I love writing traditional magazine pieces, and especially their breadth of reporting and the deliberateness of the writing.

I finally overcame my phobia, and now I approach flying with a sort of studied boredom - a learned habit, thanks to my learn-to-fly-calmly training - but like all former flying phobics, I retain a weird and feverish fascination with aviation news, especially bad news.

One of my favorite activities as a teen-ager was to watch television over the phone with my best friend.

My ace in the hole as a human being used to be my capacity for remembering birthdays. I worked at it. Whenever I made a new friend, I made a point of finding out his or her birthday early on, and I would record it in my Filofax calendar.

Sometimes I'm dazzled by how modern and fabulous we are, and how easy everything can be for us; that's the gilded glow of technology, and I marvel at it all the time.

I'm happy to be reminded that an ordinary day full of nothing but nothingness can make you feel like you've won the lottery.

On the very same day that I ordered an iPad 2, I went shopping to buy myself a letter opener. I like to cover all my bases.