Click here to read an original op-ed from the TED speaker who inspired this post and watch the TEDTalk below.

Sometimes, especially when a person seems to have a satisfying life, we dismiss suicidal signals that would otherwise alert us. I know this first-hand.

Delia had...

My grandmother's birthday was this week. She was born in 1877 and would have been 136 years old. And when, in her honor, I looked at some family photos, I discovered something that I had not noticed before.

Although the photos below were taken at different ages...

After a week of blazing headlines, the death of Al Neuharth, founder of USA Today and former CEO of Gannett Company, was lost in the back pages.

But it wasn't lost on me. I've followed his long and successful career with special interest, because years ago, when he was a...

Now that the ship's passengers are cleaned and fed and better able to look back upon their awful journey as a supreme travel tale of woe, perhaps it's time to reassess the mess that was the voyage of the Carnival Triumph.

What I'm picking up is a long-bottled up resentment...

I recently wrote about safety tips when you're traveling on your own. But soloing can be lots of fun, and it's easy to meet interesting people. Here, some tips on how to meet others while traveling, adapted from my book, Solo Traveler: Tales and Tips for Great Trips.

Be Approachable...

As a professional travel writer I've traveled solo from Antarctica to Zanzibar. In fact, in 2005 I wrote a book called Solo Traveler, and ever since have written about and talked up the lasting, liberating joys of traveling on your own.

The recent tragedy of Sarai Sierra, the 33-year-old American...

Many years ago, when I was a teenager, I met Pauline Friedman Philips from Sioux City Iowa, who died on Wednesday after a long bout with Alzheimer's. Known to her friends as "Popo" and to America as Abigail Van Buren, "Dear Abby" and her twin sister Ann Landers were big...

This Sunday, Veteran's Day, I'm thinking of all veterans and their families, and of the sacrifices of so many who have given so much -- and who are still giving right now.

I can identify with them, as my husband was called to serve in Vietnam right after the Tet...

Host a party (or even better, get invited to one)
Election night, like Oscar night or the Super Bowl, is the kind of communal event that calls for snark, laughs, hoots and hollers to relieve tension. It's also an easy way to pay back invitations without having to cook...

People of a certain age and a certain means often "vote their pocketbooks." To them I say, I am "voting my granddaughters."

I have been a struggling single mom and understand making ends meet. And I have been financially secure, able to remain safe even in hard times.

But...

The election remains close, and the reality is that undecided voters may make the difference in swing states.

Look, if you're still on the fence after all the ads and speeches and debates, climb down already. By now it's time to decide, don'tcha think?

And if the tax theories,...

I was thinking about my earliest feelings of sexuality because I'm hooked on the new Sunday PBS series Call the Midwife, set in slummy East-End London in the 1950s.

The series, dealing with many unwanted pregnancies, resonates with me because like many of the characters, I was a teenager...

The carpet-bombing ads have begun, paid for by anonymous billionaires who hate Barack Obama.

I admit to a sinking feeling and lack of sleep when pondering what it would be like if Romney-Lyin'Ryan won this race. And I feel helpless considering the hundreds of millions of dollars flowing anonymously into...

I may not look it and I definitely don't feel it, but I just turned 70, which makes me old by just about any standards. "Young" old perhaps, but aware of time's passage as never before.

Which makes me remember how I felt when I turned 60, and even when...

Julia Child would have been 100 today. That anniversary, and the movie Julie & Julia, based on a diary blog on Salon much like some of us here write, and my recent trip to Paris where much of this movie is set, reminded me of how huge a role Julia...

Judith Crist, who just died, was an influential movie reviewer for many years. I remember her not just because of her intelligent and cogent take on films, but because of something really special to me: a connection to Woody Allen and to his movie, Stardust Memories.

It was...

It's been 11 years since my second husband died. I was only married to him for about three years. But our love was remarkable, and so was the story of how we got together.

It had to do with a slim, dark-haired woman sitting at a table in a...

My father was a gambler who was off six months a year to follow the ponies and dogs. My mother was a probable borderline personality. My liberal German grandmother loved me in her way, which unfortunately did not include warmth.

And then there was my grandfather, William Schacht: orphan from...

Nora Ephron was just a bit older than I am, and perhaps that's why I followed her brilliant career and her interesting life so assiduously. Early on, when we were both in our 30s, I convinced myself that we had other things besides age in common: we were both non-observant...

While I watched the Mad Men episode with Lane Pryce trying to end his life in a Jag that wouldn't cooperate, I remembered the car's faulty starters, but I also remembered the beauty and power of the three Jags I drove during 20 upside/downside years of my roller-coaster life.

We...