Ski and the City
Not everyone has as much attraction to strangers as I do, but if you do, with skis and the city and a camera, you have a great excuse.
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DUMPSTER DAY
I planned to videotape the Miss America and watch it with my daughters—after they returned to me from their dad—the way we always had. (I know, I’m a lowbrow.)
Empty Nest Redux
Are two overnights a month better than four visits for a few hours each plus having her nearby for spontaneous additional visits?
Reversals
That Greta’s son had set parental controls on his mother’s computer gave me more than just a chuckle; it gave me a jolt, reminding me of the parent-child reversals I had been noticing more and more in my own life.
LIVING IN CHINA: HIBISCUS BULBS, ALAN DERSHOWITZ, AND PEAS
In 1980, while living in China, I insisted on speaking Mandarin when planning a dinner for Alan Dershowitz and other Harvard professors. Oops.
How Do I Sign My Book? Oy!
Most daunting of all, how to sign my book for close friends? A writer ought to be clever, even on short notice.
Confessions of a Worrywart: Husbands, Lovers, Mothers, and Others
“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.”
Three Questions
Why do we type
The addressee’s address
Above the salutation?
Does he or she
Need this information?
WORRIED ABOUT AWESOME
Do all my awesomes sound like I’m trying to seem young and cool—the language equivalent of someone my age wearing short, short skirts and skimpy tank tops?
Secrets, Meddling, and Regrets
I regret not only some of my meddling on my children’s behalf, but also having kept a secret.
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?
Cognitive Therapy: Lessons Learned
At Alcatraz, a former prisoner spoke. He said those who obsessed about getting out “didn’t make it.” Cognitive Therapy would have helped.
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?
Dear Susan from Worried in Wisconsin
Worry is addictive, plain and simple. It hits the same pleasure center of the brain as alcohol and other addictive substances. If you are able to control your intake of other addictive substances, then you can control worry, now that you know how addictive it is.
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.
Marathon Women
On an ordinary afternoon in 1998, Eliza, my sixteen-year-old daughter, plopped her backpack at my feet, waved a brochure so close it grazed my nose and declared, “I’m signing up for the Marine Corps Marathon. I’ll be running with a group that raises money for AIDS and trains Sunday mornings …
IN SEARCH OF THE ART OF EATING, TECHNIQUE-WISE
Is it a worrywart trait to seek pleasure on the highest plane? To always be wondering whether–no matter how good something is–it could be better? That’s how it is with me and eating. It’s a similar quest with family time. When I hear about a family who acts out Shakespeare …
Hanging With Chad: Making a New Friend
When I’m in New York, I like to hang out and write at Jack’s, a coffee place in the West Village with a patina that suggests long afternoons of sipping lattes and tapping on laptops. The overall look is shades of brown, like paper bags and coffee. Jack’s is so …
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 …
The “Family Vacation,” At The Beach With My Ex, Season 1
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Matchmaking, Beijing-Style (A Day Off From Worry)
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, …
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 …
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. …
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 …
A Mother’s Tweetmares
Following one’s daughter on Twitter carries risks for a worrywart. Especially when that daughter tweets all day long. Last weekend my daughter (the tweeter) threw a birthday party for herself at a bar where I knew she would be surrounded by loads of friends. It never occurred to me anything …
HOW ANNOYING AM I? PART I
PART I: HOW ANNOYING AM I TO MY DAUGHTERS? Repeating myself “Mom, you’ve told me that ten times!” Asking too many questions Just after exchanging I love you’s and mwah’s at the end of a phone convo, suddenly a string of questions spills out of my mouth like bubbles from …