For my thirty-sixth birthday a few years ago, I bought myself private aerial silk dancing lessons so I could learn to spin, twirl, and hang upside in the air, held up by ropes of red silk. In my very first lesson, I was already doing upside-down straddle splits, forming a human cross, inverted in ...
After three magical weeks in Spain, it feels surreal to be back stateside. Just last week I was celebrating Spain’s first World Cup win in San Sebastian, cheering, dancing, and kissing strangers in the streets. My days and nights were filled with mini-adventures and moments of pure beauty: ...
Everyone was kissing in the streets, and cheering, and dancing, and singing, "Olé, Olé, Olé, Olé . . . " and "¡VIVA ESPAÑA!¨ Fans had Spanish flags wrapped around their shoulders like capes, faces painted with stripes of red and yellow. I was wearing a red dress for "La Furia Roja," ju ...
As the coral sun slipped below the horizon, the silhouettes of surfers bobbing in the waves, we sipped vino tinto, nibbled on bread and queso de cabra, and laughed with our Argentinian-American waiter who according to my sister-in-law was formerly the star of a TV comedy show here in San Sebastian, ...
I had come full circle. I was standing in the same place where I’d been 15 years earlier, but my life couldn’t be more different. This past Sunday, I stopped into my father’s office for a few hours to help him complete a marketing report. On Monday my family would fly to Spain to visit my s ...
Imagine if you took Alec Baldwin, added 40 pounds, and crossed him with Ray Liotta in Goodfellas. Imagine this tough Brooklyn-raised Italian-American man - a former drug addict, funny and foul-mouthed, edgy and not afraid to speak prickly truths out loud - and now imagine him downing a shot of ...
It had been a frustrating morning. I overslept, didn’t have time for my usual ½ hour morning meditation, and couldn’t figure out what outfits I wanted to pack for my trip to San Francisco, where I’d be dancing, meeting with my writing coach, going to parties and seeing friends. Also, m ...
The time had come for me to move off the horse farm in Saratoga Springs, where I’d lived for my first six months in New York state. I’d moved there after graduating from Princeton, and it was my first “adult” apartment in which I paid my own rent, dealt with my own bills, and generally i ...
Dripping with bling - a glittering cross around her neck, large glittery rings adorning her fingers, multiple bejeweled bracelets, a bindi - my friend Dawn was shining. This is a woman who has reason to celebrate. At her birthday party this past Saturday night, I asked Dawn what her goals are ...
It was a chilly March day. We were at his favorite beach. We had driven an hour down the coast from my house in San Francisco to get there, chatting and laughing with the radio playing in the background, my bare feet propped against the dashboard, flip flops kicked off. It was our first date, ...
You could hear me shrieking from across the room as I ran in slow motion with my arms wide open and then practically tackled my friend Masuda, who had flown in from Afghanistan for the weekend, and who I hadn’t seen since we roomed together in Amman, Jordan four years earlier. This past weekend ...
You are a very good writer. These words are always nice to hear, but they were especially meaningful considering the source: Pulitzer Prize winning author William Kennedy, who wrote Ironweed. I had managed to talk him into letting me interview him after he initially declined. “I’ve talked ...
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