I love coffee. Descended from a long line of coffee drinkers, I come by my caffeine addiction quite honestly, and I use it to my advantage. When I finish my work at hand, be it writing a piece or cleaning the bathroom or getting dinner in the oven,/…

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It's taken me nearly three years to go through the remains of my newspaper career, a successful one that spanned nearly two decades.

My Journalist of the Year clock sits beneath a worktable. I keep another Journalist of the Year award by the front door;… Read full post »

As I ice my sore, 50-something knee (which makes me feel kind of old), news of the death of Davy Jones of the Monkees shoots me back in time to when I was a girl, back to when I first fell in love.

The first object of… Read full post »

Chrysler’s ad, “Halftime in America” starring Clint Eastwood, stood out among this year’s Super Bowl lineup.

Beautifully filmed and powerfully written, it stars one of Hollywood’s most-famous (and, truth be told, most-liberal) Republicans. And its big-tent, we&r… Read full post »

My father was a terrible speller. A voracious reader with a brilliant mind, he had some incomplete synapse in his brain that kept him from stringing together letters correctly to make words. If he were alive, he’d never, ever understand my affinity for Words With Friends.

For… Read full post »

I think back on the turning points in my life. Among the traditional ones — first car, first job, marriage, baby — I remember my induction into the cult of Mac, and I pay my respects to Steve Jobs.

At the time, I had no idea who Steve Jobs was.… Read full post »

Ten years ago …

I had to see my son.

As I stood I the middle of the newsroom Tuesday watching the second hijacked plane slice through the tower of the World Trade Center, I could think of nothing else other than holding close to me that which I… Read full post »

I’ve waited for this day — the first day of school — for weeks.

“It’s time for school to start,” I’d tell anyone even remotely interested.

I wanted my mornings back. I wanted my writing time, my cleaning time, my cooking time, my working time to be… Read full post »

If I would have known that Sunday’s column in the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus (Howell, Mich.) was my last, I would have written something very, very different. Lesson learned: In this fast-changing day and age, we should treat every conversation we have as if it is our last. We… Read full post »

The image I use for my avatar is cropped from a strip of pictures taken in the photo booth of the S.S. Kresge dime store in the Eastland Mall in Harper Woods, Mich

 

I sat on the stool and my sister stood behind me for the photos that cost my… Read full post »

 

The best Super Bowl ad wasn’t really an ad at all. At its heart, the beautifully filmed “Imported from Detroit” ad featuring Eminem, the Chrysler 200, and some of Detroit’s amazing art and architecture, is a love song for the city in which I was born.

 … Read full post »

When I began dating the man who would become my husband, he corrected my spelling of his last name.

 

“It’s not S-T-E-W-A-R-T,” he said. “It’s S-T-U-A-R-T. The ‘royal’ spelling.”

 

Without anything more than a gut feeling, my husb… Read full post »

“Are you going to ask if they have weapons in the house?”

My 11-year-old son was invited to the most important social event for sixth graders, a sleepover birthday party, and instead of being thrilled his mother is concerned about his safety, he is, instead, embarrassed.

Too bad… Read full post »

The first time I walked into my old bungalow, I stood in the middle of the living room, breathing in light from all four directions. The winter sun streamed in through big, old windows. I knew this was where I was meant to be.

There are five big, old… Read full post »

One of the things I most admire about my 11-year-old son is his vocabulary. He speaks beautifully, using big words correctly. Expressing himself fully and well is not a challenge, and the kid loves, loves, loves to talk.

One of the things that most frustrates my kid about me… Read full post »

It’s been a long week.

Not a bad week, by any stretch of the imagination, but rather a long, hard-worked week.

And so here I sit on the couch, home alone except for Ted the Labradoodle perched on the back of the couch, as if he were a… Read full post »

We’ve had a mystery rock in our house since my 11-year-old spent a week at my sister’s place Up North in Michigan

It’s not a rock, really, but a geode, an outer shell that’s hiding crystals and mineral formations inside.

The word “geode” comes from… Read full post »

Every night that my husband works, my kid tries to finagle a later bedtime.

“Can’t I just stay up until dad gets home,” he always whines. Seeing his father before he goes to bed is important to Will, and he drives a hard bargain: “I’ll go to bed extra… Read full post »

Days like today are the gods’ gift to the unemployed, for it is on days like this — days rich with light, color and texture — that those of us struggling in the wake of joblessness give thanks.

Days like this don’t come around often, and that… Read full post »

Anyone who works with words for even a part of their living knows the horror of mistakes ending up in print.

Sure, mistakes can be embarrassing. They can also be funny. And these days, mistakes get sent ’round the Internet, like this one shared by a former journalism professor… Read full post »

1. I am a food snob. I believe in eating low on the food chain. I don’t eat fast food. I buy as local as I can, and as organic as possible. I don’t drink pop. I do, on the other hand, enjoy my coffee. A lot.

2. For a time,… Read full post »

There was a time in my life when I got every job I wanted, every single one. From scooping ice cream to waitressing to office work to writing, if I wanted the job, I got it.

I thought myself kind of special, talented for sure. It felt… Read full post »

I admit it: I shed a teeny, tiny tear this morning as my only child rode his bike out of the backyard on his way to the new adventure in his life: middle school.

This morning, he actually told me he “appreciated” the breakfast I made… Read full post »

Police say 4-year-old Dominick Calhoun was tortured to death by his mother’s boyfriend in the spring. 

At the end of March, Dominick’s 25-year-old mother moved with him and his 8-year-old brother into the apartment of her boyfriend, a 24-year-old ex-con who was a couple mo… Read full post »

 
I sat outside with a cup of coffee last week, soaking in the early summer sun and pondering the greater meaning of the not-so-perfect perfect baseball game pitched by Detroit Tiger Armando Galarraga. For those of you unfamiliar with the baseball call heard ’round the world, Galarraga&rsqu… Read full post »