My older brother was one of those guys — a fireworks guy. Do you know one? A guy who loves fireworks so much that the 4th of July becomes more like Christmas — the most wonderful time of the year. For fireworks guys, “wonderful” goes “boom.” I didn’t understand his obsession when we were kids, but that was okay because he didn’t have a clue why I begged our parents to buy me the next book in the Little House on the Prairie series, even though they’d just given me one two days earlier. He didn’t realize I’d stayed up all night reading the first book and was now jonesing for my next fiction fix. If I had held up […]

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Being a professional writer has a few perks, like knowing when “i” comes before “e” and eavesdropping on strangers’ conversations in the name of “research.” But being a writer does not, unfortunately, come with a cure for procrastination. Our inner 15-year-old still puts things off, just like we did with that term paper in 10th grade. And every time we wait too long, we feel tremendous guilt for being lazy. Then we wonder what’s wrong with us — why we can’t just be a grown-up who gets things done. The answer? Brain science. Let me explain. It turns out that procrastination happens when two different parts of the human brain are in conflict. Here are the players in this never-ending […]

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One of my dad’s favorite television shows was Sanford & Son, which aired through most of the 1970s. I was a little kid then, but what I remember most about the show, other than its iconic theme song, was the way it made my dad laugh. He’d sit in his recliner, slap his leg, and laugh so hard that tears would come to his eyes. The show was about Fred Sanford, a junk dealer in Los Angeles, and his son Lamont, who helped run the family business. Part of the reason Dad loved Fred Sanford was because they had so much in common. Like Fred, my dad was cantankerous but kind. Playful teasing was his primary love language. And both […]

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As a new parent, everyone braces you for how challenging the newborn phase will be. They make jokes about sleeping while you can because once the baby shows up, you’ll be up around the clock and nothing will ever be the same. But they don’t say much about what happens when those newborns grow up, finish college and launch into a new career. What I’m learning as I live through it is that these two phases of parenting are strangely similar — thrilling, overwhelming, and scary, too. But first, let’s talk about the good stuff. In mid-May, our first baby graduated from college. The ceremony lasted three hours in direct sunlight on an unusually hot spring day, but it was […]

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A few weeks ago, we had this short but wonderful pocket of time right before our oldest son’s college graduation. For four days, we had all three of our big kids home. After  graduation, two of the three of them would scatter in opposite directions — the graduate to his new job in a different city, and his younger brother on a flight to California for a summer internship.  One night after having dinner out, the kids decided to huddle upstairs and play the old video games they loved as kids. So Tom and I stayed downstairs to watch a detective show called Will Trent, one of our favorites. I felt exquisitely happy because our house was once again full […]

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The children are afraid. Terrified, in fact. But you’d never know it by looking at them because they’re too scared to move a muscle, especially the ones around their eyes. What are they so afraid of? The short answer is — my face. Not just my face but also the faces of all middle-aged women who foolishly smiled, laughed, winced, frowned or squinted between birth and the year 2025. According to some social media influencers, all those facial movements are a surefire way to get wrinkles and look old. So they’re saving their followers from this wretched fate by showing them how to stop making everyday facial expressions. When my college-aged daughter first told me about this online trend, I […]

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A year ago, a tornado hop-scotched through our town. It was past midnight, and I was watching a movie at home with our teenagers. When our phones screamed a long, loud beep, we switched to local news to see a meteorologist — sleeves rolled up to the elbows — urging viewers to get into a safe place. A tornado had been spotted in the heart of town. For the next 10 minutes, we huddled in a closet under the stairs, listening to the staccato sound of hail. We heard the warning sirens wail and felt our ears pop. I remember gripping the closet doorknob, praying the door would stay closed and be a barrier between us and the storm. After […]

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I used to be a fidgeter. I’d tap on things and bounce my leg so fast that Tom would sometimes reach over and put his hand on my knee as if to say, “Enough. That’s driving me nuts.” Fidgeters don’t often realize that our small yet frenetic movements can make the table shake just enough to be annoying. Over the years, I’ve calmed down the leg bouncing so I won’t look like I just guzzled a gallon of energy drinks. But yesterday, I heard something that made me think maybe I was onto something with all that fidgeting, and I didn’t even know it. I was listening to a podcast by a neuroscientist named Andrew Huberman, Ph.D., who is also […]

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I have a long relationship with waiting rooms. I’ve attended medical appointments for three kids, two dogs, one cat, and one husband. For nearly a decade, I also waited in rooms with my dad, which was tricky because he had dementia and couldn’t remember why we were there. Less than a year after Dad died, my mother (who has always been an overachiever) got diagnosed with not one but two separate, unrelated cancers — a shock that sent us down a winding road filled with waiting rooms in two different cancer clinics in two cities that are three hours apart. Spoiler alert: Everyone is doing well now and enjoying good health again. The waiting rooms were well worth the outcome, […]

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A windsock shaped like a hot air balloon with a spiral tail is suspended above our backyard deck. When the wind blows, the balloon spins, and the spiral twirls below it, catching my eye when I walk past the window. Maybe I notice that spiraling tail because the windsock isn’t the only thing around here that spins. I do it, too, except my version isn’t nearly as pretty. Unlike the windsock, my spiral is powered by thoughts — random ones, weird ones, and scary ones. Here’s an example of how it happens. The other day, I was folding a warm load of towels I’d just scooped out of the dryer. Just a normal chore on a normal day full of […]

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