Powerless
I’m sitting at the breakfast table in my bra and panties, sipping melted ice water through a straw, pretending it’s iced tea. Casey, sprawled beside me, looks barely alive.
Currently browsing tag
WORRY
Nora Ephron: What She Won’t Miss, What She Will Miss, What I Will Miss
Each Nora Ephron romantic comedy makes the prospect of finding fun, funny romance possible and accessible for everyone.
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.
10 Tips for Getting Rid of Telemarketers: Confessions of a Telemarketer
Confession: I was a telemarketer. In 1976—when I became a stockbroker at Merrill Lynch—I had never heard the word telemarketing; we called it cold calling.
“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.
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.
Two Shrinks: Psychiatrist and Cognitive Therapist
He is always on time.
She is sometimes late.
He ends the session after exactly 45 minutes.
She ends the session when we are finished talking,
Getting Things Done
After the sun slides behind the ash trees in my backyard, my heart thumps with anticipation. It’s finally time for GETTING THINGS DONE.
Susan’s Ashes
Each of my girls could keep some of me in a gorgeous mosaic urn, personalized with photos under glass beads, like the ones my friend Sybil Sage makes for ashes of your cat or your mother.
Connecting With Friends
I am not part of the walk-and-text culture. I’m barely part of the text culture. But as a writer, who lives alone, my laptop has become one of my best friends.
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?
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.
Stay-at-Home Mom Kerfuffle
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.
Easter Egg Roll 2012
Easter Egg Roll 2012 observations: Most children seemed to be having a swell time, the parents were the happiest people there, and President Obama’s khakis were a perfect fit.
Dear Susan: I’m a Procrastinator
Dear Susan, I should be working now but instead I’m writing to you. You see, I’m a procrastinator. Please help me stop putting things off! Signed, Puttingthingsoff in Peoria Dear PiP, I’m so glad you asked. I am great at procrastination. Here is one thing I do to procrastinate: I …
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.
My Ideal Seatmate
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.
Worrywart Logic
I was happy that my mind was still logical enough
BYO
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 …
Writing-a-Book Worries
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.
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.
DIZZY: LIVING WITH MY BOYFRIEND, CIRCA 1967
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 …
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.
WRITER + ENCOUNTER WITH STRANGER = STORY
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 …
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 …
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 …
SMILING STRANGERS
When I, always the initiator, smile at a stranger and the stranger smiles back, it puts a musical note in my step. Or in my pedal, as was the case on Christmas Eve day. I was on a long bike ride from New Jersey to Staten Island and, when a driver …
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 …
ANXIETY ABOUT GIFTS: GIVING & GETTING
‘Tis the season to obsess . . . about gifts. For someone like me, who gets overwhelmed by choices, and–even when the options are narrowed to two–can’t decide, this can be a hard time of year. So I resort to creative gift-giving, like ice cream sodas for the third night …