Christina Capecchi

I was a sophomore in college when I received the little blue book, a gift from a friend who also wanted to be a writer. At the time I was editing the student newspaper, poring over buried leads and dangling modifiers.

More than 19 million people tuned in to watch the final episode of “Game of Thrones” May 19, making it the most viewed show to ever air on HBO.

“Wife Returned After Having Fine Funeral.” The headline of a 483-word story in the March 15, 1904, edition of The New York Times bore a sly nod to Tom Sawyer. A man named Ignacio Valente was charging the city with a funeral bill he had been wrongfully issued, according to the Times.

All afternoon I had been hunkered over my MacBook, perched above a frozen lake and watching the sun cast pink into the clouds. I was thinking about what lie dormant and all the possibility below, waiting to thaw.

I’ve always appreciated the notion of self-care in an Oprah Winfrey, hot-baths-and-expensive-chocolates kind of way. We work so hard, the thinking goes, that we deserve a break here and there. So splurge on that full-price gift-to-yourself. Book the massage. Binge on the new season.