Selling Street Sense, Washington’s Homeless Newspaper
Nearly everyone had an avoidance tactic. They turned their heads away or looked straight ahead, as though I were invisible.
Currently browsing
Highway Safety: Truckin’ With Trucks
A truck driver once told me that his instructions were: if you think you are going to hit a car with, say, a family in it, then try to kill all the occupants, because the financial settlement would be lower than if they lived.
Worried About Outliving Friends, My Junior High School Boyfriend and Not-so-Subtle Self-Promotion
All this fed into my recurring imaginings of how to celebrate my death, and whether to do so after or before it occurs . . .
On Noise and Amtrak’s Quiet Car
I am a fan of Amtrak’s quiet car, yet I harbor love-hate emotions toward the sub-culture of those who journey in this vessel of alleged silence.
Two Falls and One Worrywart
Suddenly a skinny, little girl—of perhaps seven years—broke free from her family and darted in front of my bicycle.
Breakfast Club Envy
Recently, after reading about a breakfast club, my breakfast club envy flared up.
Worried About Emily’s Shoes
Like a bicycle tire that has just rolled over a shard of glass, the air began seeping out of my buoyant mood.
What Does Heaven Look Like and How Will I Find My Peeps?
If there’s a heaven,
Will they offer me a key,
Given how mean I was to Barbara Satinsky?
Will Barbara Satinsky forgive and invite me to tea?
Back to the Future
I check out my perky housewife (minus the wife) reflection, and my mind flashes on memories of mom who was also once middle-aged and active.
“Mommy Died Today”
Often, searches such as “mommy died today” land on my blog because of the post I had written on the day my mother died.
OF NEWNESS AND PATINA
I have a record of attraction to worn things. Before Kindle, back when I read paperback books, they appealed to me far more after I roughed them up with: dog-ears, notes in the margins and swollen pages from the times I read them in my hot tub.
A BOY CALLED SCARLET?
Casey is healthy, spunky and—at 13 1/2—still learning new tricks, like wagging his tail. Yet today I awoke vocalizing a name for my next dog.
CATCHING MYSELF IN A DAILY THOUGHT: WHICH UNDERWEAR TO WEAR
In my post My Year of Blogging, I noted that writing personal essays involves catching yourself in the act of thinking and then exposing and exploring it on the page. Here’s something I do every single day, and it was not until this morning that I caught it in my …
“OCCUPY WALL STREET” ON K STREET, WASHINGTON, D.C.
The other day, I bike downtown to the Newseum to hear a panel discussion by New York Times columnists. I leave home early enough to swing through McPherson Square, D.C.’s Occupy Wall Street venue. My immediate sense is a blast from the past, a hippie and flower child commune ambience. …
ANTIDOTE TO WORRY: POPCORN
Popcorn is one of my favorite comfort foods. It fills me up, is healthful, tastes delicious and I pretend that eating this overflowing pot of it, sprinkled with sea salt, won’t make me feel squeezed in the waist by my elastic waist pants. When my oldest daughter Eliza was a toddler, I …
Yoga-Envy, Bike-Smug & How to Salt Food
There’s something serene, along with a sprinkling of smug, about people who practice yoga. They laud the benefits—“Doing yoga has saved my back.” “I’m no longer stressed.” If I had the patience to do yoga, I’d also have the attention span to meditate, read the New Yorker and maybe even drive …
MOTHER DIED TODAY
If your mother has recently died, here is a post I wrote for you. Saturday, July 2, 2011 Mother died today. I am not trying to channel Camus, just trying to make sense of how it feels to suddenly become a 65-year-old orphan in New York while my mom’s cold …
CAN YOU HELP MY MOM EXPRESS HERSELF?
Only eight weeks ago, I was on a half-hour bike ride home, all uphill, when I called Mom for our daily shmooze. We caught up on political scandals, Sarah Palin, literature, Oprah and Mom’s latest Bingo game. While we talked, mounting the hill was effortless. Shortly after that, her doctor determined …
THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD BLUES
I’m a high-functioning agnostic in that I do ask God for things. But in the same way that, as a kid, I was creeped out every time we had to sing “My Country ‘tis of Thee, ” the line that goes Land where our fathers died, the Twenty-third Psalm gave …
Embarrassment Shmembarrassment
Riddle: Every family has them, what are they? Answer: Nicknames that are too embarrassing to expose outside the home. After coffee with friends, I return home, open my front door and call to my bassety beagle Casey, “Casemaster General, where are you?” To say he’s non-responsive overstates his activity level. …
WHAT TO WRITE ABOUT? DECISION-MAKING & ITS IRKSOME ALTER EGO, CHOICES
At times it’s a challenge to dream up worries to write about. For one thing, my busy blogging schedule helps keep my usual disaster scenarios at bay. For instance, I haven’t worried about bedbugs since yesterday. Other times I get excited about three ideas at once and can’t settle into …
AM I HAPPY ENOUGH? HOW DO I KNOW?
The quest for happiness is popping up everywhere these days: in books, college courses, blogs and on Oprah. In the same way my oldest daughter, when she was little, shared her life with invisible companions Sibby and Babby, Worry and Quest for Happiness accompany me wherever I go. Like sibling …
RESTAURANT RANT
Call me a curmudgeon, but so many things about restaurants irk me. Noise. I’m not likely to even patronize an esablishment that vibrates with double-digit decibels. Okay, the alliterative appeal forced me to exaggerate. Since 10 decibels=breathing, 15=rustling leaves, 20=whispers and mosquitoes, I could cope with up to 45 decibels, …
THINGS I OVERLOOK IN ORDER TO FLY FOR INSTANCE WHERE TO SIT ON A PLANE
Unrelated announcement: Zhuzh up hot chocolate with a candy cane stirrer and other Breakfast Ideas to Wow a Couple or a Crowd. See my article on Home Goes Strong. I’ll be flying on the day after Thanksgiving and I’m dying to try a pat down. But I’ll not do it …
GIVING THANKS FOR SILVER LININGS OF DIVORCE
Last week, in the writing group I facilitate for homeless people, I suggested a pre-Thanksgiving exercise that got me thinking. Instead of the grade-school-type assignment of writing what you’re thankful for I suggested we come up with some things we are not thankful for and see if we can find …
PORTRAIT OF MY WARDROBE . . . COMFORT V. LOOKS
If you’re not a worrywart, maybe you don’t stress about weighing comfort and how you spend your time against what it requires to look your best. The older I get, the less patience I have for wearing anything that feels less comfortable than pajamas and shearling slippers. I have paid …
A BOYFRIEND MEMORY & FORGETTING NAMES
Though I have a fear of catching “other people’s worries,” I don’t worry about getting infected by my friend Baxter; each of us independently has come up with the same things to worry about. While gabbing over cappuccinos the other day, she mentioned fear of forgetting people’s names. This is …
BEDBUG PREVENTION INVENTION
On the Top Ten of my Hit Parade of Worries is bedbugs. It started when friends contracted bedbugs in their home and told me they had to lie in bed at night to be hosts, which drew out the critters, so the Hazmat folks could come in their Hazmat suits …
“WORRY ORGASM” REGRETS
Oh dear, I’m afraid I was terribly insensitive in my previous blog post, Worry Orgasm, which was about how worried I became when a train I was scheduled to take became delayed due to someone jumping in front of it at a previous stop. A friend, generally a supportive fan, …
DOUBLE TIPS WEEKEND & SPREAD-THE-WORD DAY
In case you don’t make it to the end, where I’ll refer to this again, see my latest post on NBC’s new Website Home Goes Strong, “My (91-year-old) Mom’s Do-It-Youself Decorating Tips.” On another note, this past weekend I visited my brother’s family in Philly, where I picked up some …