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 »

Daughters coming to terms with suicidal mothers are in the news again, this time with a compelling new book by Zoe FitzGerald Carter. Her Imperfect Endings just launched and is excerpted in Oprah's O Magzine.

The first time I heard of a mother asking a… 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 »

Phoebe Prince, 15, hanged herself on January 14^th. She was a freshman at South Hadley High School. Her story is still making headlines, in part because hers is not the only teenage suicide attributed to cyber-bullying via texting and Facebook.

The death notice Phoebe's parents wrote tells… Read full post »

When Wellesley classmate Mel Walsh's book Hot Granny: Fabulous at 50, 60 and Beyond! was published in 2007, I Googled for it in the hope that her book was receiving supportive publicity. What I found was quite different. And when I told my son I'd/… Read full post »

Whenever someone refers to me as my cat's or dog's mom, I bite my tongue while thinking, "I did not conceive, gestate, nor deliver this wonderful creature, so cut the cutesy."

Grumpy, huh?

Admittedly, it is tricky to find another word for the human-pet bond. Owner?… 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 »

I've just read two articulate OS posts about bitching and anti-bitching. Since Editor's Picks were mentioned in these blogs, I Googled EP stats and found this  http://onsightadvantage.com/os/index.php?mval=rate and this http://onsightadvantage.com/os/index.php?mval=epicks.

If anyone knows whe… Read full post »

 

In the 1980s, when my then husband and I moved impulsively from a Manhattan exurb to Bodega Bay on California's Sonoma coast, I entered an alternate reality. And I'm not just referring to the communes that originated in 1960s Berkeley and, when hard drugs hit the Haight, moved north &mda/…

Read full post »

Did your parents tell you Santa brought your Christmas presents? If you celebrate midwinter solstice with Santa and you have children, do you tell them to be nice or else Santa won't bring them gifts? 

When the Santa subject arises, as it is wont to do at… Read full post »

My son sent me an e-mail about "Obama as Trimmer": a president caught between conservaties and progresssives. I found the reflections on these two points of view so interesting that I got his permission to print the e-mail here. He wishes to be anonymous. The title on this posting is mine.… Read full post »

 

Am I the only one who is happiest and most content when rocking a baby? I suspect that if there is a heaven, baby rocking is as close as we get to it here on earth. (Unless there are orgasms in heaven — the French do call an orgasm le petit… Read full post »

T.S. Eliot wrote in two of his works that "Humankind cannot bear very much reality."

I'm with T.S. on that one. Consensus reality can be unrewarding. Why spend a lot of time there?

On my previous blog posting, emma peel commented, "I am amazed… Read full post »

 "Most women should start regular breast cancer screening at age 50, not 40, according to new guidelines released Monday by an influential group that provides guidance to doctors, insurance companies and policy makers." (November 16^th New York Times)

The new guidelines must be valid,… Read full post »

 

This was fun to write. Is it fun to read?

(© Copyright 2009 by Hawley Roddick. All rights reserved.)

A

An acrimonious alligator ate Alice's… Read full post »

 

During Michael Jackson’s trial for pedophilia in 2003, I lived in Santa Barbara, and Neverland Ranch was in Santa Barbara County, so the trial was treated as a local event. We Santa Barbarians were privileged to varying versions of the Inside Story. Example: “My best… 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 »

“According to audience research firm Nielsen, the number of minutes spent on Twitter by its users moved up 3,712% to 300 million in April compared with the same month in 2008.” http://247wallst.com/?s=twitter

The word Nielsen gives me the warm fuzzies, because Ginny Nielsen, d/… Read full post »

First, let’s get this straight—I’m not a newbie to PowerPoint. I have presentation creds. I wrote, designed, and presented a workshop in Santa Barbara on ethical wills for which attorneys who attended received continuing education credits. And I gave a presentation for the Santa Bar… Read full post »

 

At least one of my ancestors probably fought in the Revolution, because my family arrived in Boston in 1630. Long-dead relatives also served on both sides of the Civil War. But I am a pacifist. Killing people over ideas, territory, and natural resources is not an enlightened… Read full post »

Note: This is a lightly edited version of yesterday's post. I wanted to change the headline and so had to repost the content, too. I didn't delete  the earlier version because people had posted interesting comments.

 

Recently I saw a vivid commercial for a movie that centers on… Read full post »

Recently I saw a vivid commercial for a movie that centers on a major earthquake striking Seattle. The Space Needle keels straight over without breaking. I have eaten in the revolving restaurant at the top of the Space Needle and, watching the commercial, imagined being there when diners plummet back… Read full post »