From the diary: What if we stopped obsessing over 100% uptime and started thinking like system architects instead? My best friend Liv was brilliant at tech - she knew that even the most robust systems fail. Netflix aims for 99.9% uptime, which means they budget for 8.77 hours of downtime per year. They plan for failure. Meanwhile, I'm over here treating every emotional crash like a critical bug that needs immediate patching. My ma sits in her room listening to Red Sox games. These players fai...

From the diary: What if we stopped obsessing over 100% uptime and started thinking like system architects instead? My best friend Liv was brilliant at tech - she knew that even the most robust systems fail. Netflix aims for 99.9% uptime, which means they budget for 8.77 hours of downtime per year. They plan for failure. Meanwhile, I'm over here treating every emotional crash like a critical bug that needs immediate patching. My ma sits in her room listening to Red Sox games. These players fai...

You across the table tonight, features blurred by the light of the candle, disappointment softened by wine, and me trying to remember that feeling of home we once had, trying to find a way back to when we made sense, you and I. The chill on the bottle of white warms, the oysters recede, sweaty and limp, into their shells, and all that comes to mind is that, as much as we may intend it or want it or reach for it, we can’t seem to do anything right by each other, you and I. And dinner is ruined...

You across the table tonight, features blurred by the light of the candle, disappointment softened by wine, and me trying to remember that feeling of home we once had, trying to find a way back to when we made sense, you and I. The chill on the bottle of white warms, the oysters recede, sweaty and limp, into their shells, and all that comes to mind is that, as much as we may intend it or want it or reach for it, we can’t seem to do anything right by each other, you and I. And dinner is ruined...

Dear Liv: I got a text from my dad today. Well?? What have you decided? This is a good opportunity for you, Pay, so stop sending my calls to voicemail. P.S. Hey, diddle diddle. ;) With a winky face. My 75-year-old father, Doctor Simon Foster, renowned psychiatrist, media darling, silver fox, dead-beat dad… uses winky faces in his texts. Why. To take the sting out? To try and sound less… Dad?? It’s true I’ve been sending his calls to voicemail. True I’ve been avoiding him. Just like he avoided...

Dear Liv: I got a text from my dad today. Well?? What have you decided? This is a good opportunity for you, Pay, so stop sending my calls to voicemail. P.S. Hey, diddle diddle. ;) With a winky face. My 75-year-old father, Doctor Simon Foster, renowned psychiatrist, media darling, silver fox, dead-beat dad… uses winky faces in his texts. Why. To take the sting out? To try and sound less… Dad?? It’s true I’ve been sending his calls to voicemail. True I’ve been avoiding him. Just like he avoided...

Dear Liv: Remember how we used to love it when my mom made us pancakes on Saturday morning while we watched Looney Tunes from our Lizzie McGuire sleeping bags on the hard floor? And remember how she made us fresh-squeezed orange juice and left the hollowed-out orange on the tray because we insisted on it and would fuss and pout and make her life absolutely miserable if she didn't? Even after all the juice was squeezed out, and there was nothing left but the peel and the pulp and maybe a few s...

Dear Liv: Remember how we used to love it when my mom made us pancakes on Saturday morning while we watched Looney Tunes from our Lizzie McGuire sleeping bags on the hard floor? And remember how she made us fresh-squeezed orange juice and left the hollowed-out orange on the tray because we insisted on it and would fuss and pout and make her life absolutely miserable if she didn't? Even after all the juice was squeezed out, and there was nothing left but the peel and the pulp and maybe a few s...

Dear Liv: It’s coming up on half a year. Six months since my world turned upside down and flat lined and became this bland, forgettable sort of soup of existence in which things register or they don’t, and it doesn’t matter much, either way. Overall, I’ve been keeping my head above water, if only for the sake of your sweet boy who asks for you every day. He deserves at least this. When is my mom coming home?? He wants to know. I don’t have an answer for him that satisfies, so I tell him the a...

Dear Liv: It’s coming up on half a year. Six months since my world turned upside down and flat lined and became this bland, forgettable sort of soup of existence in which things register or they don’t, and it doesn’t matter much, either way. Overall, I’ve been keeping my head above water, if only for the sake of your sweet boy who asks for you every day. He deserves at least this. When is my mom coming home?? He wants to know. I don’t have an answer for him that satisfies, so I tell him the a...