Personal Essay
Confessions of an Accidental Stay-at-Home Dad
“What happened?” The front-desk attendant at urgent care was curious. “I cut it by accident,” I said, holding up my pinky, wrapped in a bloody […]
My Dad’s Last Day in Court
The earliest signs of my father’s cognitive slip dovetailed with his retirement. He’d somehow managed to keep it together for his clients until his very […]
Why I’m Quitting Dating Apps (for Now)
How was your date?” a close friend asked me as soon as I walked into her house one day this fall. Like me, she is […]
Remembering the Real Victim in the Karen Read Case, My Friend John O’Keefe
My phone was still on silent when I woke the morning of January 30, 2022, to four missed calls and a text from a friend […]
Why I Left My Dream Job at WBZ
It was a spectacular, sunny day on Cape Cod. And yet I was devastatingly sad. While my kids and wife were happily getting ready for […]
The Cold Truth: Swimming Walden Pond in November
I arrived at Walden Pond State Reservation just after sunrise, recalling that a certain local resident named Thoreau once wrote, “Morning brings back the heroic […]
Why I Left the Boston Ballet
Standing in the wings before the curtain lifted for the third and final act of The Sleeping Beauty, I became acutely aware of the backstage […]
Confessions of a Twitcher
I used to do cocaine. A lot of it. As in, five out of seven nights a week. It might not be immediately apparent what […]
Meditating on the Art of Marriage
This is a love story, both simple and tricky, as all love stories are. I will begin with the tricky part, on Lake Champlain in […]
Into the Antarctic Void: My Luxury Cruise to Breathtaking Desolation
I have a photo of myself standing high on a ridge overlooking Neko Harbor in Antarctica. I appear to be smiling, and my hatless head […]
How I Learned There’s Heroism in Preparedness
April 15, 2013, was a gut-wrenching, horrible day, one in which I, as executive director of the Boston Marathon and president of the Boston Athletic […]
The Real, Essential Backstory of ‘the Embrace’
The ceremony that took place before the monument to Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife, Coretta Scott King, was revealed had all the hallmarks […]
The Case Against Trying To ‘Have It All’
Walt Disney once said that if you can visualize it and if you can dream it, there’s a way to do it. Yet this was […]
To Jeep, or Not to Jeep, That is the Question
It was the first week of May 2022, and I was thinking about my car, specifically how long it was going to last. My hope […]
Jane Swift and Me, 20 Years Later
On a warm, sunny day this past summer, I drove up a long driveway to former Governor Jane Swift’s Williamstown farm, located high on a […]