Aging

06/25/14   I started being annoyed a few years ago at foreign customer service representatives. The only thing accurate about their title was that they were foreign. I felt they were deliberately speaking...

06/23/14  A few months ago I began doing wood sculpting. The first few pieces were done from blocks of kiln-dried wood. The desired object was drawn on the wood and I cut out unnecessary pieces. I was...

06/10/14  I’ve finally accepted that my computer doesn’t hate me. Doesn’t try to make my life miserable. Doesn’t introduce new lines of code to trick me. Isn’t trying to embarrass me. I’m just...

06/09/14   As I age and read books on how I can recreate the body I had when I was 20 by just buying a jar of this newly developed elixer that isn’t sold in any regulated stores that I can receive free if...

06/05/14  I was at an event the other day and politely listened to two people talk about how their friend was ruining her life. “If I was her,” one said, “I wouldn’t have done it that way.” The...

06/04/14   I recently met a friend who I hadn’t seen for 10 years. Looking at him I thought, “My God, he’s gotten old!” Of course in my mind I’m still 50, slim, and athletic. But when a looked into...

Many people pretend they bathe daily in the Fountain of Youth. While the delusion may be soothing for those who are aging, the gap between self-image and reality can have serious consequences as it did for me...

When I see commercials on how to recreate the body I had at 20-years-of-age by applying a magical cream that isn’t sold in any regulated stores and free to me for the next ninety minutes if I agree to...

We may be changing, but we’re not dead yet. I think people who are younger than us—like our adult children—are often confused about how to react to our diminishing abilities.

In 2009 I wrote, When the Ground Shakes, an article in which I described finding my mother coming out of a forested area holding a bunch of sticks and twigs. In response to my question of what she was doing,...

In 2010, I wrote Top 10 Insults for Old People, a tongue-in-cheek article about an insensitive young couple I watched making fun of an older man as he shuffled down the street. Four years later, in some ways,...

For more than 30 years I've been brought, kicking and screaming, to the sharp points of life. What I've learned is instead of running away, bring them closer and you'll enrich your life and ease your death

Change is frightening, whether it's a person coming to terms with a terminal diagnosis or an evangelical minister learning his son is gay. Both are forced to let go of cherished beliefs for a world that has...

My Catholic friends are apprehensive about Pope Benedict’s resignation. Who will be the new Pope? Will he pull the church more to the right or left? Will the new Pope become more forceful in addressing the...

I look at my aging body and resolve to get in shape, lose weight, eat better, listen without judging, and practice my flute more often. They are the same resolutions I made last year, the year before, and...

We move in a world created by our history and often pretend the past and present aren’t connected. A partner becomes annoyed at what we do or say, and we can’t accept the notion that their annoyance is our...

Most of us believe the world should be viewed as we see it. And when there is a discrepancy between the right way—ours—and the wrong way, we are, in the words of Captain Louis Renault in Casablanca,...

The good news is we are living longer. The bad news is it’s taking us longer to die. Soygul Rinpoche, the Tibetan monk and philosopher said that “Death is no big deal. You breathe in, you breathe out, and then you don’t breathe in anymore.”

When I was in college I would take whatever I was driving and offer it and $50 to a used car dealer for anything that ran on his lot with a current inspection sticker. Within the first few weeks, something...

It’s December and I just got off the C train at 53rd and 5th, when I see his arms flailing above the thousands of people ascending the stairs. He defiantly stands halfway up forcing everyone to move around...