By susan fishman orlins 
It’s a common occurrence in New York and other cities. You put your key in the lock of your apartment building and someone is about to follow you inside.
What do you do? Usually in the interest of security I ask if the person lives there and then request they use their own key or buzz the person they are visiting.
It happened to me a few days ago. A tall, handsome black man, somewhere around my daughter’s age of 29, follwed me through the first of two locked doors to my daughter’s building in New York City. Several things whizzed through my mind.
Mainly I thought, Will he think I’m a white woman not letting him in because he’s a black man?
Nonetheless, I asked, “Do you live here?”
In a pleasing Obama-like voice he replied, “No, I’m visiting my friend in 5D.”
“Would you mind asking your friend to buzz you in?” I said.
“Not at all,” he said.
And I headed upstairs to quickly drop off my laptop and pick up my jacket before meeting my friend for a day of biking in Queens and Brooklyn. I also wanted to get a snack during my discretionary five minutes.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about that attractive guy in a sweater and down vest and wondering how he felt about my not opening the door to the building for him.
I decided to forgo the salad, chocolate and glass of milk I had counted on scarfing down. Instead, I grabbed my jacket, bounded up to the 5th floor and rang the buzzer of 5D, while running through various permutations of gender and race and how I would have responded to each combination.
I egged myself on, knowing that a story for me to share with you was in the making.
A white guy named Matt answered the door. Still panting from racing up the steps, I asked if I could speak to his friend that a few minutes ago I didn’t let into the building.
“Sure come in,” said Matt.
“Hi, I’m Susan,” I said.
“I’m Shawn,” said Shawn in the soothing voice. “Nice to meet you.”
I handed Shawn my card and told both of them, “I’m a writer and I’m wondering if I can ask you a question about what happened downstairs.”
“Sure,” said Shawn.
I told him I felt bad not letting him in and wanted him know it wasn’t because he was black; I added that I felt bad because, as a black man, he must often run into suspicious white people.
And then I ran through a few permutaions.
“It would have been easier,” I said, “to not let in a white man.” No guilt. I would not have given that another thought.
Maybe I would have let a white woman in without questioning, though the previous day a white woman closed the door on me while I was fumbling for my key.
I later realized I hadn’t mentioned the black woman option; did that omission suggest a bias in me? Would I have admitted a black woman? In general, I’m more intimidated by women, so on that alone I’d be more inclined to let a female in. I wouldn’t want a woman, black or white, mouthing off at me.
 Where Shawn and I are from Shawn said, “I didn’t think about it at all.”
I started to mumble something about living in New York or DC, where my home is, there is so much more blending of races and Shawn said “Oh, I’m from D.C.” and I asked what he did and we three morphed into stop-and-chat chatter.
Already running well beyond my discretionary five minutes, I asked Matt if he knew my daughter, who also lives in the building, and he said, “No, is she single?”
She is. And I wondered whether Shawn was single.
Soon thereafter I had to leave. While pedaling along First Avenue to the Queensboro Bridge, I thought about how rewarding it is to take a moment that could have been nothing more than breezing by a guy in an entryway and make it into a story, in this case, one that challenged my assumptions.
Of course, I’m worried I’ve said something racially offensive here. Sometimes I need to ask a black friend if something I say or think is acceptable, the same way I sometimes have to read New York Times editorials to know what I think.
What do you do when someone is about to follow you into a locked apartment building? Do you act differently based on their gender, race, appearance, smooth voice, etc.?
Check out some of my recent articles on Home Goes Strong:
*BEST BANANA CAKE RECIPE EVER! CHOCOLATE CHIPS OPTIONAL
*SUPERBOWL PARTY AND POTLUCK RECIPES AND IDEAS
*EASY, HEALTHFUL CHINESE FOOD RECIPES
*SHOULD COUPLES HAVE SEPARATE BEDROOMS? READERS RESPONSES MAY SURPRISE YOU
*NEW GREAT IDEAS FOR COOKING FISH AND HOW TO ORDER FISH & SEAFOOD ONLINE
*TOP 10 WAYS TO WIN AT SCRABBLE AND WORDS WITH FRIENDS
By susan fishman orlins 1955
After a swallow of dinner, I dirty my face with burnt cork and, on my shoulder, rest a broomstick with a bundle of rags tied to its end. I then prepare for the battle with my mom over not wearing a coat.
I step into the hallowed night, wondering which house has the apples with razor blades.
Nervously, I take the shortcut home through waist-high weeds that surround a haunted house whose creaky steps I’ve mounted on blue-sky afternoons.
On the kitchen table, I dump my bag for my mother’s inspection. It’s a disappointment that nothing sharp turns up in the apples.
1966
In college I feel stupid dressing up in costume, and I feel stupid if I don’t for a Halloween party where everyone else is in disguise.
1979
Halloween becomes fun again once I get married. Six weeks after Steve and I exchange vows, we move to Beijing. With the enthusiasm for holidays that comes from being separated from one’s roots, we invite our new friends to celebrate with us.
The Hungarian journalists have sewn their own clown suits and a partner in Steve’s law firm dresses as a flasher with a sausage attached to boxers under his raincoat.
We provide umbrella hats for our Chinese friends who wear only their Mao suits, obligatory attire for locals in 1979 China.
Only Steve’s Chinese-American secretary creates a stir. The room becomes silent when she enters dressed as a Red Guard. She stands in that arched-back pose you see on posters, with Mao’s ubiquitous red book in her raised hand.
The wounds from the Cultural Revolution are still too raw for people to accept reminders of that holocaust.
1992
Through my children, I re-live the thrill of my own childhood autumns, the season of crayons that still have their points and blank composition books. We convene on our front stoop to decorate the door for Halloween.
Steve tells us he heard on the radio that witches and hobos are politically incorrect, so I craft my witch as an ethnic-neutral with paper-bag
 Noodle Pudding hair, and a newspaper face.
After we go trick or treating, I tell my four-year-old goblin, “Nobody likes the raisins–those we’ll give to Grandmom for her noodle pudding.”
Emily’s blue eyes, bright as light bulbs under normal conditions, are on high wattage tonight.
“This one’s bad for your teeth, Sweetheart,” I say. Then I drop an appallingly puny Almond Joy into the “throwaway” pile that will go on the high shelf in my closet where I hide my gum.
A pack of Soda-Licious fruit snacks that really will play havoc with the molars, I place into her pile. I don’t like the flavors. Halloween does this to me.
1993
Each of my grade-school daughters accepts my offer of $10 to buy their Halloween candy in my effort to protect their dear little bodies from all that sugar. Soon they regret it; no such transactions occur ever again.
1996
Emily, age 8, writes in her school journal, “I like Easter because it is fun and I get a lot of candy. My mom doesn’t let us eat our candy so I save it for so long that it gets rotten and I have to throw it away. Eliza eats hers anyway.”
2011
Ever since my kids flew the coop, I’ve become a Halloween Grinch. I don’t want to keep jumping up to answer the door, so I go out to dinner.
After years of grappling with the temptation of leftover Reese’s peanut butter cups, this year I give out individually wrapped Lifesaver mints, which I leave in a bowl on my front stoop.
The following week over coffee, friends inform me that no kid likes peppermint Lifesavers. I had wondered why the bowl of mints had not been emptied.
 Participants in D.C.'s high-heel drag race On Halloween night I go to a bistro in Georgetown with my friend Daniel. Last week, we went to D.C.’s annual High Heel Drag Race, and now I want to see more costumes, the Georgetown scene.
Daniel says, “It’s not safe, so let’s eat a bit farther up, then walk down.” I say, “You’re being a terrible worrywart.”
But Daniel is right. We zigzag to skirt around thick crowds of made-up young adults who exude no merriment.
The next day I learn that 15 minutes after we left the area, a 17-year-old boy suffered a gunshot wound in the head.
This makes me long for the days when I was a politically incorrect hobo for Halloween.
What are your memories of Halloweens past?
Get ready for next Halloween:
For awesome eats, check out my recipes:
By susan fishman orlins My very first Mr. Wrong told me, “Susie, what you need is a purpose.” That was in ninth grade. George, now a retired psychiatrist, was right. The benefits of having a purpose were never more obvious than after I launched my blog.
 Blogging The irony of blogging about being a worrywart, is that it keeps my mind so occupied with what I plan to write that little room remains for maladaptive thoughts.
And blogging has made me aware of so many things I hadn’t previously thought about . . .
* When I saw my niece the morning of my mom’s funeral, we hugged and I said, “I miss you so much!” She replied, “I don’t miss you; I read your blog.”
* My friend Sue, author of the thoughtful interfaith blog On Being Both, told me correctly you’ll spend 1/3 of your time writing, 1/3 of your time posting and 1/3 of your time getting the word out via social networks.
I spend another 1/3 of my time checking my stats: How many visitors to my blog? Did they like me enough to stay for a couple of minutes? Did they come from Twitter or Facebook or Sarahneedsajob.com?
I’ve learned that obsessively checking my stats soothes the same pleasure center of the brain as, say, an addictive numbers game . . . and worry.
* I have learned to let go of the last 15% of time it would to make things “perfect,” otherwise I would never have time to post anything. I learned this 15% rule when my then-husband ran for U.S. Congress.
* One thing leads to another. I launched my blog in June 2010. In July 2010, a friend who liked my blog introduced me to Huffington Post where I published my first Huff Po piece, Travel Tips From a Worrywart.
A month later an editor read on Huff Po my article Turn Chores Into Family Fun and offered me a (paying!) job blogging for NBC’s Home Goes Strong.
* If you can write, you can write about almost anything, as in Composting It’s Easier Than You Think, The Avocado!, as well as people’s personal stories, like Death of a Husband, One Woman’s Story series.
* Some of the thousands of thoughts that go through a person’s mind each day make great opening lines. You just try to be good at catching them.
* Blogging is less lonely than writing for print. Readers comment and I comment back. On twitter, my tweeps retweet or send me messages. For non-virtual human contact, I figure I can always go to the dry cleaner.
* I posted a piece that that offended a friend whose cousin had commited suicide; in the post, Worry Orgasm, I failed to show empathy when someone delayed my train by throwing himself in front of it. An editor might have pointed that out and urged greater sensitivity.
Instead, I made amends in my next post, “Worry Orgasm” Regrets. It was so raw, so non-virtual, this personal experience with my best friend playing out on my blog.
* I don’t know what I would do without my brilliant writing group. In addition to their encouragement (Diane regularly envisions a movie coming out of my blog stories, with Susan Sarandon in the role of me!), they help me write by consensus. If 4 out of 7 don’t like something, I cut it.
* Oy, the things people search for! I am able to see what searches have lead visitors to my blog. Yesterday one search term was “porn yoga” and, today, “I’m worried I have warts.” The interest I have in reading these search terms make me wonder, Am I a Voyeur?
* Because I tweet links to my blog posts, old friends have turned up, like an author whom I French kissed, when I was in 9th grade and he was in 7th.
I look forward to another year of blogging and send gratitude to my readers who make it so damn much fun! XO
I’m told I need to post at least 3 times a week or readers won’t return. I simply don’t have the time to do that. I’d love your comments on this and anything else.
Check out my recent Home Goes Strong posts:
Family Vacation With my Ex and Our Daughters, How we Do it
Bobby Flay’s Upcoming Cookbook, a Preview
By susan fishman orlins
 Season 8 of “The Family Vacation” has ended. Back from The Hamptons to their everyday lives are “Family Vacation” stars: the exes—since 1998—Steve and Susan (yours truly) and their three twenty-something daughters, Eliza, Sabrina and Emily.
Let’s take a look back at Season 1, Summer of 2004.
“The whole family’s in the pool,” my oldest daughter observes in a tone as sparkly as the cool water after I ease in to join her, her two sisters and their dad, Steve.
Even though Steve and I divorced in 1998, the five of us are in East Hampton, New York on what we call The Family Vacation.
It started that summer of 2004, when camps, trips and jobs allowed only 9 days that all three girls were available at the same time. Steve called me to discuss how to divvy up the time.
I searched my mind for a way to get 5 days to his 4.
But then I had a eureka moment and suggested that rather than each of us taking a mini holiday with the kids, all 5 of us could go away together for twice as long. Without hesitation, Steve agreed.
I relished the novelty. Steve and I had both recovered sufficiently from the bruises of our union and its dissolution. And we each had new love interests; neither of us was pining for the other.
Even during the worst moments, we had managed to compartmentalize our differences and problem solve whenever issues arose regarding the girls. In fact, I was often secretly grateful for a crisis, so I could experience the fuzzy feeling of good will between Steve and me.
As soon as I enter the rented house on the first day of that first family vacation, I scurry to check out the bedrooms and stake claim to the one that best suits me.
Steve cares about quiet; I care about openings to the outdoors. He is happiest in a room away from the kitchen and girls’ rooms; I like the pj-party atmosphere when my room is near the kids.
Steve avoids bickering; I am a better bickerer.
In the Season 1 house, I bicker better and get the bedroom farthest from the kitchen, the quietest but also the one nearest the girls’ rooms and the only one with a door to the outside. Steve ends up in the room closest to the kitchen and the morning rumpus.
We go to the beach every day no matter what. Steve has Weatherman in his DNA and sometimes he has us set out while it’s still raining, but by the time we step on the sand with our folding chairs, the sun is peeking through, as he’d predicted.
On such weather days, we are practically the only ones at the water’s edge. We are all alike in our fondness for slouching in beach chairs and reading. Everyone loves the ocean, except for me. I dislike the feeling of water on my face and I’m afraid of waves.
Once when Steve and I were dating, we ventured into the water together and the surf was bigger than I’d thought. One after the other waves washed over us, never pausing long enough for me to get out, the same way, when my labor was induced for my first child to be born, the contractions came back-to-back, no break, no exit strategy. Bang, bang, bang.
At night we like to cook and eat in, only occasionally venturing into the town, which is dense with city folk clad in expensive sports clothes. We go only to prowl the bookstore, get ice cream cones or see a movie.
Most nights we line up in front of the TV after dinner, each of us with a laptop perched on our thighs. It’s the 2004 Olympics and Steve and the girls like watching the competitions. Steve gets teary during athletes’ personal stories and when unexpected victories and heartbreaking losses occur.
I don’t mind watching the Olympics, though it makes me sad that kids are packaged into mono-track lives that deprive them of their childhoods. No one agrees with me. I’m a Debbie Downer when it comes to the Olympics.
The only thing that feels odd over the 9 days, is that it feels so normal to all be together. Everyone agrees we should do this again next year.
This is such a win-win-win-win-win situation for our family. I wish more divorced families would vacation together. Please share this; maybe it will inspire others to try. Of course, it takes 2 willing parents.
SPEAKING OF SUMMER, CHECK OUT MY HONEST-TO-GOD, SECRET, ONE-MINUTE WAY TO STOP A MOSQUITO BITE FROM ITCHING
By susan fishman orlins With President Obama on the verge of crossing the half-century line, age-wise, I recall my own (embarrassinglynarcissistic) 50th birthday party on Home Goes Strong. I thought I’d share with you the invitation I’d sent.
Author’s note: I no longer pee a droplet whenever I sneeze.
YOU’RE INVITED (TO MY FIFTIETH)
I’m changing colors like autumn trees.
I pee a droplet whenever I sneeze.
My schnozz has grown, I’ve lost a tooth,
Even my earlobes have started to droop.
Errant whiskers sprout overnight;
They’re hard to spy with failing eyesight.
All my hormones are nearly gone
While my daughter’s rage like a summer storm.
I moisturize with religiosity.
I’m awaiting hot flashes with morbid curiosity.
Octogenarian sex no longer sounds odd.
I’m turning fifty! Oh my God!
“You still have your looks,” my mother stated.
Ma, you like how my upper lip’s corrugated?
I guess I actually do look young
When I’m at her Florida condominium.
Although for decades I have seen
That I’m older than models in Seventeen,
Still, I had always been confident
That I’d never be older than the President.
But, listen, it’s not my aging anatomy I dread,
It’s having more time behind than ahead
Worried about my imminent burial,
I consulted tables actuarial
To find out how many waking hours remain
For me to write a book, ride the train, complain. . .
The average American of fifty years
Has thirty-three point one more before she disappears.
From my pre-school age lop off half,
Add six point nine for renouncing decaf,
Compare waking hours since ’45,
With total anticipated till 2035.
(Don’t forget to include the excess–
As you get older you sleep much less)
That’s how I solved the riddle
Of how fifty is only the middle.
Though I turn forty-nine and five-twelfths in May,
I’m having a fete for my fiftieth birthday.
(At this point what’s seven months, more or less, anyway?)
Friday, May 19 join Steve and me to celebrate.
Or if you prefer, we’ll commiserate.
Since my memory’s practically shot,
Can you recount incidents I’ve forgot?
Some trouble I’ve caused–if you’re inspired
(Although I won’t object to hearing what you’ve, ahem, admired).
Enclosed are all the details you could possibly desire.
YOU CAN READ ALL ABOUT MY 50TH BASH ON HOME GOES STRONG
UNRELATED: ALSO READ ABOUT EVERYTHING TOMATO: RECIPES, STORING, FREEZING, PEELING, HARVESTING AND MORE.
By susan fishman orlins  Why put a cold, hard fork between me and my dinner, when the visceral experience of eating, the intimacy between me and my green beans is so enhanced by pinching the bean between thumb and forefinger and depositing it into my mouth?
Yes, I’ve had boyfriends who find this offputting and I understand that it looks out of the ordinary when I pick up a piece of lettuce between my fingers and lay it on my tongue.
I guess on a first date I should try to use a fork.
Using a fork instead of my hands feels so removed, like hearing about sex second-hand rather than having it myself, though I realize that’s an overstatement since, unlike with hearsay sex, I do get to finally make contact with the food when using a fork.
As for soup, I have neither the patience nor dexterity to balance a microliter of liquid in the bowl of a spoon and get it to my mouth without any drips. I prefer to drink soup out of a mug; in restaurants I order something like finger-friendly shrimp cocktail instead.
After a recent foursome dinner, I emailed one of my co-diners to acknowledge my fork was clean at the end of the meal.
She wrote back:
This used to be an issue for me. I love and do the same thing. There were men (dates) who were really turned off (we’re talking 70s, 60s, not sure still true) when I ate with my hands. I always did and always will. I am totally with you on this. And everyone else either does it - or (more likely) is WRONG. I am not tolerant of intolerance on this issue.
Jewish girl thing?
In a follow-up email she wrote:
we’re sensual women and free spirits . . and everyone else is uptight.
Y’know, then I got thinking, wondering how I’d react if I were out with someone who picked up a lamb chop with his hands (which I don’t do until it gets to the bone) and getting all greasy in the face. Ick, that would be bad. I think if someone were picking delicately at a salad it wouldn’t bother me.
Come to think of it, whereas it’s commonplace to eat watermelon without utensils, I like to cut watermelon. As with lamb chops it’s less messy with a fork and knife.
A good middle ground for me is chopsticks; I like picking at my peanuts with wooden sticks.
I’d love to know your take on the finger-food universe. How can I enjoy eating without utensils without being offputting?
Do you ever eat with your hands either when you are out or home alone? What other eating habits are you willing to share (drinking milk out of the carton? licking your ice cream bowl? Etc.?)?
UNRELATED ANNOUNCEMENT:
See my Easy Chicken Dinner With Green Beans Amandine and Corn.
TECH APOLOGIES: Two odd things occurred this week. I accidentally hit publish for this instead of draft a few days ago, before it was finished. I unpublished it right away, but the link went to subscribers, but it led to an error page.
Also to my subscribers, an old post (A Week in the Life of Me and My Imagined Live-Along) may have shown up today in your RSS feed or email, and I have no idea why. Sorry 
By susan fishman orlins The going-into-treatment excuse didn’t work as well for Anthony Weiner as it had for me.
Though now I’m a compulsive truth-teller, in tenth grade I considered myself an adept liar.
Early one week, I had accepted a Friday night date with Joe. Then Artie called that very Friday to ask me out for the same night. I could never refuse Artie of the sky-blue eyes, so I said yes.
When Joe phoned during dinner to say he would pick me up at 7:30, my father heard me lie to Joe that I was being punished for fighting with my brother and couldn’t go out.
After I hung up, my dad said breaking dates was not permitted–if I did not go out with Joe, then I could not go out at all.
“Okay, Dad,” I said, “I’ll call Joe back and tell him I can go.”
Instead, I ran to my room, locked the door and phoned Artie. Since my parents knew Artie, I asked him to have his friend, whom I would introduce to my parents as Joe, come to the door to pick me up. The scheme worked, or so I thought.
When I came home from my date with Artie, my father was waiting. “Where were you?” he boomed.
It turned out that after I’d left, Joe dropped by to see how I was doing, at which point my father left the house and spent the rest of the evening cruising between The Hot Shoppes and Carol Yaffe’s house, the two hangouts he knew about, trying to track me down.
I had no choice but to acknowledge the deception.
“I think I need to go to a psychiatrist,” I said.
It was the only way I could think of to weasel out of my predicament; otherwise, I was afraid my father would confine me to my room until graduation.
In the case of Anthony Weiner, the going-into-treatment excuse didn’t work and he was forced to step down. But the going-into-treatment excuse worked well for me.
It also worked for my parents in that I made an effort to stay out of trouble, because I felt guilty about all the money they were spending to send me to therapy.
Do you agree that the going into treatment is, at least partially, a convenient excuse for these infamous texters and sexters and twexters and Tiger Woodses?
UNRELATED ANNOUNCEMENT: Share my post with the sandwich generation and others, Driving Safety for Teens, College Students and the Elderly (and just about anyone else)
By susan fishman orlins 
It’s hard for me to look at guys like Anthony Weiner without feeling more embarrassed for them than I ever feel for myself.
I doubt there are many men who don’t have porn stashed away under the bed or in a closet somewhere. A woman I know discovered her husband’s “Playboy” and other magazines in locked briefcases after he had died.
Some men are more open and keep paperbacks, like Hot Babysitter in Chains, out on their night tables.
On the continuum of sexual diversions for married men, the act of sexting lies somewhere between Hustler and Rielle Hunter. It’s up to each couple to figure out where to draw the line.
For public figures, the collateral damage of getting caught at sexting and other dalliances is augmented exponentially.
Popular wisdom suggests it’s power that leads to the arrogance that leads the Weiners, the Clintons, the Edwardses–such intelligent men–to delude themselves into believing they can get away with acts so potentially humiliating to themselves and their families.
 Some men do get away with it. Remember Joey Buttafuoco? He was not a public figure until his girlfriend Amy Fisher shot his wife Mary Jo in the head. Mary Jo stood by her man for more than a decade afterwards. Joey and Mary Jo are my personal favorites of the genre.
The way pols are dropping like flies these days, it makes you wonder whether everyone is sexting, though we know only about the ones who get found out.
It’s hard to believe Clinton deluded himself into risking his country’s well-being, playing the cigar game with Monica Lewinsky. But for me, it’s almost harder to believe anyone would risk exposing his family so publicly and perhaps losing his family in the process. Yet so it goes with all these politicians.
It doesn’t excuse them, but I do think it’s delusion that allows them to take chances. Otherwise, what could someone like Weiner possibly have been thinking? It’s unimaginable he’d have sexted his crotch bulge if he’d actually gone through the scenario in his mind of getting discovered.
Or did Anthony Weiner say to himself, Hm, what’s the worst that could happen? After all I’m just tweeting a photo of my waxed chest and the swell swell in my Jockeys to at least 6 women, who are strangers and who are probably old enough to drink alcopops. I’ll be cautious. No one will ever know.
Weiner says there were at least 6 women involved. At least? Does he not know or is it that hard to keep track? Maybe he worried word would get out if he’d sexted 7. The next step, of course, is the going-into-treatment excuse.
What do you figure these guys were thinking?
ON ANOTHER NOTE: Enjoy some of my healthy recipes . . .
By susan fishman orlins
 I don’t claim to be chill, but I become even less chill when someone tells me to chillax.
When I’m really excited about something and someone says, “Chillax,” it’s even worse; it’s what my friend calls “squishing the little bird inside of you.”
Take, for example, the time I was telling an ex-Mr. Wrong about something or other, chattering fast and with passion.
Ex-Mr. W interrupted me with up and down hand motions, as though he were patting the heads of a pair of dobermans simultaneously, and said, “Calm down. Speak slowly. I can’t follow you when you talk that fast.”
Yeah, right, Mr. Law Professor who can’t follow a really easy story about biking or an encounter with an old friend or that kind of thing.
Well, that’s water over the bridge (or is it under the dam? or over the dam? or under the bridge?).
I bring up all this because the other day I experienced total chill when I should have been tense.
I was helping my daughter the whole day (which admittedly included trips to buy Pinkberry yogurt with fruit) as she packed up her dorm room and sent home 6 boxes, each the weight of a wrestler, for the amount it cost for my first car.
We needed to make a 7 pm flight and planned to leave at 5 to get to the airport.
Time was running out with no help to get the huge awkward boxes to the sketchy van that had a handwritten “UPS” sign taped to its side on a nearby street.
I could hardly watch her small-boned frame hunched over as she lifted each carton with her arms barely able to hug the boxes enough to haul them down two flights of stairs.
 TRAVEL TIP: Tie everything you own to your wheelie bag so you don't have to check luggage. To distract myself I checked our flight status: a half hour late. Yay, except the one time I relied on the computer about a late flight, it turned out not to be late and I missed the plane.
Nonetheless, even though I’m unable to chill when running on time, we were running 45 minutes behind and I was chill!
This may not seem like a big deal to you, but I become anxious about getting somewhere, even when it doesn’t matter what time I arrive, which is not to say I’m punctual–I’m not–I’m simply anxious. Anxious and always running behind.
In this case, as always, I had been careful not to reserve the last flight of the evening, in the event the flight was cancelled for weather or whatever. A worrywart performs advance damage control.
Unless you have ever been that chill yourself about something like making a plane, you can’t imagine what a
thrill it is to take a chill pill. Or, maybe you are always chill, in which case you also could never know how, well, chill it feels to go from being a heart-pounding worrier to a chillaxer.
How do you get yourself to chillax when you are late for a flight?
UNRELATED ANNOUNCEMENT: CHECK OUT MY SLIDESHOW AND RECIPES: Family-Friendly Healthy Summer Snack Recipes
By susan fishman orlins 
I’m drowning in junk, buried in boxes, suffocating with stuff. It doesn’t surprise me that all these metaphors point to an untimely end.
There would be great irony in getting snuffed out by my stuff, since one of my biggest worries happens to be that I’ll drop dead and my children will have the burden of sorting through everything.
I know what I’m talking about, because even though my 92-year-old mom has downsized several times and has already given some of her things to her children and grandchildren, my sister and I recently had to dismantle her apartment. I spent $300 to mail my share of her chotchkes from Florida to D.C.
Of course you could hire someone to hold a tag sale or find a charity to just haul everything away. But how could you resist going through everything, hunting for treasures that reveal in some cases more than you might want to know about your parents.
After our father died, my sister and I sat on the floor pulling things out of his night table drawer. Crossword puzzles, two pairs of glasses, an old watch and . . . What’s this long thing wrapped in a paper towel?
We looked at each other with clenched teeth fearing the most ghastly kind of sex toy as I gingerly unwound the paper towel.
Until . . . what revealed itself was . . . a toothbrush!
Whew! But that got me thinking what might reveal itself in my night table drawer if I were suddenly to get decapitated by a ceiling fan.
My night table drawer is where I always stored my valentines. Out of sheer laziness, I have never moved them to my “letters received” file, though it is nice to glimpse a red envelope occasionally when I reach for a PostIt and remember that men used to send me valentines.
It occurs to me my kids might think I still hold a torch for the previous Mr. Wrong. Yo kids, uh-uh, he’s just a friend.
Condoms? My kids are cool enough to be cool with that, except no one wants to picture their parents having sex. In this case my girls can actually imagine me not having sex, since the condoms expired in 2009.
I’ve strayed from exploring suffucation by stuff, so look for more of that in a future post.
Unrelated announcement: See my article Easy, Elegant Entertaining: My Mom’s Party Food.
By susan fishman orlins What if I meet a guy I like?
Monday: He gets up. I want to stay in bed but now I can’t fall back to sleep. Or, I get up and he wants to sleep, so I can’t turn on NPR.
 Ah, breakfast! I make myself French toast and a cappuccino and just as I’m about to sit down and enjoy reading the Times, he trots in and says, “Mm, that smells good.”
So I offer him some of my breakfast because otherwise I’d feel guily, but now I just feel hungry and my peaceful breakfast with newspaper indulgence is spoiled.
I walk the dog then return and set up outdoors to work on my laptop.
He asks if I want to bike along the river with him. I’m conflicted because a bike ride sounds great but so does my routine of working outdoors. Either way I’m screwed; I’ll regret that I may have made the wrong choice.
The day rumbles along like this with either interruptions or too many choices. Lord knows there were enough choices before he came along. On the other hand, some of the choices I used to enjoy, like walking with friends, have been reduced because of the time I spend biking and being with him.
Nighttime draws nigh and there’s the usual discussion of what, when and where to eat. He feels like going out. I always feel like eating home. He’s hungry now and wants real food; I’m not and I don’t; I just ate a chunk of dark chocolate, a handful of almonds and a large glass of milk, which you may recognize as my favorite diet tip.
I long for the Monday nights before he came along when the second I got hungry I could stand by the kitchen TV watching “The Bachelor,” while whumping down a salade nicoise.
After dinner, he wants to settle in with cops and robbers or the local news on TV, but I don’t like scary TV. Casey, who used to rest his head on my lap, jumps onto his lap.
A while later, one of us is ready to go to bed; the other isn’t. One of us wants to have sex; the other doesn’t.
He raises the thermostat. After his breathing shifts into slumber, I lower the thermostat.
Tuesday to Friday: It’s the same. (He is retired.) Except Wednesday nights I watch “Survivor” and he sulks.
Weekends aren’t all that different, but after a lifetime of conditioning, they feel different. On Saturday night, he wants to go to dinner and/or a movie. I hate noisy eating and crowded theaters. It’s a perfect night to be cozy at home.
There must be reasons people pair off into living spaces, but I can’t remember what those reasons are.
I suspect I’m missing something here. Do weigh in!
SEE MY NEW POST, ESPECIALLY THE PHOTOS: WHAT FALLEN 9-11 HEROES WOULD HAVE WANTED YOU TO KNOW
By susan fishman orlins
Parents seeking matches for their grown children A crowd of gray-haired parents of single adults negotiates with one another along a stretch of Beijing’s Zhongshan Park. These confabs occur on a strip of pavement lined on one side with rainbows of tulips and, on the other side, with the moat of the Forbidden City.
A woman, whose son was born in 1982, asks whether I have a daughter. Yes, I tell her, one that is the same age as her son. But then she decides she cannot consider a match, because her son isn’t good enough for my family.
My Chinese friend tells me it’s because I am Caucasian.
Another woman sidles up and asks, “Are you looking to meet a man?” She figures I must be looking, since I am not holding a resume of my offspring.
A man asks how tall my daughter is. He waves a wrinkled hand to indicate he doesn’t want to talk anymore, because the difference between my daughter’s height and his son’s height is too great.
Though I didn’t exactly say I was looking for matches for my daughters, I didn’t exactly say I wasn’t.
Ever since first hearing about the matchmaking scene in Beijing’s Zhongshan Park, I’ve been dying to check it out. Parents come here on Thursday and Sunday afternoons to pre-screen potential mates for their grown children.
With the intensity of a Tiger Mom, mothers and fathers line up to find suitable matches for their children. At their feet, hand-written resumes–some quite worn–include year of birth, height and education. One, for example, touts a daughter with a Master’s degree in architecture from Yale.
Yes, Internet dating exists here, but most of these parents would find such encounters sketchy. Yet, one woman asked me how Americans meet mates and when I mentioned Internet dating, she wanted the name of such a Website. So I wrote “Match.com” on the back of her son’s resume.
A lady asks what passport I hold. She has a nephew whose English isn’t too good, but she thinks language would not be a problem if he were to marry my daughter.
 SCM Seeking SCW A large, framed photograph of a confidant-looking man, whose father says his son is 40 years old, attracts my eye. The father, aggressively working the crowd, produces a worn red plastic photo album. Flipping through the pages, I wonder whether one snapshot of his son is taken in a borrowed sports car.
The father tells me his son is supportive of this search for a mate. “He drives me here every week,” says the dad. Yet they are picky, given that the son speaks English and earns an excellent salary, around $5,000 a month, working for Oracle.
This father, so proud of his son’s achievements, pulls out a small hand-written resume and adds his home phone for me to contact him if one of my daughters should become interested.
Most of those here are parents of sons. The one-child policy plus the ease of finding out the gender of an in utero child, along with the ease of securing abortion, has led to a preponderance of marriage-aged men in this society, which placed a premium on sons at the time those featured in the resumes here were born.
On its way to setting, the sun shoots sparks from ripples created by couples in pedal boats as they float by under weeping branches of willow trees. Parents pack up their resumes and low folding stools then head home to report the day’s yield to their children.
 Resumes with stones to keep them from blowing away
Working the crowd more actively by wearing the offspring’s resume
 Tulips witness the matchmaking  Lucky couples who've found their matches enjoy a sunny day on the moat of The Forbidden City
By susan fishman orlins Sometimes I walk down the street and look around to see if there is a guy I’d like to have as a livealong and I almost never see one who sings to me.
I like that my life offers freedom to do exactly as I please, whenever I please, get up when I like, go to sleep when I like.
As for a sleeping companion, I’ve previously written that ”I stopped caring whether someone with hairy legs was sharing my bed. In fact, sharing my bed with my hairy beagle, Casey, is as pleasurable in it’s own way and in other ways a lot less bother. For example, I can blow my nose loudly in the night and Casey barely raises an eyebrow.”
Of all the things I worry about, finding a mate is not one of them unless you count the worry that I will meet someone I like. Then what?
Sometimes I ruminate about a week in the life of me and my imagined live-along.
My friend Marian’s experience bolsters this notion that I am better off living as a singleton.
Marian divorced, downsized, dated Jay for 2 years, and then Jay got cancer and died.
Read about Marian’s journey “Divorce, Downsizing, Dating & Death” on Home Goes Strong.
I’d love you to visit the Site and share your thoughts and/or advice in the comments box.
By susan fishman orlins Are the doors locked? Am I on the right train? Is there spinach in my teeth? 
There’s spinach in your teeth; but isn’t it too late, too awkward to tell you now that we’ve been talking for 20 minutes?
Have I re-read the email I wrote enough times to hit “send?” Should I send it to myself first and double check it later?
Did I remember to put water on my night table? What if I’m in captivity and can’t have water by my bed? Do I need to break the habit now? How?
And if I am captured, how will I distract and occupy my mind? Should I memorize a list of things to think about, now while I still can, to keep me from going crazy in such a case?
What if I fall getting out of the bathtub and can’t get up? Should I get one of those necklaces with a button to summon help, like my 92-year-old mom wears? With that button around my neck, is it worth feeling old in order to feel safe?
What if Casey dog needs an operation to save his life? How much would I spend? What’s the cutoff?
What if I get a boyfriend and soon after he gets a terminal illness? Would I have the patience to sit with him in doctors’ windowless waiting rooms?
What if I get a terminal illness (knock wood or whatever)? Will I have the patience to sit in windowless waiting rooms? (NO)
Will I be as afraid of something bad happening if I take my (as yet unborn) grandchildren outdoors as I was to take my daughter’s Yorkie for a walk when I was his sole caregiver for a week, so I didn’t?
Ought I never again experience the joy of a plump raw oyster in case I get a bad one?
Do you know that for each worry I write, I have a dozen more? And that I’m afraid if I write them they’ll come true?
What if I run out of worries to write about? Is that even possible?
Possible or not, it worries me.
POST-POSTING RUMINATIONS: Is this post good enough? Too long? Too boring? I’ll make some phrases bold. Do the bold phrases help? Or distract? Will faithful readers ditch me? This is my 33rd update of this post. What does that tell me?
What are your what if’s?
COMING SOON ON CONFESSIONS OF A WORRYWART: STARTER MARRIAGE, THE MINI-SERIES
Unrelated announcement, see my new articles:
PAELLA: MY ALL TIME FAVORITE ONE-DISH RECIPE WITH VEGAN OPTION
11 EASY WAYS TO REMEMBER PRACTICALLY EVERYTHING
By susan fishman orlins
UNRELATED ANNOUNCEMENT: See article 7 Easy, Delicious Aphrodisiac Recipes.
A variety of search terms leads Googlers to my blog, some weirder than others. My voyeuristic pleasure from reading a daily list of these terms is infused with a measure of guilt.
Generally, we Google in the privacy of a bubble that envelops only ourselves and our computer screens. No one, except a snoopy or untrusting lover or someone sitting next to you on the Acela, is likely to see what you look up.
Even when I read a search term that is not kinky, like the recent “bungee in chicken suit,” I feel like I’m invading someone’s personal zone. Did the searcher get to the part of my post “Photophobia” that meandered to all that can go wrong when you bungee jump?
 In the history of Google, I wondered whether anyone else had ever put those four words together. A search yielded 28,100 results, including a 7-minute youtube video of a fellow named Tom, bungee jumping in, duh, a chicken suit.
Sometimes there’s a pattern. For instance, ever since I posted “The SNL Hug, What Up With That?” Sundays arrive with variations of “what’s with the weird snl hug?”
I thought I was original to come up with a post wondering how does an atheist pray. Yet searches turn up all the time, phrases like “atheist misses praying,” “can an atheist pray,” and “prayer is totally useless.”
The search “jewish dog names” proved I’m not the only one who had something to say about that. Actually it was my father who gave Casey the Jewish name, Chaim. I added Goodman for when he is good. (This week, though, he is Bad Branman after eating nearly a whole box of shredded wheat with bran.)
In one post, I referred to a picture taped beside my teen bed of Ricky Nelson in a cowboy suit with a bulge in his crotch. So I’ve gotten a lot of “bulge” hits. “Greg Kinnear bulge” was the first one; I thought it meant he’d gained weight. Other bulge-searchers have sought “cowboy bulge,” “daddy suits men crotch bulge,”and indeed “ricky nelson bulge.” Who are these people?
Confessions of a Lowbrow brought visitors looking for “lowbrow poetry” and ”monica lewinsky confession,” since I had written that I understood how a young girl would hold onto a blue dress with the President’s cum stain.
And on Valentine’s Day it was only natural to have someone search “please do not touch stroke lick or mount.”
Here are some likelier terms that linked Googlers to Confessions of a Worrywart:
What are some of your best search stories and/or search tips?
By susan fishman orlins If you’ve read my post “Choosing my Parents,” you know how much I adore and admire my 92-year-old mom.
Nonetheless, now that I’m 65, you would think I wouldn’t get annoyed when she talks to me in a tone. Not an unpleasant tone, one that’s off-putting only to me. As in What? You haven’t had breakfast yet?
Admittedly I have an eating schedule different from hers. She goes to dinner shortly after I’ve finished breakfast. At 11 p.m. when Mom and I have our daily phone chat, I’m often starting to broil a pork chop. Sometimes she’ll ask what I had for dinner.
“Pork chops,” I lie.
It’s the same kind of thing when I’m visiting her. On the day I’m leaving for the airport at 11:30, I head out at 9:30 for a half hour walk. “You always have to fit everything in,” she’ll say.
Fitting everything in was true when I was in my teens, 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s, so I can see how she thinks that.
“But Ma,” I say, “I’m 65, I don’t do that anymore.” I know she’s thinking, “Yeah, like fun.”
(Do you know that expression “like fun?” I never hear it anymore. It has a similar sarcastic meaning as “Yeah, sure.”)
And as I’m packing up, she’ll ask, “You’re wearing that?” It’s the bookend to the welcome greeting “What’s with your hair?”
To my mom’s credit, she doesn’t seem to care whether I get married again. She can see I’m happy . . . even when I’m not.
- In what ways do your parents persist in annoying you?
- In what ways do you persist in annoying your kids, whether you mean to or not?
- In what ways to you persist in annoying your parents?
UNRELATED ANNOUNCEMENT: See my latest post on Home Goes Strong, “DOES YOUR BED MAKE YOU HAPPY? A GUIDE TO BUYING A BED, BEDDING & BEYOND.”
By susan fishman orlins 
In seventh grade my friends and I were not part of the popular crowd of girls who looked sexy in gymsuits and paired off with boys. Instead, we immersed ourselves in a world of make-believe.
We were three couples: me and Ricky Nelson, Phyllis Kirschner and Tab Hunter, Shessie Einbinder and Pat Boone. Each “family” had one child as well as a fat scrap book filled with photos of the husband, and gossipy headlines cut from movie magazines. On the wall next to my bed I taped a picture of Ricky wearing a cowboy suit with pants so tight you  could see a bulge in his crotch.
Star-struck by Ricky, I saw other girls on TV screaming when they watched him perform. Then one sultry afternoon I squeezed in among thousands of sweating, lovesick teenagers at Steel Pier in Atlantic City to see his show. Once the shrieking started, I joined in and couldn’t stop; each time I screamed was louder than the time before until I thought the veins in my neck would pop.
Nearly two decades later when I was living in D.C., Ricky was featured at The Cellar Door, a small nightclub in Georgetown. Only now he was called Rick. I decided to go say hello to prove that childhood dreams could come true. The owner was a friend of mine and helped me time my arrival to be between the 7:30 and 9:30 shows.
Still in a tennis skirt from a game I had played earlier, I ran in breathless and said, “I wanted to meet you in order to prove that childhood dreams can come true.”
“Thanks,” said Rick. “Are you staying for the show?”
God, it never occurred to me to stay for the show; I had moved on. “Gee, I’m sorry I can’t,” I answered and hurried away.
I still can’t believe he’s dead.
By susan fishman orlins 
Semi-related announcement: Divorce, Downsizing, Dating & Death . . . One Woman’s Story If you read the article, I’d love to hear your thoughts and advice in comments there.
The quest for happiness is popping up everywhere these days: in books, college courses, blogs and on Oprah. In the same way my oldest daughter, when she was little, shared her life with invisible companions Sibby and Babby, Worry and Quest for Happiness accompany me wherever I go.
Like sibling rivals, they argue constantly, vying for my attention. Happiness tells Worry, “If you’d vamoose, I could have her all to myself.”
“With all the bad things she thinks up, she needs me,” retorts Worry. ”So I’m not about to skedaddle anytime soon.”
Okay guys, quit quarreling, you’re both right. Worry, it’s true you get in Happy’s way, yet I do feel safer knowing you’re there to dwell with me when scary thoughts sprout.
 Nonetheless, I’m realistic enough to know that Worry can’t control everything on my list: world peace, my daughters’ safety, polar bears, homelessness, the budget deficit, sneezing while driving, driving, the Supreme Court, decapitation by ceiling fan, for instance.
Even though Worry follows me wherever I go, I have experienced happiness peaks: being a stockbroker in the
 Seventies alongside guys who made every day feel like a party, living in China back when the whole place looked like a black and white movie, raising kids, campaigning for my ex’s Congressional race, for instance.
Then along came my divorce to prove I was not immune to big setbacks. I spent a year writing nothing except lengthy faxes to my lawyer. Yet I continued to enjoy happiness pockets (funny how “pockets” showed up here compared to “peaks” above), like snuggling on the couch watching “Gilmore Girls” with my girls. And having romances with a smattering of Mr. Wrongs.
Among other joys reaped after my marriage ended, I count friendships I never would have had time to cultivate had I remained married. And having time to write, despite it’s solitary nature, gives me the pleasure of engaging with strangers.
But am I happy enough? Dan Buettner, author of Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way, told Oprah that the happiest people get 8 hours of social interaction a day. Can I amortize all the social interaction from the first half of my life? Does watching Oprah count?
 Last week someone said to me, “If you say you’re happy people just get jealous.”
It’s true. Recently I had to stop following a well-known author on Twitter, because she was always off to do this reading or that book talk and constantly tweeting about the hilarious fun she was having with her micro pigs.
Not that I begrudge anyone else their successes or their pets, nor would I want to stand in anyone’s knock-off Uggs except my own, but still it’s more comforting to pretend nobody’s having a better time than I am.
After finding myself single again, I began searching for Susan Fishman, my free spirited twenty-something self, who did things like crash the star-studded opening of the Barbra Streisand film “Funny Lady” at the Kennedy Center. How different we are/were. She played Scrabble for fun; I make a recording of all ninety-six two-letter words as well as u-less q words and vowel dumps, like qwerty and looie, to memorize during long walks.
I’m a smidge embarrassed to admit it wasn’t until recently that I accepted the idea of what made me happy in the 60’s and 70’s is not what makes me happy now. The last thing I want to do is don a long skirt, and sneak in somewhere (or even pay) to gawk at and be ignored by glitterati.
 My ideal day now consists of putting on elastic waist pants and writing, biking, watching Oprah on Tivo while I broil a pork chop. And watching a Larry David rerun while I take a hot bath. All with Casey by my side.
In 1989, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” won a Grammy for Song of the Year. For me, it’s not one or the other; both Worry and Happy follow me like ducklings imprinting on their Mama Duck.
But is it a sign of age when Content in Mom Jeans has become the new Happy in a Long Skirt?
How do you measure your happiness?
By susan fishman orlins Unrelated announcement: Check out my Home Goes Strong article Thinking About a Valentine Dinner? How About Red, Pink, White . . . & Wine With a Heart?
In How Annoying Am I Part I, I outlined how annoying I am to my daughters. After posting that, I observed another annoying pattern in myself: the failure to absorb details my daughter tells me.
So when I ask, what are you doing this weekend, I get, “You asked me that yesterday!” (Needless-to-mention subtext: You are sooo annoying!)
As I mentioned in my Restaurant Rant I am also annoying in restaurants both to waitpersons and, consequently, to my companion/s (skip to next paragraph if you read my RR): lots of extra lemon, this and that on the side, tastes of two wines before deciding, a glass of ice for dumping into the white wine I finally decide on, no added salt, steak medium rare but more on the rare side, the 1-5 scale of doneness being a bit too general.
The waitperson gets a nice tip for putting up with this, but what about my friend/s?
Daniel, a frequent dinner companion, grudgingly puts up with this and softens my request barrage by distracting the waitperson with his own annoying habit of excessive friendliness, guessing correctly, for example, that the waitperson’s accent is Uruguayan. He then pinpoints the exact region in Uruguay the waitperson hails from, a regular Henry Higgins he is, my pal Dan. After that he comes up with a phrase in the waiterperson’s language. He has such a phrase for every country from Korea to Kazakhstan, Lithuania to Liberia.
 I find the schmoozing charming, as long as it’s limited. But often the restaurant is packed and I’m on edge, noticing the waitperson has other tables to serve. Before disengaging, Daniel intuits, again correctly, that the waitperson is going for a graduate degree in Philosophy at George Washington University.
Now that I’m thinking how annoying Daniel is, I feel less annoying by contrast.
What about your friends annoys you?
By susan fishman orlins Unrelated announcement: How I Organized my Home, De-Cluttered my Life & Learned 21 New Tips
Some call the holiday season Chrismukkah, others say HanuKwanzMas. Then there’s Festivus with its unadorned aluminum pole, miracles and airing of grievances.
I say Hanukkah simply on its own can cause confusion, starting with: which of the 16 permutations do you use to spell it: H or Ch, n or nn, k or kk, a or ah?
Moreover, who knew that in their wisdom the rabbis of old gave us candle-lighting choices? According to Wikipedia, the Talmud says:
- The law requires only one light each night per household,
- A better practice is to light one light each night for each member of the household
- The most preferred practice is to vary the number of lights each night.
Waddaya know, turns out I’ve been following a “better practice” all along, each of us lighting our own menorah, creating our own Festival of Lights and puddles of dripped wax on old baking sheets.
Along with so many other December anxieties, comes the worry about wobbly Hanukkah candles in the wax-caked menorahs reducing our home to ashes. My rule is, when leaving the room, blow out the candles. Should I feel guilty about that?
There’s always this chatter about Chanukka being a minor holiday and, regardless, ought not be thought of as the “Jewish Christmas.” I agree. Plus, Hannukkah provides a smorgasbord of it’s own distinct joys.
I think of Christmas as a razzle-dazzle of lights and sparkle. My oldest friend summed up my lifelong enchantment with colored lights on evergreen trees as, “Well, you’re shallow and attracted to tinsel.”
I struggle to understand what offends some Jewish friends about an agnostic member of the tribe like me partaking of Christmas’s rainbow colors, cinnamon-y smells, tinkly carols, peppermint-y tastes and scratchy pine needles . . . in my home.
Sharing my family room with a colorfully lit tree (a custom that’s only a handful of centuries old) by the blazing hearth makes me feel warm, cozy and cheery on cold winter nights. To me it’s nothing more than a splendid tree.
On the other hand, if someone were to ask me to display the most exquisite creche imaginable, even one made of evergreen sprigs and dotted with lights, I’d say no. To me a creche is indeed a religious symbol, though I wouldn’t judge another Jewish person for displaying one. (See my friend Sue’s article “Some Jews Love a Christmas Tree, But a Creche? Oy” on her intriguing blog “On Being Both.”)
On a similar note, should Christians and those of other religions disallow dreidl in their homes? Simply because a lighted tree in my home makes me smile, does it affect the integrity of my or anyone else’s religiosity?
How about carols—are they any different? Where do you draw the line? Is it okay to bring Frosty the Snowman into the home? I like listening to O Holy Night.
Suppose my kids and I hang stockings and exchange trinkets. Would it be more palatable to the naysayers if we were to hang goody-filled pillow cases . . . and did so on, like, March 3rd?
Is it okay to celebrate Chinese New Year in my home? All the times I’ve done that, I never turned into a Chinese person nor felt treasonous (though I acknowledge this to be a weak and not religious example).
If I were not Jewish, no doubt I’d ache with envy of those having 8 dinners outdoors in a sukkah during the autumn harvest and, as the season changed, I’d be drawn to menorahs, lit with twisted candles in a garden of colors. And, oy, those crisp, potato pancakes! I would yearn to dance the hora and exchange gifts every night for 8 nights!
When I was a kid, I begged for a tree. My mom, who–like my daughter–was born Christmas day (an aside: my mom’s parents’ were Joseph and Mary) just told me that the one time she allowed me to have a tree on the third floor, she never told my dad. After that, she always said, “When you get married, you can have a Christmas tree.”
Then, at age 19, I got married and my husband would not allow a tree on the grounds we were Jewish. So I hung tinsel on the clothes tree and colored balls on kitchen cabinet knobs and from my ears. That January, after 6 months together off and on, we separated.
Posting this post-hannukkah seems in keeping with our family tradition of doing things not according to the calendar; rather, we celebrate events when we can all be together. One year we had a Passover seder in July so we could enjoy it with my parents.
I wish I believed in a higher authority who would answer all my prayers, because then I’d no longer need to worry. If I ever attain my quest for greater belief in religion, maybe I’ll want to give up my tree. Till then, Hapry, Merpy Hanumas.
I’d love your thoughts about someone Jewish
With tree lights of red, green and bluish.
By susan fishman orlins Unrelated announcement: Check out my recent post on Home Goes Strong: 12 Unique & Jazzy Gifts For Everyone on Your List.
Call me a curmudgeon, but so many things about restaurants irk me.
Noise. I’m not likely to even patronize an esablishment that vibrates with double-digit decibels. Okay, the alliterative appeal forced me to exaggerate. Since 10 decibels=breathing, 15=rustling leaves, 20=whispers and mosquitoes, I could cope with up to 45 decibels, the sound level of someone whispering among buzzing mosquitoes and rustling leaves while breathing.
Food. The chef never gets just how little salt I desire in my soup and how much dressing on my salad. Additionally, I have a bias in favor of food that looks like food, rather than a stub of meat perched on a petit garden on a grand white plate with brown drizzle drops here and there.
Service. Except for tap water, when my glass is nearly empty, I prefer to do my own pouring, which I generally need to explain to one waiter and two different buspersons.
Also, I wish waiters would assume everything is fine, unless a diner waves. (Or, if you are in China, until someone shouts really loud fuwuyuan, which means serviceperson.)
During my twenties, I waited tables at a little bistro in D.C. I thought it was good service to keep asking if everything was okay. The man of one particular couple, clearly having an illicit affair, finally yelled at me to leave them alone. Nonetheless, I lack all measure of empathy for today’s overbearing waiters.
Tied with unsolicited pouring is wisking away a plate the second the last forkful goes into the eater’s mouth. Sometimes I keep my fork poised, hoping no one will interrupt my conversation to ask if I’m finished.
Germs. If I didn’t put the germ issue right out of my mind, I would go right out of my mind. What goes through your head when a restaurant’s restroom has no soap?
Me. The germ risk forces me to consider my own role in the whole unpleasant experience of dining out, because I am likely to be more annoying to the waiter than he/she is to me and we all know this can lead to someone spitting in your soup or peeing on your cucmber salad (for details see my post “6 Things I’m Less Worried About Than Other Things.)”
The hassle of being my waiter includes the huge glass of ice I require, all of which I dump into my white wine, which I’ve selected after sipping two different samples, and if I don’t like either, to my credit, I order a a third without a trial. At home I enjoy wine without all the guesswork and risk.
Furthermore, when eating seafood, I require a bushel of lemons.
I’m always impressed when, say, Mr. Wrong tells the waiter, “I’ll have a glass of pinot grigio, Caesar salad and steak medium rare,” his whole meal ordered with six fewer words than I require to explain, “I’d like my steak cooked between rare and medium rare, but a bit more on the rare side, please.”
I know what you’re thinking, How irritating and spoiled she is. I’m glad I never have to go to dinner with her . . . unless you are smiling in recognition.
Comfort and having some control drive my behavior. In my defense, I’m happy to dine with simplicity in my own kitchen: broiled chicken, Brussels sprouts, pinch of salt, half glass of Two-Buck Chuck Cabernet Sauvignon.
I go to restaurants to enjoy time with friends for whom, so far, my affability apparently outweighs how vexing I must be; after all, I was voted friendliest girl in the ninth grade.
As for the sticky issues of waiting for a table, where one is seated and what to order, I’ll leave these to your imagination.
What are your going-out-to-eat gripes?
By susan fishman orlins
It all began with a tweet from MaMoosie, even though it originally began 50 years ago with a French kiss lesson.
During one of my maladaptive, obsessive, neurotic checkings of Twitter messages, I see this retweet from one of my followers “MaMoosie” who knows I’m a writer: “’Writing is easy. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.’ RED SMITH.”
I like this quote and I check out the one who originally tweeted it. It turns out he tweets these writers’ quotes all day long. I click to follow him so I can read more tweets, like “’The beautiful part of writing is that u don’t have to get it right the first time unlike, say, brain surgery.’ R.Cormier”
Then I look at his Twitter profile (All I know at this point is his Twitter name, AdviceToWriters). He has more than 35,000 followers, including Dick Cavett, witty Sixties talk show host, presently a writer.
Seeing the staggering 35,000+ number of followers shoots an adrenaline spike through a blogger like me who takes pride in her 88 followers. A thought bubble inflates overhead, If only I could get him to tweet about my blog, imagine how many new visitors would drop in on Confessions of a Worrywart, maybe even Dick Cavett . . .
I read his actual name. Oh My Lady Gaga! He’s Jon Winokur, Jonnie Winokur Junior High! I go to Amazon and see he’s written dozens of books from Ennui to Go: The Art of Boredom to The Portable Curmudgeon.
 Jonnie lived two doors away from George, my first boyfriend. George and I were the power couple in ninth grade when Jonnie was in seventh. But it was fun to pal around with Jonnie despite the age difference.
All these years later, I email Jonnie and he writes back. I sign Sue and explain, “I might forget and sometimes sign Susan, the name I’ve used ever since I reinvented myself in college.”
He emails back, addressing me as Sue/Susan and signs off as Jon/Jonnie, and when he next writes, he uses S/S and J/J. This is just the kind of thing that will stump me for minutes when I email him again and try to decide what names to use.
He says he remembers me as happy-go-lucky; I respond that’s true, but I’ve always been wired to worry.
I also tell him I’m thinking of doing a post about my writing life to see if I can merit a tweet to his 35,000+ followers. He says he’d be delighted to retweet something I compose on the subject of writing and encourages me also to write about George.
Jon/Jonnie offers to send me a copy of his Encyclopedia Neurotica, perhaps perceiving a bit of neurotica in me.
Meanwhile, I write J/J to ask if I’m only imaging that I taught him to French kiss, “egged on I’m sure by George,” I add.
 J sets the record straight, “I vaguely remember something about a French kissing lesson, but I’m hazy on the
details. (There have been so many.) Wait, it’s coming back to me now: As I recall the lesson consisted of too much theory and too little practice.”
I’m worried I’ve not come up with insights beyond the banal: Wowee digital connectivity! Nonetheless, I am now going to alert Jonnie to this very post and also call his attention to to my first blog post ever, “To Blog or Not to Blog,” which indeed is about writing.
To find out what happens if Jonnie tweets one of my links, check out my Twitter page and look for a number at the top that is higher than 88.
Have you turned up any blasts from the past on Twitter or elsewhere online?
Unrelated announcement: Have you taken my Organizing Challenge? Soon I’ll be writing about my own organizing success on Home Goes Strong.
By susan fishman orlins 
Shortly after my divorce I signed up for the Marine Corps Marathon and at first paired off to train with a divorced and widowed
man named Charlie, who told me he found divorcing his wife harder than losing his other wife to death, because he had to continue dealing with the one he’d divorced.
Charlie also told me about a woman that a friend had fixed him up with. He was 56 and she was 48. Afterwards, he told his friend the woman seemed really nice, but 48 was too young. He wanted to be with someone closer to his own age and grow older at the same pace. His friend said, “She’s not 48, she lied, she’s 54.” Due to the lie, Charlie never called her back. A more astute Newly Divorced than I would have learned her lesson from Charlie.
A few years later, a friend convinced me to sign up for Jdate. “Devoted Dad” read the following in the Ideal Match box on my profile:
Someone who is intelligent, honest, optimistic, reads The New Yorker. His dog gets along with my dog.
Before having hit the submit button, I’d shaved a few years off my age and gulped. As a compulsive truthteller–the type who leaves a note on a parked car after taking out someone’s mirror–lying made my stomach grumble.
I’ve never otherwise lied about my age, but my friend insisted, “Everyone lies about their age on these profiles. Men just assume you’re older than you say.”
 My best Jdate was with a guy I met for a walk. We walked around the block, after which he gave me a Hershey’s chocolate kiss and said, “This is our first kiss.” What made it the best was that lasted the least amount of time.
Late one afternoon in February, 2005 the streak of unpleasant Jdates showed promise of reversing. It was a week after I’d broken up with my so-called boyfriend, and it occurred to me to check my Jdate inbox, realizing I’d neglected to cancel my membership while I was dating the So-Called.
That’s when I saw the below email from Devoted Dad whose photo reminded me of a former beau. (Wow, I just noticed he’d sent this December 25! Even if someone is Jewish, which not everyone on Jdate is, Christmas day can be lonely.):
—Original Message—
From: DevotedDad
Sent: 12/25/2004 6:05:00 PM
To: qwerty2121 [That’s me]
Subject: Email
I, too, am looking to meet someone who is optimistic, intelligent, and honest. . . .Not many people out there are indeed, optimistic, intelligent, and honest. I, too, love kids and dogs (we have a lab). . . . It might be fun to meet for coffee or dinner. I look forward to hearing from you.
Regards,
Brian
Still in a daze from missing my ex-so-called boyfriend, I slouched on the couch, laptop on lap, and tapped out my standard aloof message. I wanted to show my honesty by immediately fessing up about my age:
Full disclosure: I lied about my age. I’m 59. Wanna meet for coffe or a walk? Do you ever get to DC?
He didn’t write back, so I wrote again.
Hi Brian. Thinking about why you didn’t respond to my e-mail, I’ve come up with the following: 1) You were put off that I reduced my age. 2) You were put off that I’m older than you. 3) My e-mail was curt and unfriendly. 4) You found someone else who was optimistic, intelligent, and honest (and younger). 5) All the above.
Maybe we can have coffee and try to get to the bottom of this. What do you think?
Susan
(Devoted Mom–of three daughters, ages 16, 18, and 22)
Then I received this:
Susan,
To be real honest, the reasons I did not respond were twofold:
(A) I don’t know if I would be able to forge a relationship with a woman who was a bit disingenuous. I can surmise why you exaggerated a tad, but I do not understand what you hoped to gain by it.
(B) My initial cyberspatial overture to you preceded by many weeks your response. If a woman is inclined or not inclined to meet me, I would hope that her inclination would be made known to me in a somewhat timely manner.
 I wish you the very best of luck.
Brian
Although I wasn’t recovering from, say, hip surgery, I could have been away from my email for a reason like that. I hadn’t responded sooner because, I’d had a boyfriend and had neglected to check my inbox, not that this excuses me. On the other hand, I can attest that unanswered emails are part of the online dating landscape.
Every now and then I think about Devoted Dad. He and his wife had been Foreign Service officers and his wife had been killed in a terrorist attack on a U.S. embassy, which I know because he’d written it in his Jdate profile. I’d pictured myself nurturing his three daughters, who his profile said were only a bit younger than my three girls. I’d imagined Sunday chocolate chip pancakes with all 6 girls.
Though my Jdate membership lapsed long ago, and I’m settled enough in my singleness that I’m not pining for a mate (indeed, I sometimes worry about the “space” an imagined mate would take up), a thought of Devoted Dad every so often pops into my head and I wonder how things are going for him.
It was after one such pop into my head that I started to write this. During all these years I’ve remained curious to meet Devoted Dad, yet resigned that my chances of a face-to-face encounter with him were equivalent to the likelihood I’d have an encounter with Charles Manson (though don’t think that hasn’t popped into my head).
This morning I gave Google one more go. It occurred to me to search for Devoted Dad’s daughters’ names, and lo! there it was, a tribute to his late wife that mentioned the girls. Another link led me to Facebook, which indicated one of his girls may have gone to the same middle and high school as one of my girls.
Sure enough, there they were in the student directory. His daughter was only one year behind mine. I’d probably sat within feet of him at a school play.
If I hadn’t lied about how old I was, he might never have written. Nonetheless, I promptly changed my profile to reflect my true age. Sorry I can’t offer a Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks ending. I just thought I’d share a peek into the world of Internet non-dating so those of you who haven’t tried it can see just how much fun you are not missing.
All comments welcome, and I would love to hear other Internet dating stories!
By susan fishman orlins Last week, in the writing group I facilitate for homeless people, I suggested a pre-Thanksgiving exercise that got me thinking. Instead of the grade-school-type assignment of writing what you’re thankful for I suggested we come up with some things we are not thankful for and see if we can find bright spots in those, the proverbial silver linings.
I’m not thankful that my children’s parents are divorced, but there are many things I am thankful for as a result of my divorce. Let me say at the outset that I liked being married. The greatest loss was that of our family unit, yet we still go on “family” vacations and gather on holidays when possible.
The three things I miss most about being married are:
1. Reading the Sunday New York Times with my ex. He would quote to me bits of interesting articles, which doubled my reading pleasure, literally.
2. Even though Steve traveled a lot, I never felt lonely. At times I felt disconnected from friends because it takes time to be married, time that I now use–and this is one of the silverest linings–to spend with old friends and cultivate new friendships as well as to visit my mom and talk to her every day.
3. Oops, I can’t remember the third thing. If it comes to me, I’ll let you know. Oh, now I remember, he wrote all the checks and dealt with life’s fine print.
As for a sleeping companion, I stopped caring whether someone with hairy legs was sharing my bed. In fact, at some point I began to believe that sharing my bed with my hairy beagle, Casey, was as pleasurable in it’s own way and in other ways a lot less bother. For example, I can blow my nose loudly in the night and Casey could care less. If only Casey could talk politics.
Sex begs to be addressed, even though my children, who read my blog, might gag. I’ll spare you details, but yes it’s nice to have a built-in partner. On the other hand it’s nice to have one’s own bedtime routine and to once again have had the opportunity to experience feelings of new romance with an–albeit limited–succession of boyfriends.
The morning routine is my treasure. I go to sleep when I please and wake up when I please and I turn on NPR without worrying I’m disturbing someone. And no one disturbs me. Casey simply follows along with my schedule, which often varies from day to day.
After getting dressed, if the weather is 50 degrees or above, I go out to the porch that is off my bedroom and stretch then write, which is what I’m doing now. It’s 12:48 pm and when I finish this, Casey and I will have breakfast and take a short walk. After that, I’ll write some more and then walk with a friend. (In case you missed the diet tip, my tip goes that I eat all day long, so the later I start, the less I eat.)
Often at night I go to dinner, to book club, to a swing dance. Other nights I turn on MSNBC and cook Brussels sprouts and answer mail, sitting through repeat rounds of Keith Olberman and Rachel Maddow. I find catching up on mail while listening to jabs at Sarah Palin a pleasant way to spend an evening.
Last night I went ice skating with my ex-so-called boyfriend under a velvety midnight-blue sky with a crisp half moon on the outdoor rink that sits between the Washington Monument and the Capitol. Afterwards we went for frozen yogurt and a stroll.
Don’t get me wrong, the skating was as lovely as it sounds but it’s not perfect. Mr. Ex-So-Called was cranky about my fiddling with stuff in the car, putting things in my pockets so I wouldn’t have to take my backpack to the ice and then fiddling again after we skated to put back stuff from my pockets into my backpack, all of which proves, of course, that you don’t have to be married to get on someone’s nerves.
When I was married, I loved when my ex traveled and I had the house to myself after the kids went to sleep. Plus, as I recently wrote in a Huffington Post article about helping kids deal with divorce, the kids and I could have French toast for dinner if we wanted or dinner in the bathtub or French toast for dinner in the bathtub. I can do that every day now, if I choose.
Now, it’s just Casey and me at home. The serenity is ideal for my writing. Ah, but there’s the rub. I’m not complaining, but as a free-lance writer, I have no anchor, no office culture. I regret that, as a competent loner, I’ve built more space around myself than I presently need. It helps that I’ve compiled a list of people I like, long enough to form a small village. So when the house gets too quiet, there’s always someone to bike to if I’m desperate to escape the racket of molecules banging together.
Maybe I could do more to attract the company of a suitable man. Instead, I have chosen a path of comfort in my “mom jeans.” By contrast, some women I know have undergone the cosmetic blade to look sexier and younger. Would I ever pay a surgeon to cut open my face open and staple my head and expose myself to the risk of looking like Popeye? Certainly not to attract a guy who’s too vain to use sunscreen like a man I met some years ago on a bike trip.
In sum, divorce has many silver linings and I have oodles to be thankful for. I hope you won’t allow this upbeat post to detract from my worrywart creds.
What silver linings can you find in things you’re not thankful for?
UNRELATED ANNOUNCEMENT: Check out my latest post on Home Goes Strong: COFFEE TABLE BOOKS . . . FEAST FOR THE EYES & GREAT GIFTS
By susan fishman orlins If you’re not a worrywart, maybe you don’t stress about weighing comfort and how you spend your time against what it requires to look your best. The older I get, the less patience I have for wearing anything that feels less comfortable than pajamas and shearling slippers.
I have paid what it cost for my first used VW to own a couple pairs of jeans that look pretty good and have some stretch for comfort. Yet, I’ve worn each pair once, because if I go to dinner and blue jeans are squeezing my stomach, it feels like there’s no room for my next bite of pork loin that the waiter promised would be both pink and safe, which proves a worrywart can have a risk-taking streak.
As for the time it would require to gussy up, my inner hedonist always opts for something more fun to do, which is anything from riding my bike to going into the basement with my hand in a plastic bag and picking up the sticky traps dense with crickets. At least then I get to cross something off my to do list.
And shopping? Oy. I remember shuddering when my wasband first announced he was running for congress and someone came up to me and said, “Dresses, you’re gonnna need dresses!” and all I could picture was claustrophobic dressing rooms and gagging after getting spritzed with a scent by the manicured finger of one who was dolled up in a red sheath dress and lipstick to match.
The other day I went to Eileen Fisher with my friend Rhoda, who knows how to shop. To the hangers of clothing she plucked from the racks I responded with a string of objections: I can’t wear a jewel neck, I don’t like shawl collars, I’d be too hot, I look sallow in gold tones, $178 for a scarf are you kidding?. . . . You get the idea.
I hated being so annoyingly negative. She, on the other hand, remained tolerant, patient and goal-oriented. I ended up with a dress that cost what I’d spent on each of the aforementioned dungarees and looks like a black elongated v-neck sweater. It has hung in my closet ever since (new things are similar to favorite things, avoidance-wise). As for shoes, I’m afraid nothing higher than a New Balance sole will ever again grace my feet.
The best advice about dressing I ever received was “You don’t have to look different each time, you just have to look good.” The lofty goal of looking good aside, that remark gave me permission to own just one uniform for each occasion. That way I never have to think too hard.
So what’s with trying to fade into darkness with my wardrobe? I’m not shy, I don’t mind drawing attention to myself and anyone who reads this blog will know that I am unafraid to expose some of my innermost thoughts. When I was in my twenties, I wore flashy vintage clothes from a thrift shop, like my threadbare Sgt. Pepper-type jacket.
Maybe the inclination to get all doodaded up skips a generation or I’m still rebelling against my mom, who always wore pretty colors and dresses, like a lime green shirtwaist that matched her eyes. My kids have an interest in clothes and will sometimes nag me not to wear my faded black jeans (with elastic waist of course) to go to the theater. They don’t agreee with me that those pants “read” as black slacks.
Funny, one of the things I don’t worry about is that Mr. Right/Mr. Wrong (wherever he is) and others might look askance at my plain, boring, comfortable, low-stress, limited wardrobe.
Unrelated announcement: If you’re Jewish, a foodie or a Jewish foodie, you might like Joan Nathan’s recipes in my article “Crisp, Golden Potato Pancakes & Latkes & Hanukkah in France.”
By susan fishman orlins During the first half of my fifties, I visited my parents in Florida a few times a year for a few days at a time. Then a friend, whose parents had died when she was in her early twenties, convinced me I should visit my folks every month. So I flew from D.C. to Florida and stayed with my mom and dad one night each month. I had a boyfriend and was always anxious to get home, even if I didn’t see him every day.
Once a week I spoke on the phone to my parents for around 10 minutes. My mom would answer and my dad would get on the other line. Every year on my birthday they would call and sing a duet of Happy Birthday on my answering machine tape.
I always had rich conversations and great fun with my mom and dad. My dad, who began to shave his head at the age of 40, looked like Yul Brynner and was a spiffy dresser.
But we would crack up whenever I kidded him about his pair of shoes from the Seventies or his jacket of the same vintage whose collar my mom had slashed and stitched. My mother and father would have been my dear friends even if they hadn’t been my parents.
But they were my parents so, though I deeply appreciated that I had them in my life, I gave more thought to how frequently I ought to visit them than I did to the actual pleasure of those times together. Whenever I would leave them, my dad would say, “Oh, Sooze, it’s such a short visit.” He wouldn’t say more, because that’s the way he was. He never wanted to impose on his children.
If I were at all willing to be sappy, I would say the disappointed look on his face when we parted tugged at my heart.
Then, one month in 2006, I stayed for 2 nights, which made me decide that from then on I would stay for 2 nights instead of only 1. It was 2006, which I know, not because I can ever remember that’s the year my dad died, which I can’t, but because on those joyous 2 days, my dad took a picture of my mom and me, legs outstretched on their screen porch awhile we each read our copy of Deborah Tannen’s book “You’re Wearing That? Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation,” which had just come out. I was writing an article about author and Georgetown University professer Tannen and my mom had coincidentally borrowed “You’re Wearing That?” from the library.
I sent Deborah Tannen a copy of the photo. Remarkably, she said the photo of my mom looked exactly like her deceased mom and that she was keeping it on her desk. This delighted me because I had great admiration for Deborah; our lookalike mothers made me feel bonded with her.
It was only a few weeks later, one month before my father’s 87th birthday, that my sister called to say our Dad had pancreatic cancer. Thirteen days later he died, but not before he had the chance to sit in a wheelchair at the rehab place, wearing his characteristic plaid short sleeve shirt and khaki Bermudas, in a circle with his children and grandchildren. My dad loved life and had been a magnet for all the other elderly at the independent living facility, where they voted him “Prom King” and where he greeted each resident by name every day at breakfast. Yet, ever the optimist, Dad told us, “I’m not afraid to die, in fact I’m looking forward to it.”
That night the family circled my dad’s bed and we all sang: “Fiddler on the Roof” songs (he’d played the role of Perchik), Irish songs (he loved trilling the r’s) and “I Been Workin’ on the Railroad.” Dad’s roommate listened while his aide wiped away a tear. When I said I was from DC, the aide told me she had been an aide to Deborah Tannen’s mom for years.
When I set out to write something, it usually surprises me where it ends up. I had intended this post to be about my mom and how ever since my dad died, we talk every day. Not just for 10 minutes and I wonder, among other things, how I’ll fill the void of not having those talks after she dies (assuming she predeceases me, a worrywart can never be too sure).
It reminds me of my interview with Deborah Tannen, during which she told me she talked to her dad every day for 45 minutes or an hour. It was as though she had given me permission to chat that long with my parent.
Mom’s and my favorite subject is politics, though she is thoroughly fed up with the behavior on Capitol Hill. My mom is about to turn 92 now, and her mind is as clear as ever, though sometimes it feels like we’re playing trivia.
Me: So who was on Oprah today, Ma?
Mom: Oh, you know, the pretty one with long hair and glasses.
Me: Gloria Steinem?
Mom: That’s it!
The guessing game goes the other way too, where I can’t remember and give clues and she gives the right answer.
My mom also gets great pleasure from life and seems more content than anyone I know, enjoying everything from Bach to Bingo. Maybe that’s because she has so few choices each day: pot roast or pasta, Oprah or Ellen, Moment Magazine or Malcolm Galdwell.
One benefit of divorce is that, over these years, it has afforded me more time to spend with my parents. I know how lucky I am both to have had that choice and to have made that choice.
Unrelated announcement: Check out my new Huffington Post post 12 Ways to Help Kids Deal With Divorce.
By susan fishman orlins Though I have a fear of catching “other people’s worries,” I don’t worry about getting infected by my friend Baxter; each of us independently has come up with the same things to worry about.
While gabbing over cappuccinos the other day, she mentioned fear of forgetting people’s names. This is an example of a fear I caught in 1976.
I had been living in Arlington, Vermont, where I moved to the upstairs of a lovely, lonely (what a difference one letter can make) farmhouse after my boyfriend moved from DC to NY and didn’t ask me to join him. As the snow piled up during the first storm of the season, I wept for hours, knowing I was trapped in those frozen, isolated woods till the spring thaw. It was so cold I slept in my mom’s old mink coat, which she had given me.
The boyfriend and I were soulmates, as exemplified by his similar ability to talk backwards (his favorite word was radnelac/ calendar), except he alphabetized his fridge food (applesauce, baba ganoush, chevre) and I didn’t.
And/or was it that his closet was ordered according to color? I remember bringing my friend Sue to his apartment one day to show her how he had organized his shoes.
The abundance of hardships that winter in VT included breaking my hand on day one of the cross country ski season. My mood brightened a bit when I discovered how easy it was to shampoo my hair with only one hand. I took comfort in knowing how dispensible my left hand was, just in case I were ever to lose it for good.
Less easy was having to drive an old VW, whose alignment was so bad it required, as luck would have it, two hands to keep it on the road, which made the water that splashed in through holes in the floorboard seem easy peasy.
In addition to selling my line drawings, substitute teaching and joining the cross country ski patrol, I worked as a hatcheck girl at the Sirloin Saloon in Manchester.
One Saturday night in March, I got permission to leave early to visit BF in NY. When I returned to VT, my boss called to say that a coat had been stolen after I left and that I was fired.
I called BF to say I was leaving VT and could come to live with him in NY or that I would move back to DC and we were through. He said he’d pick me up to move to NY the following Saturday.
On Friday night he phoned to say he couldn’t go through with it (echoed a few years later by my second-husband-to-be, 4 days before we, um, went through with it).
I was sorry but also somewhat relieved to know where I stood with the suddenly-ex-BF. The following morning, I rented a U-Haul and my best acquaintance came to help me haul my stuff into it. My other best acquaintance had had me over weekly to listen to his audio tapes of “The Bickersons,” a Forties radio serial, while eating ginger cookies and sitting in growing darkness as the sun went down behind the snowy mountain peaks and trains rattled in the distance. I had no real friends.
When best acquaintance arrived to help, I went to introduce her to the couple who lived downstairs, and I simply blanked on her name. It was especially humiliating, since she had been nice enough to come and lend support.
I gave more thought to what I would do when I got to DC than to whose name I might forget next. My friend’s mother thought I should become a stockbroker. She said I had a good head for numbers and that I would meet a rich guy. The idea appealed to me for different reasons–I liked action, some risk-taking, and being in a man’s world.
Stockbroking and I were indeed well-suited to each other. Every time I made a sale, endorphins flowed through my veins (or wherever they flow through) and I loved working toward an ever-increasing bottom line of sales. I made enough money to buy a condo and a new VW convertible.
At Merrill Lynch, I had a colleague named John. One day over lunch, he confessed his fear of forgetting names and ever since, the whole business of introducing people has made me queasy.
It feels insulting to a person if you forget their name, but really, it just means you forgot their name. It could be your BFF. One way I deal with it, especially if it’s a party at my home, is to say, “Introduce yourselves.” If I see an intro situation approaching, I quickly rehearse names in my head, often settling for just first names.
Epilogue: BF got married and now lives in DC, as do I. I got divorced. I ranked 2nd in opening new accounts at Merrill Lynch during my first full year. I never got back the rocking chair that had been my grandmother’s, which I left in the custody of the couple downstairs in VT. I now forget a lot more than names, but so do my friends who are my age. Why is it I don’t forgot about things like the rocking chair?
By susan fishman orlins Unrelated announcement: Show Your Mojo With Coffee Table Books, my latest post on Home Goes Strong.
I wonder whether anyone else avoids using favorite things. As far back as high school, I remember saving my blue Villager blouse for special occasions.
Now that I’ve lived several more decades, there are so many more favorite things to save and not use. For example, I once had a set of four Winnie the Pooh juice glasses. Tigger, Eeyore and Winnie himself all broke, which serves me right for using them with abandon.
Now that only Piglet remains, I keep it in the front of a cabinet with glass doors, because I like to see it. But then, whenever I need a drink, I have to move it to get to my Archie jelly glass or one of the other less-favored ones farther back on the shelf. I don’t even want to talk about how many extra minutes of my life this exercise has taken up.
With dishes, I’ve done a good job getting around this problem of faves. I don’t really have sets of salad plates, which has allowed me to collect a wonderful variety over the years. Just to be safe, I buy two of each.
Ah, but this vast array of dishes I’ve amassed, it turns out, requires me to think even harder. Do I want to enjoy my tomato sandwich from the soothing yellow dish with lavender rim or one of the three plates each of my three girls gave me at different times and, if so, which one?
 As for umbrellas, I collect small lightweight ones; you can never have too many umbrellas. Some are really lovely, such as the olive-colored one with turquoise border that I don’t believe has ever experienced a raindrop. After I lost the russet-colored umbrella I bought in Vienna, the only ones I’ll use are the ugly red one and the uglier brown with dots of assorted pastel hues.
I admire my kids who can buy something new and just start right in wearing it. When I finally do wear something new, I feel best after it has acquired some sort of ding to make it less precious.
So what’s up with all this saving things? Maybe it’s a version of the fear of loss I have about everything from Casey to photographs to the death of my third husband, if I ever were to acquire one. On the other hand, all those cherished black sweaters I’ve left behind in movie theaters and on airplanes? I’ve accepted their disappearances with grace and even at times relief that I no longer have to worry about losing something I’m so fond of.
Janice Joplin may have had it right, at least when it comes to favorite things, “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.”
What favorite things do you avoid using? I’d love to hear from you in the comments box below!
By susan fishman orlins I’d been rooting around for a good mental picture to swap to whenever I get visions of things like having no one to play Scrabble with when I reach my December years. I was searching for a sweet memory of which I have many. The ones that kept leaping to mind, however, were of jolly times at home with my kids and their friends, back in the days before Medicare was looming in my immediate future.
The problem with those memories is their bittersweetness, the kind of joy mixed with loss I feel when I watch videos of my daughters in their single-digit years: Emily cracking herself up by repeatedly throwing her 2-year-old little body on the beanbag, while Sabrina sings Appity Oy Lo, which she thinks is Happy Birthday, and Eliza–also in her own orbit–cartwheels continuous figure eights around her sisters. Of course the video camera captures the idyllic moments, then you hear a wail begin and the scene jumps to another smooth performance until a wail begins and then another scene jump and so on.
So I was delighted when out to dinner last night with my ex-so-called boyfriend at our favorite restaurant, where we go so often that all the waiters stop by our table at some point to say hi. Never running out of things to talk about, masticating each subject to a pulp, the ex-so-called and I create a scene that in itself is a worthy video to use as a replacement when I catch myself worried about being captured by terrorists.
However, something led us to recall a neighborhood restaurant we used to go to. It was on a wide, quietish street–just a smattering of folks walking dogs–with a panel of grass dividing the scantly-traveled traffic lanes. The cafe had no al fresco dining, but whenever we went we’d ask if they would mind setting up a table outside for us. And there we’d be, just me and Mr. Wrong on the sidewalk, knowing we looked a bit out of place sharing a bucket of mussels at our solitary table on the pavement, yet feeling happy like in a Disney movie.
In fact, it always reminded me of “Lady and the Tramp,” the scene where they are slurping spaghetti under a bright moon, Lady batting her eyelashes and the jolly serenader crooning “Bella Notte.”
So my tip day tip is to prepare a mental image or memory that cheers you. Then, next time the woes arrive, change the channel to this soothing pre-planned thought.
Happy Tip Day!
SOXO
By susan fishman orlins Unrelated announcement: My two new posts on Home Goes Strong are: “8 Simple Ways to Brighten Your Fall Garden” and “Create a Dramatic Look in Your Powder Room.”
Semi-related announcement: My new post on Huffington Post is: Worry Less: 10 Lessons from Cognitive Therapy
Right after posting One Space or Two? I began to worry that readers would roll their eyes, wondering why I thought anyone would want to hear about the minutiae that hopscotches around in my head. It was wasted worry, because the views of my blog doubled that day and plenty of smart people (like Harvard student, high-powered lawyer, author/filmmaker) mentioned they too have pondered this space-after-period conundrum.
The favorable One Space or Two? reception emboldened me to move on to its distant cousin: XO or What?.
For certain friends I would never sign XO (you know who you are). I feel safest using XO when signing emails to friends who have themselves signed off with a variation of XO. When stumped as to how to sign off in a reply, I scroll down to see how the sender signed. If someone uses x’s and o’s, then so can I, and they ought also tolerate a smattering of  and .
Here’s what often happens when I arrive at the end of an email: I feel compelled to express warmth. It seems unfriendly to abruptly sign just Susan. After all, I was voted Friendliest Girl in the Ninth Grade (the honor in my life of which I am most proud, not including  anything related to my kids . . . and equivalent to my friend Ginger having won a “Bandstand” dance contest).
The whole signing business wears me out and wastes time. I dawdle, debating the best way to sign off. Speaking of best, one thing I–of the cheesy XO–cannot bear write at the bottom of an email is “Best” . . . or worse . . . the oft-disingenuous “All best,” which a landlord I once had, who didn’t like me at all, used and it soured me on “All best” for life. A few times I tried “Best,” but then deleted it; I just couldn’t do it, the same way I could never bite into a sardine.
Ixnay also to “Ciao” and “Cheers.” A better thinker/writer than I would be able to articulate why this pair of enders grates on me. Btw, it’s nothing personal of course, so please don’t be offended if you use any unfavorites of this XO user.
“Love,” on the other hand, a traditional way to end letters, ought to be used selectively. Never with Mr. Wrongs, who would also squirm at XO; in such cases, no signature suffices, the blankness of which makes me think of my first set of in-laws, when I was 19, whom I didn’t call anything and my mother said that wasn’t right. Though, when I receive an email ending with “Love, So and So,” literal person that I am, it makes me feel, well, loved.
I’ve consulted a few friends on this winding up of emails. A couple of suggestions I find palatable are “See you” and “Take care.” Oh dear, now I am going to be even more self-conscious signing off, because some of my email correspondents will read this, which is what happened when I published an article about the awkwardness of social kissing (which I’m over) and one friend, whenever we visited after that, would back away when she saw me coming with hands in the air like a stick-up victim and say, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to kiss you.”
Signing off with my kids, is a whole other matter. Haha, not only do I spread a reckless array of X’s and O’s along the bottom line, I emphasize the sentiment with !!!!!!! which looks something like XOXOXOXOXO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and to leave no room for doubt, I add <3′s: <<<<<<3 <333333333333 <3 <3 <3
How great if you would let me know ways you deal with signing off. Does anyone else obsesses over this? Please send some new ideas for how to say “Ciao” on the page.
XO Susan
PS Just got this email from my daughter reminding me of my shortcomings re signing text messages:
“HAHAHAHAHA!!!!! And in text messages, ma, you write xoyozo, or sometimes, xyocoz. XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOOOOXXOXOXOXO!!!!!!!!!”
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