The Best Things I Wrote in 2021
The Best Things I Wrote in 2021
Pizza! Ice cream! Bikes! The comprehensive collection of everything I know!
One of the things I’ve had written on the white board in my room, right next to the grocery list and pinned photo booth strips from weddings, is a list of things I want to stop forgetting to do.
It includes stuff like being easier on myself, stretching everyday and getting a half-sleeve. You know, stuff that’s easy to have go by the wayside, and seeing it everyday helps keep it at the front of my mind.
That list also includes a one-word item: CELEBRATE.
We’re good at celebrating the landmark things like weddings and birthdays, but we all could do better to celebrate the smaller events that leave us stoked. In the last year I’ve celebrated: leaving it all out there at a race, despite losing; getting back from a long day of traveling; and a friend quitting a crappy job.
Celebrating helps commit to memory the good stuff that happens to us, and I don’t know about you, but looking around the world makes it easy to memorize the awful stuff. I think we ought to find more reasons to raise a glass.
The itch to celebrate is also kind of why I’ve put together this list the last few years. It’s my way of celebrating the writing I’m most proud of. Also, this is a companion piece to yesterday’s Things I Loved in 2021.
Anyway, let’s get to it:
BizSense: Downtown pizzeria owner has a Southside expansion in the oven
The coolest part of my job is getting to tell interesting folks’ stories on their behalf. Enrico was a Hall of Fame-caliber interview, and though this seems like a simple story about a pizzeria opening a second shop, it’s more about his lived human experience.
Bike the US for MS renders me an emotional wreck, and I try to let that show through my blogs about my trips with the organization.
I wanted to correctly set reader expectations for this newsletter early on, so for the third post ever, I decided to publish ~1,000 words about a pair of shorts.
BizSense: After peddling frozen treats from truck, local man opening shop in the Fan
Again, a news story is often only as good as its subject. Fortunately, Westray Paul is a hell of a subject.
This story was, in part, about believing something magical could happen when you walk out of a bar…
…and this is about something magical happening after I walked out of a bar, coincidentally just days after publishing the Justin Pierre story. Life is weird like that sometimes.
BizSense: Eck family lists 158 properties in the Fan as it exits real estate market
This was a fun one to write, because it was not only pretty big news for the neighborhood, but also a chance to do have a bit of a history lesson on the Fan.
Building up the CAAD7 was fun, but documenting the whole process along the way was even better.
It’s been six months since I turned 30. Unfortunately I can’t think of anything else to add to the above list. Maybe by 2023?