Returning sophomores, we owe you an enormous debt. — You guys. I don’t even know where to begin. I’ll start this letter to you with full disclosure. For three years, my family has lived deep inside the belly of an elite midwestern university. We are a “faculty family,” here to provide some balance to the culture of campus life…

#1: They will be FINE. My new Covid pastime involves actively participating on the Facebook parent page for my son’s university, Class of 2025. But with a twist. Little by little, I have revealed to the group my dirty little secret: I actually live on that exact campus. …

Because we needed a new challenge. — (Image is property of the author) “I stepped on a bat!” my daughter screamed from down on the dock. “Someone help!!” I mentally anointed my husband as that “someone.” I was five minutes into Saturday afternoon nap, complete with earplugs and a face mask that might as well have had…

Farewell, you forgiving pain in the ass. “I think we’ve made a terrible mistake,” my husband Jeff said to me as we drove the few short blocks between our university apartment and our vacant off-campus house. …

This is not the 2020 virus you are looking for. When my 15-year-old daughter started struggling with acne this fall, I knew it was time for Accutane. If you’ve never had children, or acne, Accutane is a miracle cure for pimply teens. It’s like a magic wand that turns those…

Your 2020 Step-by-Step Guide Step 1: Find An Actual Goatherd Retreat for the summer to your family’s weekend cottage in Minnesota for what you adorably believe will be the last few months of a pandemic. Optimistically anticipate it will be over by July 4th. Settle in with a collection of family members who all had the…

Let’s just get this over with, shall we? I’m at the Miss Havisham stage of the pandemic. Life has been on hold for so long I’ve stopped noticing. But rather than an old wedding dress, I’ve shaken that Dickensian image with a muumuu to disguise the absence of a bra…

I live on your campus. And I definitely wish you were here. My family and I live on one of the thousands of college campuses across the globe that abruptly closed in the wake of the pandemic. When I say that we live on campus, I mean we literally live…

And Other Recent Discoveries. — Ok! Show of hands from those doing some light hoarding? Anyone? Relax. I was where you are about a month ago. Rumors of shortages sparked my panic purchase of canned and frozen foods, leaving my shopping cart filled with absolutely no fresh fruit or vegetables whatsoever. I never hoarded toilet…