And make a more interesting – and less oppressively large – salad while you’re at it. When I was a teenager, I was obsessed with finding the perfect spinach pie (I had weird interests). And I quickly realized that spanakopita was not it – the bottom layers of phyllo get mushy and the spinach itself […]
Last week I stayed home and did some editing. This week I read more medieval writings about urine. So, pretty mundane stuff. Read More When your body says: “Why not have both?” Read More ‘Cause I’ve got, like … dozens. Read More This week I learned a valuable lesson about planning, remembered why imposter syndrome […]
In this series, I’m talking about big issues in how we think about our scientific past. This week I’m dealing with the thin line we drew between alchemy and chemistry. Read the first post in this series, on ancient Greece and math. Read the second post, on the Scientific Revolution. Read the third post, on […]
At the end of my research trip in Sicily, I tacked on a week to check out some things in Vienna. Originally, my goal had been to get in contact with someone behind the scenes at either the Imperial Treasury or the Kunsthistorisches Museum, but that didn’t really pan out. These things happen. Luckily, my […]
God, I wish things would just go back to normal. If you have ever expressed such a sentiment, chances are that you hold some kind of privilege. Before you leave in disgust that I have accused you of the p-word, consider that privilege is not a bad thing. Privilege is, by definition, a good thing. […]
Right before I took my oral qualifying exams, I called my adviser in a panic. I had failed my German and Latin exams almost ten times each, and time was running out to pass them before I would have to push back my oral exam date. My adviser talked me down. “Take a walk” he […]
This week I did my research due diligence and thought about medieval Sicily in a new context. Read More The biggest thing stopping me from leaving my apartment in Palermo on any given day is how hard it is to open the door. Thank God for scanners and digital editions of manuscripts. Read More I […]
It started with an ill-fated search for a seder plate. When I got married, I used the opportunity to ask for a few nice bits of judaica, as one does, never mind that my husband is not Jewish (we also signed a ketubah at our wedding). Among these was a beautiful ceramic seder plate that […]
Like a lot of people, I was surprised to learn that cupping had made a comeback. But unlike most people, I knew what cupping was before 2016. Michael Phelps was sitting on the bench, listening to his warmup music and getting in the zone, but something was different. His back and shoulders were covered in […]
The most important thing I’ve been told in this early stage of motherhood is “the postpartum period is two years long.” I was required to receive a psychological evaluation from a therapist who specialized in pregnancy, postpartum, and motherhood, as part of the process of donating eggs (that’s another blog post). At the time, I […]
During the pandemic lockdown, I was finally convinced to watch Outlander. When the show first aired, it gained immediate notoriety for being a steamy romance. What I found was a shockingly boring military historical drama about the Jacobite rebellion of 1745 that, yes, was interspersed with a significant amount of explicit sex, but seemingly half […]
I arrived in Sicily this week, and after struggling through some small mishaps, I started working. I’m learning that powering through my anxieties and depression in the midst of research is not as much about forcing myself to work as it is about forcing myself to leave the house and seeing where my feet take […]
Insert joke about Jewish mothers here. A few days before my C-section, my wonderful doula came to my house to guide me through an exercise called havening. Havening is essentially a form of guided meditation – a partner gently strokes your face, shoulders, and hands while you repeat words you’ve chosen to express how you […]
It started with an ill-fated search for a seder plate. Read More As a progressive in 2020, you’d have to be willfully ignorant to think that there are no problems with Thanksgiving. But unlike, say, the former Columbus Day, this holiday isn’t just a day off. For a lot of Americans, myself included, this day […]
