The blog
I’m Just Saying
My essays on parenting, teaching, and the everyday comedy of family life. 20 posts, 2015 to 2023.
2023
2021
2020
The Battle of Waterloo
Billy Joel’s “Movin’ Out” keeps running through my head today. It began with my morning micturation. I looked down into my toilet bowl, and a fly circled…
CoronaDiary
Guys. I was doing great until the coffee spilled all over the counter this morning, and then I just completely lost my shit. “Great” is relative. I woke…
2019
2017
2016
Nothing Works
I’ve spent half a century knocking my head against the wall because I really couldn’t accept this basic axiom: nothing works. I keep thinking all of these…
The Happiest Mother on the Block
Last week, my foot got one of those awful cramps they say can come from not enough water (guilty) or potassium so I figured I’d give it a stretch, and I…
2015
Long Range Honeymooner
Well, you missed it, y’all. I was in North Carolina blogging about how one of the three cameras taking all those amazing pictures of Pluto is called…
Battlefield 4, Rated M
I come from the school of Constructivist not Behaviorist parenting. No sticker charts. No gold stars. No allowance. You do what you’re supposed to do for…
On Freedom and Independence: Eleven-Year-Old Boys
When eleven-year-old boys walk and talk their whole bodies are busy in the conversations and they weave in and out of one another as they go.…
Glamping
No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don’t want to go camping. I definitely don’t want to go glamping. Glamping could be one of the most unforgivably…
Downtown
Petula Clark was never trying to get there Summer 2015, Los Angeles. We’re going Downtown! to see one of the most beautiful public libraries in the world…
The Giver
Eleven years old is the new thirteen. They are all pubescent and adolescent and so so over you. Mothering the eleven-year-old is all about being there but…
Honor Your Mayfly
Did you know that some species of the Mayfly only have a lifespan of half an hour. Luckier varieties live for up to a full day or two. Evidently, kinder…
Baked a cake for a friend
I baked a cake for a friend today. We drank tea and sat on my mother in law’s porch watching the blue birds feed their young. It will forever be one of my…
Anne Lamott is a Better Mother Than Me
Yes, yes. Than I. WhatEVER. Yesterday, I read to my son excerpts from an Anne Lamott post on Mother’s Day: “I did not raise my son, Sam, to celebrate…
On Throwing Out Things Other People Love
Say your son and husband built a dog house. And you love that they do projects together. Yes, you do. And you think it’s charming. And you also wish…
Dentist
I was at the dentist’s office today. I’ve been seeing the same “gal” as my Grandmother would say, for years. And each time I am struck by the same…
Double Duty
Today I lined all the bedroom drawers with gift wrap paper from the Container Store and then covered them with clear plastic shelf liner. They have…
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