I write because the alternative is probably becoming a farting TikToker or becoming a disgruntled Walmart greeter. When the world’s spinning like a bad trip and truth seems as rare as an honest politician, I grab my laptop and start pounding keys.

I’m the daughter of a Greek immigrant who arrived here in the ’50s with nothing but a suitcase full of dreams and a perfect Sharkskin suit. Dad believed in the American Dream, and somehow, throughout the decades, that belief has stuck with me. My mom was from a German Irish family in Jersey City, NJ, and had her first job at age 16. She was a phone operator for NJ Bell.

I write because my brain won’t shut up at 3 AM, spitting out fragments of memories and half-baked ideas like a broken record. It’s either write them down or go mad; the psych ward’s already got enough poets.

Some people collect stamps. I collect uncomfortable truths, explore conspiracy theories, and dig up forgotten stories that can make people squirm at dinner parties. In this age of alternative facts and digital smoke screens, telling it straight feels almost revolutionary – like wearing combat boots to a debutante ball.

As I have since I was a teenager, I like to think of myself as one of the outsiders, the midnight philosophers, the corner-store intellectuals who read Kant between cigarette breaks. We’re all just trying to make sense of this beautiful mess, aren’t we?

So yeah, I’ll keep writing. Not because it’s noble or profound but because it’s either this or screaming, and I don’t want to scare my dog.
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Besides, somebody’s got to remember all this stuff. It might as well be me.