My Diary Entry 6/12/89 In honor of celebrating my 20th wedding anniversary, I thought it would be fun to share my very first diary entry about my husband-to-be. I was twenty. He was eighteen. I had just finished my third year of college. He had just finished his first. I wrote the following in my diary 3 days after meeting him. I didn’t change anything except names. Major News! Friday night, we went to a fraternity party and a couple of the guys came over to the sorority house after. Rick...Read More

Things I've Learned in my First 2 Days in Italy The Pantheon is breathtaking. It pulls your soul back in time. Italian people are warm, gracious, beautiful, and fearless. Nutella flavored gelato is... I have no words to explain to you. I licked the cup clean. Michelangelo was a genius. The Sistine Chapel was a divine creation. People from all over the world seek a better life in Italy. It's weird to share public bathroom sinks with the opposite sex, especially when you want to ...Read More

Alleged Gunman at My Son’s School The first messages I “heard” about the situation Tuesday morning were that my son’s high school was on lockdown, a parent had spotted a man in a trench coat with a gun on campus, and the kids were up against the wall in the cafeteria. I put quotes around “heard” because it’s all a blur and I don’t really know what was actually texted, spoken on the phone with police, etc. The panic that took over left my cognitive capabilities seriously compromi...Read More

My First Time I had the most surreal "first time" experience a few nights ago.  It was a dinner outing with women in a book club.  Doesn’t seem too out of the ordinary, right?  But the book they read and came together to discuss was mine. At first, it just felt like a nice dinner with a few dear friends and some of their friends, which allowed me to set aside the nervousness I had felt all week.  You see, four of the twelve were women I’ve known and loved as if they were family since...Read More

Choosing Happiness I’m inundated with emails every day.  Are you?  It seems most of us are.  It can be frustrating because honestly, there’s often a bunch of inane time-wasting crap mixed in with some really urgent, important, potentially life-changing stuff.  I was reminded of this fact yesterday when I finally watched a 12-minute video after 3 very well respected colleagues insisted I must watch it (the first was months ago).  I went into viewing it with a negative attitude, feeling ...Read More

Answers **If you haven’t read the book, please see the brief blurb here: http://www.patriciamann.me for the context for this blog post. No, I did not have an affair with a former student fourteen years younger than me.  Yes, I am a professor.  No, all the things that happened in Beth’s life did not exactly happen in my life.  Yes, many of the feelings Beth felt are feelings I have had.  To those who say it’s appalling that Beth would do what she did with a twenty one year old kid ...Read More

Showing Your Privates I don’t regularly seek the counsel of psychics, but I’ve been known to dabble, just like Beth. I smiled as I sat cross-legged on a dusty wood floor facing the adorable, sweet little dark haired, pale faced youngster.  She was telling me all about how I needed to make life more fun, simple, and easy.  It was true, but isn’t that true for all of us? I wondered what she would think of the book that had been abandoned in a file on my computer for years.  I told ...Read More

To Be Or Not To Be... A Parent *Note: This blog post is not as long as it appears!  There is an optional piece at the end! Got kids?  Not yet?  Not ever?  I think that includes all of us.  If I’m wrong, let me know.  Let’s tell the truth about our mixed up, messy feelings about parenting, whether we have kids or not.  One thing I know for sure is that you have or had parents or caretakers of some kind and that makes you an expert on the subject. I’m a mom.  Yes, my world rev...Read More