“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Nothing,” he says.
And we both know that he’s full of shit, although only one of us has any clue to what extent.  And it’s not me.
He folds his arms across his chest, a visual cue that he’s closing himself off from me.  He smiles a little to reassure me, but he doesn’t [...]

I never remember to call her on her birthday.
Ever.
We’ve been friends for 17 years, and I always call the day before or the day after, but never on the actual day.  I’m pretty good at remembering dates, I’m just rarely aware of what the date is today.
I think we’ve been friends for as long as [...]

We are, I think, as a people, a community of head shakers.
We like to stand around and shake our heads and cluck our tongues and admonish the world around us.
We are aghast at how bad the world is these days.  We are shocked by cruelty and deception and what we perceive to be evil.  We [...]

As of about two o’clock this morning, I am officially the mother of a ten year old.
Ten.
One Zero.
It now takes two whole digits to accurately describe him.  Or rather, his age.  It obviously takes more than mere numerals to describe the rest of him.
As we drove to Walt Disney World yesterday to celebrate his birthday [...]

When we say we want to be “writers” when we grow up, we imagine ourselves as a slightly shorter version of Carrie Bradshaw.
Or, at least, I do.  I mean, the woman had an insane shoe collection and lived in my favorite city in the entire world.  What’s not to emulate?
If not Carrie Bradshaw, then maybe [...]

I keep thinking about all those stupid metaphors that talk about the work that goes on beneath the surface.
The graceful duck that glides along the surface of a pond, furiously paddling its webbed feet underneath the water…
The deceptive iceberg with its notorious tip, only hinting at the massive destruction it’s capable of…
We’re looking so good [...]

Two weeks ago, I dragged two three children to the grocery store for our weekly shopping trip.
After they had endured more time than anyone should ever have to endure in a Wal-Mart, I took them to the nearby party supply store that had been converted into a costume shop for the Halloween season.
Emma had known [...]

I spent most of the day Monday pissed off.
I didn’t have one specific reason.  I was just… annoyed.  I was frustrated with passive aggressive behavior being directed around me – because the point of passive aggressive is that it’s never direct exactly at you.  I was ticked off thinking about crappy friends.  I was annoyed [...]

“Are you nervous or excited?” I asked.
Jared looked up from his half of the admissions packet we were filling out for our new marriage counselor.  He shrugged one shoulder and contorted his lips the way he always does when he doesn’t want to talk about something.  If he could have disappeared into the brown paisley [...]

“I watched them, thinking that little girls who make their mothers live grow up to be such powerful women.”  -Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray, Love
I read those words and stopped for a second, wondering if an editor in some glass New York City office building had missed a typo.
“…little girls who make their mothers live [...]

Kevin of Always Home and Uncool has asked me to post this as part of his effort to raise awareness in the blogosphere of juvenile myositis, a rare autoimmune disease his daughter was diagnosed with on this day seven years ago. The day also happens to be his wife’s birthday.
Take it away, Kevin…
*
Our [...]

I thought I had survived The Apocalypse.
I thought I had lived through the worst.
I was wrong.
Yesterday, in the early afternoon hours, I received an email that would forever change the course of my life.  It would, I think, change the very fabric of me.  Permanently.
I was standing up when I read it.  The words instantly [...]

When I was growing up, I wanted to be my Grammy.
Actually, when I was first growing up, I wanted to be my Nana.  As far as my preteen eyes could tell, Nana was rich with money and royal blood.  She was fashionable and commanding.  She knew things that no one else in the whole world [...]

“It doesn’t matter if you go to the ocean to fill up a thimble or a bucket, the ocean doesn’t care”
- Wayne Dyer
There is no better place to ask questions than beside the ocean.
Because the ocean doesn’t care.
You can wade into the ocean fat and white, with puckered thighs and dimpled cheeks.  You can lounge [...]

I love that I over share.  It lets someone in the world know that they are not alone, or crazy.
I love that I am not afraid of pain.  It doesn’t bother me to cry or fight or doubt.  Knowing this about myself makes me feel brave.
I love that I laugh.  Hard.  In damn near any [...]