Every little thought. Every little detail. Every. Single. Word. Does it matter, really? What we say and why we say it? What we write and our motivations for doing so? Who’s reading? Who’s not reading? Why do we think that each statement or question we put to ourselves is of interest to anyone else? Why […]
Archives for September 2011
That Sinking Feeling
You know that feeling when you have a long, detailed list of tasks to accomplish, and you haven’t checked off a single one? You know that feeling when every time you start to sort through a pile of papers and files, you encounter something that triggers a reverie, a malevolent memory, and subsequent disappearance into […]
Bickering
It’s not that I expect all of us to play nice all of the time. But men and women really can get along if they try. And married people? Isn’t that the idea? I was watching the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills premiere, and I’ll take Lisa Vanderpump’s approach to marital maneuvering over the constancy […]
If Your Partner Says One Thing, Do You Hear Something Else?
The intricacies of communication in relationships.
Another Day, Another Kid?
For a moment I actually considered it. Scratch that. For five moments I considered it. I admit I’d spent the day in a perpetual state of “weepy,” particularly since I unearthed a stack of Polaroids of my younger son from a decade ago. Cue the eye leakage. The occasional heaving sob. More eye leakage. Then […]
Labor Day? No Mood For Play
You’re dashing through Kroger and stuck in the check-out line, you’re tapping your foot as your eyes settle on headlines in the news stand, you’re trying to look away but the words are impossible to ignore. You know the ones – those that blare the sluggish (dare we say, nonexistent) job growth during the […]
Five Accomplishments, No Medals, Parenting Ourselves
I’ve been scrounging in my son’s room for vestiges of dirty clothes – hardly an exciting task, but a must – lest hidden stinky socks unleash insidious effects while he is away at school. There was plenty to discover – a t-shirt here, a towel there, tennis shorts in the strangest places. And yes, more […]
Rambunctious Recipes for a Wild Weekend
Who doesn’t love food? (No one I know.) It’s the weekend – and a long one at that. So in the interest of a few hours of je ne sais quoi — reading Harper’s Bazaar? Pablo Neruda? Marguerite Duras, preferably au lit? — how about some rambunctious recipes (on a budget) for powering through the Labor […]
All That Heaven Allows
“What people say matters terribly,” her friend insists, trying to get the 40-something widow played by Jane Wyman to give up her love affair with a hunky younger man, none other than Rock Hudson. She is a well-heeled woman with her place in society. He is the son of a gardener. Of course, we […]
Piano Bar
Big blue eyes. Black brows, penciled in, and thin. Translucent skin, dark hair pulled back from the face, and just the slightest hint of age around the neck, that softening of skin that immediately signals four decades behind or possibly five, and still, her beauty is unmistakable. She is simultaneously subdued and friendly though some […]