Politics & Society

Refugee At Home

On Monday I had a small patch of skin cancer removed from the bridge of my nose. It sounds like a big deal, but it wasn’t. The procedure itself felt no worse than having an earlobe pierced: There was only a quick, surprising burn as the doctor applied a local anesthetic, but the actual procedure seemed to last no longer than a network station break. It was only the sound of cutting that got to me, the dull snip of flesh—the sound you might hear if your dinner companion chose to cut their meaty filet with a pair of cuticle scissors. That aside, it felt relaxing to be lying down in the middle of the day, under a warm blanket, a pillow tucked beneath my knees. I dozed off. When I awoke, I had a bandage on my face the size of a hamburger bun. I touched at it curiously, […]

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Wii Are Family

In college, I had a friend named Jane. She was the oldest daughter in a family of tennis players, and they all looked like her: tall and willowy, but strong as thoroughbreds, with defined muscles in their long arms and legs; permanently sunburned noses; and an effortless way of moving that was almost heartbreaking to watch. Even when Jane was just swinging her backpack over her shoulder as she sauntered out of class, she had a way of making it look like art. At her Long Island home, her family walked around in track suits and tennis shoes, without the irony that, for example, a track suit would have conveyed on my plump mother. Someone was always going out to play on the courts or coming in from just having played, toting bags and several racquets and fresh cans of balls that smelled excitingly of gassy rubber. They had kitchen

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Innocents At Home

It snowed the other morning north of Boston. It was the first, early snowfall of the season, if you take a very literal view of the term “snowfall,” because the flurries that fell didn’t amount to any real accumulation. They stuck tentatively to the ground, in clusters, like they were as surprised to be landing on the lawn as we were to see them. My 11-year-old woke and from her bedroom upstairs, and I heard a noise that sounded like she stepped on a puppy’s tail. She was squealing not about sledding or school closings, as you might expect. Instead, she hollered as she charged down the stairs, “Yippee! We’ve stopped global warming!” Her comment came without a hint of irony. How heartbreakingly innocent is that? She bounded into the kitchen and gave me a quick, happy hug. She might now be almost as tall as I am, but as

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I Can Haz Hoomin Hart-aik

Maybe it’s because the holidays put me in a melancholy mood. Maybe because I’m again staring down the barrel of six bleak months of winter. Whatever the cause, I can’t help but read lolcats these days without glimpsing the heartache of the human condition. In a piece a few weeks ago in Salon, Jay Dixit articulated it perfectly, when he wrote, “This is all funny stuff. But I submit that the true genius of lolcats lies in their tragedy.” Lolcats, if you don’t know, is a web site and internet phenomenon that combines a photo of a cat with a funny, idiosyncratic caption in broken English—a sort of dialect known as “lolspeak,” “kitteh,” or “kitty pidgin,” which parodies the poor grammar and spelling of Internet slang. The name “lolcat” is a compound of the phrase “LOL” and “cat.” It’s simple, it’s goofy, and it’s stuffed full of references and self-references.

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Relax and Open Wide: Dentist vs. Doctor

Sometimes when I’m bored and have neglected to tote some reading material—like when I’m standing in line at the supermarket, or waiting for a movie to begin—I indulge in a debate I have with myself: Which do I dislike more: a visit to the dentist, or a visit to the gynecologist? Both require me to grant access to the dark and private parts of my body that I’d rather keep classified—at least, to all but a privileged few. You might think that men can’t grok that dilemma, but my friend David suggests that the equivalent procedure for men would be a prostate exam. I’ve never had one, but—although I don’t like to—I can imagine. I admit that I don’t like the physical exposure, the act of opening wide for strangers. Intellectually, I know there’s nothing truly intimate going on. But, still, it feels weird. What’s more: I dread the way

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A Toast to Cancer

A small, red wound—no bigger than a poppy seed—appeared mysteriously on the bridge of my nose a few months ago. At first it sat there quietly and behaved itself, and I assumed the strange bump would heal steadily and vanish as furtively as it had arrived. Only it didn’t, and pretty soon it started to grow bigger and act out. One day it would bleed; the next it would scab over in a sort of mini, leathery patch; and then, right when it seemed the ugly scab had almost disappeared—when it seemed we’d soon part ways—it would open up and bleed irritably again. Day to day, I couldn’t predict its mood; it was like living with a touchy teenager. Eventually, I realized that I would need to make the necessary arrangements to evict the tiny squatter. And so I went to see a dermatologist, who peered at my nose suspiciously

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Sarah and Me: Junior High with Sarah Palin

On the surface, I should like her. Sarah Palin is 44, precisely my age. We were born three months apart. And like me, she’s a mom and works full-time. We should hang out, clink our highball glasses, and salute the kind of kismet that competent women often need to create real achievement. Except, in her case, the kismet catapulted her to the national stage and into history. In my case, it occasionally lands me a first-class upgrade. Sarah and I could talk about stuff that professional Moms our age talk about: The rush of being in charge; the need to wear seriously rimmed glasses, even if your eyes don’t require it; and techniques for gagging and hogtying that persistent little voice in the back of our heads that suggests our ambition comes at the obvious expense of our kids. But for some reason, I can’t warm up to her. And

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Morning Person

Like millions of people around the world who are following the Beijing Olympics, I’ve been watching a lot of TV this summer. Parked on my couch watching the events, it’s alternatively a new experience as well as a shot of nostalgia. Here, in 2008, I’m watching the summer games with my own kids. But I can’t help but recall a few decades ago, when I was the kid in the room, watching the events with my own parents, and Jim McKay in place of Bob Costas. My network’s broadcast schedule means that I’m getting to bed late most nights. At least, late for people who have trains to catch and clocks to punch. Because I work at home, I have a little more slack on this issue, and so, for the past week or two, the Olympics have helped me reconnect with the deliciousness that is sleeping in. But today

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Froggy Fugue

A toad lived under our patio for a few summers when I was a kid. I didn’t feed him or take care of his needs in any way, but I nevertheless thought of him as my pet. I named him Thumper. On random nights I’d be parked on the patio, reading or drawing, and Thumper would emerge from his shallow burrow and tentatively hop around the yard. This was before I had my first dog, and so I came to consider Thumper as another kid my age might consider her cocker spaniel: He was part of my family, and as a result I felt a little bit responsible for him. I also felt a certain kinship: In my early teens, I, too, thought of myself as taking a few tentative hops outside my own cozy burrow. The summer I was 14, my father was hospitalized with a lung cancer that

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