The weekend was long and hard and exhausting. The retreat team, a group of ten amazing people, worked for five weeks to put together a weekend that would open the teenagers’ minds and hearts. But they just weren’t receptive to it. I’m used to dealing with a couple of closed minds at a time, but […]

Media-savvy, non-profit worker bees on a Sunday afternoon

I’m getting out of here. Out of the city, up the coast, and into the beautiful wooded foothills of Malibu. I’m going to take deep breaths and feel my lungs and head clear up. I’m going to count stars, and I’ll probably lose count because there are just so many. I’m going to sit with […]

I spent Sunday afternoon re-learning how to use my sewing machine. I spent half of that afternoon trying to thread the needle. I started a new project, a mini project, on a whim. I had no pattern, no instructions and no earthly clue what I was doing. I just had an idea, and I thought […]

Martha Stewart may have popularized the term “good thing,” but I made it my own. I started keeping Good Things lists in my journal two years ago, during a dreary time in my life. I had gotten so used to seeing the bad stuff — too used to it — that I was losing sight […]

I feel so grateful for my friendships today. For the girls I’ve known since grade school whom I can meet for bagels and coffee after months and months of not talking. For the magic souls who can look at me and know exactly what I’m thinking without my having to say a word. For the […]

Most Thursday nights, I volunteer with high school kids at a church youth group. Because of how I sometimes act, and maybe also because of how I sometimes dress, the high schoolers don’t realize that I am as old as I am — that I am, in fact, twice the age of some of them. […]

At Baby Gap, a mother buys her twin daughters matching pink mary janes with floral embroidered trim. They are sitting barefoot, side by side, in a double stroller. The girl on the right cries when her mom hands the shoes to the cashier. “Mommy, my shoes! I want my shoooeess!” she hollers. The girl on […]

Several inches of my hair got lopped off this weekend. I’d let my hair go long the past couple months just to see what it would look like. It was the longest it’s been since junior high. It was fun to wear ponytails, pigtails and buns, but soon that was all I was wearing. My […]

Spring sprang this weekend. I opened all the windows on Saturday afternoon and invited it inside the house.

Dad and me, ca. 1979 When I was little, I used to sing a song to my dad. “Daddy Cool, Daddy Cool, Cool, Cool Daddy!” My mom would lead and I’d follow along. I thought it was something we wrote together, until this year, when I saw it on a Karaoke playlist. Still, my dad […]

On Saturday night, I went out. I hadn’t gone out to see live music or get drinks in so long that I felt like a teenager sneaking out on a schoolnight. We went to see The Temporary Thing, my friend Joel’s band, play at the Knitting Factory in Hollywood. The tiny room was packed with […]