News Archives

Neverspeak Weekly 3/7/17

Baby, Baby. In addition to new residents, Neverland will be welcoming even newer faces by the end of this year. If you haven’t already heard, Sarah-Jane Mason and her husband Alfie are expecting twins. The word on the street is that Jas Hook himself signed off on their future monikers, Ava and Aidan. Make those connections early! This crafty columnist also got an exclusive with Mia Traynor who just announced that she and her hubby Eli are expecting as well. Both future mother and father are looking forward about their impending parenthood. Mia admits to some trepidation, but assures us that Eli is ready to go. “He is excited to teach his progeny his cowboy ways,” a glowing Mia giggled. Congrats on the great news, cute couples! Better you than me.

Whatever Lola Wants… While some couples are coming closer together, others may be falling apart. Multiple sources have reported seeing Wesley Parsons horseback-riding with blonde beauty Lola Williams at her new riding school, Sunny & Lola’s. According to one concerned observer, “Lola, as she calls herself, offers riding lessons, but she’s very hands-on.” Apparently, Mr. Parsons has been less than honest with his girlfriend Juliet Carpenter about these meetings. A word of caution to both parties, in a town as small as Neverland, you can never keep a secret for long.

Light ‘Em Up. Michael Darling led a tour of the Garden of Light for interested Neverlandians this week. While tours are usually populated by, well, tour-ists, it was great to see the locals really appreciating one of our proudest treasures. Teresa Delacruz loved being in the Garden so much that she made it the location of her Halloween wedding to Neal. The Gardens are always exquisite, but recent developments have made them even more spectacular. Droves of fairies have been showing up in Neverland and taking up residence in the park. This is unusual at this time of year given that it is not December and we aren’t all singing showtunes. (Ask Sarah Lightly more about Fairy Songification if you are new to Neverand…)

Making Magic. The Neverland fire department has had their fair share of cats in trees, but they probably haven’t had a call quite like this one. According to her mother, Lilly-Jane Wentworth accidentally turned her favorite teddy bear into a real live feline. Though she’s only just turned two, the littlest member of our favorite fairy family can already fly and is “startlingly good at anything magic she tries.” Jo isn’t quite sure if the bear will remain a cat or not. With husband Freddie Wentworth in Europe helping fairy refugees and her own commitment to med school, Jo has certainly got her hands full. If the magic can’t be reversed, this bear-turned-cat may be in need of a new home!

Window to the Soul. If you haven’t already joined, there is a new dating app in town. JHMedia and the K-Chron have teamed up to release Open Window. For now, the website will be locals only, but knowing JHMedia, it will soon be worldwide. While competitor Tinder sends your swipes into oblivion, Open Window actually keeps track of how many Neverlandians have opened your window (and how many haven’t.) “It’s the worst kind of popularity contest,” said one disgruntled single. But others don’t seem to be bothered by the game. A grinning Jane Mannering admitted that she’s kind of obsessed with the app. “It’s almost as addicting as these chocolate covered gummy bears!” Just make sure to note what your looking for, so you don’t end up on a date that’s not a date, or a hangout that is!

Trending
Mary Poppins Returns
#GardenofLight
Spring Fling
Hockey
Anastasia the Musical
Ace/aro
Raphael
#AskWendyLive

Best Tweet Ever
Teresa Delacruz @neverlandslayer Mar 3
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“Dear @Lin_Manuel, do not throw away your shot! Please come to Neverland. Your obedient servant.”

 

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Posted in Neverspeak
Posted on March 7, 2017

Welcome to OpenWindow – Hooked on Love

Are you looking for love or friendship in Neverland?

Well JHMedia and the K-Chron have your back!  OpenWindow is here, a place online where you can connect with other Neverlandians.  Rate whether you want to open your window to them or close it!  Those with Twitter accounts shared allow you to connect with them.

You can join up or just rate!

Click here to begin.

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Posted in Editorials, Tech Updates
Posted on March 3, 2017

The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same

Brace yourself, dear readers, we’re about to take another deep dive into the rabbit hole that is the plight of the millennials in the workforce. I’d like to be able to say that things have progressed since the last time I wrote about jobs in Neverland, but it pains me to report that, at least in my own circles, most of us still find ourselves running in circles. And were it not for nepotism, our work situations would be much more dire indeed. My job, as assistant to the editor in chief, and editor of the Kensington Chronicle’s online edition, has not changed, nor has my salary. Our fairy friend Tinker Bell is now my father’s secretary at the paper. My brother Michael has moved up in the world, ever so slightly; he’s gone from the mail room to taking over my sister Wendy advice vlog, Dear Darling.

However, on the other end of the spectrum, I have a good friend (who, for the purposes of this editorial shall remain nameless) who is currently without employment, and would seem to be in no immediate danger of acquiring it. I will say that, in his last job, this individual was particularly ill-equipped to work on anybody’s schedule but his own. That said, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel his pain. With the massive layoffs we’ve seen during the Great Recession, those of us who are still fortunate enough to have our 9-to-5 jobs are working longer hours, and doing the work of two or more people. In this kind of work environment, it becomes increasingly difficult for millennials to juggle their work life and their personal lives. A narrative begins to emerge that millennials can only successful in one of those areas, not both.

Now, if you think about it, the idea of a 9-to-5 salaried position has become less and less relevant the further the industrial age has receded into our society’s rearview mirror. During the era of industrialization, routinized tasks were the order of the day, and this kind of work could be planned far enough in advance that businesses could create set shifts for workers, who would work the same hours, day in and day out, doing exactly the same thing. But now that computers can do a lot of these tasks that used to required manual labor, the landscape is changing.

What’s the upshot of this? Millennials are willing to be paid less than they’re worth, forgo promotions or uproot their lives and move, all for the opportunity to work a job that affords them the kind of flexibility they need to have a life outside of work. And, as you might imagine, when there’s an able-bodied work force that’s willing to take a pay cut to maintain a flexible schedule, the market will adjust to that demand. And the first real businesses to capitalize on this desire for flexible hours have been Uber and its competitors. The problem is, the new picture bears a striking resemblance to the piece work of the 19th century, when workers had no power, no rights, and worked an ungodly amount of hours for almost no pay. Uber drivers, for instance, are expected to provide their own cars, their own insurance, and Uber takes a large percentage of the profits.

And this so called “sharing economy” doesn’t stop there. We’re seeing the same thing happening with Instacart shoppers, Airbnb hosts, and Taskrabbit jobbers. There are even on-demand doctors and attorneys cropping up online. These companies will tout that they’re giving workers the kind of flexibility they want by enabling them to monetize their own downtime. But this so-called downtime is the time that earlier generations spent actually leading their lives. And since the amount of work that’s available in these professions is entirely dependent upon demand, even if you had the time to start a family, financial security in this scenario is something you’d only be able to dream about.

I am happy to report, however, that when it comes to my sister Wendy, she’s turned out to be the exception that proves the rule. As many of you are no doubt aware, about six month ago, she spread her wings and flew away from Neverland towards an amazing opportunity in New York City; she’s now an up-and-comer at a world renowned media outlet called JH Media. I hope you’ll kindly indulge me for a moment as I engage in a bit of shameless promotion on my sister’s behalf. Wendy has a book coming out in the very immediate future, entitled “ASK WENDY! Advice on Life, Love, and Living,” and I urge you to click over to the JH Media site without delay to learn more about it. Her correspondence has, of late, become uncharacteristically sparse, but I can only assume that this is an indication of the breadth of her success!

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Posted in Editorials
Posted on June 10, 2015

Neverland Without Wendy

This week, I thought I’d write a follow-up to my last editorial about my sister Wendy leaving Neverland. In the run-up to her departure, I was so gung-ho about what this career move meant for Wendy that I barely stopped to think about how her leaving would affect me. Now that a couple of months have passed, the impact of her flight has begun to stick out in stark relief.

For instance, before now I don’t think I ever consciously acknowledged just how important Wendy’s presence was in the ecosystem of our apartment. When it was me, Wendy and Michael living together, there was a delicate balance to the universe. Now that it’s just me and Michael… Well, he and I are both still alive, so I guess things aren’t as bad as they could be. And don’t get me wrong, I love my brother dearly, but I never quite realized the extent to which he is incapable of doing almost anything for himself. Wendy was always as much like a mother to Michael as a sister, and now those motherly duties are falling to the only sibling that yet remains.

I’m also feeling Wendy’s absence more directly. When you’ve seen someone day in and day out for as long as you can remember, it’s difficult to describe just how much of a void you feel after they’ve gone. And while Wendy and I were decidedly diligent about keeping in contact on a daily basis in the immediate aftermath of her departure, as the weeks wear on I fear we have both been woefully remiss in maintaining this level of communication. Wendy’s sojourn to the big city marks the first time that any of my siblings have been absent from Neverland for this length of time, and I’d be lying if I said that I’m entirely equipped to deal with the situation. To one degree or another, Wendy had been helping me muddle through almost all of the things I struggle with as a prototypical millennial, and with her gone, I must admit I’m starting to feel a bit like a ship without a rudder.

That said, I guess you can’t really expect your loved ones will ever learn to fly if they always keep one foot in the nest. I suppose on some level I always understood that Wendy’s life post-Neverland couldn’t begin in earnest until our beloved hometown had receded sufficiently into her rearview mirror. The toughest thing about encouraging your friends and loved ones to follow their dreams is that sometimes said dreams take them worlds away, and threaten to make your once-entwined paths finally and inevitably diverge. I can say, categorically, that Neverland is not the same without Wendy, and I have no doubt that Wendy’s life has undergone a concomitant change as well. I only hope that, in the final analysis, the old axiom about change being good turns out to be true in this case. And I suppose, so far as that goes, only time will tell.

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Posted in Editorials
Posted on August 15, 2014

Flying the Coop

As most of you loyal “It’s Dear Darling” viewers probably already know, my sister Wendy has left Neverland for a cushy job in the big city. Working at JH Media really is a dream job for her, and I couldn’t be happier about it. And if I’m being honest, I’ve kind of seen this coming for a long time; because, while my dream is here, Wendy was never going to be able to reach her full potential in Neverland. And don’t get me wrong, if I got an offer to be a newspaperman for a prestigious paper in the big city, I’m not saying I wouldn’t have to think long and hard about it, but in the final analysis, I am perfectly happy climbing the ladder here at our local paper. Because sooner or later our dear father George Darling will have to retire (though I daren’t tell him that!), and I can’t imagine the Kensington Chronicle without a Darling at the helm.

However, “It’s Dear Darling” was essentially the pinnacle of what Wendy would have been able to achieve at the Chronicle, and I’ve always known that she’s destined for bigger things than that. Which is not to say that it was easy for her to leave. It takes a certain kind of person to leave behind her parents, her siblings, her friends, and make a new life for herself hundreds of miles from the place she’s called home for her entire life. The Kensington Chronicle’s own Peter Pan likes to fancy himself an adventurer, but for my money there is no braver soul in all of Neverland than my sister Wendy.

I do sometimes wonder, however, just what is the cost of pursuing your dreams? As I’ve mentioned at least a couple of times before, as I toil day in and day out to make my professional dreams a reality, the refrain “What’s love got to do with it?” keeps coming up more and more frequently. Indeed, Wendy’s departure has threatened to tear her own burgeoning romance asunder, making me wonder anew if personal and professional satisfaction truly are mutually exclusive propositions. Juggling a career and a serious relationship has seemed like a bridge too far for many in my generation, and I think it begs the question, “What do you do when you have two dreams that are at odds?” And I suppose I don’t necessarily have a good answer to that question.

That said, when confronted with this choice herself, I believe Wendy came at it from a particularly refreshing angle. Some might say she chose professional aspirations over love, but I don’t exactly see it that way. I rather like to think that she’s elected to believe that, in situations like this, love finds a way. That distance can make the heart grow fonder, and true love can endure even the harshest trials.

So for all of you Neverlandians out there wrestling with this same choice, weighing the pros of following your dreams against the cons of leaving your old life behind, remember that your friends and loved ones will support you, whatever your decision. And pulling up roots for the big city needn’t be a sad commentary on the state of things here in Neverland; sometimes, the grass really is greener on the other side, and the only way to begin your new life is to go where your dreams take you.

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Posted in Editorials
Posted on July 29, 2014
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