Phone home. ET instinctively knew how to relieve stress. Now research confirms that if you reach out and touch someone, preferably Mom, you’ll feel better. According to a recent study, girls... Read more >>

Binkley was a mean cat, the kind who lives forever out of spite. When my husband mentioned in passing, “Binkley’s limping a little,” I did not expect a cat who dragged her leg bone... Read more >>

When I was six years old, the youngest and only girl of four children, my mom started to take me out for lunch every Saturday. More than forty-two years and 2,000 lunches later, our tradition still... Read more >>

Until I turned seventeen and became aware that it wasn’t actually water I needed rescuing from, I, like every other Southern California born and raised Gidget, had a fatal crush on lifeguards.... Read more >>

In the spring of my eighteenth year, my mother’s most ardent desire “before I die,” as she put it (she wasn’t ill, just persuasive) was that I debut … to the Cardinal of... Read more >>

I still buy her strawberries even though she no longer remembers how much she likes them.  I spend time at the market looking for ones that are crimson red, nonbruised, and just the right-size... Read more >>

It seems every time I post something on Facebook, it is apparently stupid, inappropriate, embarrassing, or some other awful thing. My seventeen-year-old daughter seems to be my censor. The kids have... Read more >>

Dear Daughter, I think body image is the most difficult subject to explain to young a woman. I know this to be true because I’ve started this letter to you a dozen to the power of ten. Whether... Read more >>

I was a pretty sickly kid, diagnosed with rheumatic fever at six, and the mumps encephalitis at seven. In essence, I spent two years in bed. The rheumatic fever wasn’t that bad. I was tired, had... Read more >>

Isn’t life funny? Not “ha ha” funny. Bizarre funny. I have always resisted writing about my relationship with my mother. I have also always known that at some point I... Read more >>