Some people collect comic books, or vinyl records, or refrigerator magnets. I collect words.  In the fall of 1998, my first semester in college, my best friend urged me to start a quote book. We shared an infatuation with the first two Counting Crows albums, dripping tortured lyrics that, in the throes of early adult angst, spoke to our souls. Adam Duritz sings words you can't help but pay homage to by writing them down for yourself. Suddenly I saw the world was full of words I needed to keep. So I dug out an old hardcover journal I had been gifted in high school. With the inspirational Footprints poem on the cover, it wasn't really my style, but it had 168 lined pages ready to absorb meaningful, beautiful words, and I obliged. I wanted a list of expressive and evocative quotations that said I wasn't alone, and snapshots of the memories I might someday forget. The very first quote I wrote down was, "Your past is where you came from, not who you are." It told me, i...

I didn't think it would happen to us. Not to *my* friends. We were smart. We were practical. We knew the risks. We had read articles from doctors advising against it, heard about the struggles of other parents, and agreed that we would never turn into Those People.  But when December came, one by one they fell victim to the contagion. They bought Elves on the Shelf. Enemy of the people I didn't understand what was happening. These are otherwise level-headed, rational parents who for some reason looked at their lives -- working from home, schooling from home, navigating a pandemic, plus taking on the load of Christmastime -- and thought, " You know what would be great? If we added even more daily responsibilities in the name of enchantment! " I wanted to talk them off the ledge, shake them into sensibility, take their temperatures and suggest bedrest. But it was too late -- the elves had already been named. It had begun. Oh, my dear friends, what have you done? Even my...

To my dear, sweet little boy -- Some days you are a stellar nebula, roiling and swirling, birthing gravity, constantly creating itself. I am interstellar space that once contained the ingredients for making your stars. Not empty but feeling that way, made of dust and protons, I watch.  Some days you are a swollen stream bursting at your banks, rushing forward to no clear destination. Churning and frothing with barely contained hydroelectricity, you move anything in your path that you can carry. I am a rock in your waters, fixed and surrounded, trying to steal a breath. Some days you are the hot wind barreling through the flat plains, battering anything that dares to stand in your way. I am a windmill trying to withstand your gusts without losing my blades. I whirl with frustration, struggling to draw enough water to quench my thirst during these long days.  Some day your energy will scale the sheer faces of awesome cliffs, it will run city marathons, it will fight tirelessly t...

Once upon a time, I was the proud parent of 17 fertilized eggs. Notice I did not say children. I have two beautiful, healthy, very-much-wanted children who once numbered among those embryos, but already-born people are not the same as fertilized eggs, zygotes, or embryos. I know from experience. Several years ago, in the thick of my own infertility procedures, a specialist who was trying to console me said, "human reproduction is a wasteful and inexact process." It's true whether reproduction  occurs naturally  or with assistance. (This was no consolation, by the way.) This may look fun, but it isn't. Multiple grueling rounds of in vitro fertilization (IVF) proved over and over that he was devastatingly correct. I know without a doubt that fertilization does not always equal life. And it concerns me that the Supreme Court doesn't agree.  Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, whose confirmation process was abbreviated to only five weeks, is a devoutly religious ...

You know how it goes at the end of December. You get together with friends or strangers, watch the glittering ball drop, kiss and toast, wish everyone a happy New Year. Or maybe you eschew the party and go to bed at 10 p.m., which is invariably more enjoyable if you ask me. Either way, you wake up the next day and vow to stick to your resolutions...or actually make some this year. About half of Americans make New Year's Resolutions. We pledge to start exercising or stop gossiping or finally write that book (you know who you are). We start the year with good intentions to be more positive and drink more water. And this time,  this time we're really going to stick to those life changes. We swear. But about three-quarters of us fail to keep our resolutions. They're too ambitious, too vague, no fun, or we flat-out forget. By late March or mid-February or January 15, those resolutions have become merely wild-eyed dreams we had when we were younger and less naive. 

I feel like such a hypocrite. Since March, I've been talking, telling, and pleading that the coronavirus is real, with serious consequences. I told my friends, family, and strangers on the internet that we must take steps to slow or stop the spread. Stay in when you can. Keep your social distance. Wear your mask. Our most important task right now is to reducing the number of people who face death or long-term health complications from this pernicious virus. Now it's nearly September, and I'm voluntarily sending my children back to school in person.   Sure, whatever. This seems smart. We were left floundering when schools first shut down in the spring, just like most other families. Distance learning did not go well for us. Twice a week, I sat my son down in front of a Zoom meeting and spent the next 45 minutes telling him sit still, stop making faces, no one wants to see the inside of your nose, quite playing with your pencil, unmute yourself, don't work ahead of your ...

I don't have many friends. This isn't a call for help or pity. It's just a fact. A fact that has been true my entire life: I have always struggled to make friends. As a kid I was by myself most of the time at home, living in a series of run-down rural places or small scruffy neighborhoods without other kids my age. In elementary and junior high I had a best friend or two, but that dwindled in high school. I was not a popular teen, even in the smaller universe of band nerds. In fact, it was a little bit of the opposite -- often enduring both the covert and open ridicule that is the hallmark of growing up. I made two or three good friends early in my college career, but we went our separate ways after dorm life. As an upperclassman, I didn't form strong friendships at the student newspaper. On the contrary; one editor printed my name on the back of a T-shirt with "Major Issues" listed as my nickname. In my mid-20's I struggled to find women to fi...

First, they closed the schools. Then the libraries. Then restaurants and indoor play spaces. For the last 10 days or so my family has been stuck at home, trying to prevent catching or spreading COVID-19, the dangerous coronavirus that has swept across the world. It's tough to be thrust into this kind of disruption of our normally scheduled craziness. Anxiety is high, the weather is cold and rainy, and we're all getting on each other's nerves. Here is what we've been doing to stay busy. Distance learning  Somebody help this octopus Bickering Distance learning while bickering Picking apart the mixed Play-Doh colors Using books as skates to slip and slide across the living room floor Looking for toilet paper Crying in the home office Kid yoga that devolved into rolling on the floor and kicking one another  Moments before it all went south Not checking our retirement accounts More distance learning Looking for hand soap Yelling "stop yelling!...

A few weeks ago, my neighbor's infant daughter had an allergic reaction of unknown origin. She landed in the ER with hives and swelling, and my neighbors felt worried and overwhelmed. Understandably so. Raising a child with serious or potentially life-threatening allergies adds an extra layer of unpredictability and fear to parenthood. It's like having unmarked landmines in your back yard, and telling your kid to go outside and play. Your mission, should you choose to accept it. It's been almost six years since my son was diagnosed with food allergies to virtually all tree nuts, peanuts (FYI, peanuts don't grow on trees and aren't actually nuts), and sesame seeds. Thankfully we've never endured a second allergic reaction, but we're always ready just in case. This is how we manage his food allergies: Always carry emergency epinephrine When he was 10 months old, I gave my son some peanut butter and he developed a mild case of hives. Our pediatrici...

It turns out there's not a lot of logic involved in parenting. There's bravado, confusion, joy, and exhaustion, but very little logic. Sometimes I hear the words coming out of my mouth and think, "WTF did I just say?" I'm not sure what else I expected. After all, children are snack terrorists who have no filter and feel everything at 11. If it pops into their little brains, they do it. Or somebody does it. Because both of my children disavow all knowledge of the majority of the things that happen around here. So I began compiling a running list of Things I Never Thought I'd Have to Say. Things that make me shake my head and deepen that wrinkle between my eyebrows. Things that make me wonder if there's something wrong with me, with them, or both. In the early years, it was mostly about things that shouldn't be in the mouth. Please don't lick the dog. Please don't lick the trashcan. Stop letting the dog lick your tongue. We don...