health

Grownup’s Table

I remember being a little kid and being stuck at the grownup’s table.  We might have been at a restaurant or at someone else’s house, but somewhere where retreating to…

A Whole Crop of New Germs

My daughter is a freshman at college.  She is 800 miles away from home in a completely different type of environment.  She has gone from the semi-rural south to metropolitan…

Do Unto Others

The other day, comedienne Leighann Lord tweeted out the following oh-so-profound statement: “I’m no longer interested in productivity being the measure of my humanity.”[1]  That struck me like a lightning…

Spoiling Our Dog

My husband often accuses me of spoiling our dog.  He says this because I allow him to sleep on my feet and lick my hands and sometimes I give him…

Real Adult Life

Raising children is entertaining, if you can manage to take a step back from dirty diapers, dirty dishes, and dirty words coming out of formerly innocent mouths.  Each stage of…

Not My Job

In my last column I wrote about what a dream it was to travel with my group of sorority sisters, all of whom are, in addition to being kind and…

Sisters

Once upon a time, I was a teenager.  And that teenager went to college and did the whole sorority rush thing and made a whole bunch of friends she called…

The Art of Hotel Rooms

Summer is conference season.  Every week in June, and several weeks in July, I am going to somebody’s annual get-together.  It doesn’t matter where.  The conference could be in Paris,…

Nose Hair

It’s no secret that but for my regular trips to the Brazilian Wax shop near me, I could have a second career as the bearded lady in a Victorian-era circus. …

No More Children

There are no more children in my house, unless you count the dog, who is 21 in dog years anyway, or my husband, who has the maturity of a middle…

A Good Night’s Sleep

I have a complicated relationship with sleep.  On the one hand, I find it fun.  I tend to have vivid dreams that I can remember the next day.  I have…

Life Expectancy

I’m not convinced that human culture was designed to last as long as our current life expectancy. Let me explain: most of our cultural norms were made up back when…