Some of us remember the spectacle of Charles and Diana’s wedding. We were glued to our televisions, with the sense that we were watching history – and equally – the unfolding of a love story. We were right on the former, but as for the latter – not so much. And here it is, thirty […]
Particle Physics
We’ve been staying up until all hours, often working side by side. On the couch. Or he’s on the couch and I’m in an adjoining room plopped in a chair, plugging away on my laptop. He watches me scowl in exasperation, shuffle through stacks of pages, then tap furiously on my keyboard for a long […]
Butting Heads
I miss stormy. Okay. I’ll rephrase. I miss occasionally stormy. It isn’t what I experienced in marriage, and at the time, I thought that was a plus. Of course, things were rocky at the end, and that’s to be expected. But the relationship itself seemed to run smoothly. Quietly. We rarely fought. If anything, we […]
Dead Uncle
I do a double-take. He looks so familiar, but I can’t place him. Fifty-something. Wild curly hair. Animated and grinning. Given that I’m already miffed – and rushed – I let it go, continuing to my car. “Miserable morning,” I mutter to myself, adjusting the heating pad beneath the backs of my legs. Turning over […]
Spinning Your Wheels
There are times your goal is visible, and it seems, just out of reach. If I can push myself a little longer, you think, and so you do. You push. Hard. You develop a habit of pushing yourself that becomes the routine of your mornings and your afternoons, the standard transition into night’s long hours, […]
A Round of Applause for Healing Hands
He paged through the test results from five weeks ago. Didn’t say much. There was a flicker of a raised eyebrow. I interrupted his concentration: “She said everything was normal.” He nodded, then shook his head for a moment at something, then turned back to me. He’s an older man. His face is a little […]
Fresh Eggs: 1 Mile
Nudging my kid, shaking my kid, waking my kid. As usual. Making the lunch, brewing the coffee, rushing to get a jump on my writing. As usual. My laptop flipped open, and ready to rock. As usual. Flipped open… and nothing. “Do backups,” said the adult voice. That was last night, about 12:30, as I […]
No coasting, no toasting. (How to survive chronic lateness.)
I could swear Kim Zolciak was singing Tardy for the Party in my dream. Or was it just the alarm? That horrible tinny pop music that my kid uses to wake him? Only it never wakes him. Me? Another story. So I start the morning routine. Yawning. My eyes burning. Coffee. Even the aroma helps. […]
You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know
You don’t know if your printer will crash when you only allotted five minutes to pump out a handful of pages. You don’t know if when you grab the backup computer, its operating system will crank into update mode, and stay that way for twenty minutes. You don’t know if it will storm when you […]
Loosening the Apron Strings
Giving them permission to make mistakes. Parenting teens.