Category Archives: The Teri Tome – Top Hits and Duds

The Best of The Teri Tome in 2025

The Teri Tome - Top Hits and Duds

 

As the self-anointed queen of verbiage, I recognize that this blog post is way too long, but I hope you stick with it to the end.

According to Grammarly, my “productivity is skyrocketing,” and I’m “lapping the competition.” They also praised me, saying, “You’ve been busy wrangling words like a pro and building a reputation for stellar productivity.”

(FYI, I’ve been “wrangling” way more than words lately, but okay.)

According to Grammarly, 29% of my most recent wordsmithing was “Joyful.” Joy isn’t something I usually express, so Grammarly’s assertion gave me…joy!

Grammarly has also published numerous articles explaining that joy is a tricky emotion to express and encouraging writers to:

Express joy without feeling guilty about it.

Hmmm. Joy. Now that’s an emotion I should think about beefing up on for 2026.

Another thing Grammarly got me thinking about, which is:

I doubt I’m “lapping the competition,” and anyway, I have no idea who my competition might be.

As far as “building a reputation for stellar productivity,” I’m not sure how Grammarly could know that, even though, according to them, they have analyzed over 108 million of my words since my blog launched in 2015.

So, I suppose they can affirmatively attest to the fact that I write incessantly, but there is zero chance they know whether I am producing stellar work or not.

I am my own worst critic, forever doubting the quality of my writing, which is why my visitor and page-view statistics are so crucial to me.

Are the thousands of visitors and page views each month an indication that my work is good? I don’t know, but I’d like to think so, and it would give me much joy, since I express myself much better in writing than in speaking, which is why I spend so many hours in solitary writing confinement.

And anyway, without writing, I’m only a tiny sliver of a person. You see, it’s my writing that keeps me sane and makes me whole. My family is my everything, but my writing is what pushes me to survive and thrive.

I’ve never been much of a public speaker; however, I’ve recently discovered that I feel very comfortable reciting my poetry and other works in front of an audience. My latest self-indulgence is participating in poetry open mics.

But don’t get me wrong—I’m not afraid to speak my mind. One of my go-to lines about myself is, “You may not like what I have to say, but you’ll always know where I stand.”

Mostly because I feel compelled to stand up for myself, my boundaries, and my expectations, which has led to more than my share of lost friendships and family relationships.

But I’m not sorry, because my feeling is this: I expect two-way relationships, so if I give and you don’t give back, I’m out. But not before I say my piece.

I tend to speak out the loudest through my writing, which I find to be the least offensive way to speak up and out, not just about what I want to say, but what I have to say.

More often than not, I have no idea what I’m going to say until it hits me. There’s no planning involved, just an unplanned journey into the unknown depths of my psyche.

And sometimes I start writing one thing, only to end up with something altogether different! I have surmised that my unconscious has a will of its own.

I scrutinize every word as if trying to piece together a black-on-black jigsaw puzzle, and no post is ever final, which drives me crazy.

Whatever “piece” I had to say in 2015, 2020, 2024—or whenever—is always in a state of perpetual flux.

Years after writing a post, I often find myself rewriting, revising, and (hopefully) improving upon it. Each piece I create is a stark reminder that my thoughts, moods, and opinions are ever-changing. As such, my words (and opinions) are never final because they are forever fluid.

And now, for The Teri Tome’s top five blog posts of 2025:

#1 IN 2025:


FOUR THOUSAND WEEKS: Rooted in the disquieting yet straightforward fact that the average lifespan is finite, Oliver Burkeman’s bestselling book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals reminds us that life’s brevity is undeniable.

Since our time on earth is limited, Burkeman reminds us to make the most of the time we have left.

Four thousand weeks equal 76.923 years, so if Burkeman is correct, that leaves me with about four years (208 weeks) to get sh*t done. Welp!

#2 IN 2025:


ME TOO: A POETIC TIMELINE: Me Too: A Poetic Timeline is my latest publication and, hands down, my proudest writing achievement, mainly because I get to share a subject with my readers that is rarely openly discussed.

I spent over 15 months putting this book of poetry together without telling anyone in my family, not even my husband, that I was writing it. Because, no rhyme intended, but speaking out about “Me Too” is sadly taboo.

And to be brutally honest, no one in my family has ever had a conversation with me about my childhood abuse, my MeToo trauma, or this book of poetry.

Do I think my children, husband, and other family members know about Me Too and me? Of course they do. But I’m sure my loved ones don’t know what to say, because most people don’t.

But not me. I stayed quiet for far too long, so I’ve got plenty to say.

…and say…and say…

And while I am terrified of speaking out, I constantly remind myself that, instead of crowning David king, God gave him Goliath.

#3 IN 2025:


HAPPILY EVEN AFTER: As a wordsmith, I know that one word can change a life, a relationship, or a sentence.

One word. That’s all it takes.

In this case, it was a sentence on my daughter’s bridal shower cake about life being happily…

EVEN vs. EVER after.

Some would have taken the message as a bad omen, i.e.,

HAPPILY EVEN AFTER…WHAT?????

I took it as a sign that the baker was a bad speller.

And the message I got from it was: NEVER to order a cake from that bakery again.

#4 IN 2025:


CAN MY BROKEN RELATIONSHIPS DUE TO ANTI-ISRAEL SENTIMENTS EVER BE REPAIRED?: I was so happy this post made it to the top five, mainly so I could reiterate my revulsion and profound disapproval of anyone who has used their words to fuel, entice, invite, give credence to, and enable despicable haters to bully, harass, and target INNOCENT JEWS. So the answer to my titled question is NO.

I originally wanted to title this post: Can My Broken Relationships Due to Jew-hating Ever Be Repaired? Unfortunately, at the time, I decided to go light on the Jew-haters.

Now that I’m even angrier about the Jew-baiting and hating, I would love to update the title, but the post is already getting so many thousands of page views that I dare not make any changes. I most definitely don’t want my readers to click on a post I absolutely need them to read only to get a 404 error page instead.

And anyway, I think, or at least I hope—title change or not—that I’ve made my disgust and disappointment loud and clear.

#5 IN 2025:


MY STOLEN DIARIES—CHAPTER 32: FROM RAGS TO RICHES: I was also happy that this post made the top five because it serves as a reminder that bullying is a pattern of behavior, not an isolated incident, and that it almost always involves a real or perceived power imbalance.

You know, go after the minority, the weakest link, the ones who are different.

People who bully usually come from a “perceived” higher social status, i.e., popular, athletic, pretty, or legends in their own minds. So it came as no surprise to me that some of my Jew-hating “Facebook” friends (disguised as anti-Zionists) were the same hateful kids who bullied me in high school!

I initially intended to title this chapter “From Rags to Bitches.” After leaving Bridgeport for Westport, I was bullied ferociously by both girls and boys, so it wasn’t appropriate to single out the females, since both genders were equally complicit and venomously mean.

But try as they might, their bullying and cruelty didn’t break me—it only made me stronger and more resolved to survive their malice.

And I suppose I owe those bullies at Bedford Junior High and Staples High School a debt of gratitude, because they helped me recognize that poverty trauma gave me a superpower those rich, clueless, bratty, and entitled kids could never understand.

And now…imaginary drum roll, please…

The Top Five G.O.A.T.T.T.:

(The Greatest Of All Teri Tome Time: 2014-2025)

#1 OF ALL TERI TOME TIME:


BLUE MIND: I was shocked that this post, written on April 15, 2021, about the theory “Blue Mind,” reached the G.O.A.T.T.T., not just by a little, but by thousands upon thousands of page views.

For those who know me, being in or travelling on water is not my thing. And yet I love sitting beside it, even though my heart races a gazillion times a minute.

I love it when my heart beats almost out of my chest because I liken each palpitation to clapping hands. A heartfelt “inner applause,” cheering me on, and rooting for me; for my fears, for my tears, and for all the people I’ve lost and YES, for all the people I’ve gained.

Proof that my beating heart isn’t broken—but alive and well.

#2 OF ALL TERI TOME TIME:


THE PAM PROJECT: This blog post, written on December 6, 2021, has generated over 10,000 page views, and I know without a doubt that my cousin Pam would be incredibly proud of it and of me.

She was always my biggest fan, and I feel confident that every time someone reads something I have written about Pam, her legacy shines on.

A legacy is so much more than birthing others, although,  to me, the miracle of creation is the most valid proof of life after death.

But a legacy can also be etched in words, creating a memory, every time someone shares a story about that person.

A reminder that I don’t want my name carved on a gravestone. I want my name etched in the hearts and minds of the people I love and cherish.

And for those whom I love from afar, who, unfortunately, never got the chance to know and love me, I hope you read my words one day, so you will see for yourself that you have always been in my heart.

I am hopeful that, when I am long gone, my writings will resonate, allowing me, like Pam, to live on.

And to my dear cousin Pam, whom I miss terribly: I pray you are resting in peace and waiting for me on the other side.

#3 OF ALL TERI TOME TIME:

First Diary
MY STOLEN DIARIES DISCLAIMER: I wrote this post on January 12, 2020, the day I made the final decision to upload my dusty old stored-away novel onto my blog, one chapter at a time.

I wrote the disclaimer at my editor friend’s insistence to serve as a legal shield and protect me from potential lawsuits. So I did it, but to be clear,

A) If anyone happens to see themselves in any of the characters, that’s on them and a figment of their overly imaginative imagination.

And

B) BRING IT ON.

#4 OF ALL TERI TOME TIME:


THE FATES AND THE FURIES: I penned this post on February 3, 2019, during a politically rough time, though I didn’t know then that things were about to get way, way rougher.

On that day, while many others were busy preparing for Super Bowl parties, I watched the television coverage of two protests:

1) In the U.S., protesters were urging immigrants to skip work, school, and spending, protesting recent anti-immigrant policies and increased ICE enforcement under the Trump administration.

2) The massive anti-government protests in Venezuela, fueled by opposition leader Juan Guaidó’s declaration as “acting president” and a European ultimatum for new elections.

In both cases, it was the significant participation of women that struck me the most.

I watched as brave U.S. protesters—many of them women—shut down lanes of the 101 Freeway in L.A. while carrying signs opposing the administration’s immigration policies and ICE actions.

In Venezuela, many women were dressed in white, expressing desperation over hunger and a lack of medicine, while security forces responded with violence.

In Greek mythology, the Fates and the Furies (all female goddesses) were not to be messed with—and they wielded the ultimate girl power.

The Fates and the Furies were six powerful, badass women who embodied divine order and law—my kind of girls. After watching the protests in the U.S. and Venezuela, I decided to write about these personifications of destiny.

#5 OF ALL TERI TOME TIME:


MY STOLEN DIARIES—CHAPTER 16: IN OVER MY HEAD: I posted this Chapter on February 19, 2023, even though I had written it more than 30 years earlier.

According to Idioms by the Free Dictionary, “In Over My Head” means: “Too deeply involved in or with a difficult situation, beyond the point of being able to control or cope any longer.”

I would agree with the “too deeply involved” part, but not with the “beyond the point of coping.” My way of coping is to write it out, and that’s my best way of letting my readers know where I stand. Although, haven’t we all been “in over our heads” at one time or another in our lives?

And now for my hope for 2026, but first, I have to look back on 2025.

I can only speak for myself, but 2025 was a particularly tough year—much tougher than I expected it to be—and one I am ecstatically happy is now over.

Not to say that for me, wonderful and blessed events didn’t happen in 2025, because they did.

But the spewing of hate in 2025 was heartbreakingly visceral, and it felt incredibly personal in so many ways, and from so many loved ones, because sadly, it often was.

The only constant in 2025 was WTF? FROM ALL SIDES.

I’m praying for a more peaceful and calm 2026, because honestly, I’ve had my fill of all the hatefulness.

So here is my 2026 New Year’s Resolution:

Be a flame. Globalize the light. Globalize the love.

And somehow, some way, stop the haters dead in their tracks.

The Best and Worst of the Teri Tome in 2024

The Teri Tome - Top Hits and Duds

This blog post is longer than you may have the patience for, but I hope you hang in there.

According to the writing assistant Grammarly, I am a writing machine and “have my eye on the prize.” The cloud-based program has already analyzed over 102.8 million of my words since the 2015 launch of my blog, and based on my 2024 writing style, Grammarly has also dubbed me “A Powerhouse.”

I wouldn’t call myself a powerhouse, but in the nine years since launching The Teri Tome, I have been blessed with almost two million readers and four million page views. And in 2024 alone, close to 200,000 readers visited my blog, and I sincerely appreciate every one of them.

But it was Grammarly’s assertion that “I had my eye on the prize” that got me thinking:

What prize am I eyeing?

Is it readership, page views, uplifting comments, book sales, personal satisfaction, or something else? I thought about this question for a while, and then it hit me.

The prize I’m eyeing is that years from now, someone might read my work or come across something I’ve written that moves them. It might be a poem, a blog post, or one of my books that connects them to me. And whether they knew me or not, I hope they spend some time thinking about who I was.

So, that’s the prize I have my eye on: that my writing will help ensure that I’m still lurking around somewhere long after I’m gone. And that maybe my words will go a long way to ensuring my legacy, one letter of the alphabet at a time. And speaking of time, at 71, I’m running out of it, so now, more than ever, I need to make every word count.

Writing is my life, and I cherish the process, including my disciplined daily routine, which involves several hours of intense wordsmithing. Only after a grueling day of writing do I feel like I’ve accomplished something.

When words and ideas come into my head, I feel compelled to instantly jot them down for fear of forgetting them. My writing pattern includes scribbling jumbled-up sentences in the dead of night that I often discover on my nightstand the following day, with no recollection of writing them in the first place. And those unconsciously and frequently illegible words usually result in countless hours of scrutinizing and deciphering.

I’ve set down snippets of written phrases on ink-bleeding tissues and napkins, and I’ve been known to occasionally scrawl all over my arms and hands when there was nothing else to write on. Because once a thought or idea gets stuck in my brain, I’m on a do-or-die mission to write it all out.

2024 wasn’t filled with as many blog posts as in prior years, primarily because I was busy writing two books!

And I would be remiss if I didn’t take the opportunity to highlight both of them here. (Please don’t judge me for being long-winded.)


My newest release, Me Too: A Poetic Timeline, just came out, although I’ve been writing it since 1967. The impetus for publishing it resulted from a rough conversation with my best friend about my sharing MeToo much, which triggered an onslaught of emotions. Well, maybe not an onslaught—just four.

At first, I was angry at her for hurting me, then I was angry at myself for being unable to control my mouth, followed by pride in myself for speaking out. The fourth emotion was more of a resignation—the knowledge that most people will never understand the why and how of MeToo and me.

Following that frank conversation, I took a critical look at myself, my MeToo pain, and my inability to shut up about it, which had me asking myself: When is MeToo too much?

The answer that immediately came to my mind is NEVER.

But now that I’ve finally published my book, Me Too: A Poetic Timeline—a compilation of journal entries I’ve been writing for fifty-seven years—I feel a renewed sense of myself. My MeToo book of poetry allowed me the freedom to speak my truth and gave me a sliver of peace—an infinitesimal sliver, but I’ll gladly take it.

During my 2024 process of going back in time, combing through five decades and hundreds of journal entries and poems, I realized that my MeToo life played out in four painful but definitive life-altering phases.

Phase One: Shut it

Phase Two: Whisper it

Phase Three: Scream it

Phase Four: Write it

And now, I’m hoping to get to the final phase—the one where I know MeToo will never be too much, but to a place where I can keep it to myself. Me and MeToo will always be one. You see, it’s at the heart of who I am.

At first, I thought the final phase would be like the phrase in the movie The Ten Commandments: “So let it be written, so let it be done.”

But now I realize that my Me Too nightmare will never be done, but at least now it’s written.


I published Tarot for Beginners this past summer. I’ll keep the description of this book plain and simple: It is a unique, fun, and quirky way to add some amusing entertainment to a social gathering.

Now, back to my 2024 blog posts. Having spent the past twelve months writing two books, I only wrote 24 blog posts in 2024, although I’m proud to say they generated approximately 120,000 page views.

Additionally, The Teri Tome garnered close to another 300,000 page views for posts written before 2024. That’s a whopping 420,000 for 2024, way more page views than I could ever have imagined when I launched my blog in 2015.

Let’s start with:

MY LEAST VIEWED POST IN 2024


CHIMERA: In analyzing my best and worst blog posts of 2024, I got chill bumps when I saw the date I wrote this one—4/18/24. It turned out that while I was writing this post about a nightmare I had at 3 am that morning, someone I once knew and loved was dying on that same day.

The chilling part is that I didn’t find out about the death until two months later, in mid-June. So, I can only assume that my dream was a sign, a vision, or a premonition on the day this person passed away.

While this post about an evil-looking, part-goat, part-lion-creepy-beast was my least viewed, it holds tremendous personal significance and meaning. That’s all I’ll say for now.

#1 HIT IN 2024


INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY: ME TOO, UNLESS YOU’RE A JEW: I assume this blog post was number one primarily because I posted it on several Jewish forums. Without my Jewish readership, I am all but certain that this blog entry would not have been as widely read, which makes me incredibly sad but also outrageously mad.

Here in the U.S. and all around the globe, women’s groups ignored, denied, and actually justified the rape of innocent women and children on October 7. That feminist groups whitewashed Hamas’s crimes is unforgivable, particularly when considering this terrorist organization mandates the hijab, has made it illegal to travel without a male guardian, and refuses to ban physical or sexual abuse within the family.

And speaking only for myself, I will never forgive or forget those people who defaced posters of kidnapped innocent people or their spewing of anti-Semitic disinformation about Jews that has poisoned the minds of so many.

And it will be a cold day in hell before I ever again go out and defend the rights of certain people who cared nothing for the rights of Jewish Americans.

#2 HIT IN 2024


THE ITSY-BITSY SPIDER FIASCO: This number two blog post made me smile. In a year when I was deeply troubled by the social and political climate, it was refreshing to see that my attempt at comic relief paid off. And leave it to our precious kids to say the darnedest things.

#3 HIT IN 2024


NOVA MUSIC FESTIVAL: THE SCREAMING GIRL: Once again, I think my posting this blog entry on several Jewish forums is why it garnered so many page views and took the number three spot.

The Nova Music Festival Exhibition in New York City—an in-depth remembrance of the brutal October 7 attack in Israel—was a heartbreaking reminder of that horrific day when Hamas terrorists and Palestinian civilian animals descended upon the rave and stalked, chased, massacred, raped, mutilated, and kidnapped innocent people.

Many of the Nova Music Festival survivors—especially the young women who witnessed or experienced sexual violence that day—have sadly recounted that over the past year, they feel like they are screaming into the void as they try to counter anti-Israel propaganda, antisemitism, and false, inaccurate misinformation online.

And I have to admit that I have kept my distance from my so-called friends for saying nothing—or worse—saying “but” in response to not only the sexual violence of October 7 but to the anti-Jewish protests that have been a disgusting, dangerous, and outrageous display of hate against Jewish Americans.

#4 HIT IN 2024


D-DAY JUNE 6, 1944: BEFORE, DURING, AND AFTER: My father-in-law is a hero in my eyes, so I was especially gladdened to see that my post about him made it to number four in 2024.

Just a year or so before storming the beaches of Normandy, he and my mother-in-law had arrived in the U.S. after a four-year odyssey through Europe in their effort to escape the Nazis.

He helped to liberate untold numbers of towns and villages in France, as well as untold numbers of fellow Jews in concentration camps and helped to keep freedom alive for all of us.

#5 HIT IN 2024


HE HAD ME AT HUMBLE: It dawned on me when this blog entry made it to number five that four out of my top five posts were about Judaism, Jewish teachings, Nazis, and Jewish atrocities.

I can only surmise that all of the antisemitism I have witnessed over the past year subconsciously affected and motivated what I wrote about.

This post is about the teachings of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, also known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe, regarding the unimportance of one’s importance and how the moon serves as the perfect example of humility and humbleness.

The moon’s light is not its own—it is merely a reflection of the sun’s light. And so the moon reminds us to be a graceful receiver of our shining, beautiful light, which does not belong to us but to a higher authority.

THE NUMBER ONE VIEWED POST OF ALL TERI TOME TIME (2015-2024):


WEDDING CENTERPIECES THAT CAN SAVE THE WORLD: For the past four years, this blog entry about wedding centerpieces (or the lack thereof) has been hands down my most-viewed post, garnering hundreds of thousands of page views. However, as the mother of a daughter who is getting married this June, I have come to the realization that florists will always win out over “in lieu of wedding centerpieces.”

As I said goodbye to 2024, I lost too many hours of sleep, fretting over the coming of 2025 and beyond. My New Year’s resolution was to remove my obsession with politics and all things Trump from my everyday life. And while I’m not a fan of Trump, my opinion of him will be forever changed and indeed elevated if he does right by Israel, the October 7 hostages, and Jewish Americans.

And lastly, my wish for you in 2025 is that you are in excellent health, surrounded by loving family and friends, and enjoy all the freedoms and rights we, as Americans, deserve.

The Best and Worst of the Teri Tome in 2023

The Teri Tome - Top Hits and Duds

I have been beyond thankful that over 15,000 people per month come to my blog, The Teri Tome, to read what I have to say.

Since launching The Teri Tome on 3/18/15, I’ve had over 1.4 million readers and over 3.2 million page views.

And I suspect some of those readers are deeply unhappy or nervously afraid about my postings or what I might post next.

But frankly, my dear…

Writing helps me make sense of life’s stuff. It’s like talking to myself but in written form.

Anyway, the marked increase in traffic to The Teri Tome has me writing like a crazy person. And for every written post I publish, you should know that I also write a post that is most definitely unpublishable — at least for now.

I’ve put all those unpublished posts in a safe place on my computer, so to my family, if you’re reading this: When the time comes that I am no longer, please carefully and thoroughly comb through my computer files. There is a treasure trove of everything you mostly didn’t know about Teri because you never asked. I can only hope that when I reach the other side, you will honor me and my memory by reading every word.

In 2023, I wrote 38 blog posts, resulting in over 200,000 collected page views for those posts alone. Additionally, The Teri Tome garnered close to another 200,000 page views for posts written before 2023.  And please don’t think I’m bragging, but that’s a whopping 400,000+ page views in one year.

Of the 38 posts, fifteen were chapters of my novel-on-a-blog, primarily written decades ago, titled: “My Stolen Diaries.” Speaking of my novel, I first started posting it on The Teri Tome on 1/12/20. To date, I have posted 97 of my book’s total 159 written pages. However, I will tell you a little secret: I still haven’t figured out the ending.

According to the writing assistant Grammarly, I’ve achieved grammar greatness — the cloud-based program has already analyzed over 63.2 million of my words since the 2015 launch of my blog. Per Grammarly, I was more productive than 96% of their users, 93% more accurate, 96% more unique words, and my top mistake? Missing commas.

And now for the big reveal.

My LEAST VIEWED POST IN 2023


MY DELTA WINGS: I’m constantly trying to figure out why some of my blog posts garner thousands of page views and others in the hundreds. Maybe it’s the title, maybe it’s the content, and maybe it’s both. Whatever the reason, this poem was my least-trafficked post in 2023, but I hope you give it a read because it’s very near and dear to me, mostly because at 20 years old, Delta Airlines freed me from my MeToo nightmare.

#1 HIT IN 2023


MY STOLEN DIARIES — CHAPTER 16: IN OVER MY HEAD: I was pleasantly surprised to see that Chapter 16 was the #1 post of 2023. How many of us have been in over our heads? For years, I’ve asked myself, “What if this?” or “What if that?” which is what I was thinking about when I sat down to write this Chapter.

#2 HIT IN 2023


MY STOLEN DIARIES — CHAPTER 23: SHE’S AN AWKWARD GIRL: The #2 spot honors another chapter of my novel-on-my blog. My Stolen Diaries is a work of fiction, but I know a thing or two about being awkward and being bullied for it. I’ve come to accept that were it not for my awkwardness and the bullies, I would not have had the empathy to write Chapter 23. My lead character, Tony, is shy but unafraid to speak the truth. And as of late, don’t think me crazy, but she often talks to me. Many readers have asked me if there is any truth to the fiction I write. I can only answer by saying that there is no fiction without truth.

#3 HIT IN 2023


MY DAUGHTER DREAM: The popularity of this #3 blog post didn’t surprise me at all because my unicorn daughter was the inspiration. When my daughter was around five, she told me she was my guardian angel, and oh yes, she is.

#4 HIT IN 2023


MY STOLEN DIARIES —  CHAPTER 22: O HOLY NIGHT: I channeled the female solidarity of growing up in an all-women household when I wrote this chapter, so I’m happy to see it’s the #4 post of 2023. Those precious women taught me strength through adversity, and I will forever be grateful for their grit and resolve.

#5 HIT IN 2023


THINKING OF YOU TODAY: I was more introspective than happy about the popularity of this #5 post. And I was also a bit anxious because rereading it touched something raw in me. It also made me question if I should continue writing about my house of glass, pane by pain. For like a minute.

#6 HIT IN 2023


I SEE YOU: Just so you know, I’ve been second-guessing my writing purpose for a while now, so the popularity of this #6 post of 2023 left me nostalgic and longing for what was. And yet, I know deep inside that what was will never be again.

#7 HIT IN 2023


MY STOLEN DIARIES — CHAPTER 25: THE TONY TELLING:
I wrote Chapter 25 in the late 80s while undergoing intense life-altering events. The fact that it made it to #7 and garnered so many page views in 2023 lifted my spirits and gave me the impetus to continue posting my novel no matter what or despite who.

#8 HIT IN 2023


MY STOLEN DIARIES — CHAPTER 20: HELP!: Chapter 20 made it to the #8 spot and reminded me that I’ve been adept at helping but have never been one to ask for it. And yet, I still believe what is meant for someone will never pass them by.

#9 HIT IN 2023


MY STOLEN DIARIES — CHAPTER 15: ROBERTO, ROBERTO, ROBERTO: Although I wrote this chapter decades ago, I gave it a written facelift in 2023. I did so because I felt the need to expand the concept that our choices and decisions are often our undoing. We make our choices, and then our choices take over and make us. And then there are the choices made for us by someone else — a life shaped by decisions made by other people. How many of our lives are the consequences of a series of decisions made for us instead of by us? That’s how Chapter 15, my #9 hit in 2023, came to be.

#10 HIT IN 2023


I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS: It was no surprise that this post made it to #10. In many belief systems, ten signifies completion — the end of one cycle and the beginning of another. Soon to enter my 71st year here on earth, I can’t help but wonder, “Will this be the year my nightmare chapter ends?” So that you know, I can take a verbal hit better than most. And I’ve heartbreakingly closed life chapters I never wanted to end and will never forget. But I still haven’t figured out how to close that one ugly chapter I’ve spent fifty-six years trying to erase.

THE NUMBER ONE VIEWED POST OF ALL TERI TOME TIME (2015-2023):


WEDDING CENTERPIECES THAT CAN SAVE THE WORLD: From 2015 to 2020, my all-time most-viewed post was about bullies and bullying behavior. I sadly equated it with the 2014 election and that certain powerful someone who, through his own ugly and hate-filled words, permitted bullies to crawl out of their holes. At the end of 2021, and at first analysis, I thought my blog post about brides beating out bullies was a positive outcome — a possible new world order. Mostly because I naively thought that fewer people needed to read about bullies — because perhaps fewer people were being bullied. But I have come to the sad realization that since 2020, it has become way more commonplace to bully and to be bullied. People no longer need to research or understand bullies and bullying, mainly because so many of us have been experiencing the hatefulness of it in real-time — day in and day out, with no one able or willing to stop it. So, for the past three years, weddings have far surpassed bullies as my number one most-viewed blog post, garnering hundreds of thousands of page views. Although it took me a while, I now sadly get the fact that weddings come and go, while hate only begets more hate.

And just like that, another year was over and done.

As I said goodbye to 2023, I also said goodbye to a childhood friend in mid-December. My dear friend was a particularly tough loss and the culmination of a sh*tstorm of a year.

2023 has often felt like a movie trailer to me. And while there was no spoiler alert, the preview and glimpse of the plot, characters, and tone, combined with nonstop political and anti-Semitic horrors, have done a relatively good job of keeping me up until the wee hours of the morning.

Like I needed anything more to add to my sleepless, restless nights.

I can only wish that 2024 brings all of us the plot twists we’re hoping for, although there is no doubt that some of us will be apoplectic.

I sure hope it’s not me.

The Teri Tome–My Top Five 2022 Posts

The Teri Tome - Top Hits and Duds, , , , , ,

According to Grammarly, a cloud-based typing assistant, I have used their program to word-check 1.2 million words in 2022.

And the total number of words Grammarly has word-checked since I started my blog “The Teri Tome” in 2015 is a whopping 5.9 million. That’s a sh*tload of words, but in the end, what purpose does all that writing serve?

For as long as I can remember, stories and miscellanea visions brewed around in my head. Free-flowing words and phrases were stuck inside my kiddie brain, begging to come out—the only proof of them was hidden in the pages of my mind or laid out in secret code in my diaries and journals.

I’ve spent a ton of time thinking about why I obsessively head-write and how I have managed to successfully transcribe those thoughts to paper.

To be honest, there is no rhyme or reason to my literary artistry, primarily because the words just spill out, and the stories tend to write themselves. So much for talent.

The writing is literally and literarily out of my control. It happens all day and all night—every day and every night. It never stops. The scribbling on scraps of paper, the pocket notepads always at the ready, my prowess at writing in the dark.

Countless words erratically squiggled right side up, sideways, and even upside down. Sometimes I try to piece them together like a jigsaw puzzle—a montage of edited and unedited thoughts, feelings, and dreams.

Reams of notes cover my desk, bedside table, kitchen counter, and my car’s center console. I keep paper and pencil with me at all times.

My writing element of choice is a PaperMate Sharpwriter #2 pencil. Even as a child, I never liked using pens—I always found them way too permanent.

To this day, a pencil is the only writing element I use.

WRITE – ERASE – WRITE – ERASE. That’s how I write it out.

And I write it out because my brain is hard-wired to spill and spell it all out. Or maybe it’s not my brain, but something deep inside my heart.

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know that I am nothing, if not transparent—an open book. Maybe too open. But why?

Perhaps I feel compelled to write it all out because I was hidden in plain sight as a child. Sort of seen but never heard, and mostly invisible. My very existence was always carefully guarded and monitored by those in charge of me.

You probably think, “enough about the how and the why of your words; just give me your top five blog posts already.”

But sorry, not sorry, I can’t stop thinking about why I feel compelled to write it all down before it’s too late, or how my words will play into the memory of me, and what my written purpose is.

But the endless self-examination always brings me back to the same old place: A written, frequently uncensored record of my subconscious self.

In 2022, I wrote 24 blog posts, which collectively comprised about 72,000 page views.

The total number of page views for my blog was over 600,000 in 2022, up slightly from last year, so I’m thankful.

Okay, so finally, here are my top five best-performing blog posts from 2022.

And since many of the older posts brought in most of my page views, I’ve included the #1 hit of all Teri Tome time (2015-2022).

#1 HIT IN 2022


This Poem Is for You: I feel humbled by the massive number of views this poem received. I love to write poetry, but I’m not much of a rhymer, so I have little confidence in the poesy department. I’d like to think this poem got so many hits because everyone can relate to love’s ebbs and flows.

#2 HIT IN 2022


My Stolen Diaries – Chapter 9: Father Panik Village: I wrote this chapter almost thirty years ago. The thousands of hits this post accumulated keep me confident that uploading chapters of my novel My Stolen Dairies onto my blog is the right thing to do. To date, I have posted thirteen chapters, consisting of 51 pages, onto The Teri Tome. That leaves 101 pages of my novel left to post, so stay tuned.

#3 HIT IN 2022


What About the Sanctity of the Born?:
I’m happy this post got thousands of page views, but I’m also horrified and disgusted that women’s rights have been so cavalierly taken away. As a wordsmith, I chose the word cavalierly with purpose. During the English Civil War, the word cavalier was a negative label used to describe the wealthy, primarily male, royal loyalists and fervent supporters of King Charles I until his beheading in 1649. I’m not recommending any beheadings but get those creepy cavaliers out of our bedrooms!

#4 HIT IN 2022


Are You Reading This Poem?: Wow. Another poem. I can only hope that the person I wrote this poem for was one of the many thousands who viewed it. And I still have faith that one day we will reunite.

#5 HIT IN 2022


The Hourglass: Yet another poem! That makes three poems in the top five! I am both amazed and flattered that this poem about fragility on Mother’s Day reached so many people. And it goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: Thank God for my precious grandchildren.

#1 HIT OF ALL TERI TOME TIME (2015-2022)


Wedding Centerpieces that Can Save the World: My #1 blog post of all time (2015-2022) is a repeat of last year. This post, which has garnered over 420,000 page views, is about making charitable contributions in lieu of wasteful and costly wedding centerpieces. I wonder how many brides actually took my advice?

My 2023 New Year’s resolution is all about closure, and although I am skeptical, I remain ever hopeful for the elusive to finally come to an end.

Lastly, I wish my readers a happy, healthy, and fortunate New Year. And I hope that 2023 brings freedom, equality, justice, and political peace to not just some of us but all of us.