I found out on Facebook, and didn’t believe it was true. I immediately started doing searches online to make sure I was right. The news started to spread. My phone began to light up with texts: my brother, my cousin, my best friend, my boyfriend’s daughter, a woman I haven’t seen in years, my ex-sister-in-law,... Continue Reading →
Purple Brain
The first time I really sat down to listen to him -I mean really listen, not just sing along to his hits that made their way to the radio - was on a break from K-Mart mopping the dining room floor of Full City Cafe in Kalamazoo. It was the end of the night, all... Continue Reading →
Made With Care
I have a new hat. It's mine. And I love it. A new friend made it for me, with her own two hands and a couple of knitting needles. When I say 'new friend' I mean that she and I recently met at a dinner party where, in the midst of our conversation she put her hand... 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 →
Beck and Call
There is no explanation that I can think of for why I started thinking about Beck in the shower this morning. Whatever the reason, the line of thinking frustrated me. The shower is usually where I do my deeper thinking: ideas for writing, wondering where my life is going, trying to bring into focus the... Continue Reading →
Amanda Janik 