(Originally appeared in The Beach Reporter on 1/12/90)

It starts with that achy feeling. Your throat is a little scratchy and the place behind your eyeballs starts to burn. By the time you’re cooking dinner, even your hair and fingernails hurt. You just want to lie down for about twelve years.

You lie down on the couch with a pillow over your head because the light hurts, while everyone eats dinner and ignores you. You wish someone would offer to make you some chicken soup.

You take a long moment to feel sorry for yourself. When your spouse is sick, he can call in sick. When you are a mom, even a mom who works outside the home, you can’t call in sick. Who ya gonna call? “Hi. Not feeling well. Can someone cover for me today? I’ve got carpool this morning, a dentist appointment for one kid, ballet for the other, a meeting at school, a deadline to meet for my job, and I promised I’d make two dozen heart-shaped cookies for my daughter’s class tomorrow. Oh, I’m also supposed to pick up the dry cleaning, the library books are due, and we’re out of milk, bread, and cat food.” Click. Continue reading →

(Originally published in The Beach Reporter when I wrote a column there in the 90s)

First the good news. Spring break and then summer are arriving. Time for weekends at the beach and poolside vacations with the family, sunshine and a slower pace to life. Now the bad news. The fashion industry still hasn’t invented a swimsuit that can make a molehill out of a mountain.

I count every year after thirty as the gradual downhill slide into middle age. Up until then, everything is tight and firm, and nothing jiggles when you walk. Then the law of gravity goes into effect. The REAL law of gravity, as it applies to bodies in bathing suits: for every year after thirty, gravity exerts a downward force equal to the weight of the person in the bathing suit. Continue reading →