Musings on marketing, culture and the occasional baked good.
-
The Annual Report (vol. 11)
When I wrote my first annual report, I certainly didn’t expect to keep the habit going this long. Yet here we are on volume 11, even though I’ve sort of stepped away from blogging as a whole. I only published three times last year between this blog and my baking blog. Not a very impressive…
-
Trust Me. I’ve Been There.
I had one of the worst meals of my life in San Remo, Italy. Flavorless breadsticks. Mushy pasta. Horrible gelato. But… it was in Italy. So now I’m an expert on Italian food, right? I doubt you’d actually agree with that logic. But I often see this exact kind of claim in online reviews. “I’ve…
-
The Annual Report (vol. 10)
Well, here we are, my friends: volume ten. Ten years of trying to understand what happens in a year, from the monumentally big to the very, very small. When I wrote my first annual report in 2013, I didn’t anticipate it becoming an annual tradition. But as with all things in life, especially creative projects,…
-
The Plot Twist
A year ago I boarded a flight to New York, starting a month-long “test” of living there. I’d booked my trip in that post-vax delight, that short period where we thought we could roam freely again. By the time I settled into my Brooklyn Airbnb, the delta variant was everywhere. It changed how I spent…
-
The Annual Report (vol. 9)
A look back at 2021: what I did, where I went and what I made of it all.
-
The So What
I’ve been struggling to post here lately. I’ve started so many drafts—half-baked musings, the beginnings of something. But every time I pass the first couple paragraphs, I keep getting stuck at “so what?” Finding the “so what” can be the hardest part of writing or analysis. In college I’d spend hours poring over notes, trying…
-
A Whole New World
These days, I straddle a weird line between pop culture overload and pop culture ignorance. In some ways, I’m too dialed in: Twitter discourse, for example. In others, I’m woefully unaware. Case in point: my top played song of 2020 was actually from 2005, and I’d never heard of most the songs on Spotify’s top…
-
In the First Place
I’ve spent more mornings sitting with this view, listening to this track, than you could possibly imagine. Every weekend, long weekend Mondays, any day I worked from home: I spent part of it here. Until COVID, that is. And then, like so many businesses, this cafe shut its doors. A year later, I still wake…
-
Into the Window
I spent my morning downtown, window shopping. The streets were empty—but the windows full. I walked slowly down long city blocks, staring at every storefront. Not many were open today, their windows the only sign of ongoing business. But even if they were open, I probably wouldn’t have walked in. With all the constraints of…
-
The Annual Report (vol. 8)
I’ve kept an “activity log” since 2013. It’s not really a diary so much as a list of my favorite things that happen every week. My 2020 log reads like a play in three acts. The first act is the beginning of the year, before COVID changed our daily lives. The second begins March 8,…
-
Building Community During COVID
The first day I stayed home, I was supposed to help host a workshop for Women’s History Month. The night before, my team exchanged frantic messages. We’d just received new COVID guidance from HR, and no one knew how to handle it. Should we cancel the event altogether? Discourage people from sharing poster supplies? Move…
-
Playing Favorites
Bastille has been my top Spotify artist for 3 years now. But does that really mean they’re my actual, literal favorite?
-
Foot by Foot
On Thursday, I took my first car ride in five months. My first ride of any kind, really. For five whole months, I’d only traveled by foot. No cars, no buses, no bikes. Just me, myself and my own two feet. When we started shelter in place, the city said to stay in our own…
-
Nine for Nine
Culture Cookies turned nine at the end of May. Nine years is a long time to do anything. When I first started writing here, I didn’t have a longterm vision. I just missed writing, and wanted a place to do it. My relationship with Culture Cookies changes over time. In my 2019 annual report, I…
-
The Today List
There’s a point in my Amazon wish list where you see reality shift. First, there’s a long string of flapper dresses, decadently shiny, candidates for a 20’s-inspired party that I attended in February. Then suddenly, the sequins segue into sanitizer. And laptop stands. And, sadly: Disinfecting wipes. There’s many ways to mark the turn from…
Got any book recommendations?
Culture Cookies 