First, the confessions: I have not read any of the Shades of Grey books. Not so much as a pale, dove color or the darkness of charcoal has entered my readerly consciousness. (Aside from a snarky round-up of purple snippets). Also, I admit that I am jealous of their success, and… Read full post »

I do not have gout. I have only one of the risk factors, and I’m working on that one. My friend Betsy, nearly twenty years my junior, certainly does not have gout, and my slender, healthy, athletic virtual friend Susan does not have gout. Despite the fact that all three of… Read full post »

 As I clean house this morning, I keep finding traces of her. Clumps of her fluffy, blonde hair (she was a shedder) and a plastic food wrapper she had quietly spirited out of a trash can and into a corner for private licking. I already removed her food bowl, hung… Read full post »

I was recently asked to write a piece for a fairly well-known national website. I was honored, and writing the actual, substantive post was fairly easy; I do it all the time. The problem, the thing that made me worry and sweat, was the requested “bio.” Being a clever girl, I… Read full post »

As you may know, I like to view my very-nearly-fifty-year-old self as all hip and early adopterish. I have an unnatural dread of youngsters snickering as I hold up my new-fangled thingamabobber and look at it over the rims of my glasses, saying something like “tell me again,… Read full post »

Yesterday I looked at my left hand and observed that I was wearing several brightly colored Friendship bracelets and holding my first letter from The AARP. I’m going to turn fifty soon. Maybe it’s time to grow up. Maybe it’s time to cut loose and enjoy the hell out of my… Read full post »

The Sunday nights of my childhood, at least four years of it, were spent sitting hard against the footboard of my parents’ bed watching “Upstairs, Downstairs” on Masterpiece Theater. For a child who spent summers in England, read Burnett, Enright and Nesbit, and… Read full post »

 I have talked the talk about letting children be who they are. I have spoken articulately about it, advising other parents with my face screwed into a knot of sincerity and compassion. I have written about it. “We do not own them,” I have preached, “give them roo… Read full post »

It began with a familiar sensation; I couldn’t align my upper and lower jaw to close my mouth tight. My teeth didn’t seem to line up right, and I couldn’t force them into the customary alignment. I will tell you this: when your teeth don’t line up right in the safe… Read full post »

I have, of late, been living in the Land of Etsy. I buy things that strike my fancy, usually small things, sometimes odd things. I bought most of my Christmas gifts there, and the vast majority of my own wish list came from my Etsy “favorites.” As I write, I am… Read full post »

My father famously remarks every year that “Christmas is at our throats again.” He is not, categorically, a Little Ray of Sunshine, and for my whole life I have rolled my eyes when he says this, appeased him with fruitcake, and gone on about the business of making holiday magic.

This… Read full post »

Right around the time I was married, my mother was taken to the hospital because she felt terribly, strangely ill. My mother, who was always the one who didn’t get the cold that was going around, who rarely took so much as an aspirin, was suddenly the pale, waxy thing in… Read full post »

 “So technically, Jesus was a zombie?” I said to my husband as we sat in our customary TV-watching spots. Wisely, he ignored me. He was also largely ignoring the program about zombies that I was trying desperately not to hate. It was really silly, and, despite b… Read full post »

“A man walks down the street, 
He says, Why am I short of attention? 
Got a short little span of attention, 
And whoa, my nights are so long!”

-Paul Simon, “You Can Call Me Al”

At a recent meeting of some committee or other at the church where I work, a well-mean… Read full post »

The first day of kindergarten, I had to ride the bus. This was not that unusual at the time; fewer parents regarded the inaugural public school launch as an occasion to take the morning off, drive the maiden voyager to school, take 50 photographs and go into the classroom full of… Read full post »

Because his phone died at the restaurant, and because he was bored and used my phone to text his friends, a message for my son appeared on my phone as I watched television last night: “Do u want 2 skip pep rally with me and Mark tomorrow?”

 I resisted the… Read full post »

In 2007, I became a Community Organizer. It started with a photocopy stuck in the handle of the front storm door, telling us that the City planned to construct a 10-story building two blocks from our house, a building taller than any other in town besides the University’s new football stadium.… Read full post »

As I may have mentioned a time or two, we live surrounded by rental houses filled with undergraduates.  At the beginning of May they leave after graduating, or merely filling their parents’ SUVs with lava lamps, microwaves, bean bag chairs and dirty laundry. As they move out, the stre… Read full post »

I am not afraid of spiders, snakes, public speaking, heights, crowds or death. I am afraid of clowns, but I am taking steps to get over that, having just last February shaken hands with a clown who attended an event I was catering. “Don’t you find that a lot of people… Read full post »

Went to church, praying, "Santa Maria,
Send me guidance, send me guidance," 
On my knees.

Went to church, praying, "Santa Maria,
Help me feel it, help me feel it. 
Pretty please!"

And a voice from down at the bottom of my soul
Came up to the top of my head.
And the voice from down at the bottom of… Read full post »

 I was banging my head. I was in a crowd of 15,000 people, feeling the bass squarely in my solar plexus and raising and lowering my head rhythmically along with the bearded stranger next to me.  Two seats over, on the other side of my husband, a young girl was banging so/… Read full post »

It is the consummate, diet-related cliché: “you can stop drinking, or smoking, but you can’t just stop eating.” You can, of course, stop eating; Ghandi used that strategy to magnificent effect. As a method of reaching a healthy weight, however, it’s frowned upon. What y… Read full post »