Until about an hour ago, I thought the meanest thing my husband and I had ever done to our son Alec was not buying him a dog.

But according to an article in Social Science Quarterly – What? You don’t read that? – we have also given him a terrible burden to bear.

A friend sent me a link to a segment from the Today Show (always on the lookout for new ways to depress us in the morning), which cites the article, saying that giving your newborn boy an “oddball, girly or strange first name may just land them in jail.”  Read more...

A good friend who cares about my blog and my reputation as a writer with some shred of merit, sensed  that I needed inspiration and sent me an idea tonight.

He was watching a show on the 40th anniversary of the lunar landing and was suddenly struck that he was the same age, 13, when he watched Walter Cronkite’s live broadcast of the event, as his daughter is now.  Read more...

One of the best things about writing a daily blog is you can pour out your heart, express your frustrations, confess your weaknesses and occasionally, when you’re in the mood, embarrass your family.
 

You can talk about your son’s piano lessons, your daughter’s new bed and your sister’s old boyfriend, and not get fired.
 

“Just, whatever you do, can you leave me out of it?” my daughter Amanda begged tonight as I ran a made-up quote by her. “I think you need to keep your personal and professional lives separate.”
   Read more...

One of the best things about writing a daily blog is you can pour out your heart, express your frustrations, confess your weaknesses and occasionally, when you’re in the mood, embarrass your family.
 

You can talk about your son’s piano lessons, your daughter’s new bed and your sister’s old boyfriend, and not get fired.
 

“Just, whatever you do, can you leave me out of it?” my daughter Amanda begged tonight as I ran a made-up quote by her. “I think you need to keep your personal and professional lives separate.”
   Read more...

Heard from Marty Biviano. This made my sister nearly choke when I called. I’d like to say, being the communications professional that I am, that I was not surprised. But I choked a little too.

I mentioned Marty Biviano in a blog I wrote several entries ago on coed dorm rooms now being allowed at the University of Chicago.

I was trying to illustrate how much dorm life has changed from when my sister attended Lincoln College in the late 1960s and men had to sign in with the dorm mother. Men like Marty Biviano, my sister’s boyfriend her freshman year in college.  Read more...