MIAMI BEACH, FL-

My friend, Melissa, and I dressed up to look silly when we went to the hospital on Halloween. We do it every year because the kids get a kick out of it and we really are up for anything to spice up the day.

(One time I really blew it dressing up on Halloween to go to the old folks home with Brooklyn, my Therapy Dog. I dressed to the nines as Raggedy Ann. I had it all, down to the red and white horizontal striped tights and red shoes. The residents at the home are four-fifths from Cuba and one fifth from Russia. Not a soul had any idea who I was supposed to be. It turns out that Raggedy Ann is an American phenomenon. It had always seemed so universal to me. They thought I was nuts, but they didn’t care, because Brooklyn was with me.)

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JERSEY CITY, NJ-

Being that October is coming to a close and November fast approacheth, it’s that time of the year again. No, not the time to dress up like a naughty schoolgirl. Well, okay, maybe that time, too. And not taxes time, either, unless you’re on the quarterly taxes schedule, about which I’m sorry because that totally sucks for you. And while it’s the end of one year and the beginning of another according to many traditions, I’m not talking about that time, either.

No, it’s time to search the recesses of your hard drive for that one document that’s been languishing unfinished for so long, the one you promised yourself you would finish someday, when you had time. When you’re not dawdling about on Facebook and Twitter or making sure to keep up with every blog or following the exploits Kate plus eight sans Jon. You know the document I’m talking about. You think about it often: What if?

Everyone’s got one. Writers used to stick them in drawers, or trunks, and there they would remain, waiting for some attention, any attention.

So now it’s time to dust it off! It’s time to sign up on an Internet forum with lots of other people who all have Long Languished Projects, and it’s time to finally dedicate to those projects the time they so deserve.

A whole month!

That’s right: it’s National Novel Writing Month time. Are you quaking with anticipation?

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HARRISON, NY -
 
After all this, and I still can’t get out of bed when it rains. Two surgeries, a dozen MRIs, various pills, chiropractic work, and massage therapy, and still I know from the pounding in my head if the weather is about to turn.

It’s about pressure. And the fluid they left in my head.

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