Suprise Me

Frustration has been my strongest trigger, especially from interaction with systems I dislike. Read More

My oldest sister went off to Radcliffe College in September 1962, just as I started seventh grade. I was fascinated with Radcliffe – the apple trees with circular benches around them in Radcliffe Yard, the nine old homey-looking brick dorms around the lush green Quad – and with the bustling Harvard Square area. It seemed… Read More

Doggedly, I record signs of the coming light. Read More

Dirty Dishes I have to admit I’m a bit of a neat freak,  and I’ve  always prided myself on being well organized.   Marie Kondo is my hero,  and in fact home organizing actually became my second career.  (See Second Career) And what I preached to my organizing clients,  I practiced.    I would never,… Read More

Comfort Food for Renee I met Renee about 25 years ago when we were both working as librarians in the Bronx – she at New York Public Library,  and I at Jane Addams High School. Renee had been trained as a book discussion leader,  and as part of NYPL’s outreach to schools program she came… Read More

Having never had a pot experience that was either pleasant or memorable, I just stuck to tried, true and non-felonious ethanol. Read More

We often dream of houses, and of stairways…they’re classic symbols. We enter, exit, ascend and descend the various layers of our psychology, psyche, soul. Read More

We were aware that it was bound to happen someday, but it sneaked up on us unexpectedly. Read More

Most people associate the word “tutor” with someone hired to give individual remedial instruction in a course that one is having trouble with. However at Harvard, following the model of Oxford and Cambridge, students have tutorials in their field of concentration in their second, third, and fourth years. Sophomore tutorial is in a small group,… Read More

The sky was dark when I came out of Pilates at 11:30am on Tuesday, July 22. Two of the young women who work at the club were standing outside, looking at the sky with dread. “What’s up?” “There’s a tornado warning for Vineyard Haven”. “Oh dear, I had planned to go there to grocery shop.… Read More