On their first date, Vanessa Zoltan wanted to make sure Peter Mueller, a cyclist, had taken proper safety precautions while riding. He did, and “it made me melt,” she said.Neither Peter Mueller nor Vanessa Miriam Zoltan were in the best state of mind for their first date in ...
Read More

Until the African penguin starts observing federal holidays, Sparks Perkins won’t either.Which is to say the morning of Dec. 25 will bring not presents and mistletoe for the 33-year-old San Franciscan, but beak trims and fish guts.A biologist at the California Academy of Sciences’s Steinhart Aquarium, Mr. Perkins ...
Read More

It was as if someone was saying to us, “You are seen. You are loved.”The doorbell rang one mid-December evening. I frequently had unexpected visitors in those early days after my husband’s death, sometimes bearing dinner, often with tears. But when my 6-year-old son opened the door, nobody ...
Read More

Almost everything was as usual at the Sbarro in Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan on Saturday night — the rumble of the 1 train could be heard and the aroma of greasy pizza was thick in the air. But something out of the ordinary was taking place at the ...
Read More

Etiquette experts and wedding pros share five common pitfalls to keep in mind when hosting or attending a wedding.Danielle Salzillo still remembers how angry her older sister was on her wedding day when a guest arrived clad in white. “She was livid,” Ms. Salzillo said.Fifteen years later, when ...
Read More

Volodymyr Zelensky came to Washington wearing his reality on his sleeves.He never donned the political camouflage of a suit.The olive green sweatshirt, with its little Ukrainian trident embroidered at the neck, cargo pants and tactical boots that President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine wore on his trip to Washington ...
Read More

Trinny Woodall, the wardrobe makeover expert, wants you to wear less makeup. “I have never met somebody who covers their whole face in foundation who needs it,” Trinny Woodall said. “Start where you need it the most and blend out.”Ms. Woodall is best known for hosting, with Susannah ...
Read More

When I was in college, every winter break my mom would welcome me home with a Tupperware full of anar, or pomegranates in Farsi. I’d plop generous spoonfuls of the shimmering red seeds into my mouth — tart, fragrant, still deliciously cold from the refrigerator — and imagine ...
Read More

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.My Unwritten ChapterBefore she died at 42, my wife suggested I marry her colleague, Sandee. “There are chapters yet unwritten in your life,” she said. Sitting shiva shortly before Hanukkah, I first met Sandee as my ...
Read More

How a movie released before the iMac became a mainstay of internet culture.Katee Forbis often encounters a GIF on social media that shows a white-haired woman with a faraway look saying, “It’s been 84 years.” Ms. Forbis had scrolled past the clip “a thousand times” she said, but ...
Read More

On Dec. 19, 2019, I led my last Clemson, S.C., Christmas Bird Count. For almost 30 years, I’d been the compiler, the person responsible for organizing dozens of volunteer birders to count every species encountered across a 15-mile-diameter circle. The event, which merges my passion for birding with ...
Read More

We’re living in a rage-filled emotional dystopia. Is there a way out?America was angry this year. Could you feel it?Maybe you sensed it on an airplane, or at the grocery store, or in a parking lot, or while watching a driver with road rage playing real-life Grand Theft ...
Read More

We’re living in the high era of Slack rage.If there were such a thing as rage nostalgia, it would be the longing for a time when people fought out loud — even in a setting as formal as the office. They vented. They cursed. They rolled their eyes ...
Read More

Readers share recent moments when an outburst led to embarrassment.Last month we asked readers to share stories of a recent instance when they or a loved one erupted in anger — and then regretted it. We received nearly 500 responses, most of which tied their outbursts to far-reaching ...
Read More