This morning was another which found me waking late, overheated and heavily dreaming in the flannel sheets, to the sound of a text coming through my phone. I’d forgotten, again, to switch off the ringer the night before. “No!” I shouted at it, turning it off, then rolling back over, trying to hide but irreversibly,... Continue Reading →
Out With the Old: 10 Confessions from 2015
1. I don't like Adele's new single, "Hello". While vacationing on a very small island during the first week it was released, the song was so overplayed that it lost any memory-inducing or melancholic value it may have otherwise held for me. It's just like nails on a chalkboard to me now. 2. Every year, I hide my kids' Halloween candy... Continue Reading →
A Perfect Text
Blah! I saw the text and it made me smile - I mean, really smile - in a way I realized later I don’t smile anymore. I guess there are smiles that feed on memory and history and no matter how good of a time you’re having, your smile will never reach the depths of... Continue Reading →
I am a Reader, and I Wrote
Given the sudden excess of time I find myself with lately, which is unlike anything I've ever had in my adult life, I started reading the December issue of The Sun magazine last night. This means that November is in the pile right behind it, and October after that. Out of the past five months'... Continue Reading →
Three Thanksgivings
As I write this, my daughter is zesting oranges gleaned from our neighbor’s tree, which hangs over our driveway and provides us with all the oranges we can reach during two separate seasons of the year. Next to her is my boyfriend Paulie, using coconut cream as a hopeful substitute for butter in his rum-drizzled... Continue Reading →
Dispatch From The Island
The beautiful thing about being on vacation is the lack of guilt. Well, this vacation anyway. Some vacations aren't really all-consuming in their hazy sweaty sun-filled distractions and so guilt is allowed to creep in between the cracks, those moments or hours of downtime when you start to think about All Of The Things You... Continue Reading →
40 Days of Writing, Round…Something
The latest round of 40 Days of Writing began today. Once I remembered, I thought, again, what is with this timing? A writing challenge that begins shortly before Thanksgiving and ends on Christmas Eve. As in, the busiest time of the year. Although lately, (for years maybe?) it almost doesn't matter what major holidays or... Continue Reading →
First Concert Envy
When I asked my kids if they'd like to go to a small concert, they were hesitant. "I don't really like...'concerts' said my son, who had never actually been to a concert. I explained that it wouldn't be a huge thing with thousands of sweaty people - it was happening in a barn at a... Continue Reading →
Go West, Young Girl
My mother told me to wear a baseball cap, so I would look like a boy. This was one of the many pieces of advice I took and then quickly abandoned on my drive to California from Kalamazoo. "If the truckers think you're a boy they won't try to trick you into stopping so they... Continue Reading →
An Open Letter to my Facebook Friends:
I just have to say, I'm so happy to have all of you in my weird, sometimes off-putting Facebook land. Today social media exploded with beautiful news. That news, fantastically, has remained beautiful as the day has worn on. What I've seen from the moment I woke up until now, when I'm about to go... Continue Reading →
Amanda Janik 