Even though my family hates me — I did not know your family could divorce you. My family’s lawyer, Larry, is citing intentional personal hygiene abuse and gross scatological negligence. I had to hire a lawyer, Phyllis, to explain what that even means. To give you a little background, when we’re planning a trip to the Wizarding…

The War on Christmas is over. As associate creative director in Starbucks’ design studio, I stepped up this season and made the executive decision to go all in. Every year we get pressure from both sides. There are the extremists who feel our euphemisms like “Spread the Merry” are a…

Truthiness comes from the heart — When Stephen Colbert coined the term, “truthiness” in a hilarious bit during the George W. years, he talked about how one’s truth doesn’t necessarily come from books or from thinking, it comes from your heart. Of course, it was a comedy bit satirically pointing out the eroding boundaries of what…

How I leaned into my talent and bet on myself and how you can too — On a grey, soggy Wednesday in May 2017, I checked my emails during my lunch break when I was substitute teaching at Santa Monica High School. I bolted out of my chair and started yelling. …

While she was down “there” — Some stories have happy endings. Some massages have happy endings. Well in movies anyway. Not a lot of people I know have experience there. My ex-boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend in Marin County was asked one time as her massage began if she wanted a “full release.” She thought it was some kind…

Owning my own space — Who owns space? Can someone really purchase “air rights”? Apparently, they can because a developer bought the air rights over a McDonalds and a bar called Live Bait and built an emaciated 40-story building in front of my mom’s co-op on 22nd Street in Manhattan. The building juts out, dozens…

Going back to high school at 52 and learning the meaning of carpe diem — Who comes up with cute hashtags #pustpositive #thinkpust when they’re dying of cancer? Jenn Pust, the head of the AP English Department I was subbing for at Santa Monica High School. She had decided that when she died, she would be dead. Until then, she was living. My life intersected…

Why I chose to reenter an unsuccessful career and never looked back — I’m not sure how smart it is to return to a career that never really worked out in the first place, but after taking a career break to raise my kids, that is exactly what I did. No one becomes a screenwriter because it is the practical and logical choice…

Toting my boss’s kidney stones in a Ziploc bag to the lab, my degree in lit/creative writing was really paying off — When I first moved to L.A., I waitressed at two different restaurants. One was A Votre Santé in Hollywood, where customers obsessed over chapatis with no oil, dressing on the side, and dairy-free pies made out of tempeh. (Yeah, they tasted like an old shoe.) But Flea and Anthony Keidis…