My 13th year wasn't the easiest for my family. Every few months, the company Dad worked for would send him away for two or three weeks to inspect pipes in submarines. Sometimes it was Spain. Other times it was South Carolina, Scotland or Guam. Every time he'd leave, Mom would tape newspaper sheets over the [...]
Mom always said gray hair was nature’s way of softening our features as we age. Then again, Mom was a bottle blonde. I was around 18 when my first gray hair appeared. I say gray only because everyone else does. This hair could have come from Santa’s beard. Had it had the gentle, natural wave [...]
For almost 15 years, I’ve inspired the admiration and respect normally reserved for popes, royalty and people who can down a pitcher of beer in one gulp. And I do it with four simple words -- “I work at home.” Green-eyed 9-to-5ers picture me sleeping until 10, banging out a few bon mots, meeting friends [...]
I’m in the cleaning-supplies aisle at the supermarket, pulling with all my might on a plunger stuck to the floor. Shoppers stare as they squeeze around me. I want to apologize, but I don’t dare. If I did, I’d have to look up from the floor and let all those mature, responsible adults see that [...]
As spring fills the air, young lovers’ thoughts invariably turn to demonstrating their unending love and devotion to each other by dressing in uncomfortable costumes and kissing 32 cousins they haven’t seen in the nine years since Uncle Albert died. And, of course, every young lover dreams of staging the perfect wedding, even though there [...]
I was reading The Oxford Book of American Literary Anecdotes when it occurred to me that if you want to be a great writer, you’ve got to be screwed up. From this amusing collection I learned that Edgar Allan Poe’s antics included marrying his 13-year-old cousin. Eugene O’Neill once married a decidedly better catch. She [...]
I could have come home from France with a trophy. And not just any old trophy, but one big enough to impress running friends with rooms full of trophies. I would have put it on top of the bookcase, a few feet from my front door. Whenever visitors commented on it, I would have told [...]
I read some great novels while I was pregnant. I saw some good movies, too. I might have even picked up some juicy gossip. Nobody gave a hoot. When you’re pregnant, people lose all interest in talking to you about anything beyond your reproductive system. That might not be so bad if they offered useful [...]