There are two kinds of people in the world the way I see it: those who like to get the chores done before they play or relax, and those who prefer to relax first and put off the work until "later."

Both attitudes have their righteous aspects, so I'm...

Last year during the holiday shopping madness I always fail to avoid, I found myself at Chef Central with my daughters, whipping out my charge card to pay for $150 worth of gifts they'd selected for their father, his longtime girlfriend, and her two children. A wine carafe, some stemware,...

I had dinner recently in Massachusetts with two men: one whom I referred to as "Real Man" in a blog entry here last December, and the other his good friend from Vermont who was in the area when I happened to be visiting as the leaves were changing...

My last post on men provoked a slew of comments -- over 500 -- which was exciting to me because my usual posts about ballroom dancing and other hot topics have gotten about three or four comments; ergo gender relations are far more important in the grand scheme.

Men are in the news lately -- have you noticed? I read with interest the Sep. 10 Newsweek piece "Men's Lib," about "reimagining masculinity" for our modern age, and I read with equal interest Lisa Belkin's piece in the Oct. 24 New York Times Magazine, "Calling...

I ducked out of my office in NYC early the other evening, at 5 pm sharp, in order to drive like a bat out of midtown up to Westchester to catch my daughter's JV volleyball game for the first time this season. She'd complained twice, "Mom, you haven't seen me...

Anyone who hears I'm a ballroom dancer invariably says, "Oh, I'm dying to start ballroom dancing." And then they explain why they haven't, or why they gave it up after a couple of disappointing lessons. I feel bad; I want them to get into dancing. I'm not sure why. I...

Once upon a time, there was a new spot on my left palm. A tiny, pale-brown freckle-thing at the outer base where the hand meets the wrist. I nonchalantly mentioned it at my annual mole-check in 2006; a biopsy showed it was benign.

A few months ago, the shadow-scar that...

I never thought I'd fall for a handy man, but as my ballroom dancing teacher used to advise, "Be mindful of your expectations. They can get us into trouble." I felt sheepish at first about appreciating M so exuberantly for (among other fine qualities, I insist) his ability to fix...

Roger Angell wrote a wonderful story for the New Yorker a few years back in which he redefined the notion of extended family for our modern times, and I'd like to second that emotion. I liked his story a lot -- perhaps because I... related!

Like Angell, I include...

I was invited to Google at the end of July to speak at the company's Authors@Google program at the legendary headquarters in Mountain View, California. The idea was to promote my just-published memoir, Quick, Before the Music Stops (How Ballroom Dancing Saved My Life). The authors program is...

No sooner had I finished writing a book called Quick, Before the Music Stops than I found myself in the earliest stages of a long distance relationship with a man who kept saying, "Let's take things slow." Geez, okay. But because I have an impulsive streak, I was frustrated,...

Three years ago, when I was taking a lot of notes after my ballroom dance lessons so that I'd remember what to practice at home with my broomstick, I figured that the ballroom craze, which was only dawning then, would build. I also decided that it was now or never...

My ballroom dance coach has been talking lately about how important it is for me to make myself available to him. No, not available in that sense. He's referring to my presence as half of the "us" that we create moving around the floor, doing a foxtrot or a waltz....