Everyone has been inviting me to their Ugly Sweater Parties. Everyone has been inviting me to his or her Ugly Sweater Party. Even though “everyone” sounds like a truckload of folks, the singular “his or her” is grammatically correct. (Worried, I confirmed this with the grammar police.) “Their” sounds more …
Unrelated announcement: A MAGICAL USED COOKBOOK SHOP & A DIVINE COOKIE RECIPE I’m addicted to worry. Not long ago, I wrote a Huffington Post post, Worry Less: 10 Lessons From Cognitive Therapy, in which I advised, “Be aware that rumination and obsession are like drugs, in a bad way. They activate …
It’s been a longie since my last Tip Day. I’m worried you’ll think I’ve run out of tips. To be honest, I’m a little worried myself. So today, when a positive thought visited me, I wondered how I could put a worry spin on it. Then I remembered long-neglected Tip …
Unrelated announcement: See my daughter’s amazing appetizer recipes in my article: 7 EASY ELEGANT CROWD-PLEASING APPETIZERS. When I was a kid, I thought if only I could wear a suit of armour, I’d be safe from predators. Then, when I learned about conductivity, I gave up the idea, realizing I’d …
Unrelated announcement: How I Organized my Home, De-Cluttered my Life & Learned 21 New Tips Some call the holiday season Chrismukkah, others say HanuKwanzMas. Then there’s Festivus with its unadorned aluminum pole, miracles and airing of grievances. I say Hanukkah simply on its own can cause confusion, starting with: which of …
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, …
It all began with a tweet from MaMoosie, even though it originally began 50 years ago with a French kiss lesson. During one of my maladaptive, obsessive, neurotic checkings of Twitter messages, I see this retweet from one of my followers “MaMoosie” who knows I’m a writer: “’Writing is …
Unlike me, my friend Eleanor never worries about the dark or anything else; she’s more evolved than I am. All my fears and worries I blame on my inner cavewoman, who is constantly on the lookout for danger. Fear of darkness (myctophobia) made sense 200,000 years before Thomas Edison came …
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 …
Shortly after my divorce I signed up for the Marine Corps Marathon and at first paired off to train with a divorced and widowed man named Charlie, who told me he found divorcing his wife harder than losing his other wife to death, because he had to continue dealing with …
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 …
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 …
Right now I’m overwhelmed. My 12-year-old Casey has been in pain for more than a week and after 2 vet visits and 2 xrays we still don’t know what is wrong, except that the pain seems to be coming from his neck. The rest are White Girl Worries. My mind can …
I’m one of those people who needs to keep everything in sight in sight (not a typo). I spread papers out on my desk, lest I forget something is there. Inevitably new layers of fear-of-being-forgotten items appear and cover the old ones, which then get forgotten. This goes on till …
When it comes to my to-do list, there’s overwhelming potential for worry. The precursor to my to-do list was the calendar I used in high school. Mainly I wrote what I wore each day and the names of boys I had dates with. Even in my twenties, albeit with teeny …
Unrelated announcement: Show Your Mojo With Coffee Table Books, my latest post on Home Goes Strong. I wonder whether anyone else avoids using favorite things. As far back as high school, I remember saving my blue Villager blouse for special occasions. Now that I’ve lived several more decades, there are …
I’ve always worried about time running out, and after starting my blog, I knew it was only a matter of time, so to speak, before I would write about, um, time. Once I knew I’d be yammering on these pages about this t-word, naturally I began noticing, even more than …
If my daughter says she has to pee, then I have to pee too. And whenever I go to restaurants, I get food envy. No matter what, the other person’s order looks better than mine. Wouldn’t it be great if, similarly, when someone says, “I never worry,” I were to …
I. What to do if I encounter a bear II. What the difference is between biological and chemical terrorist attacks *All I remember is for one you go upstairs and for the other you go downstairs III. Less worrisome is that I can never remember the difference between the words …
When I was in my twenties, I read a book (it may have been Looking for Mr. Goodbar) in which an overweight single woman discovers that the dietetic milkshakes she has been consuming daily for months are not dietetic at all abut are packed with like 1021 calories each. (I …
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 …
When, in the middle of my growing up years, I went to typing school, they taught me to type two spaces after periods, colons and semi-colons. So that’s what I always did, until very recently, when I began writing 2 articles a week for Home Goes Strong, where my editor …
Unrelated announcement: See my latest article on Home Goes Strong, “Renovation Basics, What You Should Know Before You Remodel.” I was not looking for trouble. As you may know, my riskiest activity is bicycling and I do so with great caution, riding on sidewalks, wearing a helmet, using a Velcro …
When I travel, and even when I don’t, I’m both a schlepper and a non-schlepper. It’s in the worrywart’s nature to schlep. For example, I take seven pens in case six run out of ink. On the other hand, my back hurts when I carry things. To show you how serious …
This afternoon I knew my taxi would arrive in ten minutes to take me to the train for a few days in New York. I always worry about being late for the train, late for the taxi, late for whatever. And, I worry that my regular taxi driver won’t show up …
As a kid at the Jersey shore, on days of ocean calm, I would float over the occasional ripple with my dad, his hands folded behind his head and his tan, slender, feet parallel and pointing skyward. “Ahh, this is worth a million bucks,” he’d say and now I know …
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, …
Sometimes I play a game in which I name an object and then try to associate a worry with it, just to see if I can stump myself. “Venetian blinds,” I say. “Peeping Tom!” I answer without having inhaled. “Tomatoes,” I try. “Salmonella poisoning!” Another way to play is to …