Category: Blog
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My surgery has been scheduled
There are so many mundane details I could share with you but here’s the important one: the surgery to remove my adrenal mass is set to happen on September 21 so long as all goes well with my remaining pre-op tests and a physical.
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Bad news. What now?
First read this. When the morning after my diagnosis rolled round, I called the office of the surgeon listed on my ER discharge papers. While the doctor was about to be out of the office for three weeks (how nice for him), he would be able to squeeze me in that afternoon. I got lucky–at…
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2016 is not my year either (apparently)
This is kind of a long story, one that doesn’t yet have an ending so I am opting to break it into parts. Here is Part 1. Things were looking up, mostly. I went on a fabulous vacation to St. Martin with friends. Though hard, I survived a year of sad anniversaries. I moved to…
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How much do you want to see Hamilton on Broadway?
Whether you have never seen the hit Broadway show Hamilton or you’re dying to see if again, you have come to the right place. I have a pair of tickets – orchestra seats – for January 4, 2017 up for auction on ebay through August 24. You can learn more and bid here. You’re probably…
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All these terrible anniversaries
I knew to dread Christmas. Because obviously, Mom and my first Christmas without Dad would be hard. My body created a buffer of sorts: I was sick in bed with bronchitis for three days beginning Christmas Eve, leaving Mom to fend for herself. I was so ill I couldn’t even feel guilty until later. I…
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The monster in me
My mother is crying. I am sitting with my arms around her in a gesture meant to comfort, but it’s a perfunctory effort. My arms may as well be made of wood, and my heart, of stone. It’s February and we are in Florida, attempting to celebrate my mother’s first birthday without Dad. Mom is…
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Grief in all its miserable forms
When I make the trip home to Pennsylvania, I am inevitably drawn to my late father’s closet. I stick my entire face into his clothes hanging there and breathe, hoping to catch a trace of him and to feel close. I run my fingers over his button down shirts – one crisp white with a…
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Last Christmas
As Adrienne, Christina and I walked through the crowded Union Square holiday market, I cracked a terrible joke. We’d just had brunch at Javelina. Maybe it was the margarita. Remembering the money I spent last Christmas on gifts for Dad at that same market, I asked “think I can get my money back?” before mumbling “gallows…
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The trouble of an idle mind
My plane landed early at JFK Tuesday night, but a hiccup with the equipment meant that we didn’t disembark until well after 11 pm. While we waited for a tow, my mind wandered. My phone was dead. Without email, texts, Twitter and Words with Friends, my thoughts were all I had. And they quickly turned sad…
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New book alert: Extreme Ownership is out today
Happy Publication Day to Leif Babin and Jocko Willink! Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win is now available from St. Martin’s Press everywhere books are sold. In Extreme Ownership, authors Babin and Willink synthesize their experiences as highly decorated Navy SEALs into principles we can all use to succeed in business and…
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