A good friend of mine invited me to a New Year’s Day Zoom call to talk about our 2021 intentions. There were five women there, and I knew them in varying degrees from very close to not-at-all. Our friend had shared a pie chart, sliced by the areas of our lives we might want to consider. The categories were not unexpected: work, family, spiritual growth, etc. When I got the pie chart, nothing about it leapt out at me as controversial or difficult.

After we each named our intentions, though, one category stood out as the most difficult for each…

It’s the first business day of the year. In our family, this is the day for New Year’s Resolutions. It gives me a few days to mull over what is possible versus what is probable and figure out what my approach to resolutions will be.

Last year, I didn’t make resolutions. It felt pretty great to let myself off the self-improvement hook, especially since the pandemic would have blown them all the pieces anyway. I thought about skipping them this year too but decided to take a different approach than I have in the past. Instead of aiming for relentless…

I’ve been blogging off and on for more than 16 years and the only blog post I’ve consistently written is my New Year’s Resolution Review. In 2020, I didn’t make any resolutions (you can read why HERE) but I still want to review.

First of all, thank God I didn’t make any resolutions. 2020 would have shot them all to pieces anyway. Since March 13, our lives have been both Monopoly Jail and a constant Get Out of Jail Free card. We can’t go anywhere or do anything, so we have permission to do whatever we want and not do…

When It Arrives, Here’s How I’m Voting

It’s been a few years since I sat down and pulled together a comprehensive ballot guide for my friends and acquaintances but there’s a lot at stake this year, and not just at the federal level so I wanted to get my thoughts on paper before the California ballots are mailed on October 5. Let’s get started, shall we?

Federal

• President: Joe Biden/Kamala Harris
• House of Representatives, District 13: Barbara Lee

State

• State Senate: Nancy Skinner
• State Assembly: While Assemblymember Buffy Wicks recently made headlines because Speaker Anthony Rendon made her drive to Sacramento with…

Amy Cooper is the woman who recently called the police in New York City to report that an “African-American man” was threatening her, when in fact, he was birdwatching, concerned that her unleashed dog was aggravating wildlife. Amy Cooper was blatantly caught violating a posted park regulation and her reaction was to try to summon state power to harm an innocent man. An innocent Black man.

People began digging through her past, surprised to find that she considers herself liberal, and has donated to Democrats. And when I say, “people were surprised,” I mean, white people were surprised. …

Our family of four humans (two middle-aged parents, two teenaged boys) and eight pets (dog, cat, frog, gecko, chameleon and three snakes) have been sheltering in place for eleven days now. The early days of anxiety and uncertainty are behind us; we’ve downgraded to mere worry and boredom. Overall, things are going better than I expected. There haven’t been any tears or massive arguments. We are lucky that our house is large enough that we can spend much of our days in our retreats.

Back in the old days (before March 14), my husband and I used to go on…

It was unavoidable that my teenaged sons would start paying attention to the presidential Democratic Party primary campaign. I watched every debate like it was a playoff game and my husband and I talked about it every day. We get the paper New York Times and the East Bay Times. My older son has had a subscription to The Week since he was 12, so he’s predisposed to caring about the news already.

When they finally tuned in, they grew to like Andrew Yang. I was firmly on Team Warren, but I could understand why Yang’s promise of a Universal…

It has long been my practice to share my New Year's resolutions with my friends and readers. I make several every year in the categories you would expect: eating, fitness, romance, reading, writing. One year, I made 33 resolutions, including such gems as “start a denim undies company.” Thank God I didn’t fulfill that one.

But as I wrote a few weeks ago, I’ve been reconsidering the whole process of making New Year resolutions. So many have them been unattainable, or entitled lots of work and data collection. I give up on a lot of them quickly because I liked…