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The Effects of Divorce on Children
How My Parents’ Divorce Turned Me Into Jason Bourne The effects of divorce on children often makes them into fantastic spies. My parents divorced when I was two. I decided I’d learn fluent English, French, Russian, Dutch, German, Swedish, and
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How My Grandma Took a Stand & Decided to Leave Her Church of 40 Years
This Story Is in Honor of National Grandparents Day & LBGT Rights In 1988 at the height of the AIDs epidemic and near-hysterical homophobia, my Aunt Barbara – who’d once been married to a Paul Newman lookalike — came out
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He Answered the Door With a Gun
What happened in the hot tub stays in the hot tub. Let’s just say I did not lose my virginity there, but the Kraken had been unleashed …
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A Colleary Christmas 2015 (The Back Waxing Edition)
“Okay, I told Henry he could write his part of the letter, because there was a good chance I’d run amuck …
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My 7 Best Summer Memories from 1975
“If any of his four granddaughters (not-a-one grandson!) complained about the fish guts, he’d yell, ‘Shad-up and do it! You catch ’em, you clean ’em, you cook ’em, I eat ’em.’
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When The Man You Loved Changes Forever
She did all the things besotted mistresses do. She waited for her phone to ring, she called his home and hung up when his wife answered.
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Banishing the “Wicked” in Stepmother
She had platinum blond hair worn in an Aqua-Net bouffant, thick black eyeliner and a figure Jayne Mansfield would’ve killed for. At night she peeled her false eyelashes off like she was undressing her face.
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Zen and the Art of Sailing During A Small Craft Advisory Warning
I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to barf. I didn’t want to get salty. I didn’t want to smell feces. I didn’t want to be dominated by forces beyond my control. I was invited to take a sailing
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7 Surprising Things My Mom Did!
Mother Daughter Relationships: I was raised in the 70s; era of the skyrocketing divorce rate (key parties?) and the afternoon martini cart (reference any Bewitched episodes; Samantha and both Darrens kept the Grey Goose flowing). Whether it was the 70s,
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The Anti-Thanksgiving
Today, in an effort to prove my Mavericism — a phrase first coined by Tom Cruise when he played Maverick in that cinematic masterpiece Top Gun — I’m bucking the trend and going anti-Thanksgiving by itemizing the things I’m NOT GRATEFUL
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When Your Divorced Parents Love Each Other
My mom and dad haven’t been married since I was two years old. Throughout my childhood, they had very little contact. Once custody was settled they passed me back and forth with a minimum of drama or friction. I was
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The Happiness Photos
I’m happy today. What the hell am I going to blog about? Oh, Happiness how you foil my creativity! How soft and sloppy you make me! How ineffably boring. Here are my happiness photos: But don’t worry, I’m certain my
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A Few Things From My Life
Ellen Marie Stradall Thank you everyone for all your kind, well-wishes for my grandmother’s memorial service. It was so lovely. All the words spoken were a testament to my grandma’s particular love. Here she is in college in Hays, Kansas
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When Caregivers Strike
“We’re born in diapers and we die in diapers.” This is what my grandpa Rusty told my mom, aunt, grandma and me as we hovered over his deathbed. “You four look like a buncha buzzards waitin’ to finish me off,”
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What I Know About Sisters, Now That I’m In My 40s
Here’s What I Know About Sisters in my 47th Year The truth will set you free. I’ve been jealous of my younger sister, Gina, for as long as I can remember. Well, that’s not completely true. She did have a
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11 Wedding Anniversaries In Photos
More Than a Decade of Marriage! Sunday Henry and I celebrated eleven years of marriage by gorging on red meat and tippling mescal while I blew my fluey nose into cloth napkins at Boa in Santa Monica. Here Are One
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The Celebration of a Life
On Saturday my mom had a celebration at her home for her passionate, intelligent, macho, intrepid, intractable, loving, Rennaisance-Man-of-a husband, Guido, who passed away last September. My mom couldn’t face a memorial until now. Among his vast array of
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Things to do at The Grand Canyon (Lose Your Shizz)
I lost my marbles on the train platform at The Grand Canyon Saturday. Actually, a more astute phrase might be, “I went batshit crazy” aka “I channeled Mega Bitch” (who beds down with Mega Death, but that’s another story). I
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When Thanksgiving Sucks!
This was the worst Thanksgiving ever! None of the children broke any of their bones. No one got drunk and called everybody cheap bastard sons-of-bitches. No one made a pass at someone else’s wife. The turkey wasn’t as dry as
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I’m Co-Dependent with Octomom
I’m worried about Octomom. Fourteen kids. Eight of them are 2. Yesterday I threw my daughter’s tights at her when she STILL hadn’t gotten dressed after I’d asked her several times. I only have two kids. I’m 46. I have a master’s degree. I’ve had
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Who’s The Fairest Of Them All?
Sisterly Competition Bridget and I were lying in bed reading last night when she activated a sleeper cell to commit jihad against me. “Mommy, who’s prettier? Me or Clare?” she asked casually. Clare is, of course, her older sister who
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All About My Mother
Blaming Your Mom Here’s my sob story accompanied by violin in A minor. My parents divorced when I was two. Both remarried. My dad once and forever. My mom (She Who Shall Be Named Culpable) three more times. There was
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