Wading
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy New Year to you. This season has plenty of conflicting religious and secular messages, so I thought it would be an appropriate time to post this piece. Published in 2005 in the journal Dovetail, it’s one aspect of how I handled religious ambiguity when my first child was learning ...
Of all the dim sum joints in all the world
This weekend we’re taking my mom out for dumplings at a wonderful Taiwanese restaurant in the San Gabriel Valley. It’s quite a schlep out there from West Los Angeles, so we don’t go as often as we would like to. But it’s my mom’s birthday, and she loves Chinese food, so that’s our destination. My ...
Christmas carol
Warning: mournful post ahead. Tonight after dinner, my mom played some Christmas carols on the piano as my kids read the new books I bought them at their school book fair. My husband read too, flipping through the picture books when the kids were finished. It was pretty idyllic, just what you might hope for ...
Blank Slate
I’ve been very sparse about writing anything lately, but I wanted to take a moment to pat myself on the back for (almost) settling in to my new home. My family and I moved in exactly a year ago, and we’ve been gradually feeling like it’s our home. If you’ve read earlier posts, you might ...
Beginning anew
I’m about to go to a wedding, coming up this weekend during Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. The family member who is getting married is Jewish, but he is marrying a non-Jew and his wedding will be secular. It’s a second marriage for both the bride and groom, and though I don’t spend a ...
Liminal spaces
As long as I’m doing the re-run thing, here’s another story I read at “Spark Off Rose,” last October for the “Supernatural” spoken word show. Thank you to the producers of the show, particularly Mark Betancourt for working long-distance from New York on my story, and to Jessica Tuck and Karin Gutman for their encouragement ...
Expressing (wanna-be Chinese) motherhood
Since I’ve been on the road a lot this summer, I haven’t had enough time to write. So, in the mean time, here’s a personal story I read at the “Expressing Motherhood” spoken word shows at the Lillian Theatre in Hollywood in January 2011. I told a story about my lame attempt at instilling ...
Make new friends, and keep the old
My children had more play dates than usual this summer. Part of this is because my son is entering kindergarten; his school has encouraged parents to have play dates to ease the transition, so that the first day of kindergarten feels is smooth and full of friendly reunions rather than tears. It makes sense, but ...
In Praise of Divorce
Several years ago I wrote an essay called “In Praise of Divorce” on a website that’s no longer active. This is an updated version of that essay. I was reminded of this topic when I read Lisa Belkin’s New York Times piece today on staying in an abusive marriage: http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/23/staying-in-an-abusive-marriage/?src=tp I had just turned 16 ...
Talk talk
About eight years ago, I lost my best friend. I don’t mean that she died. I mean that she and I weren’t friends anymore. How did it happen? I can’t explain it in short form. What I think happened is that we were both slammed with the paradigm shift that is having your first child ...
