I’ve been writing a novel. If you know me in real life or read this blog at all, well then, you know I love to write. This probably doesn’t surprise you at all, and in fact, I sound very like all your other friends who like to write and who are also “writing a novel.” [...]
(in my opinion) I was excited to get a request from my friend Andres, for a list of my “10 books everyone should read,” because it forced me (non-reluctantly) back to my bookshelf to see which books have had the biggest impact on the way I view the world. That is my criteria. Because while [...]
For one year, which was the maximum amount of time my (then-more-limited) budget could handle it, I lived alone. I lived in a one-bedroom apartment with my cat, and I adored it. The New York Times reported on the “freedom, and perils, of living alone” a few months ago, and spoke to many of the great and [...]
In another life, I could have been a doctor, a medical researcher, someone spending a lifetime in the lab finding ways, meanings, solutions to diseases and maladies. I say this because I find medical history, the progression and discovery and trials and missteps, to be wildly fascinating (but honestly, fascination doesn’t equal brilliance in that field, let [...]
The Babies didn’t need many words; but I do. Anyone who knows me could diagnose the documentary film Babies (Bébés, Focus Features, 2010) as a Jessie-must-see: four babies from four different countries and cultures spend their first year in front of a camera, illustrating what is similar and what is different about their simultaneous childhoods. [...]