Articles tagged:30 before 30

Posted: Wed Aug 31 8 p.m. by Sarah Smallwood AnnArbor.com Community Contributor

A history of mental illness is like a tornado warning at the bottom of the TV screen. It doesn’t guarantee a tornado, or that if there is one, it will do serious damage. Most of the time, it doesn’t even distract you from normal daily programming. But… it’s there. And ...

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Posted: Tue Mar 22 5:25 p.m. by Sarah Smallwood AnnArbor.com Community Contributor
30 Before 30: On cultivating a fighting face and fancy feet

“You want to see me self-defend myself? Go over there and pretend to be a sexual predator. Go on, I dare you!” — Rachel on "Friends" Being a lady is complicated. After all, we’re complex creatures. We have odd plumbing, our brains are wired like a subway map, and we ...

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Posted: Tue Jan 25 4:10 p.m. by Sarah Smallwood AnnArbor.com Community Contributor
30 Before 30: Saying yes to Michigan

Geography was never my strong suit in school. While I could spell the hell out of Zimbabwe, I had zero chance at giving someone directions other than a vague wave at a map and a mumbled “over there… ish.”But, I do believe that one should always at least be familiar ...

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Posted: Thu Jan 20 10:39 a.m. by Sarah Smallwood AnnArbor.com Community Contributor
30 Before 30: Got the English degree - now what?

The wide smile of blind panic.I don’t remember much about the day I left for college. I know my father and sister were impatient to leave and annoyed at the amount of crap I had managed to cram into a Saturn sedan. I remember sitting on the bare wooden window ...

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Posted: Wed Jan 5 6:46 p.m. by Sarah Smallwood AnnArbor.com Community Contributor

I don’t care for dead people. Whether they’re on TV, on the news, or in the same room with me: they scare me, and I’m fine with that. At funerals, I’ve always been a fan of the “milling around at the back of the room” crowd than peering over the ...

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Posted: Fri Dec 17 12:41 p.m. by Sarah Smallwood AnnArbor.com Community Contributor

Some people are born thin. They come from thin people, eat what they want, and never give a day’s care to the size and shape of their bodies. These people must have been very, very good in past lives. Previously, I must have been a supervillain.

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Posted: Mon Sep 20 4:52 p.m. by Sarah Smallwood AnnArbor.com Community Contributor
30 Before 30: Operation: Cheeseburger

I’m the first to admit: there are a lot of things on this list that don’t need to be. I don’t really need to speak French or dye my hair pink. Those aren’t needs. Needs are a house, food, enough money for bills and possibly a car. And whenever I ...

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Posted: Wed Aug 25 2:15 p.m. by Sarah Smallwood AnnArbor.com Community Contributor
30 Before 30: Take dad out to the ball game

I had never been hugely into baseball. I went to college in Boston, and the yearly feud between the Sox and Yankees wasn’t something you could easily avoid (especially in 2004—suck it, Yanks), but I would turn games on purely for background noise. Occasionally my father and I would talk ...

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Posted: Fri Jul 23 8:02 p.m. by Sarah Smallwood AnnArbor.com Community Contributor
30 Before 30: Guns, gardens and amateur radio

As I look over this list, I wonder if some of the items can be counted as cheating, seeing as I’ve already done them. Call me an overachiever, but the reality is I’m a victim of immediacy anxiety, always paranoid that I could be hit by a bus at any ...

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Posted: Sat May 29 6:10 p.m. by Sarah Smallwood AnnArbor.com Community Contributor
30 Before 30: Where the finish line is 26.2

It occurs to me that the things that normally end up on this list are rather epic. While my novel gathers dust on my desk, snickering and waiting for me to welsh on my promise of completion, I can at least take comfort in the knowledge that I have completed ...

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