Such is Life
A Deep Dive into Gladwell’s ‘The Tipping Point’ – Part One
This essay is part of a series applying the principles outlined in Malcolm Gladwell’s essay collection, The Tipping Point, which examines the mysterious emergence of “social epidemics,” ranging from crime waves to fashion trends. As noted in the introduction, “Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do.” The following discussion applies…
Read MoreIf Looks Could Whistle
I grew up in a gender-neutral household, the only daughter with five brothers. You might have thought my mother would have doted on her only daughter, but she never singled me out with any advice on what it meant to be feminine. She never said to me, “Oh, you look so cute in that dress,…
Read MoreAt Seventy
I sit in the leather chair, feet outstretched on the ottoman, pillow on my stomach, book resting on top of that. I have a very limited view of myself, basically my hands and the outline of my feet inside a pair of socks. This is a welcome change from Zoom calls where the time spent…
Read MoreTwenty Three Pairs of Me
T I stand on a wobbly stool in the pathology laboratory and aim an eyedropper full of cells at a glass slide on the counter below. The first two drops miss. The third hits the slide, splitting open the cells and scattering twenty-three pairs of chromosomes. I stain them with dye to produce the characteristic…
Read MoreWhat We’re No Good At
My husband enjoys weekend pick-up hockey games at the community rink. He often comes home with stories of Joe, who is simultaneously the most enthusiastic player and the most inept player ever to grace the ice. His transition from forward to backward skating, which should be second nature to even a marginal hockey player, is…
Read MorePandemic Ponderings: The Anatomy of a Joke
The corona pandemic has birthed an outpouring of creative humor, from elaborate song parodies to simple one liners. I have transmitted the following with great success, from appreciative smiles to outright guffaws. “Did you hear, they have found a way to turn cauliflower into toilet paper.” What is it about this one line that finds…
Read MorePodcast: Pandemic Ponderings
Pandemic humor. What makes it funny?
Read MoreMy Life in Typewriters
1960s It was one of those in-between summers. I had outgrown sleep-away camp and wasn’t old enough to be a camp counselor, so my mother had to patch together activities to keep me occupied. Typing class was the solution. Even though I had no occasion to use a typewriter, I didn’t question the wisdom of…
Read MoreThe Slippery Slope to Sloth
Definition: Sloth /slôTH,slōTH/ noun 1. disinclination to action or labor; spiritual apathy Symbolized by a Lazy Boy in the living room. 2. A slow moving tropical American mammal Derived from the activity level of a human in a Lazy Boy My anxiety spikes as the burly delivery men settle the Lazy Boy into my…
Read MoreFinal Expenses
Who wants to hear the word death out loud? For advertisers, the answer is nobody, and they work hard to avoid this basic fact of life. Pharmaceutical ads are required to list potential complications. So the taboo word must be spoken, but few can appreciate the word death midst dreamy images of puppies and walks…
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