This year, it was New Orleans. Last year, it was Sonoma. The year before that, it was Asheville. But it's always the hands-down highlight of my year.

"It" doesn't really have a name. Maybe it should. FriendFest? Amiga-palooza? Gal-Pal Getaway? It's the annual long weekend when I get to spend genuine quality time with about ten of my beloved college friends. Connecting, catching up, commiserating. Laughing, lounging, sightseeing, shopping. And, oh oh oh—eating.

And exploring! Because each year (for six years now), we choose a new locale. We rent a house with plenty of beds and a nice big kitchen, and we fly in from all over the country.

With the exception of one year (which coincided with our college reunion), we leave our kids and husbands behind, making this a true vacation—to the nth power. We can sleep in. Reminisce. Kvetch. We can do precisely what we want to do. It's like college, with no homework and far less insecurity.

This year, we looked at letters we'd written to each other some 25 or 30 years ago and marveled and cringed at our former selves. One time we looked through our yearbook and howled with laughter until we cried.

We make the best memories during these get-togethers. The time Jenny showed us what twerking is. The time Heather calmly and efficiently extinguished an incipient house fire. Bicycling through vineyards. Eating sheet cake.

Clearly, I am a thousand kinds of fortunate. That I get to travel to these destinations. That I was able to attend college. But above all: that I have such a longstanding group of wonderful friends. Here's to next year! ❤️

There has to be a long German word to describe this phenomenon: the pleasant sensation of seeing someone who reminds you of a loved one who has died.

Has this happened to you?

Sometimes I'll see a woman in the grocery store whose hairdo and comportment are so reminiscent of my mother that I'll indulge in a moment of make-believe. I'll just hesitate for a spell and pretend that my mother is standing a few paces away from me, even though I'm well aware that she died in 2003. It's a serendipitous little mind game that's uniquely enjoyable.

I almost never get the same self-deceptive treat with a father lookalike, for some reason. Somehow, strangers don't tend to look like my father, who died in 2001.

But I'll tell you who does: my brothers. They resemble him dramatically. (I really need to find a photo of the group of them. Trust me—you would agree.)

So tonight, when my brother Doug was visiting from Brooklyn and I got to see him, it was a treat on several levels. I loved spending time with him and his daughter. I loved catching up and having some good laughs. But also, I loved seeing my father so very clearly in Doug.

I can't put my finger on it. It's not logical. It's not supernatural. But it's a very real emotional response, and I'm glad I have it.

It was nice to see you tonight, Daddy.

"Worrywart" is such an ugly word. Just because I have the ability to imagine the worst-case scenario in every situation, you don't need to call me the name of a disfiguring skin virus.

I worry, therefore I am prepared.

I know that a recently mopped floor could cause someone to slip and fall. So I warn everyone in the house to be careful.

Chocolate left on the kitchen table could tempt our voracious little dog to jump up and poison himself. So I make sure said chocolate gets put away properly.

As a copywriter, I imagine every potential disaster. (And there are so many!) Will this confuse or mislead people? Will the type be too small or too light for them to read? Will it print poorly? Could it be misinterpreted as an obscenity? (I check Urban Dictionary frequently.) How horrible would it be if there were a typo in this ad, which is worth thousands of dollars and will be viewed by thousands of people? PROOFREAD OBSESSIVELY. And then proofread again. Any maybe again.

Fortunately, as a skeptic, I only worry about real outcomes. I'm not superstitious. I don't worry if I spill salt, or walk beneath a ladder, or have unclean thoughts. But there are still an abundance of worries to fill my brain: Did I hurt her feelings? What if I sleep late and miss that meeting? What if the stock market tanks or I have a stroke?

Today, I had an exchange on Facebook that characterizes me perfectly. My friend Lorin is excited because he's getting a scooter. I rained caution on his parade. But only because I care.

I had never heard of ASMR until about a year ago, but when I did, it was a eureka moment. "THAT's what I've had all my life!" I thought. "It has a name!"

The full name is "autonomous sensory meridian response." And in my case, it comes to pass when I listen to certain sounds in certain circumstances. When the conditions are just right, I experience a delightful sensation somewhere in the back of my neck, but also sort of deep in my brain. The magic formula can involve crinkling paper, or whispering, or the tapping of fingernails. It also has something to do with where the crinkler, whisperer, or tapper is focusing his or her attention.

I know: weird, right? But it's oh-so-real. See that colored-in illustration and misspelled explanation above? I made that when I was about 10 years old. My very thoughtful mother even bought me a ream of onion-skin paper when I was a kid because she knew I loved the noise it made.

It's a little embarrassing to share this information, but I'm certain that I'm not alone. I even know a couple of other people who experience ASMR. (Interestingly, they both have synesthesia.)

Anyone else?​

This morning, I was given this dollar by a stranger. There were strings attached.

I was attending a "Caffeinated Mornings" event in Boulder. The featured speaker, Norm Shearer, posed a provocative challenge. He gave 30 audience members (including me) a crisp one-dollar bill each and asked that we do as much good with that dollar as we can—and then report back to him.

He's done this many times before, so he shared a few examples: A woman who bought a bag of clothespins, wrote complimentary and kind statements on them, and surreptitiously clipped them to people (on a backpack, say). A man who invested in a balsa wood airplane and took the time to play with a neighbor-kid who seemed to get left out of his large family's activities. A woman who lent order and courtesy to her apartment complex's chaotic dirt parking lot by spray-painting parking spots (which continued to be used after the paint wore away).

So, my ideas are percolating.

I'm reminded of my friend's cousin, who, finding himself completely broke in Paris, wrote out some recipes, used his last few francs to photocopy them, sold them on the street, and began his rise out of poverty.

I'm a writer, so I wonder if there are letters I could send. Or signs I could post. My daughter had a good idea—create and disperse a list of hotlines.

My daughter also thinks it's "cheating" if I ask for ideas here. I disagree. I say that when it's a good idea you're aiming for, the more minds, the merrier.

So: Any thoughts?

Approximately 50 years ago, my father offered my mother a bribe.

She was in the final days of her pregnancy with me as 1967 drew to a close. And my father recognized that if I were born before the end of December, he'd get a tax credit for the year. So he told my mother that if she had her baby in 1967, he'd give her 100 bucks. A kickback, of sorts.

As the story goes, my mother immediately went into labor.

And so we have the above photo, which I adore. Because my mother looks so radiant and beautiful. Because I think I spy a lighter and ashtray on the bedside table. And because of that 100-dollar bill, which I think tells a terrific story.

Recently I wrote about how, as a kid, I believed that Sea-Monkeys were genuine hominids I could purchase and reconstitute with tap water. But that's certainly not the limit of the ignorance and confusion I've demonstrated through the years.

As it turns out, advertisers can be deceptive.

Let's look at Exhibit A, above. In the '70s, this ad appeared in comic books and depicted what I thought I was going to receive when I ordered... a family? a colony? a kingdom? of Sea-Monkeys. I genuinely thought I was going add water and create sentient bipeds. It gave me a moral dilemma, really. Would they be my prisoners? My slaves? Surely "pets" wasn't the right term. How could I withstand the responsibility of caring for them?

Well, I needn't have worried. Because this is what Sea-Monkeys actually look like:

Seriously, advertisers? You make credulous little kids believe they're going to raise mermaids and mermen, and you give them what are essentially microscopic water impurities?

Look at the ad. Beneath the garbage about how you can train these little aqua-bugs, down at the very bottom, you can see the disclaimer "Caricatures shown are not intended to depict Artemia salina" (the miniscule brine shrimp you'll actually receive).

What are they meant to depict, I wonder? 

I had a dangerous mishap yesterday. And it never would have happened if I hadn't moved from Florida to Colorado.

Early in the morning, I began a drive to Denver from our home in Lafayette. It was cold outside, yes, but there was no snow. I noticed a bit of dirt on my windshield, so I gave it a squirt of windshield fluid and turned on the wipers.

Instantly, my entire windshield was covered with an opaque sheet of ice. Combined with the rising sun, I could see absolutely nothing. And the ice wasn't budging. It looked a little something like this:

With my wipers on high speed, I managed to make a little ice-aperture in front of the passenger seat. So I began to drive with my torso stretched to the right at a 45-degree angle. This went on for a few harrowing minutes until my full-blast defroster did its work.

Post-crisis assessment has established the culprit: windshield fluid purchased in Florida, which does not require antifreeze properties. I have now filled my reservoir with Colorado-appropriate fluid, and hopefully I won't have another blinding freezeout. Live (if you're lucky) and learn.

My memory of my childhood is a little on the foggy side. So I thought I'd take a look at an old diary and see what the hell went on when I was a kid.

Here's what I notice about  my nine-year-old diarist self: I was either not very expressive about my emotions, or I was a stone-cold psychopath.

​Shortly after my ninth birthday, we see the demise of my goldfish, in two chapters (and some very confusing date-recording):

Shortly thereafter, it was Freddie Prinze whose demise I recorded. It seems that my spelling, capitalization, and pen choices were all affected, but that may have been it.

Next to kick the bucket: my filthy cur, Ralph. I had stolen him and his brother Floyd as puppies from my neighbor Lisa Perez (I guess I do have some childhood memories—I'll save that one for another blog), and I swear I really did care for him. But my diary entry looks like it was written by a plagiaristic, robotic narcissist. "Kitty" is what Anne Frank called her diary, so I had to rip that off. Then: "Ralph has died of heartworm. I wish he hadn't." And finally, we get to the real news: that the mosaic I made from wallpaper might make it to the state fair, tra-la-la.