Do You Want To Be Buried or Cremated?

February 1, 2012

If you’re my age or younger, you probably haven’t thought about whether you want to be buried or cremated. If you’re my 74-year-old-beloved-relative-who-will-not-be-named-here-for-fear-of-offending-him, you shrug and say you don’t know, you’ll let your wife decide. But there’s so many things to take care of when somebody dies. There’s so much grief. There’s so much longing. [...]

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The Great Bathtub Disaster

January 24, 2012

“Mommy get up! I wan’ Mommy get up!” It was only 5:00 a.m. and my two-year-old was patting my face with her open palm. I tried to negotiate for five more minutes. She wasn’t having it. Leone yelled so loudly that she almost roused James, who can sleep through a dynamite explosion next to his [...]

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What Trying to Eliminate Packaging Has Taught Me About Marriage, Life

January 18, 2012

One of my new year’s resolutions was to REDUCE or even ELIMINATE PACKAGING. I’ve been on this kick for awhile but I thought if I wrote it down and committed to it, I would be more serious about getting packaging out of our lives. Mostly I’m thinking about grocery shopping, but really I’d like to [...]

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I’m a Senior!

January 10, 2012

Last Friday I wrote about what a hard time I’ve been having doing work, being productive, and even going to the grocery store, ever since my mom died. As the outside world goes on as usual, I feel so strangely disconnected. I can’t answer the question, “How are you?” How am I? Relieved the holidays [...]

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On Having a Hard Time Getting Back to Work

January 6, 2012

I can’t stop thinking about the photo in the New York Times of a beautiful Norwegian woman, with red hair, crying out in agony because one of her loved ones was killed in the deadly attack on government buildings last July. My friend Harald Birkevold, an award-winning investigative journalist based in Stavanger, told me that [...]

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Be Extra Kind to Your Mom, Because You Only Get One, Warts and All

December 20, 2011

I’m not sure but I think I was sitting at the kitchen table with my 12-year-old daughter, who was getting ready for her 7th grade play, when the call came. Urgent. Hospital. Brain actively bleeding. Trying to stabilize her. Intensive care. My mother had collapsed while working at the computer in her home office. She [...]

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What if Your Instincts Betray You? A New Book by an FBI Profiler Teaches Readers NOT to Trust Our Gut

November 17, 2011

I didn’t mean to read it. Not last week anyway, when I was still in the middle of Jane Austen’s Emma and spending every other spare moment trying to puzzle my way through the work of a famous and well-respected neurologist who has a hypothesis about the mechanism of how ultrasound waves can trigger brain [...]

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A New Father Feels Deeply Conflicted About the Current Vaccine Schedule

November 16, 2011

Jason Olson is a young dad from Chicago, Illinois. He and I have been corresponding about how and when to vaccinate. His description of his struggle seemed so universal and heartfelt that I wanted to share it. Jason graciously agreed to allow me to publish part of our exchange here. I’m a new father and [...]

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AP Reporter Jeff Barnard Writing About Vaccines

November 14, 2011

We did a photo shoot this afternoon with AP reporter and photographer Jeff Barnard. Based in Grants Pass, Barnard writes about everything from extreme beer to wolf sightings. Right now he’s working on a co-written article about vaccine exemptions, state by state. Apparently Oregon has one of the highest rates of vaccine-exempted children. Jeff interviewed [...]

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It’s Time To Teach Your Kids Some Phone Manners

November 10, 2011

“Hello?” The young man on the other end of the line sounds annoyed. He might as well have said “What do you want?” I’m so startled for a second that I don’t answer. “Is L. there?” I ask in my most well-mannered voice. “No,” he answers thickly. Then there’s silence. “May I leave her a [...]

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