A little while back, my friend Martha Thomas and I went to a happy hour held by a city magazine we both wrote for. I brought Jane and she brought her daughter Mary, since having them play together saved us each the cost of a sitter. They ran off to a less crowded corner of the place while we struggled […]
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Posted inBohemian Rhapsody, Lifeline
The Story of Job: A Readers’ Quiz
If the prophet Ezekiel comes to my house I will show him my home mausoleum, located on top of the bookshelf in my living room. Look, Ezekiel, here’s my mother in the silver ice bucket that she won with my dad in the 1965 Husband and Wife Tournament at Hollywood Golf Club in Deal, New Jersey…
Posted inBohemian Rhapsody, Lifeline
Little Sweetheart of the Boston Strangler
Like so many therapists before her, Tracy (whom you met in the last column) had to be made aware of my romantic history. My taste in men had always been unusual, going beyond the standard predilection for “bad boys” into uncharted territory. For example, my earliest memory of romance is an attempt to initiate a […]
Posted inBohemian Rhapsody, Lifeline
The Help, Continued: My Life in Therapy
Not long after I moved to Baltimore in 2009, I realized that I needed help. I was still a mess about the implosion of my marriage, I was having no luck with dating, and neither hot yoga, white wine, or what was left in the prescription bottle from the last time I sprained my ankle […]
Posted inBohemian Rhapsody, Lifeline
Dinner Party 101: The Host on High
I have heard it said that the guest list is more important than the menu in determining the success of a dinner party. But either is easily trumped by the behavior of the host or hostess. Even with the best intentions, it is entirely possible to ruin your own soiree. For example, it’s hard for people not to notice that […]
Posted inBohemian Rhapsody, Lifeline
The Things They Googled
If they were young, they googled the things they didn’t know. Some were things they were supposed to know, like the habits of the hammerhead shark. The perfect squares under 100. The phrase “rite of passage.” When they got bored, they googled images of peace signs, photographs of rainbows, a video of a girl singing […]
Posted inBohemian Rhapsody, Lifeline
Which Hurts Worse? Sibling Revelry in the Emptying Nest
If you are sending a child to college this month, you may be feeling a little sensitive about the imminent outsourcing or termination of most of your parental duties. However, you are not the only person in your house to be affected by the upcoming changes. For example, since all four of her half-siblings moved […]
Posted inBohemian Rhapsody, Lifeline
True Confessions: A Writing Workshop Confidential
In most occupations, if you have an accident at work, you end up in the hospital. When a creative nonfiction teacher has a little job-site snafu, forget the ambulance. There’s plenty of trauma, but not the kind they can handle at the ER. I’d logged just a year of campus experience when I taught a […]
Posted inBohemian Rhapsody, Lifeline
August in Paris
If not actually an oxymoron, “family travel” is dangerously close. What you see if you visit Chichen Itza with the members of your household is the same thing you see in Hong Kong or Yellowstone Park: the exotic relentlessly crushed under the heel of the mundane. For example, the only reason I found to stay […]
Posted inBohemian Rhapsody, Lifeline
My Life on TV: A Cautionary Tale
If I had not recently become aware of hard-to-believe reality TV shows like “Parking Wars” and “Extreme Couponing,” my phone call from a woman named Jeanette who claimed to be the producer of “Ship Happens” might have seemed to be a joke. “Ship Happens,” Jeanette explained, is a new show about the shipping industry, set […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Shameless Plug: Baltimore Fishbowl on The Signal
Bohemian Rhapsody columnist Marion Winik and senior editor Betsy Boyd discussed the website, the local writing community, and the changing shape of journalism on WYPR’s “The Signal,” last week. (Note: They give a good interview; this doesn’t mean they have faces for radio!) If you missed it, you can listen to the podcast.
Posted inArts & Entertainment, Lifeline
Your Comments and Recommended Reading
After reading “Don’t Sweat the Chicken Soup” yesterday (which quickly became our most read story ever) by Bohemian Rhapsody columnist Marion Winik, another BFB writer and Hot House columnist Cynthia McIntyre suggested we recommend to you, dear reader, “How To Land Your Kid In Therapy,” from The Atlantic Monthly. “It addresses what lots of us […]
Posted inBohemian Rhapsody, Lifeline
Don’t Sweat the Chicken Soup (Recipe Included)
Until you end up with a helpless infant on your hands, the seriousness of first-time parents looks ridiculous. Once there, you quickly grasp the problem. Your child could be hurt in any of 2.3 million ways, 1.9 million of which are your fault. It could even die, an unlikely prospect which will occur to you […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
This Saturday: Writing You Can Dance to
A great live reading can be as stimulating as good live music. Saturday afternoon at the Windup Space catch the New Mercury nonfiction reading series featuring Fishbowl’s very own “Bohemian Rhapsody” columnist Marion Winik. This gig always welcomes a diverse group of talented readers — and often performs terrifically. Other readers include Jay Imbrenda, quick-witted […]
Posted inBohemian Rhapsody, Lifeline
Desperate Housewives of Roland Park
On February 1, 2009, my eight-year-old daughter Jane, my miniature dachshund Beau, and I pulled up behind the moving truck in front of our new home in Baltimore, a sage-green rowhouse on a tree-lined street. As the movers began to unload, I went in to make sure everything was clean and ready. It was, except […]
