For a moment I am back at that place of long ago. It is his first day of preschool. He is wearing blue Mickey Mouse sneakers and a cowlick that has swirled his hair into a hint of early rebellion. When I leave him at the door, his chin quivers. Eyes search for welcome, for familiar space. When he cries with those heart-wracking, body-heaving sobs of anger and hurt, his face turns a furious red.
IN MY OPINION
My sister has sent me an e-mail on vacations. Along with her cheery encouragement comes an attachment, a story about the necessity of getting away to unplug, unwind and undo the stresses that torment our daily lives.
IN MY OPINION
Most people are as happy as they make up their minds to be. In these rollercoaster times, social get-togethers have turned into therapy sessions that are equal parts career counseling and spiritual revival. Seems everybody I know is worried about his or her economic future, and that anxiety goes far beyond the expensive stops at the gas pump.
IN MY OPINION
For years I've joked that the best contraceptive was a bawling baby at 3 a.m. I was a young mother then, still inexperienced in the ways of colic and projectile vomiting. I thought I would never get a good night's sleep again.
IN MY OPINION
I don't get it. No matter how deeply I analyze, no matter how much I try to wrap my brain around it, I'm flummoxed by the recent spate of women chasing after underage boys. What does a grown woman see in a teenager? An adolescent who still needs his parents' permission to go on a school field trip?
IN MY OPINION
Barb, a friend of a friend, attended her daughter's high school graduation in Melbourne last week, a festive affair that brought together several generations. In front of Barb and her husband sat a woman who was obviously more excited than most with the celebration.
IN MY OPINION
I have great admiration for teachers. They are not paid enough nor are they respected in the manner they should be. I write this not because I'm married to one but because I live with three teenagers who spend most of their day torturing educators who have the unenviable task of harnessing their talents and inspiring their curiosity while negotiating mounds of paperwork.
IN MY OPINION
For years I was the butt of this joke, a perennial favorite among my children: Do you know what birds say when they fly over our house?
This morning I huffed and I puffed and I sweated the house down. Yet, when I stepped off the elliptical machine, the display flashed a depressing message.
No doubt about it, we have a love-hate relationship with age. On one hand, we pay lip service to the white-haired wisdom that comes with the passage of time and the experience of years. On the other, youth -- at least the illusion of such -- governs the choices we make in everything from makeup to magazines and now, possibly, president. If Sen. John McCain wins in November, he would be, at 72, the oldest person ever inaugurated as a first-term president, beating out another Republican, Ronald Reagan...
A good friend of mine, a successful career woman who became the first one in her family to go to college, likes to tell this story about her eldest. Seated in an office decorated with posters and banners of college campuses, the high school guidance counselor turned to her son and asked him if he had thought of what he wanted to be.
IN MY OPINION
Three network evening news shows covered the incident, Disney issued a statement, a young star wrote an apology, bloggers opined with both outrage and forgiveness, and a magazine's website crashed when the curious clicked on a few times too many.
IN MY OPINION
I resisted doggedly for a month, fought the urge, battled the temptation. I vowed to ignore my silly prurient interests. No, I would not write about the Eliot Spitzer sex scandal. Humiliation and stupidity speak for themselves -- and we've all been there.
