The horrifying roar of Boeing 757 engines; the Enya ringtone of the Nokia phone the convention organizers gave Peter; the grand piano and tourist murmur in Temppeliaukio church; the whir (almost everywhere, outside) of bicycle wheels and thud of joggers' feet;...

To say “I’ve never been one for exercise” is to vastly understate matters. I inherited a quick metabolism, and a couple of people over the years have said sweet, misguided things like “You look like you work out!” and “You obviously do yoga or something.” Until last...

I got a nosebleed at Delphi, in the spring of 1986. In the spring of 2013 (six days ago, in fact), a computer virus deleted all my contacts and every single message I've received since I opened my Gmail account. I was stupid. I'd saved everything on Gmail, not on my...

I used to be a voracious reader. During the endless summers when I was 11, 12, 13, I'd walk down to the local library every week. I'd get out seven books and read one a day, sprawled on a lawn chair in the backyard, or propped with my back against the brick by the...

There's a certain kind of emotional upheaval that has absolutely no sense of scale. It's incoherent, both random and hardwired. I have no idea what to do with it except write about it. My daughter's heading down to the Eaton Centre this weekend with a friend, who'll...

My elder daughter is 13.5. When I was her age, I was obsessed with taking things in. I wrote often, and copiously, in my journal—about a lot, but especially about The Feeling. This was the sensation that struck me when the wind was high, or the guy I liked waved to me...

I write about writing, here. So why do I sometimes bristle when other people write about writing? Having done a good deal of thinking, between the typing of the previous sentence and this one, I've decided it's not simply about content; it's about intent, and tone....

We're waiting for a storm, here in over-sensitive, whingey, smelling salts-requiring Toronto. Yes: there will be SNOW! Radar and every single local news station say so. And we prepare, mostly by gathering in each other's cubicles and talking about how fervently we...