01. Don’t Hide the Crazy

I started out my dating life as a serial monogamist.

From my teens until well into my twenties, I held on tight to my relationships, especially the difficult ones. Nothing worth having should be easy to get. I would find the formula to make a difficult relationship work.

Guess what? No formula. No success. In my late twenties, I gave up on serial monogamy and started dating in earnest for the first time.

I had no idea what I was doing. Read more →

02. Your Own Doppelganger

I’m an identical twin, so you’d think it would be easy for me to tell other twins apart.

It’s not.

In fact, sometimes I can’t even tell me and my sister apart. Read more →

03. Speak Up!

I spent my high school years at a tiny, all-girls Catholic school.

Before I go on, I need you to banish the image of a stereotypic Catholic school girl–sweet-faced, wearing knee-high socks and a pleated tartan miniskirt that barely covers her ass, her glasses lowered as she pouts with puffy, bee-stung lips.

Excise her from your mental database.

That was not our school. At our school, we were expected to exceed stereotypes, to assert ourselves, to be intellectually curious, volubly so.

To speak while female. Read more →

04. There Are No Accidents

I’m not a big believer in fate or destiny. Sometimes shit just happens.

And yet. Read more →

05. More New Writers’ Resources

I’m always adding links to my Writers’ Resources page, so every now and then I like to highlight some of the new resources I’ve discovered, along with an old favorite or two. Read more →

06. The Anti-Resolution List

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions.

I don’t even pretend to have the best of intentions about making them. I don’t try to get around to it. I don’t go all Scarlett O’Hara and think, “Tomorrow is another day. Tomorrow, I’ll figure out the perfect resolutions to help me get what I want…I mean, to help make me a better person.” Read more →

07. The Queen of Cool

I am a haphazard housekeeper, at best.

I didn’t used to be. Before I met my husband and had my son, my house was pristine, every surface a glorious, bare expanse: no pictures, no tchotchkes, no vases or plants. My bed was always made, my books always shelved, my paperwork and bills hidden away.

I even had rules about the way I kept my refrigerator: containers lined up by size, cheeses and meats in the deli drawer, fruits and veggies in the crisper, and only liquids on the top shelf since that’s the tallest shelf and liquid containers are the tallest items in the fridge.

No top-shelf solids. Not ever. Read more →