Damn my family, in brief.

My sister, Tiffany Sanders, whom I think we can all safely blame for getting me into this nasty, addictive writing habit, came with an innate cool which I totally lack. She remains utterly calm when faced with not only the famous, but the great. We were born this way, I'm pretty sure. My mother can point to the facial expression on an otherwise interchangeable baby picture of either of us, and it becomes all too clear which baby was Tiffany and which was little Danielle. In the first professional photograph taken of my sister, she is gazing disdainfully into the camera, as if she can't believe the fool photographer would actually use baby talk on someone of her stature. I think she was maybe six months old at the time. Then there's me: If the kid on Santa's lap is sobbing frantically, that's little dani. Covered from head to toe in my very first Oreo, I show an almost Born-Again look of glee. It doesn't even take a Santa or an Oreo, really--early photographs suggest a baby well on her way to rapid-cycling manic depression. "No, you were SWEET, a little ray of sunshine" our mother will say, "You were just...born scared."