I’m not giving a life story.

I’m giving a story life.

Several years ago, I was approached by Carolyn Wyman, author of The Great American Chocolate Chip Cookie Book to consider writing a book about Otis Spunkmeyer Cookies. I am credited as co-founder of Otis Spunkmeyer Cookies with my husband, but no one starts a company by themselves. I told her that Otis Spunkmeyer was about many things besides cookies, and I wrote some stories to prove it. Carolyn agreed, indicating that my most fascinating stories had nothing to do with cookies. She suggested I compile my “you can’t make this up” nonfiction stories of improbable possibilities.

I liked this idea, which goes back to Aristotle: In reality—improbable events really do occur, sometimes.

I was improbably born in 1954 into a small suburb of Hartford, Connecticut, but I really didn’t live there. As a baby-boomer saddled with an old-soul, I preferred hanging my hat on imagination, and dwelling in possibilities. I grew up on the East Coast, I grew out on the West Coast, and grew away into the Far East. Dancing every step of the way, I observed, entangled, created—and imagined possibilities. Then, I tried to actualize improbable possibilities, by throwing spaghetti on a wall to see if it would stick. Jackson Pollack scattered paint. I pitched propositions.

My entrepreneurial stories are of Robert C. Brown and Company, investment advisors, and Otis Spunkmeyer Cookies and Burritos. Triple 888 Manufacturing, the sheet metal company that created the oven to bake Otis Spunkmeyer cookies. Sentimental Journeys, the DC3 airline that promoted Otis Spunkmeyer. New Shoes, Old Souls Dance Company, Yoga Garden Dancers, Heterodoxy magazine, and George magazine. Yes, I did meet with John F. Kennedy Jr., to incubate George. I also took Joe DiMaggio to Las Vegas and Van Morrison sang Moondance to me. Albert Einstein is one of my heroes. I have lived in many countries outside of the United States. I have daughters. These narratives are a memorialization of my improbable possibilities. My spaghetti-walling spirit has always dwelled in an endless sea of possibilities, propagating waves through and around me.

Even the most powerful quantum computers can’t negotiate infinite waves of possibilities. Artificial intelligence generates probable possibilities. Human intelligence imagines improbable possibilities. Artificial intelligence exists on codes and algorithms. Human intelligence is nurtured by thinking with thoughtfulness. It actualizes imagination, and spaghetti-walls improbable possibilities.

No, this is not a treatise on mindfulness. It is not an AI bashing, or a self-help book. Primarily, I am spaghetti-walling this book to entertain you. I’ve written a swift chronological collection of hopefully engaging and inspirational stories of my own improbable possibilities. I’ve been determined to make waves.

I’m offering an invitation to relate, to laugh, to smile—to share, and to continue to make all kinds of waves.

Or . . . perhaps . . . to make a podcast.