The One Who Makes It Worth Reading

Hannah Maria Paffen turns twenty-two today, and I’m going to say something embarrassing: this place would be considerably worse without her. Not worse in some abstract, organizational sense—actually less interesting, with fewer good ideas, less emotional range, a narrower sense of what a blog can hold without collapsing into self-parody.

She’s the one who pushes content into territory I’d probably avoid on my own. Music I’d dismiss, feelings I’d deflect into a joke, the kind of writing that is sincere without being stupid about it. There’s a stubbornness to how she does this that would be irritating if the results weren’t so reliably good. She makes the whole thing more honest than it would otherwise be, which is more than most people contribute to anything.

Happy birthday. Don’t go anywhere.