Surprisingly, I’m a serious and cynical person. I don’t look like one. I have a dimpled, round face, often bordered by pigtails and occasionally . . . I . . um . . . skip. Looking like a cherub who bounces will make people come to the semi-logical conclusion that you are, well, light-hearted.

But it’s not true, sorry. I’m jaded. All my jokes are sarcastic. And I often want to laugh aloud when terrible things happen, because I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop. More importantly this jaded seriousness comes from experience. My life was never a Rockwell painting. I was a tough cookie early on. Nope, I was never the girl who read the uplifting books, because they just didn’t show the world I knew, which has led me to some GREAT books. And you guessed it, they’re cynical and often sad, some of the best ones are really tortured.