PITCHAPALOOZA!
When your daughter is in Colombia and hasn’t tweeted all day, is it every mother’s tweetmare that her kid is locked in the trunk of a sedan?
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RUMINATIONS
Dick Clark and American Bandstand Memories
My girlfriend Bev and I formed our own two-member fan club for James Vincent Peatross, a Bandstand regular and frequent dance contest winner.
Worrywart Logic
I was happy that my mind was still logical enough
TIPS DAY: MOMENT OF WORRY
Recently I wrote a piece called Easy Meditation, in which I shared a method I heard about on NPR. On that NPR segment, the author talked about allowing thoughts to pass through your mind like clouds.
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.
WORDS WITH FRIENDS
My New Year’s resolution is to learn how to play Angry Birds. But an essay in the New York Times suggests that daydreaming increases creativity. Daydreaming requires time, time I dump into playing Words With Friends. Words With Friends, though, is more than just words. It’s confirmation that my sister, my …
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 …
STARTING A JOURNAL . . . OR WILL I GET TOO MANY IDEAS?
For my recent article on Home Goes Strong about Happiness at Home, I interviewed my blog crush Gretchen Rubin, whose book The Happiness Project–the same name as her blog–was a #1 New York Times best seller. Gretchen keeps a one-sentence journal, which she admits sometimes expands to 4 sentences. Says Gretchen, …
THE NAME GAME: HOW DO I SIGN AN EMAIL? SUSAN? SUSIE? SOOZE? SUE? S? s?
Up until I first got my period, I was Susie. In high school, I was Sue. After reinventing myself in college, I became Susan. My mom and, hence, other relatives continued to call me Susie. My dad called me Sooze, (pronounced Sooz, not Soozie) starting when I was 20 and began …
NOISY SEASON RANT
Beware of asking me to rant. I am liable to start today, five days after autumn began (also National Good Neighbor Day and National Pancake Day), and never stop until Flag Day. If you really want to hear loud and wild talk, ask me about the leaf blowers whose noise …
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 …
GIZMO WOE, SEEKING GIZMO MOJO
If I had already fulfilled my fantasy of ordering Worrywart t-shirts, I would make this a contest to attract some kitchen-gadget experts. And, for my blog, new converts. I’ve heard Web surfers love contests and t-shirts. How embarrassed should I be if no one gets back to me with either …
Death By Chotchke
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 …
WORRIED ABOUT ENTHUSIASM!!!!!
The other day my youngest daughter sent an email to her sisters, her dad (my ex) and me to say she would be receiving a prize for her senior thesis on the day before graduation. She asked who of us would be there in time for the awards event. I wrote …
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 …
A WEEK IN THE LIFE OF ME & MY IMAGINED LIVE-ALONG
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 MOTHER SURVIVES “SURVIVOR”
Unrelated Announcement, my new article: CAN SEPARATE BEDROOMS SAVE A MARRIAGE? Weigh In! It wasn’t like I had a choice when, at the breakfast table, my then-21-year-old daughter Eliza presented me with documents to sign. The whole family had to swear to confidentiality or the plan was off for her …
DOUBLE CHECKING THINGS & WHAT IF’S
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 …
AM I OVER-WORRYING MY DOG’S SELF-ESTEEM?
Each time Casey and I come home from a walk, he barks for a treat. And each time I throw a kibble in the air for him to catch. He never does. After he roots around, veering off toward Kansas City, I telll him he’s getting colder; then he turns around …
10 DAYS IN NEW YORK: LESSONS LEARNED, WORRIES AMASSED
There’s a lot to learn during 10 days in New York. I learned I can go far north or south on dedicated bike lanes. And once a day someone grouses at me for wheeling crosstown on the sidewalk, not that I blame them. But I do blame the guy who tried …
DOCUMENTING MY LIFE PART II, THE PHOTOGRAPHS
Unrelated announcement: How Couples Resolve the Thermostat Wars & Other Domestic Battles Sometimes I think my memories are based solely on photographs. My kids won’t forget anything the way they record themselves every time they change clothes, then post and tag the results on Facebook. Come to think of it, I’m …
DOCUMENTING MY LIFE, PART I, THE JOURNAL
Unrelated Announcement: Check out my recent Home Goes Strong article “Brain Food . . . Simple Recipes to Delight Your Palate & Your Mind.” How do I strike a balance between time spent living and time spent documenting? For example, when traveling, my anxiety about documenting rises. Should I sit …
NOW THAT I’M 65, TRA-LA
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 …
CONFESSIONS OF A LOWBROW
I like Oprah not Opera. Country not Classical. I prefer Silence to any Music at all. I choose Breakfast at Tiffany’s over My Dinner With Andre. I’m all about Story, not at all about Historay. Some words whose meanings I never retain Are insipid, insidious and Machiavellian. I’d rather eat turkey than …
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. …
THE SNL HUG, WHAT UP WITH THAT?
Unrelated Announcement: See my article 50 TIME-SAVING TIPS FROM SMART, BUSY, HIGHLY EFFICIENT WOMEN (AND MEN) “Saturday Night Live” ought to do a skit about their contrived lovefest at the end of the show. What up with the forced hugging? Sometimes the embraces look genuine, like with Taylor Swift the …
FOR VALENTINE’S DAY, A STORY OF UNREQUITED LOVE
In seventh grade my friends and I were not part of the popular crowd of girls who looked sexy in gymsuits and paired off with boys. Instead, we immersed ourselves in a world of make-believe. We were three couples: me and Ricky Nelson, Phyllis Kirschner and Tab Hunter, Shessie Einbinder and Pat …
PHOTOPHOBIA*
Like me, does everyone become as frozen as Michelangelo’s David whenever they think of all their photographs fading in plastic bags, on sticky non-archival album pages, and loose in various boxes, chests and drawers? Not to mention all those out-of-control digital photographs? Recently I wrote a series of three articles for …
A THOUSAND PLACES TO AVOID BEFORE I DIE & A RECIPE FOR CHICKEN LIVERS
UNRELATED ANNOUNCEMENT: Check out my article, “29 Great Tips for Choosing the Right Picture Frame & For Hanging Artwork and Family Photos” What was I thinking when I ordered the book 1,000 Places To See Before You Die? Here’s what inspired me to look at it. My friend Karen told …