So what’s up with the pregnant man? Frankly, I’m a little tired of opening my email lately, and getting a feed that includes mention of “pregnant man expecting third child.” When I first saw that headline (how could it not catch your eye?), I believe it was via the Huffington Post. I couldn’t help myself. […]
How to Boil an Egg
How to boil an egg (or raise kids or fall in love).
Vegetative states, Great cheap dates, Life without mates
Vegetative states While it was an article on French Yahoo several days ago that alerted me to this story, CNN Health is now reporting the news that for the first time, a man in a persistent vegetative state (since a car crash in 2003) was able to respond to questions about his life, by thinking […]
Boost your brain (with pleasure)
Unanticipated pleasure Last evening, for three hours, I hovered in the pleasure zone, my brain and body exquisitely in sync. This was delight the likes of which I haven’t felt in six months, or perhaps as long as a year. The kind of pleasure, intense and pervasive, that obliterates worry and fatigue as all the […]
Parenting Is a Profession. Where’s My Paycheck?
Let’s stop devaluing the breadth of skills that parents bring to the table.
What Frightens You?
I was a reading a news report this morning, a serious one, about a young man who died on the rails of the French metro system, in a freakish incident. He was grabbed from the crowd at random, and pulled in front of an arriving train by a crazy man who took a complete stranger […]
The Fairness Doctrine
Life isn’t fair On a rainy afternoon three years ago, my elder son and I were in a car accident. He was driving. My son was unhurt as was the other driver, but I sustained minor injuries and the car was totaled. I was without regular employment at the time, and therefore without disability insurance […]
I have my own planet. (Can’t I just stay here?)
Women in the baby blur You know that blur that occurs after (most) women have babies? And they don’t have nannies to help, or nearby family stepping in on a regular basis, or maybe they do, but the reality of the days and nights is a growing fuzziness, a stream of sleeplessness and round-the-clock activity? […]
Clocking time
Are your dreams on hold? Are you floating in a perpetual state of waiting? One more number? One more indistinguishable face in the crowd, chasing through an exhausting schedule that seems like nothing more than clocking time? You’re following the hour hand and the minute hand with your eyes, listening to the slow ticking of […]
Suck Balls
“Suck balls,” he says. “What?” I choke back the laughter. “You heard me,” he repeats. “Suck balls. Sour balls. Or a lemon.” Home remedies, saliva ducts, sour balls, lack of lemons. Last evening everything was “usual” until we were struck by our typically unusual “usual” – my son, just before dinner, emerged from his version […]