The dilemmas have filled advice columns forever. “My friend asked me to—” give her an alibi, smuggle cocaine, lie to her husband, risk prison by helping her die…. Though most of my friends are the law-abiding sort, I dread some future ask that leaves me stymied, torn between ethics and love. Cicero would […]
Breaking stops you. Whether you are headed to meet your new boss or rendezvous with your lover, if you see somebody on a side street brave enough and crazy enough to spin on his head, strong enough to rotate his entire body on one hand, graceful enough to kick and step in a […]
“I didn’t think I’d learn so much,” my friend Chris said. We had been in the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) all day, headed from Southport, North Carolina, toward Belhaven Marina, up the Pungo River in North Carolina. Our first four days up the East Coast from Florida had been offshore. This was our […]
People have been saying they would have liked to go on this trip, or wish we would pick them up in Charleston, or they tell me good-naturedly they are jealous, etc. Believe me, I understand. It is an opportunity of a lifetime, and it is my great good fortune to know Chris, […]
First, an admission: in the immediate wake of the shooting at the Trump rally, I watched the video of Donald Trump raising his fist and blurted, “Fuck.” A grudging admission that the man, even shoeless, is a consummate showman. That he knows, instinctively, how to galvanize a crowd. That his chutzpah is undeniable, […]
In the movie Hit Man (funny, smart, well done, morally questionable but you end up not caring—and is that a good thing or worrisome?), the central question is whether we can change. Can someone escape what looks like their fate and reinvent themselves? Which ties to the question I have long wrestled with: […]
My friend Chris is good at fixing mechanical things, which is good because he has a tendency to poke at them to see if they will continue to work, even if they are vital. As he learns the navigation system on his new boat he likes to poke at the screens to […]
I think we can say scientifically that the universe perks up when we approach new ventures. The data is in. The universe gets interested. You gotta be careful out there. Before I left for this trip, I was rushing around but paused to eat some dry stir-fry on the couch while watching […]
A friend texted recently to say he had bought a new yacht. Ok, I said. He asked if I would like to help him transit it from Fort Pierce, Florida, to his home port of Havre de Grace, Maryland, a trip of about a thousand miles up the East Coast, in the […]
Bored at a wedding reception, I started chatting with an old friend of my husband’s. Somehow one of us mentioned loving, back in grade school, diagramming sentences. Soon we were scribbling complicated challenges on cocktail napkins, oblivious to the tipsy fun that swirled around us. How nerdy can you get? Still, we were […]
