Love

Family Love: A Best-Case Scenario

Here’s what could have happened: angry feelings of betrayal, the pain of secrets kept in plain sight but not talked about, judgement and defensiveness and anger and stress. That’s not what happened. Here’s how it came out, instead: A Meddlesome Love One of my daughters is moving in a couple of days. Natasha and I …

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Life

Misremembering Life

There's a lot of hullabaloo recently about a reporter who misremembered some events during the Iraq conflict. Personally I tend to agree with the folks who rather bitterly point out that if the news media had been as careful with fact checking the actual buildup to the war as they are Brian Williams' story, many …

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Life

5 Things Not To Do When Life Sucks (& 1 Thing To)

Happy Holidaze! …or not. For many people, your erstwhile author included, the combination of winter cold and the societal expectations of the holiday season can be pretty depressing, or stressful, or both. “BE MERRY!” come the messages of the media and the world, combining with the usual endless litany of manufactured crises to support the …

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Love

the urgent and important can go together

The Urgent vs. The Important There’s a well-known saying – attributed in various forms to various people including Franklin Covey, Dwight Eisenhower, Charles E. Hummel, and a bevy of others – goes something like this: “Never let the urgent get in the way of the important.” It is a good thing to keep in mind. Certainly …

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Life

living the life you want to remember

Instant Dilemma; Just Add Text Every once in a while you get faced with an issue that seems completely unsolvable, until something changes to make it eminently solvable. Here’s how the timeline went: 4:50 am: Wake up to take partner to her work at the coffee shop; I plan to write and do other work …

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Love

love makes you happier

SitRep: Project Friends & Family It was about six months ago that I made the decision to stop focusing on my career and my romantic pursuits. I was in a place where I’d followed a lot of the wisest advice I could find in both categories, and nothing seemed to be giving me much joy. …

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Love

Love During Tragedy

Hard Boston Love It’s hard to write about love today. I’ve avoided talking much about the Boston events, not through lack of caring but rather because I don’t feel adequate to address it. Other writers I admire such as Mark Morford have done a much better job of helping navigate our feelings during the tragedy: In …

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