A recent health scare has reaffirmed two truths for me. First, the universe has a really twisted sense of humor. Second, you can almost always find something to laugh about, even when things seem pretty freakin’ bleak. To wit: In my last blog post, I ruminated about aging, writing and memory, concluding that because I’m […]
Does this ever happen to you? Lately I’ve noticed that I’m having difficulty retrieving words. Not always, but often enough to be aware of it. It happened just the other day, when I saw the word “ribald” in something I was reading. I know what the word means, but I couldn’t think of synonyms to […]
Raise your hand if you worry about getting dementia. Yeah, me, too. And we’re not alone. A recent U.K. study says more people are scared of getting neurological disorders like dementia than cancer (45% vs. 35%). Apparently, the people polled would rather endure physical pain and die quicker than have a condition like dementia. There’s […]
What’s your earliest childhood memory? I’m continually amazed at some of the stuff I can recall from when I was a kid, or inconsequential details from 30 or more years ago (like what I was wearing at a particular event)—yet I can’t remember the name of someone I’ve met several times, or the last movie […]
Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place. Research suggests that marrying an intelligent woman helps protect a man from dementia. Another study, however, says that men are terrified of smart women. Don’t you just love science? Apparently, pairing up with a brainy broad gives men a buffer against dementia. According to […]
We’ve all had those frustrating moments when we can’t retrieve a word from memory. This phenomenon even has a name: tip-of-the-tongue syndrome, or TOT. The good news is that an occasional bout of TOT is normal at any age—although it does become more frequent as we get older. But rather than beating ourselves up about […]
One of the benefits of getting older is the self-awareness we acquire (well, some of us, anyway—certain presidential contenders are obvious exceptions). But I digress. I hate to admit it, but I’ve become aware of some lies I’ve been telling myself at this age. To wit (in no particular order): I don’t have to write […]
Remember the games we played as kids? There were playground pursuits like tag and Red Rover, party games such as Blind Man’s Bluff and Musical Chairs, and pastimes like marbles or jacks. Now that we’re all grown up, we may not have the fortitude, flexibility or inclination to play the games we did in our […]
Flipping through our local adult education organization’s latest catalogue, I must admit it offers a decent assortment of classes, some of which Hubs and I have taken. For example, together we learned how to roll our own sushi, he took yoga for men (until he hurt his knee), and a friend and I took a […]
There’s a cartoon making the rounds on the Internet that shows a woman saying, “I’ve expanded my skills. I can now forget what I’m doing while I’m actually doing it.” I can relate. How about you? Seriously—how many times have you walked into a room only to mutter, “Now why did I come in here?” […]
