of my earliest jobs involved writing speeches for the CEO of a processed meats business. At the time, I knew very little about processed meats and even less about business. My routine was to panic quietly for weeks, then pull an all-nighter. There was something about an empty
The nicest rejection I ever received came from the famed psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi—the so-called “father of flow.” In 2011, he declined to be interviewed for Work Stew with this gem: “Thanks, Kate, but I am so overwhelmed by various commitments that I can't possibly consider even
Tomorrow marks three months since the Inauguration. An otherwise lovely person (you know who you are) told me yesterday, “We’re only seven percent of the way through this term.” Ack. Single digits—and already this handout I made during the campaign reads like the most depressing bingo card ever:
A few weeks ago, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer was one of the Democrats I wanted to see taking turns talking directly—every day—to the American people. She’s popular and pragmatic, and back in 2020, when Trump dismissed her as “that woman from Michigan,” she adopted the label with
The purpose of this post is to update you on five housekeeping matters: 1. Publishing cadence. After some experimentation, I’ve settled on a weekly post: from now on, you can expect to hear from me every Friday. 2. Monthly chats. Thirteen (!) people have signed up for the monthly Zooms
Years ago, in a fitness class I took with my colleagues, the instructor, who was petite and preternaturally bendy, would demonstrate a floor exercise she wanted us all to do. She’d then look at me, tall and decidedly unbendy, and say to no one in particular: “If this is
This is my neighborhood on Bainbridge Island, a 35-minute ferry ride from Seattle. There has been a collection of Trump signs in this yard non-stop for nearly a decade, since well before the 2016 election. One especially large sign, which has disappeared in recent weeks, was festooned with
I’m working on a difficult post about a drama unfolding in my neighborhood: the guy who’s had Trump signs out non-stop since 2015 is now getting his fence tagged with “Nazi” in black spray paint. Some of you know that after 30 years in the private sector,
Imagine if every Democrat had attended last night’s joint address to Congress wearing the same shirt that President Zelensky wore to the Oval Office last Friday: a black, long-sleeve top with the Ukrainian trident, the tryzub, in grey. It was available—on Amazon, funnily enough. (That Jeff Bezos—
If I’m going to stick to my original plan to publish only once every two weeks, things are going to have to calm the f*** down. Shouting matches in the Oval Office are the complete opposite. My point on Tuesday was that the wrong people—regular citizens who are
It is hard to know how to be in the world right now. On the one hand, we are all painfully aware—in part because everyone has been sent this link—that Hitler dismantled a democracy in 53 days. And that the ensuing horrors were made possible by one thing:
On Inauguration Day, I launched this newsletter to join with kindred spirits1 in facing the daunting question, “What now?” Since then, I’ve had a surprising number of people sign up to chat with me. I usually start these video calls with the same three questions: 1. How worried are