I walk into my friend’s building. As always, there is an entire landing full of shoes even before you get in the door of her apartment. Just inside, I find jeans carefully placed on the dining room floor as if on display- it’s just something she does when she gets new clothes. Blankets lie on the couch. A hairdryer sits on the floor of the bathroom for no current use. It’s clean, but it’s not perfect. I am so jealous. My place has only been on the market for three days but it feels like much longer. My furniture is here. My livelihood is not. I didn’t realize how much stuff I interacted with…

I conducted my dating experiment from 2008-2009. I kept an active blog (clearly not this one) as well as notes, essays and photos. In 2011, I left my job to write for a solid 6 months. I wrote a sizable chunk- 150 pages. And despite the first month where I freaked out about not having any income and the last month when I ran out of money, it was an INCREDIBLE spring/summer. When I started working again, I put my writing on the back burner. I needed to focus on getting back up to speed with corporate life again. But also, there were other reasons that my book stalled. Writing…

During my “retirement summer”, I took a slew of writing tests for copy writing jobs. I eventually turned in a winning assignment and am still employed (yay- it worked!) This particular assignment (not for my current employer) was to write “a turtle’s greatest accomplishment, in first person” Every day is the same. Just after lunch, children race to the back of the room to visit the animals. They fight to hold “Skinny,” an ash-colored rabbit. They take turns feeding “Chomps,” the guinea pig. They even spend a few minutes watching the aquarium, where they’re most fascinated by the crab and inevitably run away screaming once the eel emerges from his…