Jody Amable

I was waiting to finally not like a Harry Potter book, and folks, I found it. Half-Blood Prince was boring.

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

So far, Deathly Hallows is, to me, about the divide between the living, the dead, and the living who have seen death. Harry and I are part of an exclusive club: Those under 30 who have experienced death. And when I say “experienced,” I don’t mean “witnessed.” I mean really, really felt it, all the way through.

In this time of toy-giving, I'm reflecting on the impact one doll made on me and, I'm willing to bet, a small subset of other girls, too.

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.

Jon Stewart, step aside. Your heir apparent has arrived.

A few weeks back, I got looped into an Instagram chat with some coworkers from one of my gigs, who were snarking about the fact that the

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.

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

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.