I’m in New Orleans on the floor of my hotel room while Z sleeps. He sleeps in the middle of the day so we can go out at night. The first night we saw jazz bands at 2am. Accidentally. They were so loud underneath our window that we went outside to find a band on every corner playing for tips. Read more
Nino, my still-an-ex husband, got out of his really-just-a-mattress-on-the-floor bed for the first time two days ago, so that he could go get a test for Covid.
I thought my son would have the scoop on how to get a Covid test because he volunteers at a very busy needle exchange five blocks from our apartment. Read more
I am in between one son practicing his cello and one son writing his college essays. After ten years of homeschooling while being the breadwinner, my parent intuition tells me one kid is only going through the motions. Read more
To figure out whether or not you really want to meet a goal you’re not meeting, clear fifteen minutes a day in your calendar. Tell yourself one very small thing you can do in that fifteen minutes to move toward meeting that goal. And see if you do it.
Why this tactics works: Read more
This is my son on registration day at Juilliard. We are so excited.
But not surprised.
That’s what happens when you work this hard. You are not surprised. Read more
The first round of auditions for Juilliard’s pre-college program is by video. From December to March my son practiced for three hours a day to prepare. At the end of March we recorded him playing Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 33, by Saint-Saëns, and we sent it off to Juilliard. Read more
I tell my husband tidbits about the kids because part of my strategy to get him to relocate to Swarthmore is to keep him feeling close to us. I tell him my younger son is winning more on his video game than ever before because the Internet we get from living above Dunkin Donuts is so much faster than on the farm. Read more
I take anti-anxiety drugs. I say that so I can deny that they also function as anti-depressants. Because I think I’m too old to still be depressed from a traumatic childhood. But it seems logical that any parent who is also the breadwinner would need anti-anxiety medicine just to get out of bed every day knowing the income has to flow until the kids are out of the house. Read more
The people with the most grit are really poor or really neglected and they overcome those circumstances. But why aspire to that? We glorify it like life is one big Horatio Alger story. Read more
Make a list of five things you want to do that you’re not doing. Now cross out all but one. Everyone can make change in our lives, but not that much change. And you’re not making the change you really want because you haven’t realized that you can’t do everything on your list. Read more