When I picked up Lori Gottlieb’s book, Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough, which came out in February, it was with skepticism. I have spent the last three years interviewing dozens and dozens of single 30-something women around the country for Seeking Happily Ever After, a feature-length documentary that I’m making with Kerry David about this generation’s struggle to redefine the fairytale. We look at why the number of never-married 30-something women in the U.S.
Her words stop me cold, freeze my deep and purposeful breathing.
“What,” I think, “did that crazy hippie lady just say?”
I try to resume the assigned task, mindfully inhaling the chilled air of the fitness center and balancing my sharp sitz bones on a borrowed blue cushion. I will my swirling mind to settle softly like a leaf to the ground. But Mary Love continues to hijack my piss-poor attempts at being in the now.
The Jewish Sabbath is a festival of liberation, but for the uninitiated, it can also be quite a workout. No work is done on Shabbat, no commerce transacted. In the first winter of my observance, I diligently prepared Shabbat dinner every week, rose early on Saturday morning and walked two miles to synagogue. My enthusiasm carried me that far, but once I left shul, my resolution faltered.
What does a life cost? In 1987, I knew exactly: $150,000. One of my major responsibilities as a hospital department manager was obtaining authorization from insurance companies for bone marrow transplantations. The insurance companies had an equally fierce responsibility to try to deny them. With the help of the oncologists and hematologists I worked for, I wrangled by telephone and mail with authorization specialists for months on end.
Thank goodness I work with fellow bibliophiles. I needed a good book to read and Nikki loaned me this one, set in early 1900s Niagara Falls on the Canadian side. It wasn’t only a love story, I also learned the history of the fabled area.
By writin4alivin, Monday, March 01, 2010, 0 comments
As a 16-year-old, Jennifer Poss Taylor began praying for Ashley. At the time, she just didn’t know how much her little girl would need someone like her.
