I look at myself and while the body in the mirror is mine, the shadow that follows me while I’m walking isn’t. The woman looking at me in the mirror and in pictures can’t be me (can she?). She looks so tiny. I mean, people in the “regular” world would laugh at my version of… Read More What’s Reflected
I grew up as an only child from the age of 0-13. Oddly enough, I would figure out one of my family’s biggest secrets through what was the fairly benign routine of looking through old family photo albums. This is my memory of that day (in Kinderhook, NY, where my gramp’s house was fairly famous… Read More Sisters
My mom and I were sort of famous for NOT getting along when I was younger. We fought like sisters (it wasn’t pretty). I remember fights over the radio on road trips, all out fits in the store for back-to-school shopping, a paralyzing fear of having to go to any doctor and the ensuing verbal… Read More Group Home
As a favorite Southern colleague of mine says, I come by my love of holidays “rightly”. There wasn’t a commercialized holiday we didn’t celebrate in my house growing up. Birthdays were never forgotten. Halloween was huge. And Christmas was usually dotted by several days of family appearances, shenanigans that only my mom’s side of the… Read More Home is the Holidays
I am amazingly imperfect: My thumbs are miniature I have a vampire tooth (just one) My face is crooked My body is crooked (right side = larger) I have my dad’s temper I am obese (still) by society’s standards There are disturbing, crazy hairs (whiskers) that only appear on one side of my face (tweezers =… Read More Perfection
I always find myself gazing at my closest friends adoringly. I know, I probably sound completely nuts, but I am woman enough to admit that the feeling is pure, unadulterated adoration. It happened tonight while visiting with one of my oldest friends over dinner (who also happens to live in California). It happened at my… Read More Adoration
This article about plastic surgery in Brazil surfaced on my Facebook feed (I ❤ NPR): http://apps.npr.org/lookatthis/posts/plastic/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=2036 Reading it, I felt immediately enraged. Being from Miami, no one has to tell me the price women (and even girls) are willing to pay to “perfect” themselves. Miami is a plastic surgery Mecca. Years ago, a student of… Read More The Price of Plastic
(Read “Jon’s Story” for more perspective on today’s thoughts) Somehow, I didn’t have an emotional breakdown at any point in the 10k journey today though I came close. Once as we started and again as we got to where someone was screaming “6 more blocks”, there were tears. Somehow, I forcibly sucked them back into… Read More AIDS Walk LA, 2014
Dating has been nothing short of disturbing in LA. Perhaps it’s the same everywhere – but there’s a special kind of equation to dating here that I seem to see working itself out over and over. [Note: full disclosure, sometimes dating has provided hilarity, a decent conversation, an amazing lover (or two), etc…] I’ve been… Read More The PowerPoint
My mom is famous for a) her quirkiness and b) not remembering important details of my life. Last year (in honor of my 38th birthday), she decided to share the following: • I was born at 7:20 pm; • I was 3 weeks early (and SHOULD have been a Halloween baby – Halloween is in… Read More My Mom and the Missing Details
