My niece Lizzie is finishing her sophomore year in college. A psychology major, she recently asked me to complete an Adult Development survey for one of her classes. In asking me to take it, she warned, “it has some pretty personal questions (about divorce, diseases, and your opinion on life changes as you age), so I can understand if you do not want to par­tic­i­pate in the interview.”

Of course I said I would take it. With a warning like that, how could I re­sist?

It was an interesting exercise, to say …

Remember Love Canal?

If you came of age in the 1970s or earlier in the United States, you surely re­mem­ber Love Canal.

Love Canal was a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, built atop a chem­i­cal waste dump that had been closed and covered with dirt in the early 1950s. An elementary school was built first, followed soon by the houses.

Even though residents soon started noticing odd smells and oily sub­stances leaching up into the play­ground, it wasn’t until 1976 that the dump, after unusually heavy rains and winter weather, …

Back in December and January, while my oncologist was restaging my myeloma and we were discussing courses of treatment, he suddenly said, “And I want you to go see your dentist and ask him whether he sees you having any major dental work done in the next year.”

The calcium levels in my blood were rising. My oncologist intended to start me on a bisphosphonate, such as Aredia (pamidronate) or Zometa (zoledronic acid), as soon as possible to supplement the calcium that was leaching out of my bone. …

“Oops.”

It wasn’t until the radiology nurse finishing taping down the IV line she had just inserted in my arm that I remembered my husband Warren was sitting in the room with me.

I looked over at Warren. “Sorry.”

He shook his head. “It’s okay. I just looked away.”

My husband is not comfortable with medical procedures, to put it mildly. But there he was, sitting in the room with me while the nurse prepared me for a bone marrow biopsy.

This past January was the first time I’ve had a bone …

I have started 2014 in the throes of a relapse that has dogged my heels through­out the fall. When I see my oncologist this month, we will be dis­cussing treat­ment and, presumably, starting it soon thereafter.

Because the relapse is steadily increasing and my energy and overall health are steadily diminishing, we spent the holidays qui­et­ly. (Well, quietly after my hus­band finished five rehearsals and five performances in the space of three weeks.) When coworkers ask what I did for Christ­mas, I smile and say “nothing.” They think I am joking.

Similarly, …

I had to do a lot of driving earlier this month. I had four days of mediation training packaged in two-day blocks with a weekend in between. That took me up to northwest Ohio and back twice in a short period of time. To keep myself company, I turned on the car radio and let it serenade me down the road.

It’s the holiday season and the airwaves are saturated with Christmas music. The sacred songs, the secular songs, and the gimmicky songs play in an ever flowing, unstoppable stream.

One often …

I don’t do book clubs.

Don’t get me wrong. I like the idea of book clubs. But I am a terrible member. The last book club I belonged to was made up of five to six women whom I knew, all bright, articulate, avid readers. A match made in heaven, or so it would seem.

The very first meeting I attended, when we sat down together to discuss a wildly popular, best selling novel that I loathed, the discussion went something like this:

Member 1: “Loved it.”

Member 2: “Great characters.”

Member …