lifestyle

Home means different things to each of us. To some, it's a state; to others, it's a state of mind.
For me, it's like a jigsaw puzzle with ever-changing pieces that I keep fitting together to feel whole.

They come in looking uncomfortable, and a little embarrassed. The ones who have seen "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" have fear in their eyes. It's not unusual for a new customer to awkwardly announce that he's not gay.

A lot of people are complaining about how much they have lost in this economy. Their houses are worth less, and some have lost them completely. Savings and retirement have all but disappeared, and millions are now jobless.
Any of those losses are very hard to deal with, but I think there is something more valuable that has also gone away: We've lost our sense of security.

Something must have spooked me as a kid.
Either that or I really did stink at sports, more than the other girls in gym class or day camp.
It would be 50 years before I would do anything remotely athletic, comparable to, say, the sports camps I so eagerly arranged for my two children.

Any moment now, the news cycle and national conversation will shift from political scandals and celebrity deaths to hippie hype: Aug. 14 is the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, the epic four-day rock festival that drew more than 30 bands and more than 300,000 fans to a farmer's field in Bethel, N.Y.

There has been much ado in the media about the online communication phenomenon that is Twitter. It's a lot of talk about something that's supposed to happen in 142 characters or less.

My sister and I have a little private joke that we share, thanks to our mother and her sister, God rest their souls.

Forget crib notes inked on arms under shirtsleeves -- that's old-school.
Cheating has gone high-tech, with more than a third of the nation's teen-agers saying they use cell phones to boost test scores or grades, and at least half admitting using the Internet to cheat, according to a national survey released this week.

DEAR DR. FOURNIER: I have just received my son's achievement-test scores. I am in shock. My son has been reading since before he started school. Reading has always been one of his best subjects. He is always reading and saying he is going to be a doctor. Now he cannot go to the school for good students because of his score in reading comprehension.

I've been meaning to get around to this for a while, but it's so easy to find other things to do. That is the credo of the procrastinator.
If you are making yourself miserable because you can't bring yourself to do what you need to do, it's time to change that habit. Here are some tips to help you do just that.