Anti-Semitism has been a fact of my life for its entirety, from the first time, at age 5 or 6 I was told I was going to hell because I did not believe in Jesus, to the countless times I was called a “stupid Jew,” a kike, a… Read full post »

           My daughter Grace came home yesterday with some terrible news.  One of her friends had died. And not just died.  C* had committed suicide.

            I t/… Read full post »

I was in Quiznos the other day (the only place I go for what could be called “fast food”) and the owner, who is an acquaintance of mine, introduced me to a new employee and we got onto the subject of dating—don’t ask, you know how women talk in… Read full post »

I don’t think I or any woman I know needs to read  The Shriver Report:  A Women’s Nation Changes Everything http://www.awomansnation.com/ by  Maria Shriver and The Center for American Progress.  Although the Report is being  highly touted as i/… Read full post »

TV Guide is published weekly; everyone knows they can get their television listings in their local newspaper or on their newspaper's website.  Television and movie reviews are all over the web and the nightly news is available on  three national networks, two all news net… Read full post »

                     My dad wasn’t around much.  He says he was, says I came home every night for dinner.  Which was true.  When he wasn’t on the road, h/… Read full post »

First,  there was Senator Charles Grassley’s not-so-funny suggestion that the heads of A.I.G. should commit public suicide, and then  in yesterday’s Senate hearing Edward Liddy, the Chairman of A.I.G. detailed the numerous death threats the employees of the company had been gett/… Read full post »

                Will anyone ever forget the pictures of Lynndie England, looking as though she were gleefully enjoying he torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad during the American occupation of Iraq? … Read full post »

                  My younger sister sent me a photo message on my phone: a picture of the latest bouquet of flowers delivered to my mothers rooms at the assisted living residence where she… Read full post »

After he got down on one knee to propose (he was dressed in one- third formalwear: white tuxedo shirt with studs and tie, no jacket, and blue jeans and cowboy boots) with the engagement ring dropped into a flute of very good champagne, we started talking about when we… Read full post »

        It’s not often that television shows speak to my life.  Mostly they provide entertainment, escape, and, if I choose wisely, elegant writing and some humor and pathos.  Thirtysomething is the last show I recall that hit me… Read full post »

 The email from my father’s wife said that he had fallen and broken several ribs.  After a horrific night in the emergency room he was, for reasons unfathomable, sent home.  But the next day the pain was so much and his condition so worsened that he was checked into the hospital.… Read full post »

                 Duh.

Okay, perhaps the New York Times article that graced the front page of the Style section recently deserves a little more parsing than that.

    &nb… Read full post »

All of you writers and would-be writers who have never been sexually abused by your parents, suffered from domestic assault, been abandoned on a highway somewhere by grandparents when raising you got to be too much; any of you who have never suffered from anorexia or bulimia, are not… Read full post »

Once upon a time, a little Pollyanna-ish I know, I actually believed that most people were decent, most people were inherently good, and most people when given the chance were kind.  I also believed in a) manners b) civility and c) generally good behavior in pub/… Read full post »

                        Got that?  Today on NPR  I heard the end of a segment in w/… Read full post »

I am not a warmonger.  I hate war.  I did not support the Viet Nam War, nor the Iraq War.  I wish diplomacy would work and I think it can in some instances and should be tried whenever and wherever possible.  But on the issue of sending troops to fight the/… Read full post »

 you will never see me with Nancy's face!      

             I credit Steve (God help me but I’ve forgotten his last name), a senior in my high school, with first making me feel beautiful.  I ha… Read full post »

Salon..com   http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2009/05/19/kramer_dirt/index.html       recently ran an article and an interview with the editor of a new book of essays I am included in, called DIRT:  Writers on the Quirks, Habits, and P… Read full post »

According to  today's  Daily Beast  the legendary and, yes, old, Bob Dylan was questioned by a twenty-something police officer in New Jersey when someone reported “a scruffy old man acting suspiciously.”  The twenty-something cop had no idea who Dylan was and made him/… Read full post »

Arianna Huffington ‘s headline in HuffPo  Tuesday was “Obama One Year Later:  The Audacity of Winning vs The Timidity of Governing." On Wednesday’s Hardball MSNBC pundit Chris Matthews was pissed:  he thought  Obama had already/… Read full post »

Whenever  I am lucky enough to go to the ocean, whether it is to stay in a friend’s house or a rented hotel, I always drive around the neighborhoods and look at the prime oceanfront properties.  Part of me continually wonders:  Who  are the/… Read full post »

1.

“What are Americans still buying?  Big Macs, Campbell’s soup, Hershey’s, chocolate, and Spam – the four food groups of the apocalypse.”

             &nb… Read full post »

I had this admittedly crazy idea to fly up north and fly with my mother back down to my small Virginia town so that she could spend a couple of days with me, see my teenaged daughter whom she hasn’t seen since this summer when we went up to celebrate her… Read full post »