My mom won’t add me on Facebook.

I know; it’s usually the other way around. All my friends have complained when their parents got Facebook, and how they went months before finally accepting their friendship requests.

But I didn’t even know that my mom had a Facebook account until I saw her name pop up on one of my cousin’s profiles. And then I saw her profile on a few other cousins’ profiles. And then lastly, my three brothers.

So, I feel like I’m 10 again, and my mom is picking favorites. My mother added all her children on Facebook except me.

I didn’t want to, but I sent her a friendship request. And I logged into Facebook every day to see if she accepted my request. Two days went by. Then five. Then after a week without receiving a notification saying I was friends with my mother, I texted her.

“Why won’t you add me on Facebook?”

And my mother said the most hurtful thing she has ever said to me in my 23 years.

“I don’t want to be your Facebook friend,” she said.

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From the film of "Where the Wild Things Are."

I have a distinct childhood memory of discovering the book “Where the Wild Things Are.”

I couldn’t tell you how old I was, where I found it or what I was doing at the time. No, this memory is kind of like deja vu – just a flash.

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Chesapeake Bay bridge

All this talk of the new state voting law has reminded me that it’s time, well, probably past time, to replace my own driver’s license.

Time to let go.

Two years now of living and working in Pennsylvania, but I still consider myself a Marylander. So I’ve avoided replacing my license. I’ve held on to that identity.

Cut me some slack, I’ve never lived outside Maryland before. Continue reading →

The glass panes of my bathroom window were blown out during Hurricane Irene, more than six months ago and they still haven’t been replaced. Yes, it was quite cold getting in the shower during February.

There’s a leak, too, around the edge of the tub. Once, at least, water dripped into the apartment below.

A tile in my kitchen floor is cracked. Not sure how that happened. And the carbon monoxide detector recently fell from the ceiling, it crashed into bits of plastic on the floor. So, for now at least, my Gettysburg apartment is probably out of code.

The fix-it list for my apartment has grown quite long these days. Continue reading →

Apparently an urban-gardening revitalization is sweeping the country, but I like to think that I was ahead of the trend. Of course, my attempt to grow tomatoes in Baltimore City was a failure. I was foiled by rats and teenagers who flicked cigarette butts into my plants. Continue reading →

There it was, an innocent-looking envelope on the edge of my dresser bearing the blue block E that I know so well.

There was an identical envelope in that same spot a little more than five years ago, and I tore through that one like there was gold inside. In a way, there was. It was my acceptance letter to my first-choice school, Elizabethtown College. I remember opening it to find a paper that said YES! in the same blue block lettering.

But this, the letter I found waiting for me a few months ago on a visit to my parents’ house, this was different.

This one was for my five-year reunion.

I expected to see a big NO! inside. Continue reading →

I would like, just once, to receive one of those fat tax returns

You’ll probably be getting one, a lump deposit of a couple hundred dollars. I imagine it’s nice to think of all the ways to blow through it.

I wouldn’t know how that feels. Continue reading →