The day before Thanksgiving our stomachs are in a perpetual state of preparation.

I have found myself dozing off at work, while drool splashes my keyboard, over the thought of warm cranberry sauce and stuffing as soft as pillows, forming a tight-knit friendship on my dinner plate. And while my stomach screams, “ARE WE THERE YET”, my mind tap dances across the things that have kept my heart racing this year.

A Super Short List of the Wacky Things That Have Kept Me Laughing in 2011:

Group Text Messaging on the IPhone.

The Casey Anthony trial.

The Jen Glantz Band. Check us out [www.youtube.com/JenGlantz]

The characters that call themselves the GOP Presidential Candidates.

Wednesday nights with Phil Dunphy.

But, as I pull myself together and keep my eye on the chocolate chip pancake Thanksgiving morning prize, I realize in 2011 it’s the people who have continued to rub against my cheap polyester leopard shorts that I owe a humongous thank you to. I wish i could fit those people into a suitcase, a shadow box or even a scrapbook just so I could walk by them collectively every single day and just say, “Thank you for loving me as I am”. Because I’ll admit I am … Read More »

Most of the day has escaped from my mind the way change gradually bounces out of your pockets over time. But the who and the what always trump the why and the when, when memories, like post-it notes, lose their ability to stick and eventually tumble away.

We were seven, Jamie and I, when we decided to run away.  It is a mystery what exactly drove this idea into our Disney infested minds back then but I am sure it was something as insignificant as one of our moms telling us we could not have an ice cream bar before a home cooked dinner or that we were not allowed to have a slumber party for the fourth night in a row.

Our minds were set. We were going to pack up our belongings and flee. Two child pioneers setting off for an adventure. Leaving Mrs. Weiner and the second grade class to learn grammar and cursive on their own.

We sat, Indian style, on the plush white carpet of my childhood room. Our tangled yellow hair and matching smirks of trouble made us feel as if we were the leads in our very own Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen detective movie–back when they were … Read More »

Through the other end of the phone, someone with light breathing and a nonchalant undertone will suddenly, yet consistently, always ask me: Why I want to be a writer. You can’t be sure about much when it comes to job interviews, in fact, you rarely know the curve ball questions they will throw your way but I can always be certain I will be asked once if not a lucky second time, why I want to write.

And they will ask me why as if it was an idea that just sashayed into my mind while i was in the middle of tying to solve 2x+1/4y=z during Algebra I. As if i made the choice to pick a profession that would leave me spending large chunks of my life living in apartments the size of a garment box, eating loaves of bread and living off the jingles of coins inside my piggy bank.

If we are going off “want” then heck, I want to be a Disney pop star or a third grade teacher even. I want to be the person who comes up with creative names for OPI nail polish. In fact, Miss America, here I come! But this is not … Read More »