On parenting, on pending Empty Nest, on making a difference.
Archives for August 2010
Why We Love Our Television Heroes: Mad Men Episode 6
Bigger than life. Flashy. Flawed. Cagey, corrupt, capricious. We love our television heroes, and our anti-heroes. Big screen or small screen, we escape into fictional lives, finding points in common, or nothing in common at all. Mad Men is the perfect example of this phenomenon, as the Emmy award winning drama – again, just last […]
The Problem with “Positive Denial” is Denial
Positive attitude is one thing. Denial is something else again…
Travel Day
It’s here. Again. A day of last minute laundry and packing, goodbyes, airports. The house, suddenly so quiet, as my teenager prepares to fly back to college. To begin his sophomore year. It was an evening of more loads of wash than I can count, the heap of luggage in the living room finally emptied, […]
Numbers Do Not Lie
We’d been at it for several hours, side by side, each of us on our laptops. Spread on the small ottoman pressing against my knees were stacks of old tax forms. On the chair beside me, two more folders with notes and figures. We actually began the process days ago, but I couldn’t continue, and […]
The life behind the face
I am the face of the aftermath of divorce, the aftermath of layoff, the aftermath of defeat. I am the face of invisible illness, of piercing isolation, of daily hide-and-seek. Would you know me if you saw me? I am your neighbor, your colleague, your sister; I am the woman who yells at the cashier […]
Put Your Kids to Work!
Kids? Organizing? Can the two ever mix?
More on the Mystery of Huguette Clark
The plot thickens, in a mystery of monumental proportions.
Mall Walking
When I was younger, easy fitness options were abundant. I was strong and vibrant, and health clubs were affordable. There were 5-mile hikes for pleasure, and there was disco! Not that I took advantage of dancing for fitness and enjoyment as much as I would have liked. Work was always pressing, and time, in short […]
Mad Men Episode 5: The Chrysanthemum and the Sword
It’s a morality tale, and all about shame. About warfare and its aftermath, honor and its value, private shame according to cultural standards of the times, and personal experiences of shame. In Mad Men‘s Season 4 Episode 5, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, we feel the weight of the 1960s heavily; World Wart II is […]