Jody Amable

In the aftermath of my mom passing, I've learned to reconcile our rocky relationship with the knowledge that she loved me.

Harnessing the courage within myself—courage I didn’t even know I had—to coolly, calmly call this guy out has made me a better human being.

No matter how drunk he is, he can’t NOT notice this. His hand is moving. What do I do? What do I do? Do I politely ask him to stop? Do I yell at him? Do I wheel around and whack him in the face? You don’t know what he’s doing, Jody. Calm down. Don’t make a scene.

Creator of grungy, gritty rock and roll with a poet’s heart, her critically-lauded record, Beyond the Bloodhounds, tells tales of a tumultuous childhood and split geographical identity.

If I let everyone off the hook for extenuating circumstances like, “He’s over 50, so he probably just doesn’t know any better,” no one’s ever going to stop calling me “sweetie.”

The further I get into this series, the harder time I am having remembering what the eff has happened so far. You see, I am an Old Lady.

FINALLY someone acknowledges professional boundaries at Hogwarts.

I couldn’t help but assume the reason these people were telling me not to say even a word to this troll was because women aren’t supposed to fight back. We’re supposed to rise above — to “not stoop to their level,” as my mom used to say.

Forget a cute story of wizard wonderment — the real moral of Harry Potter is that life is an endless parade of pain and turmoil where you have to watch everyone you’ve ever loved die.

The neighbors turned their lights off. My dog fell sound asleep. I kept reading. And at 1:03 am, I finished. All was well.