The secret to happiness, at Thanksgiving or any time, is to reframe obligation as opportunity. You don't have to spend Thanksgiving with your family. You get to.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum.

For some Chicago expats, food is the medicine that blunts the pain of separation.

Linda Tripp has shown that a true friend is an archivist, a biographer.

Replace the words "have to" with "get to" and watch how the cold rain on your life changes to sunshine.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary…what ever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either – your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s.