Querencia — a place from which one’s strength is drawn, where one feels at home; the place where you are your most authentic self.

1. belonging to my mother, deep hideaway. secret stash.

Love is like dancing. Doing it right requires shelving any concern about how ridiculous you might look in the process.

PHONE CALL: Used to mean a convenient way for your parents to check in on you. Now means Something. Terrible. Has. Happened.

401k. (n). A mystical and unknown fortress for the financially sound. Used in a sentence: “Where do you sign up for a 401k?”

For the first time, I can run my hands through hair so short it feels fuzzy and natural, albeit unfamiliar.

Bros are a complex breed of human. Defined by UrbanDictionary as “partying males who… talk about nothing but chicks and beer, drive a jacked up truck that’s plastered with stickers… [and] obsess over [appearances],” bros are distinctly different from normally defined social cliques.

I’ve never been a music person. I love music don’t get me wrong, but I’ve always defined myself through my writing never through music.

My cousin was in the theater that night. She was shot several times; one bullet went through her neck. The fact that there is another human being out there that raised a gun at a member of my family and then pointed it in the direction of her head incenses me. He meant to shoot and kill her.

Kathy originally feared that she was unqualified to perform brain surgery on herself, but, after Googling it, she felt prepared and confident.