Edward du Cann (photo bankruptcyandinsolvency.blog)

Meryl Streep's new film The Iron Lady reminds me that I once dated a man who helped Margaret Thatcher climb to the heights of power.

In my twenties, when I was living in New York, the mother of my friend Ned… Read full post »

 

 

I’ve been hanging out with my grandson over the holidays while his parents were working. In playgrounds and museums and at the beach, what stood out for me was the ways boys and girls do or do not conform to gender stereotypes.

At a kids’ museum, a group… Read full post »

 

 

While the view you have of yourself may depend more on self-esteem than on objective reality, self-esteem is tricky to pin down. What are we supposed to think when we receive so much advice with so little consistency? Consider these examples (my comments in parenthesis):

&ldqu… Read full post »

 

 

The dramatic downfall of Dominique Strauss-Kahn has moved some people to assert that the chambermaid was sent by his IMF rivals to lure him into disgracing himself. As a former chambermaid (at least for a few hours), I am outraged…

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 Ponte palatino e la cloaca massima roma, foto anna zelli

May Day conjures Maypoles and May baskets for some. For me it conjures tanks along the Tiber

My first husband and I… Read full post »

 "When the tide is out, the table is set."

Old Coastal Salish Indian saying

 

 Photo BC Kelp  http://www.bckelp.com/BCKelp-Photos.html

Walking along the ocean shoreline, does your mouth water at the sight of seaweed? Mine didn’t until I met Jesse Longacre, a Cal… Read full post »

Do I believe in assisted suicide? You bet I do. And here, in response to the hbo_jack Open Call, is why.… Read full post »

Nina and I are wearing bikini bottoms and lying on the deck of a Fire Island beach house. It is 1963 and we, the men we are with, and another couple have rented the house for the summer. I am feeling 60s cool with my bare breasts and… Read full post »

In the golden days of after-college/before-marriage, I lived on East 78th Street in Manhattan. My roommate, Anne, dated Steve. Steve's best friend was Jim. Steve and Jim had apartments on opposite sides of 80th… Read full post »

David Brown, producer of such memorable films as Jaws, The Sting, and Driving Miss Daisy, is dead at 93. We're lucky he lived so long and left such fine work behind. But that doesn't soften sadness that he is gone.

My mother once asked me,… Read full post »

 

As we begin to anticipate Valentine's Day (at least I do, because it's the day after my birthday), I'm reminded of the two true stories that follow.

The first time I wrote to an author whom I didn't know, he had… Read full post »

 

Once upon a time, Americans didn't fool around with illness. Never mind health plans. Just pop into the druggist. Got a headache? Take an aspirin. Got a cough? Take an aspirin with heroin. Huh, what's that you say? You'd like something in between, instead of going straight from aspirin… Read full post »

I lived in Santa Barbara from 1999 until 2006. I left on impulse (that’s another story) and stay in touch with friends there, some of whom are among the best friends I have. Today almost all have been evacuated from their gracious homes or are in the warning zone and ready… Read full post »

I can't imagine what my life would have been like without Helen Gurley Brown. I don't even want to imagine my life without her. She deserves a hell of a lot more credit as a feminist pioneer than she gets.

Perhaps the first full-length biography of Helen, reviewed… Read full post »

Even the people who later confessed they had cried or thrown-up in anticipation of our first potluck dinner together showed up. The invitations had come from two women – one on each side. Chris worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in the San Juan Mountains, where she lived with her… Read full post »

Today I had this OS message from an Alert Reader (as Dave Barry would say): "Did someone named Roger Vaughn just copy your piece and put it down as his own?"

I visited the Vaughn blog (http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=114208) and whadya know? He writes that he is a priest, and he claims… Read full post »

Dear Taxpayers:

Although you aren't aware of what wonderful care you took of me, I want to thank you for covering the bill (over $50,000) when I was in hospital unnecessarily but conveniently.

To understand why I'm grateful, here's the back story. I got up in the middle of… Read full post »

She told us she was going to do it. To kill herself. She wanted us to be prepared.

She was eighty-two. The doctor had said she might have cancer again. She'd already lost both breasts to cancer. Now it might have invaded her colon. She told us she would not… Read full post »