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Call Me Impressed
Caitlyn Jenner was on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine last week and created her own Twitter account. She has also created a firestorm of interest in transgender issues. This has been coming for a...
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Sweeping Changes
I am listening to my son doing housework upstairs. It warms a mother’s heart. So does this week’s news about same-sex marriage in the United States. It has been a long time coming but heartwarming all...
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Wait…What?
Sometimes I see something on my Facebook page and think “How is it possible that you are my friend?” How could someone in my social and family circle say something, or repost something, that is so...
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Absent Friends
It meant a lot to me to be invited to join a book club, even though I had only a vague idea of what was expected of me. I had never been in a book club before. The first time I went to a meeting I...
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Adaptation
I used to be married to man. Not just any man. A tall man. Very tall. He did tall-person things like reaching in to the top shelves of the kitchen cupboards. He also changed lightbulbs and pruned...
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Colour Blind Spot
I have just finished reading the very moving and beautifully written Letter to My Son by Ta-Nihisi Coates in The Atlantic....
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Houston Has A Problem
Houston, you have a problem. You just voted to repeal an ordinance that would have banned discrimination on the basis of age, race, or sex, and I don’t think you know what you have done. You bought...
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Your Voice of Conscience
American actors Jack Klugman (L), smoking a cigar, and Tony Randall in a promotional portrait for the television series, ‘The Odd Couple,’ c. 1973. (Photo by ABC TV/Courtesy of Getty Images) The people...
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Best Before Dates
Yesterday I pulled out a box of pasta and realized it was past its best before date. One thing led to another and I found myself looking at the dates on all the packages on my pantry shelves. It’s...
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Snark
Nothing prepares us for long illnesses or for dying. All the skills and strengths we have built up are stripped away, and we are left without most of the things that brought us fulfilment and pride....
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Sometimes, Quitting is a Good Thing
Sometimes, quitting is the smart thing to do. I was given a really difficult jigsaw puzzle for Christmas from someone who knows I like puzzles to be challenging. I started the project with optimism and...
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Fist Bump
Someone punched a dent in my metal front door. They did it before I moved in, and I didn’t think much about it until today. I had just assumed that someone moving furniture in or out had accidentally...
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Travel Weary
I am too tired even to reply to my roommate’s astonishment that I am awake at 7:30 in the morning. She had greeted me briefly after she came home from work yesterday, just before she asked me to put...
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Happiness Engineering
Several years ago I met someone online whose empathy helped me with the daily tribulations that accompanied my husband’s illness and, ultimately, his death. I appreciated his friendship and looked...
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International Divorce
I understand why Britain chose to divorce itself from the European Union. It was a marriage fraught with irritations, and in order to end the annoyances Britain decided to walk away. It was a tough...
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Why My Apartment is Like Vegas
I live in a two-bedroom basement mother-in-law suite. It has all the necessary amenities, is close to my family, and is near to shops and other necessary resources. In some surprising ways, though,...
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Duelling Causes
In Toronto, Canada this week we had an interesting kerfuffle. Two social/political action groups found themselves in a very public lovers’ spat. The LGBTQ community had invited the Black Lives Matter...
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Everyone Hates Group Projects
When this old picture of girl guides putting up a tent popped up on my screen, it inspired these thoughts. I can’t actually remember the conversation that went on during the tent-construction...
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My Story Depends on the Storyteller
Other people tell my stories differently from me. In fact, sometimes I don’t even recognize them as my own stories. I recently discovered that some of my extended family members think my first marriage...
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A Singular Tale of Plurality
A couple of months ago I began seeing a therapist. I wanted to change a habit, and so it made sense to me to find a hypnotherapist to help me do that. My reasoning was that if they could help people...
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