When I began thinking about this topic, I planned to write about Leah, my best friend from kindergarten through about third grade. Fourth? It can be difficult to determine when best friendships morph into regular old friendships, especially while looking back on those pre-pubescent years, but I’m fairly certain that by fifth grade — after Leah had transferred schools — we’d both moved on to other favorites. Then I remembered…
My first apartment wasn’t an apartment — it was a house. And not just any house but a house on Martha’s Vineyard the summer between my sophomore and junior years in college when I was a Derelict with a capital D. And, well, I had the house to match. I lived in it with three other girls, which became two other girls once the third got a look at the…
WELCOME TO PUB DAY!!! I am so pleased to have you all here with me. For the curious, my schedule today looks something like this: 9:00 a.m. – Sleep in, allow husband to walk dog, then bring me Diet Coke in bed 10:00 a.m. – Kiss husband goodbye, check e-mail for all those FABULOUS congratulations e-mails 10:30 a.m. – Put on music that I love, Van Morrison and Lucinda Williams…
I like to tell myself that I didn’t commit any crimes, that the things I did fell more into the area of “pranks.” Who doesn’t like a good prank after all? Prankster sounds so much better than say- delinquent. Examples of some escapades include: – If you pour baby powder at the base of someone’s closed door, and then blow it under the door with a hair dryer it will…
Oh, yikes. Are we really going to go here? I already feel like the delinquent deb — Thank God, is all I can say, for Jennifer‘s at times equally risque adventures — but is it really time to come out and confess the crimes? I’m going to skip through the drinking-related misdeeds, because who really needs to hear about how I got busted for underage drinking when I was 16…
My first real date with a boy was complicated – as all such dates are bound to be when you are a fourteen-year-old lesbian. The first date itself wasn’t even that memorable (although my mother certainly made a big deal of it), but it set off a sequence of events that was extremely memorable. I was a freshman. My friend “Suzy” had a boyfriend, a senior, whose real name I…
When I was a kid, Saturday night was drive-in night. Because they charged by the person, we’d arrive at the drive-in packed into the trunk of my best friend Lynn’s mom’s car. It was a big old boat of a car, and we could fit four kids in that trunk. Sometimes, she’d let us ride back there the whole way from her house. We had a flashlight and told each…
There’s simply no way I can write the word “popcorn” and not delve into my popcorn-and-Milk Duds combo obsession. I don’t know when it started. I just know that today, as soon as someone says, “Hey, are you interested in seeing…” I’m already imagining scooping a handful of butter-drenched corn and Milk Dud into my mouth. Sometimes, when I’m not feeling remotely inspired by what’s out there, the thought is…
It is well known that many writers base their protagonist on themselves. There is only one problem with that- I’m boring. My parents gave me a frightfully normal and healthy upbringing. Although I am sure they had my best interests at heart, this deprived me of material for my creative muse. Sure there were a few times when my dad’s sense of humor would leave me certain I would die…
I love this week’s topic. My first book- In the Stars– is about a woman who fakes psychic abilities in an effort to get her ex boyfriend back. As any writer will tell you one of the best things about writing is finding things to do to procrastinate doing the actual writing. As a result, I spent a lot of time avoiding writing by researching psychics, talking to people who…
