Alex Armstrong

We were having a perfectly fine conversation until she said, “I love this song!” She tugged my arm, not the one holding the drink, the other one, towards the center of the club, where folks sloppily danced. I looked up at the rafters, like an animal sniffing out its prey. I…

Ten years ago I had a complex trip to organize that required lining up several flights on very tight deadlines. I needed some help figuring it all out, and so I visited a travel agent. As he talked on the phone with who-knows-who, I noticed that he read off booking references…

Last night I secured this site using certificates from Let’s Encrypt. I’ve been meaning to do this for a long time, but since the site has no interactivity I wasn’t worried about any potential security risks. That was until I migrated from Jekyll, which produced a static site,…

“Meditation doesn’t work for everyone,” she said. “I can’t sit still for five minutes. If I tried to meditate, I’d lose my mind. I guess I’m just one of those people.” “I know what you mean,” I said. “I’m one of those people who can’t fly a commercial aircraft. I’ll sit in the…

I’ve been traveling quite a bit over the last few months. Here are some idiosyncratic, prejudiced observations: The higher the density of cars, the higher everyone’s stress level seems to be. Not just that of drivers, but that of people in general. This seems applicable both…

There’s a lot of friction to publishing, though not so much to writing. I have honed my writing tools over the years and can grab any of my devices and get started writing — well, typing — in a matter of seconds. But when the text of a blog post is done, there’s a significant…

The less time I have, the more I want to write. I find it suffocating not to write. I remember reading somewhere that when attending conferences you should turn in early and journal. I was in an academic institute during the first half of June. Every night I would come back to…

Some years ago I was ambling down the street of a distant city in search of food, when I remembered something I needed to do when I got back to my hotel room. I pulled my phone from my back pocket and opened my task manager. I tapped out the task and then drew a blank. What…

A friend asked me if I celebrate Thanksgiving yesterday. As a vegetarian, I don’t find this holiday particularly appealing. Also, it’s not at all a thing in Greece, where I live. Knowing that my father is American, she noted that some people celebrate their “home thing”. I…

I write a lot of email. As I’ve written more of it, I’ve gotten better at it. By which I mean I’ve become more considerate of the person receiving the email, trying to keep my emails brief but also thorough. But these are competing goals, and brevity takes too much time. As the…