When I first started making phone calls in the fifties, anyone could tell where a friend lived by the telephone exchange office in which actual telephone operators sat--like Lily Tomlin as her iconic comic character, Ernestine.

My family was Endicott 2. We lived on the Upper West Side across from...

The crazy person always makes the decision, says my husband the divorce lawyer. "If you have two partners--and one is sane and the other crazy--guess who always wins?"

"The one who screams the loudest?" I ask, knowing this because I come from a family of crazy people.

"You betcha."

There...

May I humbly suggest that our financial crisis has a great deal to do with how virtual our lives have become? If you go to the marketplace with coin or something to barter and you exchange it for something to eat, money has tangible value. But if you sit...

Dear Madison, Lexington and Parker,

Your mother and I have always pledged to give you the best of everything, but our new president is, alas making that impossible. We have had to fire Hassan, the chef, let Ahmed, our driver go, and sell the houses in St. Barts and London....

J.U. and I

Reading all the eulogies of John Updike, I can't help but feel that an essential point has been missed. Not only was he "courtly" and kind, but he was one of the few writers of our age who didn't see writing as an aggressive act that...

My life as a writer did not start with the Zipless Fuck. It started with poetry -- my passion for reading it and writing it. But poetry is a tough sell. Stephen King (also a great lover of poetry) once told me that he thought the critics had ruined poetry...

We never celebrated Christmas during my childhood. We celebrated the Winter Solstice. As pagan Jews, we wanted the light to return to illuminate the world. On the darkest day of the year, we schlepped our tree from Columbus Ave to 44 West 77th Street and because we didn't crown it...

1. He's not President yet and already pundits are criticizing his presidency. Who is he?

2. She's a lawyer, an author and a mother. Why does that make her "unfit for the Senate"? Who is she?

3. He's a barefaced criminal who uses politics to get rich. Who is he?

I don't cook. My mother didn't cook. My daughter doesn't cook.

When I met my husband, I refused to invite him home for Passover because I was embarrassed my mother might serve all the catered dishes in the wrong order. First, the dessert, then the bitter herbs, then the matzo...

I puzzled for a long time about why the Democrats were not publicizing defective voting machines nor discussing the stolen elections of 2000 and 2004.

Were they afraid such knowledge would discourage voters from coming to the polls? Were they afraid to be branded as defeatist?

Were they secretly...

1. What does the Iraq War have to do with the financial meltdown?

2. Can we afford all our wars, all our military bases, and still help our own people as well? Why is PEACE a dirty word in the debates?

3. What are the risks involved with China...

October is the cruelest month -- at least for the Dow--only 30 stocks but more influential than than the price of tulips in 17h century Holland.

Stocks that were cheap last summer are so cheap now that it astounds me no one is buying. Mass hysteria has set in. The...

Not everyone agreed, but I thought the debate was boring because the real questions were, as usual, unasked. Here are the ones I'd like to hear next time.

1) How did the senseless Iraq war bankrupt our country and has this ever happened before in history?

Historians know...

My day began with Ben Bernanke putting the American public to sleep with his woolly explanation of the financial "rescue" package. I tried to understand his logic but with my 401(k) halving then quartering, my concentration was hardly the best. George W. Bush performed the coup de grace on the...

Sarah Palin is a character out of Lewis Carroll. No one can translate that smile. She's the Cheshire Cat.

She says nothing and she grins triumphantly. Her smile lingers when the words have gone.

Nothing she says makes sense but the eyelashes never stop batting. Catch phrases and...

If you wanted to destroy a country, what would you do?
Dispense with all nuclear treaties?
Seduce that country into a useless war, raising its deficit to ten trillion dollars?
Refuse the right of the press to photograph soldiers' coffins?
Improperly equip the military?

Since John McCain has already declared himself winner of the first debate (even if he is not Miss Congeniality), does it matter that he seemed like a doddering old party stuck in another era of politics? He was better than Ambien, better than Lunesta in putting the electorate to sleep....

Dear John McCain:

We're not that stupid. Sure it would be nice if the women of America believed that everyone with breasts and a vagina believed in equality. But it ain't so. Women have differing views -- just like men.

Some like beer; some like chardonnay. And some prefer...

I always suspected the first woman to achieve high office in the United States would come from the right not the left. Like Margaret Thatcher, Sarah Palin calls up memories of tough nannies, nurses, governesses and mommies. This flank of Momism doesn't threaten like Hillary Clinton or Gloria Steinem. The...

I didn't know it would feel this bad. I didn't know it would feel this personal. I'm all for a united Democratic party. But losing my last chance to see a woman in the White House feels like shit. And the gloating by the press is even worse. It sounds...