🧁 It's My Birthday, So Ask Me Anything!

I'm all ears! An open call to ask questions about ancient history, parenting, startups, productivity methods, or whatever.

Hey friends! As I get back to hanging out in the online world now that my daughter is a bit easier to handle, I'm on the lookout for new ways to connect and help out with the community around here. So since today is my birthday, it seems like as good a time as any to open the floor for a good ol' Q&A session, the likes of which I haven’t done in ages.

I also put together a little December substack coupon, since it’s my birthday and Christmas is coming, in case anyone is feeling generous…

Regardless, my main goal is simple — I wanted to give y’all a chance to ask me anything you want about topics I may be able to lend some insight on. I'm game for just about any questions you toss my way. Just don’t make it weird :P

Since not everyone who subscribes has been chatting with me online for years, I figure some might be thinking, "Wait, what does she even know about?" so… let me give you the quick rundown on my areas of quasi-expertise:

• Ancient history — As a former teacher focusing on the broad strokes of world history, I nerd out on the more obscure bits of Phoenicia, Egypt, the Mongols, the Inca, etc. What was daily life like for our ancestors? How did they pull off early feats of engineering? I love diving into all that.

• Parenting and homemaking — I generally avoid talking too much philosophy of parenting on the internet (parenting decisions are very fraught!), but if I’m being honest, a lot of my notes are actually about raising kids, keeping house, cooking healthy, and balancing everything on a busy mom's plate. I’m willing to share my insights here if someone actually solicits them, tho…

• Autodidact technology — Thanks to hanging out in the personal knowledge management community, I got a part-time job doing quality assurance at a growing tech startup working on building better nonfiction reading software.

• Personal knowledge stuff — I geek out on productivity methods, notetaking, reading widely, and always learning. Optimization and efficiency is my primary focus here, but I’m open to questions about anything, really. I’ve got a backlog of topics to talk about but knowing what y’all actually care about will help prioritize.

But honestly, I'm open to fielding almost anything you want to throw at me, even random stuff outside my normal teacher/mom/technerd wheelhouse. Think of this as a way to get to know me better, as both a person and a writer. Whether you're new here or have been reading my posts for a while, I'd love to hear your questions. They help strengthen my writing, and let us explore subjects a bit more authentically.

So, how can you submit something? For now, just drop a comment or, if you’d prefer, reply to this email with your question. Depending on how things go, I’ll either just reply or I’ll gather things up and write an article in response after a week or so.

Consider this an opportunity to tap into my perspective on any number of topics, especially ones I might not have considered writing about. I’m looking forward to offering some hopefully helpful responses — please don’t be shy, I will feel really silly if no one has any questions, heh.