Fret For Hire

I worry. A lot. So now I'm writing about what I know...

My Latest Frets

Parkinson’s Awareness Month Reflections

April 2024 was Parkinson's Awareness Month. I'm aware I have PD, as are many of you. We're in the know,…
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Teachable Radio

When my precise – he died eight months to the day after his cancer was diagnosed – and extraordinary father…
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PD Headlights

“We love our children the best we can.” I defend the parents who did and do love me with all…
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Reply All

Reply All is a form of narcissistic, societal torture.
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NYE Sailing

Take 10,000 steps. Daily. Lose 5, 10, 20 – a million pounds. The usual suspects line up like children waiting…
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Ask a Parkie: a PD Q&A

“Let’s play ‘Ask a Parkie,” I say, helping my mother to pull herself up to the room service breakfast table….
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My God Is….

God is the glue that connects us. She/He/It is the whisper in our heads imploring us to be better, to…
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Hope

Hope is the creep lurking in corners pretending to be a gift, a curse hiding in blessing’s clothes.It’s the eternal…
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The To Do List

The space in between inaction and action, the breaks between the actions once begun. I stare. The dreaded “To Do…
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The Language of Lemons

“I brought you some lemons,” she said, showing me a bowl brimming with sunny spheres. “Thank you,” I replied to…
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Familial Fantasies

I do not have the children I expected. They're like me in ways I wish they weren't. They express traits…
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Legacy Upended

“It’s been 30 years, “he said turning the page in his calendar.  “30 years …” his voice trails off into the…
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Awareness

April is Parkinson’s Awareness Month. I am quite aware I have Parkinson’s. I bet other twitchers are too. What good…
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Remembrance

How is a life remembered? Which stories seal our fate? I forget more stories than I care to admit. The…
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Connect 2

I believe that God is the connective tissue between people, the ephemeral energy that makes us want to do better,…
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Sex In the Afternoon

My parents belonged to a generation that didn’t see the need to analyze and understand their union. They were a…
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Talisman

Can the tangible capture the ephemeral? Do the things we love keep our memories? Can a treasured object give a…
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COVID Tree: Part 2 The Tree

No one has talked tree since Turkey Day. But the calendar has turned to December so a tree we must…
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COVID Tree: Part 1 Thanksgiving

COVID coping mechanisms are copious chez moi. Compulsive cleaning is among the more productive of our pandemic proclivities – one…
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The Faraway Nearby

“Georgia O’Keeffe moved to rural New Mexico, from which she would sign her letters to the people she loved, “from…
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About Me

I worry that I sound so very neurotic that you are about to click far, far away from this site. And I think you worry too. Maybe not as much as I do – I realize that few do — but hopefully enough so that these words of worry sound like music to your fretful soul and thus you will read on, dear reader, read on.