ArcaMax

I had surgery on my knee recently, the second in a series of operations to correct a problem with my ACL, the problem being that I don't have one.

I first injured my knee years ago -- many, many years ago -- at a house party. For a reason that completely eludes me now, I was trying to stop a fight between two guys who I later learned had been ...Read more

You're a parent. You're busy. And, if you're anything like me, the last time you paid to see a movie in the theater, it was back when we thought COVID would be over by the time Pete Davidson had found another out-of-his-league woman to date.

But maybe you're ready to get out there again. Maybe you saw "Top Gun: Maverick" in the theater and ...Read more

Everyone's complaining about how expensive eggs have gotten lately, but I haven't been stressing.

I've always bought the extra-pricey eggs anyway, the ones with the drawings of flowers on them, the ones that promise the chickens who laid your eggs were raised on a bucolic farm in Iowa where each hen gets her own house, the chicks are taken ...Read more

I was at dinner a few weeks ago when the cold hand of approaching death smacked me in the face.

The blow came as I looked at a picture of my husband's friend, a guy I'd last seen 20 years ago.

"He looks so ... old," I thought.

Then, a horrifying addendum popped into my brain.

Do I look old, too?

I laughed nervously and glanced at a nearby ...Read more

This is an honest Christmas cookie recipe.

Current fashion in online recipes is to begin by treating readers to a personal essay about the emotional impact almonds have had on your life, followed by a culinary genealogy of cookies, stretching back to William the Conqueror.

But I've got 354 presents to wrap, so let's get going.

Ingredients:

...Read more

At night, after the children are in bed, as I settle down for the evening, I put something horrible on TV.

I fold clothes or brush my teeth to stories of dictators, murderers and mysteries -- anything to remind me that no matter how stressful my life gets, it could be a lot worse.

Lately, it's been documentaries about Nazis, the party's rise ...Read more

Our country is now an expert factory.

We churn them out left and right, and the machines that produce them on every topic -- from international diplomacy to the inner workings of giant companies -- run, now, seemingly nonstop.

The foreign policy expert machine chugged to life recently, after President Joe Biden announced a deal releasing ...Read more

When the stockings are hung by the chimney with care, lies about St. Nicholas soon will be there.

For though the Yuletide means a great many things to a great many people, to me, it mostly means preparing myself to deceive.

It's the season of giving for some, but, for me, it's the season of lying.

In every other aspect of my parenting, I try ...Read more

I love Thanksgiving and its traditions -- the homemade centerpieces, the bad football, the interminable televised parades -- but there's one I'd rather skip.

It's an almost-inescapable tradition, one that usually rears its head just as you're sitting down to eat. Everyone's starving because the turkey took forever to cook, and plates loaded ...Read more

I learned this week that first-grade math is too hard, my joints are falling apart and fake eyelashes are a demonic creation.

First, my son came home with a word problem. We sat down at the kitchen table to read:

"If there are twice as many blue balloons as red balloons and two more yellow balloons than green balloons, why is Elon Musk ...Read more