The other night, my friend Amanda and I went to a play called Collected Stories, about the friendship between a graduate student and her writing mentor.  It was such a smart, interesting show, and there were parts of it that were really personal to me, because I am close with my college advisor, the fabulous writer Mary Gordon.  During intermission ( Read more... )

My friend

">Amanda tweeted about this video, and then I retweeted it, and now (since I'm so technological) I'm posting it here.  I have my own set of affirmations, but I think I'm going to add a few of Jessica's into my repertoire.

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Edited to add:  My father's comments on this post, emailed to me instead of leaving a comment, because he has some ( Read more... )

I am a day late with this friendship post.  Something nearly awful happened yesterday and, remarkably, my reaction to it didn’t include tears.  I was so calm and reasonable - so unlike me - and it made me realize the supreme difference my friend Amanda has made in my life.

This is what went down:  I was hammering away on my novel (read:  looking at ( Read more... )