Mowing the Lawn

miscellanea |ˌmisəˈlānēə| plural noun miscellaneous items, esp. literary compositions, that have been collected together. ❖ ❖ ❖ I'm not sure which is better: the title of the book ( "Fiction Ruined My Family" ) or the title of the book review ("Mom’s a Drunk, Dad’s a Writer: A Recipe for Disaster and a Memoir"). Memoirists impress me.  (And I'm lucky to be married to one .) It seems like an impossible feat to pull off a memoir.  First, you have to have lived an interesting life.  Second, you have to be talented enough to write about it.  Here's an excerpt where the author describes the affects of living with a father who insisted on high standards for language: I was under the impression clichés could ruin you, ruin your life, your hopes and dreams, bring down your whole operation if you didn’t watch it. They were gateway language, leading straight to a business major, a golfy marriage, needlepoint pillows that said things about your golf ...

This is day 53 of dieting and I finally fell off the wagon. I was doing so well up until this point.  There have been frustrating times.  Times when it would have been easy to bury my stress beneath a mound of flap jacks or in a giant bowl of chow mein.  Times when I could have given into the siren song of humus or the cold indulgence of ice cream.  I've stared awkwardly at fruit.  I've dreamt of chocolate lava cakes. But I had persevered until this evening.  And I have—or used to have, rather—twenty seven pounds to show for it. Cumulative Weight Loss: No one's perfect. I get that. It's just how I fell off the wagon that bothers me. I was pushed off by this guy: "Little Caesar!?  Really?  The creepy little purveyor of bad pizza?" I know.  What can I say?  He got me.  I didn't intend for it to happen. I can't believe it myself.  I've had so many opportunities to cheat.  So many better alternatives than ...