Here is my weekend goal: to enter all the edits I've been scribbling on the manuscript into the computer and print out a new, clean draft.

My cousin texted me last night: “Another #1 pick for the cavs? Must be nice to have three of them in 9 years.”

Early yesterday afternoon I sent a depressed message to one of my fellow basketball-loving cousins in Oregon.

This is just to say that I'll miss it. The Office. It's one of those shows that I didn't like as much as the years went on, but I still watched, because I was invested.

Here's why this memoir works. Well, it's fabulous. But more than that, it's an ideal kind of memoir to read.

When I wrote Schooled, I originally had it organized into themed chapters. I thought this would be more readable (or at least less predictable) than chronological, so I lumped the vignettes together into themes.

I want to use Goodreads. People tell me I should use Goodreads. Everyone swears by Goodreads. And still I do not use Goodreads. Because, and I'm embarrassed to say this, I don't read very many books. Probably one of the worst things a writer can fess up to, but there you have it. I don't have time, and reading always ends up last on my priority list. Actually I take that back.

Not sure why I always feel such a pull to be in New York City, but I do. I feel this pull pretty much every day when I think about the time I've spent there and the possibilities that undoubtedly exist.

There's nothing like a trio of girls kidnapped a decade ago being found in your city to put things into perspective.

In a college English class years ago, we had to at one point recite a poem from memory. I picked Yeats' Brown Penny, partly because I think it's my favorite poem, and partly (mostly) because it was the shortest one I could find that still met the length requirement of the assignment.

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I finished the Stephen King book, and I really enjoyed it. The beginning section could have been longer (I loved reading about his early writer-life and how it all came together for him...fascinating), but I really did appreciate the guts of the book, particularly the sections focused on revising.

It's been a whole year since the book bash. And of course this weekend last year was bitterly cold and stormy out, while this year it was sunny and gorgeous.

I received this picture along with the following text message yesterday: “Just thought you would like to see the books I have on display in my office…”

It's a funny thing, genre fiction. I always stayed away due to an assumption that it would be crappily written, and certainly beneath me and my English major tastes.

Tom's first book, The Secret Life of Cowboys, is one of my favorite memoirs, and I honestly don't know why it took me so long to read One Good Horse, but I loved it as well.

I got together recently with some friends, and the husband, who had just finished reading Schooled, asked me how I handled being so honest in the book.