Not everything can be awful, right? Not everything can be the worst. Anyway, I have just decided that I refuse to let everything be the worst and to succumb to the idea that no, it is, in fact, the worst. I feel a bit guilty about trying to grasp joy, but what choice does any […]
Psychology
Have you noticed Mar-a-Lago face popping up in pop culture? It’s freaky. Certain conservative women and billionaires’ second wives—people who started out looking perfectly fine—now have puffy lips, exaggerated cheeks, and eyes that look perpetually surprised. I finally figured out what they remind me of: marionettes. They look like marionettes. With control-me, make-me-dance strings definitely […]
Update, 1/27/2026: When I wrote this post, January was lying low. It has now risen from the deep with monstrous noises. So, a cold snap, fair enough. And then my boiler (which I think of as a furnace, no clue how wrong I might be) started not heating very well then not at all so […]
Thanking people well is a skill that gets better with practice. So let’s practice.
Last Monday, 7/14/2025, NPR ran an interview with a woman who lived through the flood on Texas’s Guadalupe River, a terrible story and I paraphrase: The flood blew down her back door and filled the house, water pressure wouldn’t let her open the door to her 95-year old mother’s bedroom, so she had to get […]
I first wrote this July 2, 2018, a time of high stress nationally and personally – personally because I had to make life-changing decisions that I didn’t have the information to make. And that was even before the pandemic. The pandemic is now putatively, intermittently over but the executive function problem is only marginally better. […]
*If you are home and not busy, would F. be able to get a Ziploc of ice? *Would one of you be able to do Monday morning carpool next week? *Any chance you’d have time to work Friday lunch? S. is home sick. *S. is staying home sick. Is there any chance you have time […]
Introduction I hate flossing. My mouth is small, my teeth crowded, the spaces between them difficult to reach. Twice a year, my dental hygienist entreats me to floss more frequently. Sometimes I assent, and mean it, and actually manage to make it work for a few months until I invariably get sick or injured or […]
