Christmas comes "early" this year, meaning, according to my mother, that Thanksgiving is "late" and there are not quite four weeks separating the two most elaborate and stressful American holidays. "Bring it!" I say, because the anticipation is killing me.

It started when Halloween and the end of Daylight Savings...

Let's not get distracted by asking why in the world I would ever even think I might need personal protection -- my delusions are my own business. I'm just saying that, via some odd cosmic coincidence, bodyguards have been on my mind.

U2 performed in Southern California...

David Letterman is this week's Exhibit A in the ongoing case of Powerful Men v. Sexual Integrity, having climbed over Roman Polanski, who was last week's winner. Congratulations, David. And as I look over the year's debris of the rich and powerful men (even if it was occasionally a wealth...

Why is there all this sentimentalism and taking of sides on the issue of whether film director Roman Polanski should serve his time? As of last evening, Debra Winger and other members of the film community were uniting to save Polanski like he was a harpooned mother dolphin in Japanese...

As the author of several books called Girlfriend's Guides covering the motherhood experience from pregnancy up through teenagers (the teen book is still being written at this point) and as the mother of four kids, I'm sickened by the miasma of suspicion and cynicism that is infected so many parents...

After I had kids, I cooled a little toward dogs. I've always owned them and there was a time many, many years ago when I loved them like furry children. I even made my former husband pose for a Christmas card photo of him and me and our two dogs,...

Yes, Anne Heche, you can say "lazy ass" on television. The question is, should you? And the answer is, it's NEVER appropriate when you are talking about the father of your child, as the actress was about her ex, Coley Laffoon, on Letterman the other night.

I get it that...

Most of us don't get very far in life without experiencing the death of someone we love. And by mid-life, where I currently reside, people seem to be kicking off at an alarming rate as parents, mentors even, God forbid, people our own age or younger pass away. That is...

"I've been married three times," anthropologist Margaret Mead said, "and each time I married the right person." I get it completely. I don't know if I would recognize the bride I was thirty years ago if she were to throw her bouquet at my face... although I do remember her...

We may be divorcing, but the father of my kids is still one of the funniest guys I know. He and I were talking on the phone recently and he explained his concept of the 5,000 Mile Rule: neither of us can date anyone who lives nearer than 5,000 miles...

I only have one parent left out of two biologicals and two in-laws and I cherish her, honestly, I do. But after this week, I'm dangerously close to taking up smoking (which, by the way, she does with great commitment; I'm convinced it's her scheme to keep herself ineligible for...

It's no coincidence that I waited till the Huffington Post moved all the environmental stuff out of the Living section before I began posting for it. Call me anything, but never call me "earnest," please. My ecological philosophy goes something like this: Don't be a pig and clean up your...

I spent the night in my new home last night. Going to sleep there was fine. Waking up there, not so much. After six months of going through the business and heartbreak of getting divorced and setting my children and me up with a new place to live, it's official:

A "missing" man who happens to be Governor of South Carolina gets caught with his pants down in Argentina while his wife's only comment is something to the effect, "I'm busy here taking care of our four kids while the idiot is chasing his Evita." Have you seen this guy,...

I am a fastidious woman. Not an obsessive woman. Not a helplessly narcissistic woman. Just fastidious. My every day routine includes flossing, leg and pit shaving, hair washing and conditioning, pumicing my feet, applying sunblock and clean clothes. You will never find me picking the jeans I wore yesterday off...

A woman has two choices when she finds herself single again after twenty-some years (not counting suicide or homicide); she can redouble her efforts at work and with what kids are still around, thereby becoming a social hermit, or she can commit to a vigorous training program to become the...

Two days in a row I've been in a funk. Actually, yesterday felt like a long road of flat highway in Texas somewhere -- empty and endless. Today feels like I'll be lucky if I'm not crying by the time I finish this blog. Who knows, if I don't snap...

Me, pre- hair chop:

I had an epiphany recently and it said that a woman's hair should not promise a fecundity that her ovaries can't support. I went to my hairstylist with the order to "chop it all off" and let me tell you what a mass orgasm...

One of the few bright promises sustaining me while trudging through a divorce is Sex With a Stranger. I haven't had it yet, nor do I see any immediate prospects, but I'm keeping the faith that it is out there. It's been 27 years since I've had it, and I...

"A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" was a clever little slogan of the Women's Movement during the Seventies. Little did I realize then how prescient it would prove to many of my peers as they hit middle age. In the past five years, I've been...