This month brought travel opportunities that I had to decline. ALS TDI’s Leadership Summit in Boston takes place tomorrow, and many of my friends flew in for the occasion. But it seemed like too much for us. Planes, an uncomfortable travel wheelchair, the breathing machine, hotel rooms. All too complicated.

Later this month, many of my friends and family will gather at Fitzgerald’s in Berwyn, IL for the second annual Speed4Sarah concert and fundraiser. It seems that I should be there for that, but it’s actually been years since we traveled for Thanksgiving. Rob is allergic to holiday travel, in addition to penicillin and bees.

I used to love traveling. When I was fresh out of college, I got a job working for a travel publishing company in the San Francisco Bay Area. I wrote back cover copy for books about far-flung locales like Cuba, Oaxaca, and Wisconsin. I wrote press releases and designed postcards to market our various travel series. I was the traveling publicist for the author Rick Steves, whose Italy guidebook was, and maybe still is, the best-selling travel book in the United States.

It was my job to drive Rick to events and interviews. We got along well. He was impressed by my parallel parking abilities, I was impressed by his uninhibited love of Rod Stewart (including one particularly memorable late-night air guitar performance as we hurtled through Pasadena) Read More>