You live overseas, you see these exotic places and you want to know about them. But, weirdly, it also made me homesick for all these very prosaic places in America.

I can't relax and sink back in the couch and watch 'Jeopardy!' the way I used to.

For some reason the most devoted mapheads seem to be kids.

I have condemned my kids to a lifetime of geographic illiteracy.

The message is that I was reminding myself and informing others of the fact that God has always been good to me. No matter what you're going through, God is always with us. Life is a journey.

My parents, and librarians along the way, taught me about the space between words; about the margins, where so many juicy moments of life and spirit and friendship could be found. In a library, you could find miracles and truth and you might find something that would make you laugh so hard that you get shushed, in the friendliest way.

As costs mount, in lives and dollars, it is natural to second guess, but one lesson I hope we have learned is that the U.S. cannot go it alone in a policy that leaves American troops taking all the risk and American taxpayers paying all of the costs.

I've learned from experience not to be too glued to one menu or routine in particular because I never know where I'm going to be and what kind of cuisine it's going to be.