In elementary school I was bullied. Teased, the wind knocked out of me, caterpillars placed in my lunchbox. I was mocked because I was the deadly trifecta: plump, shy, and smart. My parents called the teachers, who said they could do nothing. (Obviously they, too, were scared of this bully). To this day, driving by… Continue reading The Bully Within

Like (most) everyone else in the country, the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg hit me hard. Oh, there are the political ramifications, but those aren’t the primary source of my angst. There’s the fact that she was such a wise and accomplished woman, but even those traits, while indisputable, aren’t why I’m profoundly sad. What… Continue reading Shana Tovah

I miss movies. I long for the day when I can be back in a theater, the real world eclipsed for 120 minutes. I’ll be so excited I’ll even buy the greasy, over-priced popcorn. For as long as we’ve been together, “date night” for my husband and me has consisted of dinner and a movie.… Continue reading Lessons from Gregory

I’ve always loved sunsets—the myriad fuchsias and violets ebbing up the horizon, the twilight slicing through the harsh sun—but I have to admit I take sunrises for granted. It seems a time of day that most of us sleep or rush through, focused more on our caffeine intake than the start of another 24 hour… Continue reading Fragility

For a writer, one of life’s most painful experiences is writer’s block. I have found myself to be in its grips lately—suffocating under a blanket of nothing to say. My laptop cursor blinks impatiently at me as I try to think of something worth writing in this blog. I decided to search for advice for… Continue reading Blocked

I have the habit of referring to things I love as a “day at the beach”—everything from pumpkin muffins and steaming bread pudding to George Clooney and long foot rubs. But the truth is that there is nothing as glorious as an actual day at the beach. We just returned from a week at the… Continue reading Clear Skies

This week I took the death of Carl Reiner hard. Of course, I never met him, but yet I felt I knew him. There was a universality about his persona that made him seem like an uncle I would have liked to have had. There are some celebrities who just need to live on. For… Continue reading Here’s to Yenevelt

Every now and then something exciting happens to break the monotony. Tomorrow starts my 13th week of working from home. Often it seems that one day and week meld into the next. My daughter, a summer nanny, undoubtedly feels the same way. New day, new quarrels. Same kids. Many days when I greet her in… Continue reading Love, Joe