This morning my husband and I had a little extra time, so we decided to go to our favorite breakfast place. The one with faux sausage and organic eggnog lattes. They were closed. So we went to a down-home Southern cooking kind of place instead. We live in the South. The restaurant was nestled in a [...]

Mardi Gras literally means “Fat Tuesday” in French, but it took me a full day to discern the true meaning of the festivities. Becoming a part of Mardi Gras in Mobile gave me a deeper appreciation for the South and the traditions that were born here. It’s a complete culture, a festive lifestyle where magic [...]

Grunge fashion, the iconic 90s style that was ultimately co-opted by flannel shirts and pre-ripped jeans at the Gap and modeled by Kate Moss, is on the rise again. What always appealed to me about grunge fashion was its inherent laziness. Ill-fitting clothes from Goodwill became cool. The best grunge outfit could be put together [...]

If you perused Part One of this article you met The Screamer, that glorious incarnation of the most extreme and publicly hilarious effects of stress. You also know that I do not want to be like her, and I don’t want you to be either. So I promised I would do some research into the [...]

There’s a new cooking show on the radio: “Anthony Bourdain and Eric Ripert: Turn & Burn” will run for five weeks; its first episode aired last night. The featured guest was celebrity chef Mario Batali. I was way too busy preparing for the men’s figure skating finals to tune in, and I don’t have Sirius [...]

We thought no ice skating drama could ever, ever top the Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding story. Ever. Since any other instance of ice skating drama is now seemingly unfit for media attention, I’ve been a little disappointed. Until I saw this piece aired by NBC about Russian figure skater Evgeni Plushenko. I’m absolutely stunned. I had [...]

A few nights ago I asked my ex-Marine husband how women dealt with menstruation in a makeshift camp in the middle of the desert. He didn’t really know, but he thought they must travel stocked with tampons. He went on to inform me that some argue menstruation is reason enough to not allow women into [...]

Thank you, PBS. You always come through for the kids, whether it was teaching us to love books with “Reading Rainbow” or telling us how to avoid being kidnapped with “Stranger Danger.” PBS’s newest campaign is “Don’t Buy It.” They want kids to start looking critically at the ways advertisers speak to them, inviting them to [...]

I’m sure many of you have seen the Dodge Charger Commercial that aired during the Superbowl. “Man’s Last Stand” was the premise. Men are tired, it seems, of living hollow and meaningless lives with their spouses. They continually allow themselves to be emasculated by their wives, doing things like watching vampire TV shows and carrying [...]

Stress can make us do crazy things. I know because stress can make me do crazy things. Also I have plenty of friends who’ve had moments where they look back and cringe. For example, once upon a time I was having “one of those days” and some guy in a Target bumped into me. He [...]