
To smoke (or not)
Every time I go to the doctor and have to fill out my medical history, one question gives me pause: [...]

Inquiring minds want to know
I recently did something that I have wondered about—but also resisted—my entire life. I took an IQ test. I was [...]

Home sweet Rome
When I left Rome in 2007, I did so in furia e fretta. Harried. I was stuffing things into my [...]

A nod to Madame Clinton
On the eve of President’s Day, I found a photo that’s as close as I’ve ever gotten to a U.S. [...]

Strangers and stories
Every night, when I tuck my daughter Julia into bed, she asks me to tell her a story. For a [...]

My Roman cats
My daughter Julia sprang out of bed the other morning declaring that she’d had a dream that we’d taken our [...]

Of lines and bylines
One evening, I was telling my daughter Julia a bedtime story about Fassi’s, my favorite gelateria in Rome. I was [...]

Almond’s conquest
Staring into his green-gold eyes, half closed in contentment, I stroke the top of his head and say to him, [...]

The power of sound
When I moved to New York after a decade in Italy to go to graduate school, working with audio was [...]

Once upon a shoe
When I lived in Rome, I occasionally strolled through the fancy shopping streets near Piazza di Spagna. Mostly, I window [...]

Household diplomacy
When I was in college, I briefly considered a career in diplomacy. I’d never taken a political science course, and [...]