If you know me you’re well aware of my issues with sleep. It’s decades-long insomnia and I’ve tried everything…almost.

One year later and I've written nothing, except for a daily letter to nobody to state some small areas of gratitude, like 'I'm healthy', or 'I have a lot of cats'.

It was like a dream come true. I didn't have to drive anywhere or show up for anything, or set an alarm, or even get dressed.

At first you might think of romantic love, and that's what Valentine's day is all about.

Money is something I think about a lot, and I have theories about it...mental notes I make that are imbued with all kinds of magical properties.

Depression is a three-fold illness, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Eve. Oh, and then Valentine's Day, which they spring on you just as you breathe a sigh of relief that you've lived through another barrage of cheerfulness and over-eating and senseless shopping.

On any given day I could make a list of all the things I'm grateful for... Robust health, lots of friends, books to read, a roof over my head, even a shiny car that's peacock blue!

I'm always surprised to come home to a messy house.

There's a holiday originating in Mexican culture called 'Dia de los Muertos' that starts on Halloween, and goes on for a few days afterward into early November.

I do believe the hardest job is teaching. Mom was a high school English teacher, and I'd watch her come home exhausted each day, only to be grading papers into the evening. I made a rule for myself early-on...no teaching for me.

Do you think we find new parents as our originals pass away? How is it that a person seems to come along to fill the vacuum?

In the movie Annie Hall there's a great statement. Alvie Singer, the character played by Woody Allen says “I don't want to move to a city where the only cultural advantage is being able to make a right turn on a red light.”

About a year after I had stopped drinking I found myself in Westwood, home of UCLA, hub of young go-getters and tourists, and for some reason, location of a multitude of therapists, counselors, psychiatrists, and other mental health professionals.

When I was in my twenties my mother took me on an amazing trip to Hawaii. She wanted to escape the brutal New York winter, but also thought it would cheer me up since I'd recently had a bad break-up with Charlie, my first serious boyfriend...the guy I moved out to LA with.

Aside from my natural leaning towards omission by way of fabrication and fantasy, I just have to tell you, I come from a long line of liars.

There's a phrase I hear thrown around...'We don't regret the past or wish to shut the door on it.' I get what they're saying, but let's be real. Things that seem like a great idea when you're 25, like marrying the guy, or moving to Paris, or starting a restaurant/gallery/school, are just too hard at 40, much less 50.We use these experiences to inform our lives and to help others (to just say NO), so I will always be a fan of a sharp memory bank, but do I wish it had been different? Well, of course! Don't you?

For years I thought I had invented something very special- polenta bread, and would boast about my cleverness, having figured out what a great ingredient it is in baking. It makes a moist loaf with a crunchy crust from the ground corn meal.

There must be a genetic link to hatred of holidays. When dad spoke of Christmas he would say 'I want to give presents when I WANT TO, not when I HAVE TO!' Which was never, apparently.

People say this all the time, but they're seething on the inside with dissatisfactions and discouragements, little aches and pains, nagging resentments against their parents, their kids... Amazon Prime.

How can one day be so different internally from another when the circumstances are exactly the same?

For me much of it has to do with sleep. Bad sleep=bad day. Good sleep=good day. I can never be sure what the night will hold, but usually it's like this...fall asleep 11pm, wake up at 2am, think it must be morning only darker than usual, looking at watch and seeing the arrows on the numbers up there at the top, feel dread rippling through my soul. This is the middle of the night when the bad people come out.

Thank God we can't see into the future. If you ever got even a tiny whiff of what was going to happen you would just stay home, never ever leave the house, get in bed and lock the door, and that would be it. Then though, what about the earthquake that might leave you buried under a pile of rubble....you and your cats all together, taking your final breaths. These ideas are where my imagination takes me, so being me is not easy. It's merciful that we are all left wondering 'What will happen?' Of course good things happen too...surprising moments of hilarity and even beauty, but I never think of those possibilities because I don't want to be disappointed if they don't come along.

I have a theory about falling in love. Maybe you know this already. It's a trick designed to hook you into resolving some deep childhood issue...usually with a parent. You fall in love with the man who's just like your inattentive father, or your overly protective mother. All you know is that he makes you feel like magic. Finally you are complete.

I do this thing where I like to pigeon-hole my friends into categories. It makes me feel somehow in charge of all these relationships. There's Jill, my most brilliant friend. Whenever I mention her I say 'Oh, she is brilliant.' This is to people who haven't met Jill. The ones who've met her already know, it's so obvious.

In his mid-forties my father remarried a young woman he had met at a literary party in New York. I was off at art school when they met, and barely paid attention, except for a phone call I got from him telling me the news. He said, “I've fallen in love.”

Did you know the artichoke is a thistle? If you look up the history of this strange vegetable, you'll get all kinds of great facts. There was a mobster in New York in the 1920's who sabotaged the artichoke market by buying all of them that entered the city, and then selling them for a 60% percent mark-up. Mayor La Guardia banned the sale of artichokes in there, but the ban only lasted a few weeks because he happened to love them.

I really can't count the number of trips I took to New York to help care for my aging father. The last 7 or 8 years of his life I watched him slowly diminish. The man I went out to museums, and movies, and out for escargot at a funny little place on 9th avenue....my lively New York dad, got frail and slow.

When you're a chubby kid, it seems you can never ditch that image...ever. 40 years later you look in the mirror and you see a chubby adult when in reality you're normal sized, even a bit thin! By the time I reached my 20's I was svelte and streamlined. The scale told me, my friends told me, but the mirror told a different story.

After all these years I still stubbornly think that we all live forever. I was there in the room when both mother and dad took their last breaths, and my thought was 'Wait, no! This is impossible!' There are people, the pragmatic ones, who talk about death in a way that is so false and unappealing I just won't listen.

When I moved to Los Angeles many years ago I hated the place. I didn't know how to drive except for the few lessons my boyfriend had given me, which always ended in a fight, me shouting 'I never even WANTED to learn this shit! Plus you're a horrible teacher!'

Back in high school in New York the family was coming up with ideas for a college I might go to. It had to be art school, only because my fate was sealed at a young age since painting was always what I loved, and probably what saved my sanity in that family.