ANTHONY WEINER & ME & THE GOING-INTO-TREATMENT EXCUSE
ANTHONY WEINER & ME & THE GOING-INTO-TREATMENT EXCUSE
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worrywart
WHAT WAS ANTHONY WEINER THINKING?
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” …
CHILLAXING
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 …
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 …
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 …
WHAT IF I MEET A GUY I LIKE?
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 …
PASSOVER IN BEIJING
An eclectic group, this year’s seder in my daughter’s Beijing apartment included non-Jewish participants from Ireland, Argentina, England and Massachusetts as well as my Chinese-American Jewish daughter, her father (my ex, also Jewish) and me. What at home would have cost $50 for fruits and vegetables, cost less than $5 …
SPICE GIRLS & MY GIRLS
UNRELATED ANNOUNCEMENT: See my article Interfaith Seders & a Heavenly Flourless Chocolate Cake. Join the convo at the site with comments! Here’s what triggers a mighty sadness for me: Juxtapostition of happy-sad. If on a normal day in March I hear about a young boy’s bike getting stolen, I’m sad but …
WORRYWART AS JEWISH MOTHER TO A STRANGER
Unrelated announcement: My new post “Divorce, Downsizing, Dating & Death.” Share your thoughts. In a previous post 10 Days in New York: Lessons Learned, Worries Amassed, I mentioned seeing a flier that said simply “Sarah Needs a Job .com.” I was so intrigued by this that I went to Sarah’s …
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 …
AM I A VOYEUR? BEHIND THE SCENES OF MY BLOG
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 …
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 …
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. …
WHAT TO WRITE ABOUT? DECISION-MAKING & ITS IRKSOME ALTER EGO, CHOICES
At times it’s a challenge to dream up worries to write about. For one thing, my busy blogging schedule helps keep my usual disaster scenarios at bay. For instance, I haven’t worried about bedbugs since yesterday. Other times I get excited about three ideas at once and can’t settle into …
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 …
QUINTUPLE TIPS DAY, MEMORY & A DIRTY OLD MAN
(Whether you are my age or pre-memory loss, please share this with parents and friends who’ve crossed the line.) What was I was just thinking to write about? Oh yeah, memory loss. That sounds like a bad joke, but it’s what I actually said to myself when I opened this …
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 …
HOW DOES AN ATHEIST PRAY AND SHOULD AN AGNOSTIC CONSIDER HER OPTIONS?
Valentine’s Day, 1991, New York City. My then-(China hand)-husband and I knew a young Chinese couple. The sweet wife Mei Ling, who was exquisite to look at with her porcelain complexion and appleseed eyes, sometimes babysat for our daughters. On this particular February 14th, she had plans to go out …
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 II
Unrelated announcement: Check out my Home Goes Strong article Thinking About a Valentine Dinner? How About Red, Pink, White . . . & Wine With a Heart? In How Annoying Am I Part I, I outlined how annoying I am to my daughters. After posting that, I observed another annoying pattern …
WORRIED WHAT YOU’LL THINK
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 …
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 …
ADDICTED TO WORRY
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 …
ADVICE FROM BURGLARS
RELATED ANNOUNCEMENT: SEE MY HOME GOES STRONG ARTICLE, 11 More Great Ways to Deter Break-Ins, Readers Speak Out. It was Christmastime. I was ten years old and playing on the adding machines in my father’s office. I walked down a narrow hallway to show the secretary my string of numbers. …