What connects two cities? Why do people choose to fly from Bismarck to Phoenix? What kind of demand exists for direct flights from Raleigh to Montreal, or for an airline to use widebody planes on certain routes and regional jets on others?
Those are the questions I think about when I’m bored. (I’m a very fun person.)
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What happened in The Situation Room on September 11th? How quickly would we all perish in a nuclear war? What if Quebec had voted to secede from the rest of Canada in 1995?
This was a tough year for world events. Wouldn’t it make sense, then, to dive into fiction? To escape this world and splash into another, pondering problems that aren’t my own for once?
Sure it would! But my brain doesn’t make sense. I’ve been on a nonfiction kick ever since That One won the election. And those are the types of questions that have been bopping around my head for the past twelve months.
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I always struggled to convince myself that reading for pleasure was actually pleasurable.
Lemony Snicket provided plenty of entertainment as a kid, and I tore through John Grisham thrillers in high school. Novels fell by the wayside in college once professors assigned enough reading for several lifetimes. I graduated and immediately leapt into a career slinging words for a living—and too often found myself itching to escape them in my downtime.
My love of physical books never wavered, though, and it wasn’t until I forced myself to sit down and read Ken Jennings’ Maphead last year that I finally started to enjoy reading for the sake of reading again.
I set a modest goal for 2024: read one book per month.
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North Carolina is a purple state. Atrocious gerrymanders aside, our state’s five-and-a-half million voters have a robust history of electing Republicans and Democrats at every level of government—often on the same ballot.
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I can still see them when I close my eyes. Emerald greens shimmering on the horizon. A subtle sea of red tinting the night sky. Pillars of light flickering above my head like a spotlight on the constellations.
Catching a glimpse of the once-in-a-lifetime auroras on May 10, 2024, was an unforgettable moment for any skywatcher. But I had the great fortune of more than a glimpse—it was an entire show that seemingly evolved without end. I stood outside for a solid 90 minutes that night to watch a sight I never thought I’d see.
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Tucked away in the woods next to a major shopping center is the most peaceful spot in Greensboro, North Carolina.
A short walk from Friendly Center, the Tanger Family Bicentennial Garden is an oasis amid the hubbub of workers rushing to grab lunch and shoppers hoping to score a deal at Belk. One step into this park and you’ll fall out of the city and directly into nature.
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I love the stories I find buried in the pages of an old book.
My bookshelves are groaning ever since I finally got my license at the young old age of 30. It felt surreal to finally hold that ticket to the world, a newfound freedom to roam beyond the confines of my podunk outpost in central North Carolina.
The first two stops I made on that inaugural solo journey were obvious: Walmart, then Goodwill.
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