A wry rhyme for Thanksgiving time — We’ve opened up our house this year To friends and family, far and near, With good intentions, joy and love. Dear God, what were we thinking of? The table’s set, the candles glow; The guests all text that traffic’s slow. I tent the bird so it won’t burn, And wonder if I’ll ever…

They sit in a box on my closet shelf, haunting me — My mother died at the age of 96. I think of her as having lived until 92 and then taking a long, leisurely approach to death. That autumn, when she was 92, she had a stroke. It was a brain bleed so massive that nobody expected her to survive, least…

A little bit, anyway. Consignment shopping rocks — Nothing lifts my mood more than having something fun to wear Call me shallow. But sometimes life gets to me and I require distraction. Hence, shopping. When the world is too much with me (war in the Middle East! And Ukraine! Climate change! Voter suppression!) shopping has the power to do for me what yoga, meditation, and walking the dog cannot. …

A double-edged gift from the aging process — This was a stupid day It wasn’t terrible — I’ve lived long enough to experience truly dreadful days, and this day was not that. Today doesn’t even rank as a bad day. It was just a stupid one. I took half a sleeping pill last night and then it turned out my dog had diarrhea…

She’ll be better at it than I am — When I had a regular, full-time job, I used up a lot of energy trying to maximize every minute of my day to fulfill all my obligations and still have time for my creative pursuits. I was very busy and very tired. Nowadays, I don’t punch anyone else’s clock. That’s…

I promised not to write about politics, but this could work — A colleague once told me, “I’m not interested in politics.” I was taken aback. The man was well-educated, a history teacher who drilled his seventh-graders on the Constitution until they could recite its articles in order. I replied, “Well, it’s like what Leon Trotsky said about war. You may not…

Being their advocate in the courts can make all the difference — A story appeared in this week’s New York Times that broke my heart As tragic as the story is, it points to an opportunity to prevent more like it from happening. …

A short cautionary tale Amos fought the urge to look up as he passed under the branches of the suicide tree. He’d never liked walking under that tree, not for as long as he could remember. And now the kid would be up there, like every afternoon this week, nestling in the twisting branches as if that were the safest place in the world. Amos wasn’t sure…

The ageist zillionaire whose penis will help him live forever — It sounds like the pitch for a near-future sci-fi movie: a guy who’s made zillions in hi-tech startups at a young age devotes his time and fortune not only to trying to fend off aging but to defeat death itself. …