I wish I could think and write more intelligently about adult pornography. The very word looms large on the page or when spoken and is rarely mentioned in mixed company, even among good friends. Some well-known women academics regard it as an unmitigated evil, but the very existence of an industry that draws in many … Continue reading Threatened by Fantasy

         Sometime after my husband's death, I emptied his desk and found a small spiral notebook jammed into the very back of the top drawer, apparently long forgotten. Written on the first page was a date in April, five years earlier, followed by the name of the neurologist who had diagnosed Len as having Parkinson's … Continue reading The Little Notebook

You are trying to decide whether to disclose an important truth, but reconsider when a friend urges caution and suggests that you not take the unnecessary risk. So you reconsider. You decide to postpone the decision, even as you yearn for the release that authenticity would bring. You are stalled by ambivalence. We grow up … Continue reading Truth Telling

When I closed my office door and began to dream of writing a book, friends asked, “Why”? Striving to be truthful, I answered, “To avoid becoming invisible.” They objected, especially those who are younger, not wanting me to feel diminished by growing old. They tried to talk me out of having this concern. But they … Continue reading Invisibility

Dear Reader, If you have already received and read an email from Nolan Kerr Press, my publisher, publicist (and good friend, Nancy Nolan) about my upcoming book The Third Person in the Room: Stories of Relationships at a Turning Point, please move on to some other worthy emails in your feed. I have succumbed to … Continue reading The Third Person in the Room

Last month as Father’s Day approached, a story I heard on the radio came back to mind. The question had been posed: “What does it mean to be manly today?” A listener in California called the station to address it. The caller was a Mexican American who had come to this country at the age … Continue reading To Be A Man

Picture this David Sipress cartoon: two couples meet on a street corner. One of the men has placed his hands over his eyes. His female companion says: "It’s too late, Roger . . . they’ve seen us." This image has me chuckling each time I think about it. It brings to mind how I felt … Continue reading The Introvert’s Dilemma