The week my editor first contacted me about writing a book was the same week Donald Trump announced he was running for president. It was June, 2015.

I had a friend whose father died of cancer the week the hostages were released from Iran. It was 1981.

Whenever anybody mentions the hostages being released from Iran, she thinks of her father dying.

Three weeks after my father died, Princess Diana was killed in a car accident. It was 1997.

Whenever anybody mentions Princess Diana dying, I think of my father.

After I got the call that day, I went to my parents’ house in Santa Monica with my friend whose father died of cancer when the hostages were released from Iran. We stopped in the McDonald’s on Colorado and 2nd. I will never go into that McDonald’s again because it reminds me of the day my father died. (And because it’s gross.)

The day I turned 10 years sober, John Kennedy Jr. died in a plane crash.

John John. My mother would call my brother that sometimes.

When I think of having 10 years, I think of JFK Jr. dying.

Whenever anybody mentions JFK, Jr. dying I think of having 10 years.