I still remember how excited I felt the first time I decided to enter a live-in relationship. At one year out of college, my job paid next to nothing, and the only living situation I could afford involved cramming into a three-bedroom apartment with five roommates. Privacy flew out the window, and

If you're my friend, at some point I will tell you to leave a tape recorder running in your home overnight. A little bit to catch you sleep-talking ("Let me take that again." – my friend Joy the actor, auditioning in her sleep), but mostly to catch disembodied voices, footsteps, sounds, etc. I

Growing up poor in the Midwest, there was nothing I desired so much as a home to call my own. From the moment my parents divorced, we were nomads  — and achingly poor nomads, at best. While my mother lay in a hospital, inching closer to death last year, I tried to distract myself with ...Continue

My first real job as a professional writer was for a construction materials company. I was hired as their home decor and lifestyle blogger on the recommendation of an acquaintance. And I knew absolutely nothing about home design.And so began my education in the home decor field. The job ...Continue

After living in upstate New York with my daughter for years, I started to feel like we both needed a change. I was laid off and no longer had ties to the cushy neighborhood where we rented a townhome, but I had family that lived in a beach town in Connecticut. So I thought I'd ...Continue