For those of you too caught up with watching the recent scuffle between lunatics who want to continue to allow people on a No-Fly list to purchase automatic weapons and decent people who desire some change and chose to squat on the House floor until a vote could transpire or the chaos rumbling through the financial cosmos because of the Brexit vote, I am very sorry to tell you that you missed some other essential news this week. Yes, it was reported just the other day that Vicki Gunvalson – a woman who makes me want to secede from the human race in general – claims to have lost over twenty pounds! And how did she manage to shed one of those thighs? Well, she used a wise diet that included gnawing on grapefruit and lettuce for breakfast (because who doesn’t crave lettuce at dawn?) before skipping lunch entirely and then tearing into an ounce of chicken when it grew dark outside. In other words, Vicki used a diet plan called “Starvation” to achieve her … Continue reading →

There are just some people whose absence in your life feels nothing short of palpable. It’s not even the lack of their physical presence that creates the smoldering void, but all of those damn associations you stumble upon – daily, hourly. If you’re anything like me, you find yourself tripping dangerously over song lyrics. You bang headfirst into television commercials that advertise products you once would have purchased just to see that person smile. You fall with a painful thud down a whirring rabbit hole that’s been lined with a tarnishing silvered memory and land, totally disoriented, into a pit of what you are certain must be simmering regret. When you wake up in the morning, another name pops into your fatigued brain, even before you wipe the cloudiness of sleep from your eyes, even before you remember your own name.

You finally understand why just the syllables that make up the word “longing” sound so incredibly hopeless.

I have not experienced any of the above emotions during the many months that have gloriously stretched … Continue reading →