2016 — I step off the plan in Costa Rica, smiling as the heat hits my skin. Even though I’m not at my final destination, a yoga retreat center on a little island off the mainland, I’ve successfully escaped the frigid January hellscape that is my life in New York. Work is crazy and all-consuming and I'm trying very hard not to listen to all the little voices in my head saying, “you’re wasting your life.” I’m ready for this vacation. My friend, Misty, and I scramble through th

As a kid, the youngest of 6, I play to type: a big old ham, the court jester. I'm always angling for attention by any means necessary. This one time, I’m playing with matches. Of course, I’ve been told repeatedly NOT to play with matches. But matches are just awesome. (I STILL love them.There are bowls of them all over my apartment. I mourn the day when every bar and restaurant stopped giving away branded matchbooks. Sometimes a throw-backish place will offer them and I hoar

December. I’m having trouble sleeping. Elderly Dog is sick and her coughing sounds like a flock of geese has landed in the apartment. Add to that the typical year-end anxiety and some unexpected and distracting Boy Drama — it feels like I haven’t had a good night’s sleep for a month. I’ve tried teas, tinctures, essential oils and a sleep app where a guy tries his best to bore you to sleep. But nothing works. I'm normally a champion sleeper, so this run of insomnia has me f

I finished up a journal this morning. Such a great feeling — filling up the pages of a blank book, what an accomplishment! And I get to start a fresh new journal tomorrow! This speaks directly to my inner 4th grader. Today, as then, I love "school supplies" almost as much as I love ice cream. Almost. Just for fun, I turned to the first entry in the journal — what was August 2018 Colleen writing about? Full of anxiety over solo show performance. under-prepared, like everythin

When I left my corporate job a year and a half ago, I set myself up in a co-working space uptown thinking it'll be the perfect place to write and work on my plans for world domination. The decor is straight out of a West Elm catalogue (I ain’t mad at that) and they have free beer and wine! Trouble is, I rarely go there. It’s not very convenient and, frankly, it feels like an overpriced library. So cold and quiet. So I try my local library. It’s free and literally next door to

As a kid I went through a serious James Bond phase, devouring Ian Fleming's books and seeing every movie I could get on VHS. I’m not sure I got through all of them, but I gave it a solid effort. I loved the salacious romance subplots (even though I barely understood them) and the increasingly gadget-filled briefings with Q. I imagined myself going on missions, transformed for undercover operations by wigs, couture, and a sudden, inexplicable fluency in Polish. So, when given