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