When My Dad Came Out

I Dealt With It Badly. So Did He.

“Are you gay?” my 12-year-old self asked, as if asking about the weather.

We had stopped in the deli section of a supermarket near my father’s home in metro Detroit to pick out some meat for a party. Dad must have said something, done something, that pricked my subconscious.

My father gave me a look of pure astonishment. “We’ll talk about it later,” he finally said.

The year was 2004, the month November, that dreary time when Michigan can’t decide whether to clothe itself with leaves or snow. We were both about to …

It Takes a Village–Or a Friend’s Parents

They’re Not Mom and Dad. In Some Ways, They’re Better.

My oldest friend emailed this past week with a blow to the heart: Joann McArthur had died, of cancer, on her 70th birthday.

It is hard to describe why this news …

I Don’t Have J-Lo’s Sex Tape

And I'm Not Claudia Vazquez (At Least Not That Claudia Vazquez)

In Los Angeles, we use odd clues to measure success. That’s why, when celebrity magazine InStyle emailed me a little over a year ago for comments regarding a J-Lo scandal, …

To Have and to Hate

My Grandparents and Seven Rotten Decades of Marriage

My grandfather, age 94, is in the hospital for a hip replacement. My grandmother, age 87, hasn’t visited him once. It’s been almost two weeks now.

Many of us dream of …

My Kosher Meat Market Mixer

Looking For Love, Finding Community At Synagogue

Whenever I mention Friday Night Live to young Jews in the LA area, someone will undoubtedly mutter something about a “meat market.” While the event at Westwood’s Sinai Temple is …