The Hiders and the Hunters
I shouldn't love Easter. Raised a Jewish-Atheist, I have zero relationship to the Christ-is-Risen aspect. Plus my dad tells horror stories of annual beatings by Catholic boys when he was growing up in...
View ArticleMy Good Abortion
Because of the recent Supreme Court decision banning partial birth abortions. Because of the ban on abortions in North Dakota. Because pro-choice activists must say that abortions are terrible to...
View ArticleMy Other (Childfree, Single) Life
Every six weeks or so, I go away for a few silent days by myself. I go to a clothing-optional hot springs to bare my all. In between hot soaks and free yoga classes, I stay in my tiny rented room...
View ArticleMy Other Mother
I met my friend Tilly -- and her mother Peggy -- the first day of Kindergarten. Peggy recognized my mom among the crowds of mothers and clutching five year olds. "Are you Karla Olsen?" she asked. "I...
View ArticleSummer Clearance
I'm humming "The Streets of Laredo" these days as I pile old clothes into plastic bags to give away. I hum to drown out the chaos in my head. An old cowboy song about a young cowhand shot in the saddle...
View ArticleIsts and Isn’ts
The Old Left is dead, even in my family. Except for my dad, who still has a Stalin wall clock in his office, and who still argues the old way. And then there's my daughter Annie, who comes from a...
View ArticleOn the Floor, in the Dark, with a Candle
I come from a long line of worriers, insomniacs, "Nervous Nellies," and nail biters. My mother rarely sleeps. My husband Bill doesn't sleep either. He paces. He drives too fast and whips around...
View ArticleWho Am I Without My Wallet?
As if the year didn't already suck badly enough, my wallet with all my ID and credit cards was stolen out of my purse at a favorite family restaurant. I didn't notice. The credit card companies...
View ArticleThe Inlooker’s Lament
My emotional junk food is categorizing myself the Pop Psychology way. According to the Enneagram, I'm a 4 (the "artist") with a 3 (the "achiever") wing; according to Myers-Briggs, I'm an INFJ -- an...
View ArticleOn Binges and Benders
Unlike the disciplined writers I know and admire who get bits done every day, I write in blurts, in bursts, in short binges fueled by roasted unsalted almonds, dark chocolate, dried apricots, herbal...
View ArticleThe Hands On/Hands Off Mother
How do you parent a teenager, how do you raise an independent child without either suppressing her spirit or making her feel uncared for? Maybe I struggle with this because of my own, rather unusual,...
View ArticleMy Upcoming Life as a Part-Time Wife
Bill and I have been going on about life, and it's been good. The same house for the last nine years, the same university jobs, slow increases in salary and in the quality of our cars, and slow...
View ArticleThe Family Food
Like our dog Mollie, a brown-eyed, sausage-bodied Labrador-mix, my family is completely obsessed with food. Some families drink, and that's a part of their culture. Some do sports. Some focus on...
View ArticleThe Missing Years
I ran feral for five or six years in my early twenties. These are years my family knows little about. Oh, I sometimes share a few impressive incidents here and there: the solo bike ride across France...
View ArticleMy Teenage Companion
It's last month. We're on a road trip, Annie and I. Nine days through California, Nevada, and Arizona. Motels and hotels, national parks and ghost towns, road food. It's June, it's hot, and the car is...
View ArticleThe Popular Girl
I know people who seem to morph: one year she's a radical lesbian scorning the system, and five years later she's an upper-middle class doctor's wife driving carpool; one year he's the CFO of a...
View ArticlePolitical Fire
My daughter turns sixteen this month. Not such a sweet sixteen, a birthday plagued by the presidential election. I ask her what she thinks of the conflagration: red state vs. blue state, culture wars...
View ArticleMy Goddess Years?
One of my favorite Roz Chast cartoons shows a woman in her forties or fifties wearing a flowing baggy dress with a wild hairstyle and clunky jewelry. The words read: Are you entering your "Goddess"...
View ArticleHolding
A painting I did the first year Bill and I were together shows a field of green. In the center there's a floating bed, and in the middle of the bed two people, face to face, stare into each others'...
View ArticleIn Memoriam
Bill Sonnenschein March 15, 1949 - December 29, 2008 All of us at Literary Mama are deeply saddened to learn of the death of columnist Ericka Lutz's husband Bill Sonnenschein. On Monday, December 29,...
View Article
