Dear Trevor Noah: I hope you are taking good care of yourself and feeling better. But I feel moved to inform you that rescheduling your November 9th Milwaukee show threw me into full-on “First-World White Lady Existential Crisis” mode Bruised vocal cords are no joke. So I’m glad you stayed home and took care of yourself. … Continue reading First World White Lady Problems: An Open Letter to Trevor Noah (with photos)
Category: opinion
Five years ago, my pal Molly and her husband Richard flew in from New York to visit her parents, "Mel" (z"l) and "Sally." It was their first visit after M&S moved into "Old People Harvard," the independent and assisted-living community where Mom had been living for two years. It was a great gift to Mom … Continue reading Accidental landlording & purposeful librarianship: a dispatch from the busy zone with a reminder to VOTE TUESDAY!
File yesterday under “Days when you’re glad your mother and aunts are dead.” File yesterday under “This is why I grapple with knowing that I look and benefit from being white but don't ever feel entirely white.” File yesterday under “What part of their part in this do Donald Trump, Mike Pence, Chuck Grassley, Paul … Continue reading Whistle long enough, dogs show up: Best synagogue shooting response? Weep. Mourn. Vote.
Dear Dr. Ford: I watched some of your testimony last week and want you to know that I thought you were amazing. You made sense out of something that was hard to make sense of, and you did it with elegance and good humor and decency. It was easy to imagine you as … Continue reading Thank you from the bottom of my heart: an open letter to Dr. Susan Blasey Ford
I caught a little of the testimonies of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh before the Senate Judiciary Committee today. It was horrifying. The contrast between the two witnesses was stark. Dr. Ford told her story with remarkable composure. She was visibly upset, but did an amazing job describing her reasons for coming … Continue reading #Metoo vs. #Poormetoo: Senate Committee hears from Ford & Kavanaugh
On Wednesday, The New York Times published an anonymous op-ed by someone serving at the pleasure of President Trump. It was not exactly news to read that the current occupant of the White House is a petty bully who does whatever makes him feel good and repudiates anyone who dares to intimate that he is anything less … Continue reading ‘A preference for autocrats and dictators:’ Op-ed writer luckier than Riyadh Ibrahim
It’s been a long month. Two weeks ago I underwent a procedure most people call cataract surgery, which I have unilaterally nicknamed “extreme Lasik.” It has left me unsettled, crabby and neurologically unhappy. I know cataract surgery is different than Lasik. With Lasik, a medical professional reshapes your cornea using a laser. Cataract removal is when your cloudy … Continue reading Writing with one eye: diary entry of a neurologically unhappy quasi-cyclops
In 2007, I was on national television and in the New York Times for being one of the first “old” people on Facebook. On April 10th, I posted this on my Facebook feed: “I was going to just leave quietly, but it feels disrespectful to so many of you who I care about. I joined … Continue reading Hitting the ‘delete’ button on Facebook: a Dispatch from the quiet zone
Mom died on February 25th. Her funeral was in Utica, New York; yesterday was her memorial service. This is the eulogy I wrote and read yesterday. Eulogy II The first Tuesday after Mom’s funeral, I woke up and, because it has been part of my waking-up ritual for what seems like forever (even though it … Continue reading Death: the most unlikely of happy endings or ‘Bossiest Eulogy Ever’
“It is coercion of the strongest kind, because it appears in the guise of a self-evident necessity and is thus not even recognized as a coercive force.” Ludwik Fleck, “Genesis & Development of a Scientific Fact” I started 2017 with a post about making this a “no bullshit” year. Seing it out with a … Continue reading ‘No Bullshit’ 2017 is almost over: Time to ring in #racistinrecovery 2018
the sentence factory 