Such is Life
In Transit
Let’s see – for 10 years I commuted on buses, subways, or trains, at least two hours a day, 5 days a week, 48 weeks a year. That’s a total of 4800 hours going to and from medical school and then my job as a health policy analyst. So of course I leapt at the opportunity…
Read MoreAs It Was in the Beginning
Our newborn son sat in my lap as I waited at the hospital entrance for my husband to bring the car around to take us home for the first time. I thought about all the surprising professions that required a license – beauticians, private eyes, and even interior designers. Basically, any profession where incompetency may result…
Read MoreDear Caitlyn Jenner
Dear Caitlyn Jenner, I am a woman whose biologic, gender and sexual identities are comfortably aligned in the dominant fashion, but am ready, willing and trying to embrace the full spectrum. I have made a lot of progress. I accept the limitations of a binary approach to identity and the word ellgeebeeteecue rolls off my…
Read MoreEasing into the Back Nine of Life
Sixty is a magical number, the six and the zero plumply nestled together and then flanked by the stern prime numbers 59 and 61. And 60 is so accommodating, evenly divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6; the next number in this sequence is the remote 420. The pleasing proportions of 60 might…
Read MoreHow To Do The Queue
According to unverified estimates bandied about on the internet, every year Americans spend about 37 billion hours waiting in line. Over their lifetime, Americans will spend some 2 to 3 years of their life in queue. I have absorbed the routine lines of daily living, rarely noticing the wait at the bank, grocery store, post…
Read MoreI Was a Loser
Milestones came at a rapid clip when our son Ned was an infant – crawling, sitting, standing and first words. Once school started, these milestones slowed down, replaced by the predictable progress through one grade after the next. But now here was he was standing in the kitchen in blue blazer and khaki pants –…
Read MoreThat Moment in Time
Forty-five minutes into our seven hour drive north the traffic comes to a complete standstill just south of Milwaukee. The highway is in the middle of construction and we are totally boxed in with concrete dividers and idling semis; there is no way to peek around to see what is going on. The midday traffic has…
Read MoreOccupation: Housewife
It seems very strange that I didn’t put everything together until I was cleaning out my parent’s safety deposit box after their deaths. The bank clerk handed me the little card they had filled out, probably just after their marriage in 1950. My parents had just bought a car and then a house in the…
Read MoreIt’s A Tagless World
The default radio channel in my car is National Public Radio, but I also toggle to my guilty pleasure – sports talk radio. Who are the Chicago Bears eyeing in the draft, can our beloved Blackhawks repeat as Stanley Cup champions? The ads come fast and furious – ads for ticket brokers, remedies for low…
Read MoreGood Humor Man
In 1969, when my father was at the peak of his career as a printing salesman, he decided to put an in-ground swimming pool in our back yard. It seemed like an odd decision since neither of my parents were swimmers. When I think back on it now, I believe that the pool was probably…
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