And see ya later, all you subscription services in my little empire — The day has been coming for a while now. One week after eliminating the last two social media platforms left standing in my world — Facebook and LinkedIn — I have said so long to my Spotify Premium subscription. I have a feeling I will miss it about as much…

Heavy Rotation — Suburbia, Pet Shop Boys (Please, 1986) — Incessant Airplay. That’s how they used to sell music, and heavy rotation was a music industry term for songs that, one way or another, got it. It referred to the large number of times a particular record was placed on turntables at radio stations. Until the 1980s, this was the…

I saw him once and never again — About six months ago, I managed to put into words a kind of exchange that I was on the periphery of yet impacted me significantly. I say kind of exchange because it wasn’t directly between me and the man standing beside me on a crowded train, because he was talking…

The downpour was in the distance. — (This article is based on a writing prompt in Globetrotters) In April 2008, going through a divorce. I just didn’t know it yet. And there I was, by myself in Istanbul. I had just finished a week on a school trip in France and after saying goodbye to everyone at…

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but Bruce Lee said so — “Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water…

It has happened enough times, but for some reason today, it’s just about enough — See that guy? He’s running an empire from his little phone, all wispy haired and staring into the middle distance. He’s the kind of guy that is leaving comments in articles that have nothing to do with the article. …

Write an article based on a random sentence in a book — A good writing prompt can make all the difference, especially at the end of November when the ideas are not exactly coming fast and furious at the moment and your previous articles are running on fumes. It’s even better when the suggestion is about as random as you can get. …

I don’t understand how this works, but I see the impact — We walked the other night through a neighborhood that used to be the centre of my world. I lived in it from 2000 until I left the city in 2015. There is a lot that is still familiar to me there — the anchor stores, the theatre, the bars and…

No matter how many times I hear them. — There are songs that instantly connect me to a time and a place. The first few notes come on, and everything else stops for a second, minute, hour. That’s the thing about music — or one of the things, anyway- is that when it’s good, it has the ability to…