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 [...]
A quiet fortune
Every August, a box arrives on my front porch, marked “fragile,” although there’s nothing breakable inside. Just perishable. A dozen [...]