I’m so proud. January is half over, and I’ve stuck to my New Year’s Resolution. It’s a first for me. Every year, I’ve made the same resolutions -- a laundry list of should-dos and don’t-dos that basically go against my grain. Eat less Exercise more Follow a budget Be nicer to the husband But this year, I made only one resolution: Add joy. The idea came to me last month at a “Jersey Boys” performance in Las Vegas. Las Vegas really isn’t about joy. Glitz, certainly. Indulgence, sure. Addiction, sadly. But you can get really cheap tickets to some great shows in Vegas. And every time I go to a …

Last week’s repeal of the military’s “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” policy may seem like a victory only for gay and lesbian service members, but, in truth, it is a victory for anyone who struggles to reveal his authentic self. And that’s all of us. As kids, we’re told, “Just be yourself.” But that’s harder than it looks. At least, it is for me. I don’t easily speak my mind, which is why I write. When I write, I have hours to collect my thoughts, craft a scene, change this to that until a deadline finally forces me to press, “submit.” Conversation, however, is now. Questions beg answers. Events …

I learned about books and their covers – about beauty and heart -- on the first day of third grade many years ago. Unlike McLean, which reveals class assignments on the Thursday before school starts, New Rochelle, N.Y. paired teachers with their students – NBA draft style -- on opening day. We kids would squirm in cafeteria seats, new sweaters itching and shoes pinching, while the teachers lined the wall; the veterans catching up on gossip, the fledglings eager to put theory into practice. We’d eye each other curiously, imagining who would occupy seven hours of our day for the next school …

Knit 10, purl 10. Repeat as the basket weave pattern emerges. I’ve knitted 27,900 stitches since Ben finished his second year of boarding school on June 10, and I’ve got 9,600 to go before he decamps for his third on September 7. The growing, cobalt blue afghan covers my lap as I work #10 circular needles, stubby wood spears linked with a loop of plastic tubing where stitches wait their turn. The yarn is a wool and acrylic blend, soft but with some heft. I imagine my son wrapped in it on a November night – because to me, November is a bleak, dark month when a 15-year-old away from home could …

Since February, a serial slasher has cut at least nine of our girls as they shopped in local malls - stalking and marking them, like an animal. The youngest victim to step forward – I’ll call her Jessica, to protect her privacy – is the 15-year-old sitting on my couch, sipping water, talking in a soft quiver teenage girls use before they find their strong voice. Jessica’s story starts around 7 p.m. on March 11, when she and a couple of friends did what ninth graders do on a Friday night – sail in and out of stores in Tysons Corner Center, trying on outfits and sampling lip gloss. The girls …

It’s 95 degrees at high noon, and I’m sweltering in a golf cart as my husband tees up on hole #6 at the Jefferson Golf Course in Arlington. Greg married me 17 years ago, but his true love is golf. He lettered on the Albert Lea (Minnesota) High School golf team a hundred years ago, and once shot a 73. Ever since, the game has been Greg’s passion, his exquisite agony that hurts so good when he hooks into the woods or loses his ball in a rough of Rye grass. My father, too, was a big golfer. When I was a girl, Dad worked six days a week on 47th Street in New York City, selling knuckle-busting …

Nobody wanted Betty. So Homeward Trails Animal Rescue asked me, a known sucker for homeless puppies, to foster the six-month-old black ShiChi – more Shi (Tzu) than Chi (huahua). Summertime is no fun for animal rescue groups. Shelters are choked with pets thrown away because some vacationing humans won’t pay for boarding. And foster families, way stations between shelters and permanent homes, are hard to wrangle as they travel to family reunions on the Outer Banks. Since we never go anywhere, I was free to fetch Betty during a July handoff in a Tysons Corner parking lot. The puppy had been …

The Washington-based National Academy of Sciences punctured the belief that a chubby baby is a healthy baby recently. The academy reported that fat little thighs grow into fat adult thighs, and it admonished caregivers of toddlers and infants to promote “healthy eating” and increase “physical activity.” Sounds like baby's going on a diet. And the report reminded me of the first time someone told me to lose weight. I was five years into my newspaper career when I traipsed into Manhattan to talk with an agent about switching to television. The agent handled top anchors and reporters, and he …

I was in high school when I discovered the joy of cursing. It was 1968, and my “hip” suburban parents were trying free expression on for size. My mother, who taught me "forks go on the left" when I was 3, never freaked when I swore. She just winced -- ever so slightly, but every time. God, I loved that wince. I swore when frustrated, when excited, when bored and watching Mother twitch involuntarily was fine entertainment.  Every wince made me feel like I was gaining muscle. And lacking any real power, or muscle, I settled for the shock-value of four-letter words. I cleaned up my vocabulary …