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.)
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DIVORCE
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.
Dog as Transitional Object
I knew a 52-year-old man with a 26-year-old girlfriend, who still slept with her teddy bear, so by the principle of transitivity he too slept with the teddy bear.
What Are Your Favorite Food Moments on an Ordinary Day?
What do you eat on an ordinary day? Maybe I’ll find that mine are not quirks at all and that everyone drinks a pint of tea in a Pyrex measuring cup before bed.
Worried About Too Many Advisors
What am I to do about too many advisors? I began preparing for the 2-minute pitch of my memoir 60 days in advance, an average of 1 day for every 3 seconds.
Worried About Outliving Friends, My Junior High School Boyfriend and Not-so-Subtle Self-Promotion
All this fed into my recurring imaginings of how to celebrate my death, and whether to do so after or before it occurs . . .
Healthy Sexual Relationships: Q and A with Author of Wanting Sex Again
Valentine sex will be an issue for many couples. This manufactured day of romance offers men and women an opportunity to examine their sexual relationship.
Successful Marriage and Marital Problems: How to be Happily Married, Part III
What makes for a successful marriage? What can be done about marital problems? My two previous posts highlighted Betsy’s story and Harry’s story; below is Victoria’s story. Victoria is 58 years old and a retired history professor living in Chicago: The biggest challenge I faced in my marriage was when my …
Successful Marriage and Marital Problems: How to be Happily Married, Part II
Yesterday we heard from Victoria about her recipe for a successful marriage and avoiding marital problems. Today, a man shares how to be happily married.
Confessions of a Campaign Wife
I never prayed for Steve to win the election, only to keep our sanity intact.
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.”
Breakfast Club Envy
Recently, after reading about a breakfast club, my breakfast club envy flared up.
Making Friends and E-Communication
Keeping up with friends and making friends require effort. In general, there are the reacher-outers (me) and the reacher-outees (most people I know).
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?
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.
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,
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.
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.
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
HALLOWEEN HARDSHIPS
1955 After a swallow of dinner, I dirty my face with burnt cork and, on my shoulder, rest a broomstick with a bundle of rags tied to its end. I then prepare for the battle with my mom over not wearing a coat. I step into the hallowed night, wondering …
SAVING EMAILS. SAVING VOICEMAIL. MY MOM’S VOICE.
I’m a saver. Every time my inbox mounts to the limit of 4,000 emails, I move a few thousand to random folders I doubt I’ll ever find again; and then I’m set for another few weeks of not deleting messages, mainly from the likes of Sock Hop Sundays, Hot Tub …
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 …