This post was sparked by this Salon review:  http://www.salon.com/2012/10/19/is_motherhood_really_a_lie/

I don't know why humanity's need to constantly reinvent the wheel surprises me, but it always does.  Cue eye roll: Jessica Valenti, a woman I admire as the founder of Femini… Read full post »

More years ago than I like to admit, a couple of reporters from my local newspaper were passing through tiny Stannards (pop. 798) in rural western New York when they drove by the house where Gabby Hayes was born. As members of a once-targeted demographic, they actually knew who Gabby Hayes… Read full post »

 Some days OS is writing about fashions in female pudenda, other days we're grapping with weightier matters.  Today it seems that a critical mass is forming around the subject of dementia.  Ande Bliss writes that, as the large Baby Boom generation is aging, we need to face the fact tha… Read full post »

Enough already!  I am so tired of reading about food.  Mine, I realize, will not be a popular attitude in an era when everyone and the pizza delivery boy are writing about what they made for dinner last night.

 It… Read full post »

Here's my two cents on today's spate of writing about the lady parts:  could we at least call things by their correct names?  It's really pretty simple:

the vagina is what's inside.

the vulva is what's outside.

My work here is done.  Go and sin no more.  And rhinestones?!?… Read full post »

Late this afternoon, after the rain had ended, we drove down into Shindagin Hollow looking for birds.  Shindagin Hollow is a small, uimproved state forest, quietly but spectacularly beautiful.  The pavement gives way to dirt, and the narrow road winds along the side of a high, steep hill.&n… Read full post »

Full frontal exposure to a rerun of the 1979 Lawrence Welk Easter Show is more than I can take, so I’ve retreated to my sister’s bedroom and closed the door.  The sound is only slightly diminished, but still perfectly clear, as the door… Read full post »

Forty years later, I maintain erratic contact with my first, serious, junior high school crush, who has become for me a sobering demonstration that you should be careful what you wish for.  Recently he sent me a rambling email which began with grief over his mother's death, detoured briefly into… Read full post »