Night Owl

I’ve always been a night owl,  but once I’m ready for bed I don’t remember having trouble falling asleep –  until recently. Blame it on aging,  or Covid concerns,  or worrying about the fate of our planet,  but lately there are nights I toss and turn until the wee hours. So what to do?  Well,  there’s always a book or an unfinished crossword puzzle on the night table,  or something to order from LL Bean,  and of course always a few games of Words With Friends waiting to...

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Press Queen

When I was an undergraduate at NYU Heights I was a commuter student,  but stayed on campus after classes as much as I could to enjoy the extracurricular college life.  (See Ghostwriting in the Family and College Theatre) Steve,  the editor of the school paper,  was a friend and I’d often stop in his office to watch in awe as his staff turned out the paper every day.  It may not have rivaled the Columbia Spectator or the Harvard Crimson,  but the  Heights Daily News was a...

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“May You Live in Interesting Times”

As we start a third year of this fearsome pandemic it’s hard to believe we’ve gotten through it this far.   At first I was in a state of disbelief and it took me awhile to internalize how serious the situation was.  And then I felt sorry,  very sorry for myself. But in time I saw how selfish and wasteful that emotion was,  and I began to empathize with everyone else – young parents with children at home while offices and schools were closed;  high school and college kids in...

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17 Gas Stations

Why won’t men stop to ask directions? The answer may be in John Gray’s well-known book Men are From Mars,  Women are From Venus.   Or in another fascinating book about gender differences entitled You Just Don’t Understand: Men and Women in Conversation by Deborah Tannen. Tannen,  a linguistics professor,  coined the word  “genderlect”  to describe the cultural differences between men and women that are reflected in the differing ways they think and converse – in...

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With This Ring

I’m not superstitious or especially sentimental,  and that’s a good thing because over the years I’ve lost some precious pieces of jewelry – two or three watches,  innumerable earrings,  and even a few wedding rings. When we married my husband gave me a simple band – not of gold or silver but of jade.   I lost it. He also once gave me a lovely pink opal.   One day I looked down at my hand and although the ring was still on my finger,   I saw that the opal had fallen out...

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