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My mother wrecked her car last week. With sudden clarity, I now understand the many personality and lifestyle changes I noticed in her over the past several years. What I had attributed to old age, depression, lack of motivation, hearing loss, lack of physical activity and even intentional inaction, now has a logical explanation. I…

I just finished reading Meghan Daum’s book, Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids. After hearing Daum speak on a podcast about her own to decision not to have children, I borrowed this book from my library. Daum reached out to writers who were childfree and asked them to…

I occasionally run across someone online or in real life who is somewhat annoying. They have a negative attitude. Or they’re overtly confrontational. Or everything they say is laced with sarcasm. Most of the time, once I recognize a pattern like this, I avoid or ignore the person. Life is too short to engage with…

On a recent Solo podcast about grief, one of the guests said when you lose a loved one that your life splits into two part – the part before they died and the part after. She described grieving as a transformational process that begins when your life splits into two. That certainly has been true…

When I am all worked up about something unpleasant that’s happening right now, I can usually gain proper perspective by asking myself, “Will anyone care about this 100 years from now?” The answer is always “No.“ Even more often, the answer is, “Forget about in 100 years, nobody but me cares about this right now.”…

Yesterday was the 5th anniversary of the day my wife died. If anyone noticed, they did not mention it to me. I hadn’t expected anyone to reach out to me. My friends, family and ex-family are all aware of the last year of her life, her cancer battle and her death. But I didn’t expect…

TV and movies distort reality for me because they are filled with professionally good looking people. When I was a kid, I distinctly remember neighbors who were in their 50s. They looked old. Men had gray hair or were balding. Women looked frumpy, with gray hair or bad red dye jobs. Both sexes sported wrinkles,…

I hate not being able to do my usually workout routine – intense exercise, yoga, long dog walks and swim a mile. If I am unable to do even part of this due to injury, holiday closures, weather and other events beyond my control, it makes me nuts. Fortunately, for most days of the year,…

After living for 5 years without one, I finally bit the bullet and bought a portable shop vac. As regular readers know vacuuming is one of my most enjoyable activities. But, I resisted getting a shop vac because I have perfectly good upright Shark vacuum that has a wand attachment (of sorts) which works –…

As a former drinker who got drunk every night after work for about 10 years, I used to say it was a good thing I never tried heroin, because I would have loved it. Now, as a non-drinker for two decades and having used Percocet a few times post-op, I can confidently say I was…