Fifty people packed into my kitchen, drinks in hand, ready for cake. I glanced around and realized I hadn’t seen the guest of honor for at least half an hour. The back door opened and someone called, “Hey, Sophie’s ready for her entrance.” I looked outside and there she was, standing in the driveway, waiting to […]

    Packing lunches this morning, I dumped the contents of Sophie’s bag onto the kitchen table — the only good and fast way to get rid of the loose goldfish crackers roaming around in there. As usual, her calculator was there, too, as well as her school ID and about a dozen mechanical pencils, […]

      Dear Dax: More than anything, this is a piece of fan mail. I hope you consider it as such. I know it probably won’t make its way to you, but social media is so weird and connective that I guess there’s a chance it will. I hope it does. I love your […]

Editor’s Note: I read this essay at the December 20, 2o18 Bar Flies at The Van Buren in Phoenix. The theme: Eating Christmas. So, here’s the thing no one really ever tells you about Christmas. It gets harder as you get older. This occurred to me last week, when my daughter Sophie ran sobbing to […]

  I finally bought my kid some overalls last week. It was time. And not because it was Halloween, although that was her excuse – this time. Sophie’s been asking for overalls for years, and for years I’ve been changing the subject. That’s not to say this isn’t a kid who gets what she wants, particularly […]

    This morning, Sophie’s high school classmates are taking the PSAT. Sophie is home, sleeping in. When she gets up, she’ll do math homework, get her bangs trimmed, watch some YouTube videos. Later in the day, she’ll go to ballet class. I’ve never let her miss a test before. For 15 years, this kid […]

  Fall is here, but I’m still thinking about my summer gig. I spent the hot months of the year with my nose in the dictionary — rifling through medical journals, Googling the history of words, jotting down notes. And clapping my hand over my own mouth several times a day. I’ve been a journalist […]

    Not long after Ray dropped Sophie off at school yesterday morning, I got a text from my friend Elizabeth. Her daughter and Sophie attend the same high school. The text included an image of an exchange Elizabeth had just had with her daughter: Mom, there’s apparently this thing going around social media that someone […]

  I couldn’t fall asleep last night. That’s unusual. Most nights I crash hard, then I’m up at 2, 3, 4, 5, finally really sleeping when the alarm goes off at 6. But last night I was prowling the house at midnight, looking for a photo from Annabelle’s first day of kindergarten. Twelve years ago, […]

  So there’s this Facebook status update that’s been rattling around in my head for weeks now. I’ve been afraid to actually write it down because I don’t want to jinx it. But – what the hell. It goes something like this: For as long as I can remember, pretty much since she’s been able […]