For Sarah Lockman and John Collins, the pivotal moment in their relationship occurred in a most unusual place: high atop the staircase of Mr. Collins’s new home in St. Michael, Md., where he and Ms. Lockman struggled for three hours to carry a futon down the stairs this past January. “At one point, the futon…
My three sisters and I have been doing Secret Santa with our kids for years. Each child picks a cousin’s name. They love exchanging gifts! This year, I told my sisters that my family would not be joining them for Christmas because of Covid but that we’d still like to be part of the Secret…
Kelly Kenney was taking a late-night walk to clear her thoughts in her Los Angeles neighborhood this spring when a colorful pinwheel caught her eye. She stopped and found herself gazing down at an elaborate fairy garden at the base of a tree, complete with painted rocks and tiny trinkets. Pinned to the tree was…
Send questions about the office, money, careers and work-life balance to workfriend@nytimes.com. Include your name and location, or a request to remain anonymous. Letters may be edited. The Obnoxiousness of Celebrating Poor Time Management At all-staff meetings, managers at my office will make a point of lauding employees for working late into the night. The…
The soundtrack to Maya Montoya’s year was white noise. Specifically, a track on Spotify called “Celestial White Noise”: three whole hours of warm, soothing fuzz. Ms. Montoya, who is 27 and lives in Everett, Wash., had been a nanny up until the pandemic. But when she found herself out of work in April, she began…
Listen and subscribe to Modern LoveApple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher By The Modern Love Team The Modern Love podcast got a revamp this year, with two new hosts and a fresh sound produced entirely by The New York Times. And, of course, there were new stories to tell. Some were unique to the moment…
Stella Tennant, the unimpeachably aristocratic model and inspiration to designers like Karl Lagerfeld and Gianni Versace, died suddenly on Tuesday, five days after her 50th birthday. Her death was announced in a statement by her family. The cause of death was not given. Police reports noted no suspicious circumstances surrounding her death, according to the…
Housing activists in New York have spent much of the year preparing for the end of it. Tenant evictions have been halted or delayed by coronavirus relief measures, for the most part, until January 2021. If those measures are allowed to expire — or aren’t extended — it could mean the displacement of thousands of…
I never thought that I’d be like trying to approximate these feelings again for a podcast. Anyway, so OK — Mmm. Thank you for that. No, in some ways, it was like this false missile alert was like a stress test on your relationship. So it was a false alarm for the missile. But it…
Welcome. It’s the time of year when “best of” lists proliferate, when critics look back on the previous 12 months and select their favorite stuff. The Times’s critics’ 2020 lists are splendid; I’ve already tracked down most of Manohla Dargis’s film picks and a bunch of the best podcasts and have them all ready to…