GETTING GONGED BY CHUCK BARRIS
Was I really so taken in by the razzmatazz of Hollywood? Or was it simply the same response, say, a hamster would have had after slumbering in such close proximity to another hamster?
Was I really so taken in by the razzmatazz of Hollywood? Or was it simply the same response, say, a hamster would have had after slumbering in such close proximity to another hamster?
I knew a 52-year-old man with a 26-year-old girlfriend, who still slept with her teddy bear, so by the principle of transitivity he too slept with the teddy bear.
Back to another beau, who could say words backwards and so can I, except someone once stumped me in the Say This Backwards game with “onomatopoeia.”
Valentine sex will be an issue for many couples. This manufactured day of romance offers men and women an opportunity to examine their sexual relationship.
What makes for a successful marriage? What can be done about marital problems? My two previous posts highlighted Betsy’s story and Harry’s story; below is Victoria’s story. Victoria is 58 years old and a retired history professor living in Chicago: The biggest challenge I faced in my marriage was when my …
Yesterday we heard from Victoria about her recipe for a successful marriage and avoiding marital problems. Today, a man shares how to be happily married.
“Susan Orlins is America’s funniest neurotic since Woody Allen. Just be careful you don’t crack a rib reading her memoir, Confessions of a Worrywart.”
A 9th-grade philosopher—my boyfriend George—once said, “When you get a haircut, you never look better. At best, you don’t look worse.”
This story about saying what you mean when it comes time to paying or splitting the bill makes me sad.
With the kerfuffle about Ann Romney having been a stay-at-home mom, I thought I would put in my two cents about stay-at-home moms.
Ever since reading about Dutch Airline KLM’s new program that allows passengers to choose seatmates, using Facebook and LinkedIn profiles, I’ve been contemplating who my ideal seat mate should be. For a worrywart this whole idea is a great thing.
Early in our relationship, on warm Friday evenings, my boyfriend Steve (who later became my husband) and I frequently squished onto a Long Island Railroad car to spend summer weekends with his parents. On one such trip a muffled siren began to blare. I turned to Steve and shouted, “Sounds …
I’ll give you a moment to digest what it is like for a worrywart to write a book. Try to imagine all there is to worry about.
My starter husband Saul and I began dating the week before I entered college; we married after my sophomore year and divorced during my junior year. I emerged from the husband, the garden apartment and the Impala sedan squinting from the sudden brightness of university life. At age twenty, for the …
It’s a common occurrence in New York and other cities. You put your key in the lock of your apartment building and someone is about to follow you inside. What do you do? Usually in the interest of security I ask if the person lives there and then request they …
1955 After a swallow of dinner, I dirty my face with burnt cork and, on my shoulder, rest a broomstick with a bundle of rags tied to its end. I then prepare for the battle with my mom over not wearing a coat. I step into the hallowed night, wondering …
My very first Mr. Wrong told me, “Susie, what you need is a purpose.” That was in ninth grade. George, now a retired psychiatrist, was right. The benefits of having a purpose were never more obvious than after I launched my blog. The irony of blogging about being a worrywart, …
Season 8 of “The Family Vacation” has ended. Back from The Hamptons to their everyday lives are “Family Vacation” stars: the exes—since 1998—Steve and Susan (yours truly) and their three twenty-something daughters, Eliza, Sabrina and Emily. Let’s take a look back at Season 1, Summer of 2004. “The whole family’s …
With President Obama on the verge of crossing the half-century line, age-wise, I recall my own (embarrassinglynarcissistic) 50th birthday party on Home Goes Strong. I thought I’d share with you the invitation I’d sent. Author’s note: I no longer pee a droplet whenever I sneeze. YOU’RE INVITED (TO MY FIFTIETH) I’m changing …
Why put a cold, hard fork between me and my dinner, when the visceral experience of eating, the intimacy between me and my green beans is so enhanced by pinching the bean between thumb and forefinger and depositing it into my mouth? Yes, I’ve had boyfriends who find this offputting and …
ANTHONY WEINER & ME & THE GOING-INTO-TREATMENT EXCUSE
It’s hard for me to look at guys like Anthony Weiner without feeling more embarrassed for them than I ever feel for myself. I doubt there are many men who don’t have porn stashed away under the bed or in a closet somewhere. A woman I know discovered her husband’s “Playboy” …
I don’t claim to be chill, but I become even less chill when someone tells me to chillax. When I’m really excited about something and someone says, “Chillax,” it’s even worse; it’s what my friend calls “squishing the little bird inside of you.” Take, for example, the time I was …
I’m drowning in junk, buried in boxes, suffocating with stuff. It doesn’t surprise me that all these metaphors point to an untimely end. There would be great irony in getting snuffed out by my stuff, since one of my biggest worries happens to be that I’ll drop dead and my …
What if I meet a guy I like? Monday: He gets up. I want to stay in bed but now I can’t fall back to sleep. Or, I get up and he wants to sleep, so I can’t turn on NPR. I make myself French toast and a cappuccino and …
A crowd of gray-haired parents of single adults negotiates with one another along a stretch of Beijing’s Zhongshan Park. These confabs occur on a strip of pavement lined on one side with rainbows of tulips and, on the other side, with the moat of the Forbidden City. A woman, …
Sometimes I walk down the street and look around to see if there is a guy I’d like to have as a livealong and I almost never see one who sings to me. I like that my life offers freedom to do exactly as I please, whenever I please, get up when …
Are the doors locked? Am I on the right train? Is there spinach in my teeth? There’s spinach in your teeth; but isn’t it too late, too awkward to tell you now that we’ve been talking for 20 minutes? Have I re-read the email I wrote enough times to hit …
UNRELATED ANNOUNCEMENT: See article 7 Easy, Delicious Aphrodisiac Recipes. A variety of search terms leads Googlers to my blog, some weirder than others. My voyeuristic pleasure from reading a daily list of these terms is infused with a measure of guilt. Generally, we Google in the privacy of a bubble that …
If you’ve read my post “Choosing my Parents,” you know how much I adore and admire my 92-year-old mom. Nonetheless, now that I’m 65, you would think I wouldn’t get annoyed when she talks to me in a tone. Not an unpleasant tone, one that’s off-putting only to me. As …