As an abuse survivor, I’m always alarmed when people view a man’s violence as justified. Let’s be clear—all violent men believe they are justified. When a man chooses violence in the service of personal grievance, it stems from a gross sense of entitlement to other’s lives, not a quest for justice.

The unavoidable suffering of illness and loss can show us who we truly are.

Apparently, I’m someone who calls my gynecological surgeon an ovary wrangler.

Two years ago my husband and I moved into a small town of 16,000. On a Sunday, you can visit 9 bars, 24 churches, and pretty much nothing else. In other words, I live in a Richard Russo novel, and I don’t know how I feel about it.

When all is lost, there’s always one more round of Solitaire.

For anyone who needs to hear this:
You weren’t abused because you made bad choices or had poor communication skills or somehow fell short. The problem was never you. It’s the abuser, and a society eager to disguise abuse.

Just finished a dance workout at home, and yep, I still dance like a muppet. Chronic illness may have taken me out of the dance studio 10 years ago, but you can’t take the dance out of the muppet.

The thing about these “45 Things Your Cat Will Love” lists is that your cat would just prefer a box and some catnip, please and thank you.

Just a reminder that societies always go sideways after pandemics. You think I’m talking about the Roaring Twenties, but check out Catalonia in the 1300s and 1400s after the Black Death. Yikes.

Turns out that being shot down by every boy I ever asked out in high school was excellent preparation for a lifetime of literary magazine submissions. It requires the same level of blithe optimism.

I see the chain letter has joined us here, too. It may not smell inexplicably of vanilla like the chain letters of my childhood, but it’s just as annoying. So if you start to worry about making it, think of that. If the awful chain letter has survived the last 40 years, I think we can make it.