“Bababa-ba-ba-baaahhm, bababa ba ba baaahhm…”
The 45-rpm record (ask your mother, maybe she’ll explain) dropped to the spinning turntable, the arm swung over, and the needle found its groove. There were some scratches, sure – and not the kind artfully inserted by a gyrating DJ – but the music came through loud and clear. “ABC is [...]

He’s 25. She’s 21. I held her when she was just hours old, and loved her before I ever saw her face. She is my sister’s youngest daughter…and she’s engaged. She’s about to begin her senior year of college, and she’s planning a January wedding.
A little over a week ago they sat on my sofa and talked about [...]

An good friend I had dinner with a few weeks ago reminded me on the way out of the restaurant that I still had a borrowed book of his…after, oh, about three years. He even remembered the title, and when he said it, I remembered the cover and contents - but after multiple moves [...]

The house I live in is in an old neighborhood in view of my city’s imposing skyline. It’s a cozy little cottage, one that would not look out of place plunked down, Oz-like, in any small town in America. But the address of this house is decidedly urban, on an avenue bisecting the neighborhood north and south, with stoplights anchoring its east [...]

I’m neat. Not freakishly, compulsively neat – but orderly. I like things to make sense. It pleases me when one thing logically follows another. Like when the conclusion of a good book somehow affirms its beginning. Or when I intuitively reach for something in the place it should be…and it’s there.
But while there’s comfort in [...]

I barely survived a three alarm meltdown in lane two of the bank drive-thru, and I was the one who started the fire.

I had two checks to deposit, both clearly endorsed and recorded on my deposit slip. No other cars were waiting, in my lane or any other – yet the teller seemed to be taking an unusual [...]

The importance of how I feel – on any given day, about any given subject – is highly overrated.
There. I’ve said it. I’m a feeling person, yes, but the truest thing about me is not how I feel. Never has been – never will be. There is something truer than my emotions.
Years ago, a good [...]

My first big-girl bike was a shamrock green Schwinn with no gears, reverse brakes, and a basket. My sister had one identical to it. I rode this simple two-wheeler to elementary school each day in Portland, Texas, and my chief destination was just down the street. I didn’t consider that by riding it I was [...]

In the 10 months that I have lived at my current address, I’ve seen my west-side next door neighbor exactly three times. That’s roughly once every hundred days. The yard is neat. The front porch light comes on each night. I’ve even knocked on the front door a few times with a piece of misplaced [...]

“God is in the details” is a phrase I’ve heard plenty of times – enough to cause me to wonder who first said it, and why. So I spent some time recently searching for the source of this particular phrase (you may rightly call me a “word nerd”) and discovered that it’s a knock-off, of [...]