Lori Duff Writes
Every once in a while,[1] I find myself getting down on the fate of humanity. If you need any proof of the state of man’s unkindness to fellow man, just spend five minutes on social media or watch your news channel of choice for more than thirty seconds. It doesn’t help that I finance my…
We live, so it seems, in bubbles and behind glass screens. They may be computer screens, or phone screens, or the windshields of our cars, but no matter what there seems to be something between us and the rest of the world. We only talk to people who agree with us politically and religiously. So…
There comes a time in a middle-aged woman’s life when she must bear her breasts to a stranger for smooshing and radiating in the name of health. I mean, she doesn’t have to have to, but most of us do because it is Standard Operating Procedure for detecting breast cancer. According to the CDC[1], breast…
“Frozen Dinners” is a memoir by Elaine Ambrose detailing her experience growing up in Idaho. Her father, a hard working but difficult man struggled to provide for his family but was determined to do so. A long-haul trucker, he realized that driving home an empty truck was foolish. Bringing back new-fangled frozen dinners was his…
I was sitting on the sofa petting my dog. It had been a bad day, and I was thinking how much better I felt stroking his fur and feeling his warm puppy breath on my leg. It had been a bad day. As a lawyer, I often witness man’s inhumanity to man. When I was…
There comes a time in any decades-long marriage, no matter how solid, loving, and in-for-the-long haul when you want to stab your beloved in the eye with a fork. This is why all the women I know have at least one girlfriend in whom she can confide when she’s having one of those murderous days.…
With the new year comes a whole slew of social media posts, blogs, and articles titled a variation on “New Year, New You.” These are, I suppose, intended to be helpful and hopeful, and every time I see one I want to put my fist through the computer screen. I hate them with an unbridled…
Considering the fact that I listen and talk for a living, I sure do get tired of listening and talking. By the end of the week, I reach my capacity. My hard drive gets full. I need to process the information in my database and file it into long term storage before I can take…
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking People have been telling me to read “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking” by Susan Cain for a while now. It isn’t that a didn’t want to, I just hadn’t gotten around to it because my to-read…
As you will recall from last week’s column, I left my husband alone for ten minutes at a street fair in South Carolina, 200 miles away from our home, and instead of buying a jar of local honey or an antique saw blade painted with local scenes like a normal person at a craft fair,…