Stuff I Wrote in 2018 So Far

Somehow, the first quarter of 2018 went by without a single post pulling together links to my paid writing. Oops. Well, better late than never. Here is a summary of my clips, bylines, what-have-you for 2018 so far, and quick look at how things are going for the blog at the new URL.

2017 Stragglers

In the shuffle between URLs, it looks like I missed one of my 2017 stories. I can’t believe I forgot to include this one that I really liked, Trading Privacy for Convenience. I did a ton of research for this article, and would recommend anyone who is interested in the topic to click through and read the reference articles, too. There was so much good information I couldn’t fit into my word count.

January Publications

In January, I had a few things published in ParentMap, including a Spring Arts Guide. You can decide for yourself if I’m a hypocrite or just a loser, since I missed the Children’s Film Festival this year after writing about why you shouldn’t miss the Children’s Film Festival. (You can track down some of the films on video or streaming now, so it’s still worth a read.)

I prepared a summary of all of the common sense gun laws under consideration this session in Washington state. One local Indivisible group even contacted me to let me know they used it as a guide for their members! Seattle is the home of the Black Lives Matter at School action, and this year I helped spread the word about it.

On AvvoStories, I wrote about what happens when states’ rights are right (you know, as opposed to all the times states’s rights are used as an excuse to deprive people of civil rights). And I wrote about what happens when the Supreme Court gets it wrong (ahem, Citizens United). If you want to know what Washington state is doing to protect net neutrality, I wrote about it (although that story may be dated by now). I figured out what the new tax law means for healthcare.

February Publications

In February I planned ahead for all the family-friendly free things to do in March. I made a list of all the great geeky cons throughout the year in Seattle to help families choose which ones to attend. For the traveling family, I gave away my secrets on how to beat the crowds in Iceland. Woodland Park Zoo celebrate an orangutan’s 50th birthday with a party. For ParentMap I previewed the PNB School production of starter ballet Snow White, but I went to see the Journal of Ben Uchida at Seattle Children’s Theatre.

I figured out what homeowners need to know about the new tax law, and why kids can be searched at school. I reviewed the important but not-so-famous SCOTUS case, Marbury v. Madison, in which the Supreme Court gave itself a lot of power. A few people will be very glad to learn of Seattle’s proposed cannabis amnesty. In celebration of Presidents’ Day, I wrote a history of presidential legal troubles.

March Publications

ParentMap’s annual superheroes issue is my favorite every year. This year I was honored and delighted to meet and interview two superheroes: Northwest Tap Connection’s director Melba Ayco and Skate Like a Girl’s director Kristin Ebeling. I visited the Anne Frank exhibit at the Holocaust Center for Humanity, and there’s still time for you to go, too. I recommend it.

My 8th-grader didn’t participate in the school walk-out for gun control, and that worried me. So I wrote about it, then dragged my kids to March for Our Lives and the teen action fair at the Gates Foundation. Both girls said they enjoyed it, but I haven’t written about that part.

I tried to predict whether Washington shoppers would change their habits based on the new SALT deduction cap and discovered that everything Hollywood tells us about green card marriages is wrong. I added to my “When SCOTUS was wrong” series with a piece on the Dred Scott case. Then SCOTUS added to it with  Jennings v. Rodriguez authorized indefinite detention of immigrants. It’s a decision that raises the stakes in the immigrants’ catch-22.

If you’ve ever wondered, “What’s the difference between common law and civil law?” I’ve got your answer. If you’re starting a new business and trying to decide between sole proprietorship or LLC, I can help you there, too.

On the Blog

One of the reasons to self-host a blog is supposed to be improved statistics, but I’m still learning how to use what’s available to me now. But I have figured out a few things.

Writing a separate post for each ballet in a mixed rep is good for traffic, especially if Pacific Northwest Ballet tweets a link to your post on an original piece they commissioned from one of their dancers. That’s what happened on my best day since moving the blog, when I wrote about A Perpetual State.

I know that most of my traffic comes from Facebook and Twitter. Only about 20 percent of my readers are subscribers (or even return visitors – sadness). Next up are links in my bio from articles I wrote on ParentMap, followed by people who first tried the old address and bothered to click through to the new site. A huge thank you to the readers who tracked me down!

Most readers are in the U.S. They’re followed by people who have somehow hidden their country of origin from my statistics plug-in. Go privacy! In third and fourth place are Canada, and mysteriously, Peru.

Popular Posts

In March, the most popular posts (aside from the home page) were:

• Perpetual State of Director’s Choice at PNB
• Music I Liked: Decibel Magazine Tour
• Beatrice and Benedict – A Seattle Opera Original
• Slingerland Duet at PNB Director’s Choice
• Cherry Blossoms

Search Terms

It’s getting harder and harder to see which search terms bring people to the site. That makes finding funny ones less likely, so I might stop including them. Here’s what worked so far this year that I can see.

So yeah, go Hanna Hipp. It looks like opera people are looking for Seattle-focused content. I’m your huckleberry, folks.