Accomplishment #21: WriteYour Own Op-Ed Piece (#72)

Back on my Soapbox
Hi all,Now that Halloween is out of the way, I want to alert you to the next Major Holiday: NATIONAL BOOKSTORE DAY on November 7th!I know, you probably thought I was going to say Thanksgiving, right? Well, this is a way of giving thanks to your local independent bookseller who works hard to ensure you have good books to read and reference, who builds your community, who, in my o

Na-No-No-No... for me anyway.
Ohhh, November 1st. How did you get here so quickly?When I was little, I loved November 1st because it was the official start of CHRISTMAS. My best friend Monica and I would dump out our Halloween candy onto the living room floor and sort it into A, B, and "Give it to Dad Because He Likes The Gross Candy" piles, all while listening to Bert Kaempfert's "Christmas Wonderland" on 8-track and maniacally plotting our Christmas lists. (And making up dance routines to "Sleigh Ride." We were eating A LOT of sugar.)

BOO yah.
Okay, my main Accomplishment this Halloween will be to not eat my weight in candy. (Which I could easily do.) I do, however, need some motivation to get into the spirit, though I am determined to finally be Little Edie this year, even if I just stay home and protect our pumpkins from goblins, aka neighborhood teenage thugs. (But really, is Little Edie all that much of a stretch? I don't even have to BUY anything for that costume, except maybe Wonder Bread and a raccoon.)So yeah, I need inspiration. I haven't even hung up our Halloween decorations. I don't even know where they ARE. But we did carve pumpkins on Sunday, which is something. And they will be nice and moldy and

Accomplishment #37: Participate in a New Cultural Tradition (#44)
When I was 9, my dad, much like Mr. Brady, had to go to Hawaii on business, and he brought the whole family along. (You may remember this from here.) My parents stayed in a 2 floor suite (the "Na P'ali Suite") at the ultra swank Kauai Surf Hotel, while my sisters and I stayed at the Plantation Hale Motel a few miles away. At first I thought that it would be exciting, but my sisters' absolute distaste at being stuck in a motel room with their obnoxious little sister kind of put a damper on the whole experience. And really, could you blame them? They were 19 and 23. In Hawaii. In their own hotel r

TOTAL ACCOMPLISHMENT: I'm reading at Litquake's Litcrawl!
I know, I know, it's been WAY too long between posts, but I have... okay, no excuse. Well, a small excuse.I was honored to be asked to read at San Francisco's Litquake's Litcrawl on Saturday, Oct. 17th at Double Dutch, SF(16th & Guerrero) with the Rebel Reading Series. I'll be reading my 10 minute opus at 6pm as part of Phase One of the festivities, with four other talented writers: Blag Dahlia, Dan Strachota, Jason Myers and Stephanie Pullen. And that's just phase One -- the whole night is PACKED with talent all over the Mission!here's the home page:litquake 2009and here's the page with MY NAME on it