Christmas is relentless. It's around the clock. I sit with my little ones in front of the TV screen, and we watch movie after movie after movie.

Here I am, a Palestinian Arab who only knows how to write in Hebrew, stuck in central Illinois.

I always see my wife as the clever one, as the wise one in the family.

I very much hope that when my wife reads my writings so she reads it as if she is a character and not the real one. Sometimes she takes it too personally.

I'm not sure that I recovered, but I also know that I cannot afford going back yet. I see how much the kids are happier, I guess, here and I think that they might have a better future not hiding.

Sometimes I wonder if there is any hope left for an Israeli-Palestinian discourse that is built on equality and liberty rather than a fruitless discourse of master and servant.

Israeli independence - what we Arabs call al-Naqba, 'The Catastrophe' - it created Palestinian identity more than anything else.

Thanksgiving is the only day of the year when most of the stores here are closed during the day and reopen after midnight. Even restaurants shut down for the holiday, except for the fast-food chains.

I'm always sad when Dad doesn't like my columns. He waits for them every week and usually likes them, in which case he doesn't say a word - it's only if he's critical that he bothers to call.

Somehow, since I became a family, every minute in which I am alone and not listening to two kids screaming in stereo feels like a vacation.

[W]hat my grandmother and my mother and I all know is that our beauty is no miracle. It is bought and paid for.

Choose your friends wisely, and also choose friends that you can trust.

I always say I wanna work with Alicia Keys. I'm in awe of her.

I've become less cynical, which is appalling but kind of cool.

I'm on VH1 now, will be working on ITV's This Morning again from September.

We're in a world that is run by accountants and I think that it's sad in many ways.

Like most Americans, I feel disgusted when we see people make decisions based on party politics rather than a solution that is best for the country.

Romance without finance is a nuisance. Few men value free merchandise. Let the chippies fall where they may.

Basically, people in other countries don't want to have to work quite as flat-out as they do in Japan.

I tried to follow Ben Graham's ideas.