Some people are just naturally paranoid. I gave birth to one of them. At the age of eight she came to me crying, saying she was afraid that our house was going to burn down. To this day she blames me for allowing her to watch a movie about firefighters who saved a dog from a fire.  Apparently, that’s what caused her fear and of course mom was to blame. She didn’t realize that her sisters watched the same movie and then brushed their teeth and went to bed while she was checking the house for bad wiring and throwing away candles and lighters.

I have always wanted to be a writer.  It’s like breathing to me. It wasn’t that I was inspired by the idea of seeing my name on the cover of a romance novel in a tiny airport magazine shop, or the thought of sitting at a 6-foot pop up table, signing books at Barnes & Noble.  Instead, I was inspired by “knowing” what was in me.

I have never really liked my hands. I have short, calloused fingers, wide palms, and messed up nail beds from a nail-biting stint when I was in grade school. Add to it the effect of knuckle-popping which I became obsessed with after I saw the cool kid on the block do it in second grade. But nonetheless, I’ve always referred to my hands as looking like “dog paws,” versus the long, graceful hands that my sister has, and I always wanted.