parenthood | parenthood
May.28.2011
I never know how or when it is going to happen. Some super heroes have powers that they can turn on and off by donning a spandex suit or hiding behind a colorful cape. Others have a magic wrist watch or armband that transforms them. For me, my invisibility happens without sign or omen. Over the...
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Feb.02.2011
"Parenthood" is about the Braverman family. We know this because they tell us over and over again. They've already said the word Braverman four times by the episode's 25-minute mark. Craig T. Nelson, as grizzled patriarch Zeek Braverman, says his surname three times. Does my dad...
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Jan.27.2011
If anyone had told me when my daughter was born that one day I'd take her to a shaman for healing, I would have laughed.
Me? Ha! Never. But soon after she turned 3, I found myself carrying her into a Mayan healer's cabin in Belize. I tell the story in "The Possibility of Everything," a...
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Jan.11.2011
A copy of my book, Beer, Blood & Cornmeal: Seven Years of Incredibly Strange Wrestling, is going to be a piece of set décor on a primetime network sitcom. You know, like that statue of Superman that Jerry Seinfeld keeps in his apartment, or the still in Hawkeye's tent in M*A*S*H* or the framed...
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Nov.21.2010
The stranger purses her lips and then shakes her head sadly. “Well, I guess I didn’t make an impression on you.”
When she says this, we are standing in the busy playground across from Diva’s school. I’m happily passing a sunny late fall afternoon chatting with other parents I don’t yet know. Except...
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Nov.05.2010
“So when, exactly, does the ‘threat and reward’ period end?”
When I asked this innocent question two summers ago, I was sitting in the home of The Hubby’s cousins, The O’s. The O’s have four school-aged children, and they always make the whole damn process of parenthood look so manageable that it...
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Jul.28.2010
An Early Start on Entrepreneurship
This was an early memory, and my earliest memory as an entrepreneur. At age 10 I set up a store called “Pam’s Place” in my room. I had this Dutch half door in my room. I put up a colorful sign for my new business, unlocked the top portion of the door, and...
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Jul.11.2010
Everyone has a To Kill a Mockingbird story, and Friday night, late, someone asked me if I had one, too.
Of course, I did.
It wasn't the story that people who know me might expect, although I do have a couple of good ones. Among them is this, an exceprt from the short essay you can read if you want...
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Jun.02.2010
Patterns, I function well when I have structure and patterns. With systems in place, I feel more secure. Today, I reached out to a friend to help me restore some fiscal order in my life because simply put, how things went down this month were sloppy. I hate sloppy. When things are sloppy, the...
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Apr.09.2010
-as published in Living Family Style http://www.livingouteast.com
He was a small man, bald early in life. I remember him wearing suits and ties and striped silk boxer shorts and tank-top undershirts and garters at his calves to hold up his socks. The pockets of his maroon silk bathrobe...
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