All of you writers and would-be writers who have never been sexually abused by your parents, suffered from domestic assault, been abandoned on a highway somewhere by grandparents when raising you got to be too much; any of you who have never suffered from anorexia or bulimia, are not cancer survivors, who have never had a child addicted to drugs or lost a child before his time; those of you… Read More »Only the Deadly Dull Need Apply
It’s not often that television shows speak to my life. Mostly they provide entertainment, escape, and, if I choose wisely, elegant writing and some humor and pathos. Thirtysomething is the last show I recall that hit me where I live: I was the same age as the characters, having children and struggling with issues of motherhood versus work. But now I find myself strangely drawn to Mad Men, a fantasy… Read More »I Was That Little Girl Under the Table
The email from my father’s wife said that he had fallen and broken several ribs. After a horrific night in the emergency room he was, for reasons unfathomable, sent home. But the next day the pain was so much and his condition so worsened that he was checked into the hospital. Further, the email said, his doctor offered the probability that he might never get out. But knowing that my… Read More »Watching Daddy Die
According to today’s Daily Beast the legendary and, yes, old, Bob Dylan was questioned by a twenty-something police officer in New Jersey when someone reported “a scruffy old man acting suspiciously.” The twenty-something cop had no idea who Dylan was and made him prove his identification back at his hotel, then called the precinct because the cop still had no idea who Dylan was. This on the “anniversary” of Woodstock,… Read More »Bob Dylan is a Scruffy Old Man
Salon..com http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2009/05/19/kramer_dirt/index.html recently ran an article and an interview with the editor of a new book of essays I am included in, called DIRT: Writers on the Quirks, Habits, and Passions of Keeping House. In the article the writer says that “The most interesting essays in the collection are the ones that show how dirt sifts into the cracks of our closest relationships, standing in for everything that we do… Read More »DIRT
My dad wasn’t around much. He says he was, says I came home every night for dinner. Which was true. When he wasn’t on the road, he came home every night for dinner. He came home, sat in his chair, read the paper, ate dinner, and then—that was it. At the dinner table he sometimes made jokes and teased us. Sometimes the teasing was good natured, sometimes it was merciless.… Read More »Requiem for the Pontiac
My younger sister sent me a photo message on my phone: a picture of the latest bouquet of flowers delivered to my mothers rooms at the assisted living residence where she lives. A riot of sunflowers, carnations, roses, astroemeria, calla lilies—pinks, oranges, yellows, purples. Gorgeous. The florist got it gloriously right. As soon as I got the message, I called. “Perfect,” I said, as soon as my sister answered the… Read More »In the Garden of the “Luckiest Mother in the World”
I was in Quiznos the other day (the only place I go for what could be called “fast food”) and the owner, who is an acquaintance of mine, introduced me to a new employee and we got onto the subject of dating—don’t ask, you know how women talk in circles—and the woman expressed discouragement because the men she met were only interested in One Thing. I said “So what?” Which… Read More »Men and the One Thing Thing
I had this admittedly crazy idea to fly up north and fly with my mother back down to my small Virginia town so that she could spend a couple of days with me, see my teenaged daughter whom she hasn’t seen since this summer when we went up to celebrate her 80th birthday, see my 21-year-old son whom she hasn’t seen in a few years, and do a small pre-… Read More »My Mother Has Already Forgotten Thanksgiving
Anti-Semitism has been a fact of my life for its entirety, from the first time, at age 5 or 6 I was told I was going to hell because I did not believe in Jesus, to the countless times I was called a “stupid Jew,” a kike, a baby killer, and a host of other names; from the time when, after the tent revivals rolled into town and everyone got… Read More »Funny, You Don’t LOOK Jewish!