When I was younger, I'd always forget stuff. I think there was probably 4-5 times where we'd drive 30 minutes to a town for the baseball tournament, and all of a sudden, I'd get to the field and look in my bag, and I didn't have my cleats. So my dad had to race all the way home to get my cleats and get back before the game started so I could play.
I'm a big girl, but I have a delicate constitution emotionally. If I've been humiliated in some audition, I just cry all the way home and think, 'Oh my God, I suck.'
I never really take shortcuts. I was always one of those people who, instead of cutting across someone's yard on the way home from school, I would go to the end of the block and turn.
Back when I was 8 or 9 and wanted to be a nun, I would often stop at church on my way home from school.
My dad brought me up not to accept second place. I lost a karate tournament once and got a trophy for fourth place. My dad tossed that trophy out the window on the way home.
The truth is, he almost wasn't a senator at all. In 1972, shortly after his improbable victory, but before he took the oath of office, my father went to Washington to look at his new office space. My mom took us to go buy a Christmas tree. On the way home, we were in an automobile accident. My mom, Neilia, and my sister, Naomi, were killed.
I had bad days on the field. But I didn't take them home with me. I left them in a bar along the way home.
Sometimes, I'd stop the car on the way home after filming 'Millionaire', and fish for a while in the dark.
My relationship with my dad was a little rocky, sure. The time that I spent with him was basically two hours of Little League practice, six or seven days a week, from the age of five until whenever. If we lost, there was no talking the whole way home. But that seemed normal to me.
Use the environment to remind you of what needs to be done. If you're afraid you'll forget to buy milk on the way home, put an empty milk carton on the seat next to you in the car or in the backpack you carry to work on the subway.
