Today, all my pent-up anger, sorrow, and stress made their appearance known in bodily form. I woke up with a brain-splitting headache that turned me into a vomit comet before I could even set foot in the shower. I have a decades-long history with migraines, the kind that leaves me writhing in agony, waiting for my eyeball to explode out of my face and sometimes with a generous side order of panic attack. When my husband Barry was alive, he would lovingly take me to the hospital, and I’d be given a powerful cocktail of intravenous painkillers and sleep aids that would send me to a deep dreamless sleep. I…

My daughter Jordan introduced me to a “cringy” t.v. series on a streaming network. It’s an angsty coming-of-age drama in which a teen girl is torn between two handsome brothers. The genetically blessed brothers have muscles, magnetism, and trust funds. It’s endless summer at their tony Massachusetts set beach house. The backyard swimming pool is perpetually pristine, which anyone who lives in New England knows is ludicrous,s as there’s always, and I mean always, fallen leaves in the pool. Having driven up and down the eastern seaboard, I was shouting to Jordan within seconds, “There’s no way that’s Massachusetts! Bet me they filmed the show in Wilmington, North Carolina!” For…