Naps and Siestas
I drove my parents crazy as a kid. I was an insomnia baby, and getting me to sleep was next to impossible. I was too excited about life. There were just too many things...
Category: Growing Up
Thoughts on childhood and growing up
The Problem with Self-Help Books
I used to love self-help books. Throughout high school and college, I would go to the bookstore and peruse the self-help section. (I read other genres as well, but self-help books were my favorite...
The Death of a Friend
My good friend Rachel Bjorklund passed away yesterday after a car accident in Indiana. Rachel was known for her bright red hair and her quiet but acerbic wit. I met her a couple of...
The End of Long Lost Friends
When I was twelve years old, my family moved to Michigan, and I had to say goodbye to all my friends in Dupo, Illinois. A few months later, they wrote me a packet of...
A Funny Thing About Nostalgia
I heard an old 1990s song the other day. I think it was the New Radical’s “You Get What You Give.” As with most one-hit-wonders, it invokes an awful lot of nostalgia. Whenever I...
A Literal Kid
I was a very literal kid. More so than most. Like the other kids in the gifted and talented class, I tended to take words and terms at face value. Somehow my left brain...
Garage Sale Dinosaurs
I was probably around 13 or 14. My parents decided to have a garage sale, I went through my closet picking out all the old toys I didn’t want anymore. Now when you’re that...
The Cat in the Table
My sister had a gray toy cat as a kid, but she wanted a real kitty. My dad asked around and found a charcoal-colored kitten with a white spot on his tummy. My sister...
Brunch with Dick Cheney
“How would you like to have brunch with me and Dick Cheney?” That’s a sentence I never thought I’d say to someone. But I did. It was back in college. I was the Internal...
Communism on Campus
It was my first month on campus, and I was still getting settled into my routines. I stopped by the International Center to grab some lunch after class, and that’s when I saw a...
