6/23/2019 It’s been a week since I started this gig and I was preparing to retire my chargers. It all seems so ridiculous, doesn’t it? The miles driven and time spent for all of $4.50. For a few days, I feel a little surge of hostility toward each scooter I see on the streets. Heavy, […]
Read more "Back on the scooter hunt."On Saturday, June 15, Chicago unleashed its pilot electric scooter program. Ten companies received permits to operate up to 250 scooters around Chicago. That means up to 2,500 scooters are zipping around town within a 50-mile radius, bounded by Halsted on the east and the Chicago River on the east and south (translation: they’re […]
Read more "The diary of a middle-aged scooter charger"(These are a few of the photos I took this year, you can see more on my Instagram, @thekatesilver) A little over a year ago, I was contacted by an editor asking if I’d be interested in reviewing hotels in Chicago for The Telegraph in the UK. It didn’t take too much thought […]
Read more "Notes from a Chicago Hotel Reviewer"Chicago is the first place I’ve lived for an extended period of time that really, truly has seasons. And anyone who’s lived through a Chicago winter knows just how important spring is. The first 40-degree day is Prozac for our vitamin D-dampened spirits. Windows are open, sidewalks are filled with people, neighbors re-acquaint with neighbors […]
Read more "Springtime in Chicago"The last couple of weeks have seen some awesome journalism coming from women in Chicago. These are the types of stories that I read and they inspire me to want to be a better writer. They also just make me feel warm and fuzzy for the talent here in Chicago. Here are those stories. I […]
Read more "3 Powerful Chicago Stories to Read Right Now"Every year, the month of March rolls around and threatens to age me. I’m not a big birthday party person, but I do like to mark my birthday in some memorable way. And this year, that way involved trekking two and a half hours west, to a small town called Mount Carroll, Illinois, which is […]
Read more "A Haunting Trip to Raven’s Grin Inn"For about six years, I worked at home as a freelance writer, using my home office, or a couch or a chair and sometimes even the bed as I pecked away on my laptop. Then, about three years ago, my sister opened her own consulting business and began renting an office. Her space was […]
Read more "8 Reasons Freelancers Should Rent an Office"7 Weird and Wonderful Windy City Finds
Read more "Guide to Chicago, Off the Beaten Path"(Photo by tanjila ahmed) In 2011, I did a roundup of clever marijuana dispensary names across the country. I did a follow up in 2014. It’s one of those industries–like hair salons and bowling leagues–that just begs for creative, punny names. Today, 23 states have legalized marijuana in some form. And with that, the businesses […]
Read more "Best Marijuana Dispensary Names, Part III"As much as I love the fact that winter has ended and spring is here (despite what Mother Nature keeps sputtering at us in Chicago), I am sad to say goodbye, for now, to my latest addiction: curling. Not of the curling iron sort (I said goodbye to that in the 90s). This is of […]
Read more "Good Curling!"
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