A few months ago, I wrote about my parents’ friendship with the man I now call my future stepdad. Neither he nor my actual dad is well, making them modern-day Roman gladiators – the last one alive wins the prize. In Rome, the prize was palm branches. In the Temple of Doom – the senior…

I’m not a dog person. We should just get that out of the way right now. We’ve been together in this column, you and I, for eight months. I feel like I can come clean about this. I’m not a dog person. This is not, apparently, some kind of genetic flaw because I managed to…

I’m in love. It’s a terrible kind of love, the kind you know will be lost – like watching Jack and Rose in Titanic or Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese in The Terminator. And now that I’ve said that I’m thinking James Cameron has some kind of vendetta against love. Can’t people who love each…

I still feel dirty. I cleaned the bathrooms yesterday. Stem to stern. Head to toe. Every nook and cranny. Pick your idiom, because I did it. Well, maybe we don’t use “nook and cranny.” I love English muffins so I’m gagging quite a bit here thinking about mildew and butter getting the same descriptor. It’s…

I once had a boyfriend who borrowed $400. He broke up with me before it occurred to him I had more paychecks coming. Months later, I saw him at a club. Jammed together in that mosh pit we – reluctantly – abandoned the mosh pit and a quite excellent cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”…

I am writing to you from vacation. Not our normal vacation, the kind I call “Rank Working Vacations.” Rank Working Vacations are not for those looking to relax. It is how one sojourns when one marries an outdoorsman. This was not the life I signed up for but now I find guys in hiking boots…

I attended an event this weekend. I slept in a tent, pitched in a field alongside scores of other campers. I knew going into this event I was not cut out for camping. I lack the fortitude. The grit. The skill. Aware of my inexperience, my fellow campers showered me with support. Being showered with…

The dreaded camping trip has arrived. This may be hard to believe, but I have a problem bigger than the paucity of plumbing. I don’t want to leave Pete. If I was a better parent, Pete would be my kid — a child I’m reluctant to leave. But Pete is my beagle. We kennel him…

When I was thirteen, my mom gave me a book about adolescence and puberty. For Christmas. In front of my dad. And my grandmother. And my siblings. That probably wasn’t my favorite Christmas. To quote Salt-N-Pepa, that book talked about sex, baby. It talked about all the good things and the bad things that may…

In a week’s time, I will attend the company picnic for this very publication. I work remotely, which means some of my co-workers will be meeting me for the first time. I read the invitation, which assured us a side dish was the only price of entry. Everything else would be provided. Well, I’m sure…

The guest opinion piece in The New York Times warned of new pandemics long after COVID-19 has flittered off into the nether. I cringed when I read that. I’m pretty sure my kids are Patients Zero. That’s not a typo. I do mean “Patients Zero” plural and not “Patient Zero” singular. The first week of…

My camping experience is limited and questionable. Is it really camping when you’re in a roofed cabin at Girl Scout camp? Or in a used, pop-up camper with your parents and siblings in 1980? Shouldn’t a tent be involved somewhere? If you’re saying, “Yes, yes. A tent should be involved if you’re really camping,” then…

My visitor is neither houseguest nor fish, but he definitely meets that three-day criterion for repugnancy. He’s a skink. I did not know what a skink was until he showed up last year. Encyclopedia Britannica says skinks as a subset of lizards – a far more benign descriptor than my skink deserves. Skink bodies are…

If I’ve made the mistake I think I’ve made, I’m in deep trouble. My mistake was not in telling the tale of my movie buddy’s ill-timed cough. She’s still talking to me. No harm done. Thankfully. Nor was my mistake in telling my husband he loads the dishwasher like a maniac. He lays the coffee…

Everybody should have a movie buddy, that person – people if you’re lucky – who accompany you to any movie, any time. My movie buddies and I have seen everything together, from Black Panther to Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer. Abraham Lincoln as a vampire slayer was not a great concept. But movie buddies don’t cast…

I’d just like to register a concern about Mother’s Day. Breakfast in bed. Mother’s Day and breakfast in bed are shipped more than Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt. And while I will forever hope Jen and Brad realize they were meant to be, I never want to see a Mother’s Day that serves me scrambled…

I’m fully vaccinated, which for me means one thing. I can’t avoid socializing. As an introvert, the thought of hitting parties, joining the swim club, or finally agreeing to that road trip with the girls overwhelms me. I’m no fan of the pandemic, but I did enjoy not talking to people. Socializing on any scale…