New Essay up on AARP site

I wrote this essay a while ago and it found the perfect home at AARP's The Girlfriend. They changed the title from my submission (which was "I'm Interested"). Pubs do that pretty regularly for Search Engine Optimization. But I liked my original title, so I figured I'd include it here.

Here's the link, if you care to read:

https://tinyurl.com/s3z53sy

I hope that works!

xo
Jes

50 Letters -- an essay

Earlier this year, I had my first piece published in The Girlfriend. It's an essay about how I celebrated turning 50.

You can read it here: Fifty Letters (That's the title I gave it. They gave it a different title.)

As always, thanks for reading!

xo
JesE

Crushing Monday (New York Times Piece!!)

Back in November, a writer friend told me about someone in Iowa (a friend of hers) who was looking to do an evening of readings about "Launching Your Kid." My friend said, "I bet you have something like that."

As it happens, I was working on a piece about that exact topic and this was exactly the fire under my butt I needed to actually finish it.

I wrote the story. The story changed. I wrote it again. (And then revised it a million times.) I sent it off in February, knowing I wouldn't hear anything back until late spring.

Then, in a what-the-hell moment, I sent it to the New York Times to see if there was any interest. It bounced around a little and then found a home in Word Play -- a blog about crossword puzzling that, I must admit, I had no idea existed.

I still don't know if it will be accepted for the Iowa reading, but even if it is, this is quite a different essay than I originally submitted for the Kid Launching project.

Link to The Language of Letting Go

In any case, I feel very lucky.
xo

A Tiny Whole Life Challenge Announcement

Hi there,

I just wanted to announce that I've done some much-needed blog house-cleaning and organized all the Whole Life Challenge Posts into a tidy little list in the margin. If you're viewing this on your phone, there may not be a margin -- you need to go to the bottom of a post and click on View Web Version. It's an imperfect system, I know. But if you're looking for reasons to drink more water, now you know where to find them.

JW

Oh, Shit

Warning: This post is largely about poop. If that’s a problem for you — if you’re someone who doesn’t want to read anything about poop, ever — just stop reading now. And if you and I are personal friends, and you keep reading anyway, please don’t email and say, “What were you thinking?!?”  Here’s what I’m thinking: someone made an emoji of poop. And then lots of other someones made key chains and thumb drives and coin carriers out of that emoji. There’s plenty of people who can have an above-board relationship with poop. Those are the people I’m talking to.

Earlier this week I came down with a relatively mild stomach virus. Mostly, I just had a low-grade fever and a headache. But my stomach felt “off” and I lost my appetite, so I haven’t eaten much in the past few days. Oatmeal with almond butter. Oatmeal without almond butter. Egg drop soup and fried rice. And two California Rolls.

This morning, my poop was pale.

This concerned me for a few reasons. One: I’m a hypochondriac. Two: In the spring, I was Skyping with an old friend and he shared that he was about to have an operation. He held a Sharpie Marker up to the camera to show me the color of the bowel movement he’d had that alerted him that something was wrong. He pointed to the gray half. “Somehow I knew that if your poop is gray, that’s very bad,” he confided. So he went to the doctor, and it was bad. I can’t remember what exactly he had, but it was some perfect storm of intestinal issues that required a multi-hour surgery (from which, I”m happy to report, he has recovered).

So after my pale poop, I googled something like, “what if my poop is light brown?”

I know that googling things like this is not a good idea for me, but that rarely stops me. I have doctors that have made me swear I wouldn’t ever google symptoms of anything, or watch “House,” or reruns of “ER” (which I loved), and most of the time I abide. But today I did not.

I will summarize my findings. Stools that are black and tar-like are not good at all. And red streaks are not good either unless you’ve had beets (which, for me, is never).

And the other “problem color” for poop is “clay.”

Clay?

Who describes poop as “clay colored”?

Apparently clay is a big red-flag for liver and/or pancreas issues and since my father died of pancreatic cancer I quickly decided that the moment I stopped dodging that bullet was today.

What exact color is clay? Is it terra-cotta pot colored? Is it Sculpey before you put it in the oven colored? I was just at Jerry’s Art Supply store and even if you keep to the neutral tones, I assure you there is clay to be had in 40 different shades.

I’ve owned clay the color of this morning’s poop. I probably still have some in the art supplies cabinet from when my kids were young, along with the pipe cleaners and felt and 400,000 Crayola crayons that come in every color of the rainbow.

Would anyone say: Get to the doctor if your poop is the color of a pipe cleaner?

Exactly.

Here’s an idea: Pantone colors. Give the Problem Poop a name and number that is not subject to interpretation. You can use Benjamin Moore colors if that’s more accessible.

I was feeling so much better today until I started obsessing about Clay Poop. Since then, I’ve lost my appetite completely and my headache is coming back.

If you stuck with me to the end...thanks. I just really needed to get that out. 

Weather Beaten

I got another essay in the New York Times!!!!

Here's the beginning:

“I don’t want you on the road in a snowstorm,” I told my 18-year-old son, Noah. It was Wednesday, two days before his scheduled departure, even before forecasts were dire.

“It’s fine,” he said. Translation: “If the bus leaves, I plan to be on it.”

Here's the link:

https://nyti.ms/2k86Wtu

As always, thanks for reading!

JW

Commuter Train

Like me, the woman next to me is wearing earbuds, though she’s also reading a book. When the train lurches, she reaches her hand out and touches the metal handrail that we’re both standing beside, and I am repeatedly stricken by her perfect pink manicure. I don’t stand on the commuter train that often, so I’m taking my cues from her, perching on the short stairway of the double-decker train. It’s a good spot I’ve snagged: second step from the top, affording me the ability to look out the train window to my left, or take in all the other standees in what I like to think of as the train-car foyer to the right below.

The woman is close enough to me that, even with my music on, I’d be able to tell if she were talking. And she wasn’t. Not for the whole 40-minute trip. Until the very end.
   
“It’s an aphrodisiac,” she says. Not to me, but to the guy standing on the other side of her. He seems small, probably because he’s in the “foyer.” His slick black hair makes him look more Queens than Jersey – though admittedly, that distinction is often a fine one.

She hasn’t said a word to this guy the whole trip. She hasn’t glanced in his direction. Does she even know him?

He says something and then she says something and I can’t hear enough of any of it for my liking, but I’m sure the topic is aphrodisiacal in nature.

I pull out one of my earbuds, half of “Uncle John’s Band” now dangling at my chest.

“Who is this man?” I want to say. “What aphrodisiac?”

I am very good at eavesdropping, but now the woman’s back is to me and I can pick up nothing. I pull out my second earbud. They’re voices are too low. The train pulls into the station and they walk onto the platform.

I cannot bear the thought of going through my day not knowing whether they know each other. I cannot comprehend the possibility that they don’t, but the commuter train is a world, the way a dance floor is a world, and the dog park is a world, and I want to understand the culture of this world in a way that right now feels extremely urgent.

I catch up and ride behind them up the escalator (we’re three in a row), trialing them like Harriet the Spy for the 30 seconds it takes for the two to fall into a comfortable step beside each other and for me to become satisfied that he was not a stranger.

Phone calls on a park bench, waiting for the light to change, talking to the butcher, on line at the bank. Are we all always listening to each other? Or is it just me?