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The fourth book in my series, Lather, Rage, Repeat is the biggest yet, and includes dozens of my very best columns from the past six years, including fan favorites “Bass Players”, “Sex Robots”, “Lawnmower Parents”, “Cuddle Parties” and many more. It makes a killer holiday gift for anyone who loves to laugh and has been feeling cranky since about November, 2016.

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Enough with the Lies

Credit: Camilo Jimenez/Unsplash

We’ve Been Through So Much. Can We at Least Be Done with Bullshit?

It was January 6, and I stood watching my television screen with both hands over my mouth. My gut was roiling. My body shivered with random surges of fight-or-flight adrenaline as a flag-waving mob tried to lay siege to our center of government. 

How can this be happening? I kept saying. Is this … real?? The answer, of course, was yes. And more importantly: no. 

But by day’s end, I had come to a realization even more frightening than the makeshift gallows erected on the Capitol lawn: This could just as well have been us.

My political party won this time, as confirmed by every relevant authority at every level of government. But if it had gone differently? If we’d genuinely believed that something nefarious had undermined our votes and stolen the election from us? You’d better believe I’d be storming our Capitol with flak vest, bullhorn, and battle cry. I don’t do face paint and horns, but the point is this: I disagree ideologically with the people who rioted that day — but I understand their reaction as citizens. 

They were not idiots. They were not maniacs. They were impassioned citizens who were lied to and lied to effectively. Consistently. Masterfully.

And they won’t be the last.


Continue reading Enough with the Lies

Fictional Friends: COVID’s Perfect Companions

Credit: JESHOOTS via Unsplash

Has Quarantine Left Me Overly Involved in the Lives of Your Streaming Pals?

Once upon a time, I had friends. Actual flesh-and-blood buddies with whom I made plans. Went out. Shopped and danced. Ate and drank. Took walks. Met for coffee. Attended shows.

We knew the intricacies of each other’s families, kept up on each other’s work, hobbies, and health. Their problems were mine; my struggles theirs. They felt like my Allies for All Eternity.

And then the Pandemic hit.

Continue reading Fictional Friends: COVID’s Perfect Companions

Unity? Nah. Togetherness? Yes, Please.

Big Thoughts from a Small Room While Awaiting My COVID Results

“Just keep looking straight ahead,” the woman said as she fed the cotton-tipped stick up my nostril, through my brain, and into my soul.

It was my first time being tested. I told her so before the prodding began.

Credit: United Nations COVID-19 Response/Unsplash

“It’s not fun,” she had warned me — and she spoke the truth. It was uncomfortable, it brought tears to my eyes, and it went on forever.

But the same could be said of the year leading up to it.

Continue reading Unity? Nah. Togetherness? Yes, Please.

COVID Drinking, Unmasked

Floating Through Pandemic on a River of Booze?

I’ve never been a big drinker. Up until March 2020, I’d sip maybe three small glasses of wine per week.

Since then, I’ve done shots with my 22-year-old son while standing in my kitchen. I’ve poured Bailey’s in my coffee at 2 pm on a workday. And I’ve polished off a Costco bottle of Malibu Rum. 

Never mind the amount. Malibu Rum, you guys. 

These are desperate times. And millions of us are hoping to float through them with a merciful little buzz on. One study found that by May, the average American was already drinking 27 percent more per day than in the previous year, and binge drinking had increased 26 percent. Numbers were highest in households with kids (which will surprise no one in households with kids).

Continue reading COVID Drinking, Unmasked

Screw Hope. Trust Tenacity.

How Hannah-Beth Jackson Beat the Drum for Women’s Rights

Photo of Hannah-Beth Jackson by Paul Wellman

It was 11:56 p.m. on her final day of her final term in office — and things didn’t look good. “I had ’til midnight to get this bill passed, and I’d been working on it for years,” State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson says of her Paid Family Leave Act, aimed at protecting the jobs of folks who take leave to care for family. It had passed the Senate but needed 41 votes to clear the Assembly.  

Fresh from a C-section, Rep. Buffy Wicks (D-Berkeley) showed up with her newborn to cast the 40th vote in favor. “We were running out of time,” Jackson recalls, “and I thought, We’re not gonna get there.”

And then (get this!) moderate Democrat Joaquin Arambula, who reps conservative Fresno and had publicly spoken out against the bill, voted in favor — tipping the ayes to 41.

A casual observer might call it luck. But anyone who’s followed Sen. Jackson’s career — her stint in the State Assembly from 1998 to 2004, and her two terms in the Senate, which officially ended Nov. 30 — knows it’s the result of the senator’s political mantra: 

“Never ever, ever, ever, ever give up.”

Continue reading Screw Hope. Trust Tenacity.
My columns are collected in three lovely books, which make a SPLENDID gift for wives, friends, book clubs, hostesses, and anyone who likes to laugh!
Keep Your Skirt On
Wife on the Edge
Broad Assumptions
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