Do Our Friends’ Choices Make Us Regret Our Own?

Remember when you were a kid, and you wanted to pierce your belly button or stay out all night, and you’d say to your mom, “But mooooom, everyone else is doing it!”? And then she’d say, “If everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you?” And then, if you were feeling especially petulant, you might […]

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What Girls Can Learn From Olympic Grrrrrrrrrrrl Power

The other day after I got home from my run (I use the term advisedly), I got a call from the local NBC affiliate asking for a quick interview on the overall impact of “girl power”  in this year’s Olympics.  Within ten minutes, the reporter and her cameraman were on their way. While dashing around […]

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Happy Graduation: Now Go Out There and Fail!

This being graduation season, the other day I asked the over-achieving rockstars in my senior journalism capstone class what they’d most like to hear from a commencement speaker. Thankfully, I heard no references to roads not taken nor endings-versus-beginnings.  (Though I would have enjoyed a quick reference to that four-word piece of advice from the […]

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Getting Over The Road Not Traveled

Last Sunday, after a particularly wild weekend out of town weekend with family and friends, a small group of us convened for brunch before going our separate ways. I looked at the menu, and while the chilaquiles softly called to me, I opted for my standby: huevos rancheros. But when the food came out I […]

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The Real Lessons We Can Learn From Mad Men

Sure, there’s been a lot of chat about everything that’s wrong with Mad Men and why women in general and feminists in particular should hate its unrepentant misogynystic guts.  And let’s face it:  this is a show that glorifies gin, Lucky Strikes and getting laid (by anyone but one’s spouse). What’s not to hate, right? […]

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No, Really! Whatever Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger

That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Crisis is just opportunity in disguise. The universe/god/buddha doesn’t give us more than we can handle. It’s always darkest just before the dawn. Scar tissue is stronger. The cracks are where the light gets in. Blah blah blah. Here’s an interesting question: Which is worse, coming up […]

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Freedom, Fertility and Feminism (Redux): The Real Cost of The Pill

At long last: your birth control pills will finally be covered by insurance! The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has announced sweeping new guidelines for women’s health care to take effect Aug. 1, 2012. Among other things, these new guidelines will classify birth control pills as preventative medicine, meaning they’ll be covered without […]

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Men Are Unhappy: Good News For Women?

This just in: Men are as miserable as women. At least that’s what we learn from a new study by Arizona State professor Chris M. Herbst, who suggests that men’s happiness has taken as big a dive as women’s over the past several years. We think that’s good news. Back in 2009, Penn economists Betsey […]

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Analysis Paralysis, anyone? Anyone?

Thanks for the offer.  But let’s just have some chocolate cake and call it a day. More about this cake business later, but first, there’s this:  Newsweek is the latest to hop aboard the streetcar named Can’t Decide — our own trek for the past two years — with its current cover story on the […]

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Can’t Decide on a New Year’s Resolution?

Here you go:  in no particular order, a dozen New Year’s resolutions designed especially for the undecided.  Let us know what speaks to you – and add a couple of your own. Ready?  Set.  Go! • Inhabit the moment.  You can’t rewrite the past.  You can’t be sure of the future.  All you really have […]

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