Lighthearted

I Am The Facebook Superstar. Hear Me Whine

by Bill Brenner July 23, 2011 Lighthearted

This statement, which made the rounds awhile back, is deadly accurate when it comes to how we all behave on Facebook: “Welcome to Facebook. Where love stories are perfect, shit talkers tell the truth, everyone brags they have the perfect life and claim to be in love with their partners. Where your enemies are the ones who visit your profile the most, your ex-friends and family block you, your ex-lover unfriends you. Where you post…  [Read More]

Stuff My Kids Say: Summer Edition

by Bill Brenner July 21, 2011 Children's issues

I’ve said it before: When life gets you down and it’s hard to get back up, the best medicine is often the things you hear from children. My kids prove it all the time. Here are fresh examples. Mood music: –Duncan, after listening to a couple minutes of the 360s song “Deadpan Superstar,” which I have playing on my laptop: “Why the heck would anyone write about a dust pan superstar?” –Sean and Duncan have replaced…  [Read More]

I Talk To Myself. So What?

by Bill Brenner July 20, 2011 Communication Skills

I talk to myself all the time. Sometimes I get caught, and it embarrasses me. But over the years, the habit has served its purpose. Mood music: http://youtu.be/IKpEoRlcHfA I know I look ridiculous when I do it. Maybe I even look a little crazy, though much less so since the invention of the Bluetooth ear device. One morning in New York City, I was walking down a street chuckling over all the people with Bluetooth…  [Read More]

The Brady Bunch Offended Me

by Bill Brenner July 12, 2011 Children's issues

Sherwood Schwartz, creator of “Gilligan’s Island” and “The Brady Bunch,” has died at age 94. Naturally, I’m remembering how I hated “The Brady Bunch” for giving me a fake picture of family life. Mood music: I hated “The Brady Bunch” because it made me so angry that my own family was never like that. But then no one’s family is really like that. I did like the movie adaptations that came out in the 1990s…  [Read More]

Sean’s OCD Education

by Bill Brenner July 8, 2011 Children's issues

The setting: Our living room, where Sean and Duncan are folding laundry under my supervision. I’m nagging at the kids to get the job done. No getting distracted, I tell them. No complaining. Just get the chore done. Sean: “Dad, is this your OCD acting up?” Me: “What do you mean?” Sean: “You insisting that we get this done right now. Are you having an OCD moment?” Me: “No. If I were having an OCD…  [Read More]

Shit Happens When Two OCD Cases Work Together

by Bill Brenner June 17, 2011 Lighthearted

Let me take you back about 13 years, when two guys with clinical OCD worked together in the same office. I was one of ’em. The other was an old friend named Steve Repsys. Mood music: Neither of us knew at the time that we had OCD. It would be many years before we were diagnosed. In the meantime, we worked together for a small weekly newspaper in an office in Chelmsford, Mass. I was…  [Read More]

The Best Laugh I’ve Had All Week

by Bill Brenner June 10, 2011 Food

My office colleague John Gallant sent me a video that made the coffee shoot from my nose. “Vegan Death Metal Chef.” It’s good; even better than the Muppets performing Slayer songs. Given the ups and downs of the last two weeks, I needed a good laugh, so thanks, John. Here it is. All music and video is made by the Vegan Black Metal Chef (Brian Manowitz). Enjoy:

The Perfect Gift For The OCD Chef In Your Life

by Bill Brenner June 3, 2011 Lighthearted

Though OCD is no laughing matter for the sufferer, I personally like a good gag that pokes fun at my disorder. If you can’t laugh at the problem, you’re going to have a much tougher time getting a handle on things. But it has to be a gag that’s cleverly done. My friend Andrea Holbrook found just the thing for the OCD case in your life who likes to cook, on the Perpetual Kid website: I don’t…  [Read More]

Why This Day Will Not Suck: May 25

by Bill Brenner May 25, 2011 Lighthearted

Every few months, I try to step out of the craziness of daily life and take stock in my life. The struggles will always be there, but I have so much to be grateful for. With the sun finally shining bright after a long stretch of bad weather, I’m feeling like nothing can keep this from being a good day. Mood music: –Whatever this day hurls at me, I have a lot of people in…  [Read More]

Who Raptured My #!&% Tire?

by Bill Brenner May 20, 2011 Fear and anxiety

All this talk about The Rapture has me thinking. Allow me to share. Mood music: First, this whole thing reminds me of a day in fifth grade when I was scared out of my brains by a prediction that the world would end because of something called the “Jupiter Line-up,” in which all the planets in the solar system were supposed to shift orbits and crush us all like bugs in the process. This was…  [Read More]

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