An Introvert’s Guide to Small Talk
A brief exploration, choose-your-own-adventure style, as mapped out by an introvert new to a client-focused job. You: “Hi! I’m [insert name]! How’re you doing today?”
After graduating with an English degree, Amy (Allen) Frieson (’10) moved to New York City and spent several exhilarating years working in children’s book publishing. Now, she works as a career consultant and has much more time for writing, reading, wandering the city, cooking non-vegetarian meals (a new thing), dreaming about apartment renovations, and leading worship along with her husband at their NYC CRC.
Star Wars Video Games
It’s kind of odd to think about, actually. In the original Star Wars movies, the rebel forces are outnumbered and scrappy. They don’t have much hope or much of a chance.
Thanks
The sun has decided it is time to pay Brooklyn a visit. One Saturday, when I wake to chirping birds around 7 a.m., I decide to take myself to an exercise class.
Fool Me Once
But when I tell this to people, my writing hopes and dreams and thoughts, the first question they invariably ask is: “What do you write?”
Reading a Mystic
Benedictines read the psalms every day, and it’s through these outpourings of emotion that Norris finds a version of religion that resonates with her wordsmith identity
Surprise/Not Surprise
I sit there in the dark, in front of the cake and ice cream and prosecco, feeling like I’m doing something wrong, listening intently and wondering when I’ll be joined.
Nineteenth-Century Recommendations
These commands from a nineteenth-century dissident are more intimidating and door-slamming than inspiring. How can we go confidently in a direction when we don’t know which direction to go?
An Infinite Succession
It’s easy to make a choice to leave something that’s hard. But it’s difficult to actually start over—because the problems you tried to leave behind are not necessarily gone. They might be inside you.
How To Eat A Chicken
And then, when we had some friends over for a spaghetti and meatballs dinner party, I did it: I ate a meatball. And I didn’t die. And it tasted really, really good.
A Mild-Mannered Subversive
imperfection and yes, ickiness, are byproducts of exactly the system we are supporting: small farmers rather than industry giants, produce that flaunts its small-scale origins instead of hiding in plastic packages.
Hipster Glasses
It took me a while to realize that glasses could be a fashion statement. (Granted, it took me awhile to understand the concept that wearing an all-purple outfit wasn’t a fashion statement.)
Worth It
Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to any change in its state of motion. Inertia is why my sister’s cat sometimes runs into my leg when he tries to scamper down our polished-hardwood hallway.
Stephanie in Haiti
I didn’t meet Stephanie in the same way I meet most people. I don’t know much about her. I know she went to school, where not all of the kids were able to. She was one of eight children.
It’s Just Basil
All was well for a couple of weeks. Pizzas were delicious. Eggs were delicious. Fresh herbs were right on my windowsill, and I was keeping them alive.
![Beauty and the [ ____ ]](https://thepostcalvin.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/beauty-and-the.png)
Beauty and the [ ____ ]
I’m intrigued by this idea of retelling the same story, wrestling with similar ideas over the course of time, not settling for a previously discovered answer.
Nervous Laughing
I laughed, my nervous response when I’m not sure of social protocol in a particular situation. My guard was up. My brain said, Who is this guy?
That Awkward Stage
All shall be well, said Julian of Norwich. Now that I’m growing up at last, somehow I’m starting to really think it will be.(Someone please smack me over the head with that paragraph the next time I start whining.)
Pizza Week
Somehow I have ended up eating pizza four times in the last six days. One of those was homemade with weird flour. It ended up shaped like a broccoli tree.
A Recipe from 2013
Begin a conversation with Person 2 about New Year’s Resolutions. (Optional: Person 2 snorts quietly.) Persist in having the conversation.
Come
And she’s a whole lot better at waiting—or, at least, at proclaiming what she’s waiting for and what she expects. I try to drown out the world. She tries to make it see.
Standing Still
I have a confession: I love self-help books. It’s the subtitles that pull me in. Of course I want to let go of who I think I’m supposed to be and embrace who I am. I want to dare to live fully right where I am.
On Authorship
Even the fan mail we receive from young readers seems odd—I’ve never been interested in meeting or corresponding with the writers of books I love.
Making it Happen
I had been camping once in my life, the summer after graduating from high school. I went with a few friends and contributed by helping hold the tent up after it fell down.
The Birds of the Air
Home is a sense of belonging and inclusion, but it’s also a sense of boundaries. There must be things that are not-home.
Time and not enough of it
Those professors who warned us how hard it was to keep up post-college writing when no one is making you do it, possibly they made it quite clear that it was a choice. Even a responsibility.
