My anxiety is a spackle, filling in the cracks of daily life. For some people, anxiety can be a positive, keeping their senses sharp and giving them just enough edge to practice the presentation another time, plan a little better. Mine stays mostly dormant during those times, a silent passenger that lets me drive when…
Not the kind with boas
“It sounds funny when you keep using that word.” “What, bachelorette?” “Yeah. It makes me think of bachelorette parties and like, penis-shaped cocktails.” Mechanic has been traveling more than usual. I’m not very good at it. (See previous whiny post for further self-focused details.) And when talking to my bestie Amber, I described it a…
2 a.m. List
Mechanic is traveling more than I’d like the rest of 2017. I’m not meant to fly solo in my house. I’m a capital E, increase-the-font-all-the-way-up-to-36 Extrovert who gets easily sick of the sound of my own voice and craves company nonstop. Mechanic knows I’d happily sign a reality-TV contract if I meant I get to…
Finding Myself (Here, Yet Again)
Current view: Velvety gray fog as far as the eye can see, framed by deep green leaves swaying next to our cabin deep in the Smoky Mountains. Just 15 minutes ago, I was sitting in the hot tub with a book in hand, listening to the rain on the porch roof and startling by moments…
Stories that Stick (and Poke)
I’m a deadbeat reader. At least, to my own mind. Since I was young, I’ve constantly had a book in my hand. My dad does a wickedly accurate impression of a 13-year-old me, mechanically eating a bowl of cereal without looking away from my Babysitters Club books. But in recent years, as I’ve gotten busier…
Of all the joints you could have walked into…
Sometimes you have to reflect on where you’ve been to appreciate where you’re going. The view isn’t always pretty, but “scenic” isn’t a straight synonym for beautiful, kittens. In this case, scenic is probably a synonym for “way too long a story for a blog” and yet, I’m writing one anyway. I’ve kept a story…
Is life what happens while we wait for it to start?
Chick lit and I have a love-hate relationship. Not-Old-Enough-To-Drive Ashley adored Bridget Jones. College Ashley loved spunky Cannie Shapiro and cooed over Jemima J, that sassy Brit who dropped lots of weight to become beautiful and marry a real American hunk. I mean, his name was BRAD. Who could possibly be hunkier to an early-2000s…
Plan the Work, (Revise Where Needed), Work the Plan.
“Plan the work and work the plan” is a fabulous piece of wisdom, but it doesn’t account for what happens when the plan you made…well, doesn’t make sense. Maybe it’s a plan for someone else, maybe it’s a plan for another you, maybe it’s a pipe dream wrapped in an unrealistic cocoon nestled into a…
Bring on that good luck
“Mom, that’s so weird. Who recreationally reads cookbooks?” I have vivid memories of my mom curled up in her recliner, pile of cookbooks in her lap, on lazy weekend days. She would wave me off, picking through page by page, sometimes stopping to read a particularly tasty-sounding food combination out loud. I might have gotten…
2017: A Blank Sheet of Paper
I don’t think anyone has kept fewer New Year’s resolutions than I have – but I can’t imagine anyone who loves them more than I do. There is something so intoxicating about the promise of a new year, new opportunity to try again, new chance to do something else, be someone else. A new year…
Why Someday Into Now?
I think “someday” may be the currency of my life. It’s the IOU I give myself every morning and every night. I spend my somedays in big and small ways: Someday you’ll be a person who enjoys getting up at 5 a.m. Someday you’ll publish your book. Someday you’ll lose fifty pounds. Someday you’ll start…
Someday Into Now 