Over-Dosing on Back Braces

MysteryShrink Shorts Overdosing on Back Braces “Good afternoon,” I said from the podium a couple of days ago. “My name is Barbara and I’m a back-brace addict.” I didn’t start out as an all-out back brace fiend. Neither of my parents had an unhealthy attachment to medical devices—though my brother, …

Continue reading

“Me Too” and the Greater Truth

“Me Too” and the Greater Truth First, what happened: The first time I was fourteen and working at a dry cleaning pick-up station inside a megastore. I noticed that the forty-some owner, who was the father of a classmate, seemed to hang a lot while I was working and then …

Continue reading

The Problem with Hotel Loyalty Programs

The Problem with Hotel Loyalty Programs is– The “Wrong People” Get In The management of Executive Lounges in luxury hotels should make us where a badge.  By ‘us’ I mean travelers like me who invade prestigious hotels and their ‘executive lounges’ by using Hilton points cards to charge gas, public …

Continue reading

No Arms, No Hands, All Heart: The Beading Angel (sorry for the poor photo, you’ll understand)

No Arms, No Hands, All Heart The Beading Angel MysteryShrink in the Now* She’s always there. On the pedestrian walkway between the Mexico City Hilton and the Zocalo, sitting with her footless leg tucked under the one with the tennis shoe hiding where her toes were before the fire–her wings …

Continue reading

How Do You Choose a Psychologist? A Lawyer? 

How Do You Choose a Psychologist? A Lawyer? ‘Real’ Person in an Envy-driven Consumer Culture– Series Do You Know Why . . . Doctors and Lawyers were not allowed to advertise back in the days before marketers ran the world? There was a very good reason. It was thought that …

Continue reading

Three Things the Other Person Does Better Than You

“Paying Attention to What You’re Paying Attention To” Series Three Things the Other Person Does Better ***To make sense of this post, first read: “How Orange Jell-O Changed My Life” The habit of talking about ‘the other people’ in the family when leaving a family event is a fairly common …

Continue reading

Paying Attention to What You’re Paying Attention To, Part 1

What Do You Mean, You Didn’t Notice? Paying Attention to What You’re Paying Attention To, Part 1 The Green Wallpaper Incident Dr. A is a fifty-two-year old psychiatrist who began the hour saying: “I’m satisfied in most areas of my life, but for some reason, every long-term relationship I’ve been …

Continue reading