While writing my doctoral dissertation, “Transgressive Gender Performance — An Act of Personal and Cultural Transformation,” I speculated that gender was the last stubborn holdout of binary thinking, and that we were on the cusp of a paradigm shift.

A friend recently asked me about retirement. “Was it difficult?” My reply, without giving it much thought: “No, it was surprisingly easy.”

While my wife, Janet, was alive, our financial situation was simple. All of our assets were in both our names and I made sure that if something happened to me, Janet, while dealing with her terminal illness, could quickly access enough cash to move into a care facility. Nothing happened to me and Janet died a...

As an elder Baby Boomer, I want and need to apologize. I could list the various generations, but let me simplify and address my apology to all current and future-not-yet-named-generations that are dealing with or will have to deal with the consequences of my actions or, more often, my lack of actions.

The older we get, the more meaningful and significant the opportunities and inherent power of being able to choose become. I have found that the loss of a loved one challenges the very nature of my capacity to choose. Miriam-Webster defines choice as, “the act of picking or deciding between two or more possib...

Ihate waiting! I have protested. I have asked to speak to the manager. I have even been known to make a scene and scream. Ask the folks at our local Humboldt Medical Eye Associates or the over-worked and underpaid people at our Walgreen’s Pharmacy. Because of my disdain for being kept waiting, I always arrive...

Some three days after my wife, Janet, died and my four-year stint as her carepartner ended, I — barely knowing who I was now — emailed my friend Mara to ask about dogs that might need adopting. Whoever I was now, or would soon discover I was, after 24-hour-aday carepartnering for Janet, I was reaching out for...

The title of my Ph.D. dissertation is “Transgressive Gender Performance — An Act of Personal and Cultural Transformation” (2013). The idea behind the research was that if I could get a group of heterosexual men to experience gender as something they do (perform) and not something they were, then they would be...

I don’t know who I am! For the first two weeks or so after Janet died, I felt like I was floating. Something in my mid-section kept me afloat — off the ground. I mean, I knew that in one reality I was walking, but in this new after-her-death reality, it was like my feet never touched the ground. I wasn’t walk...

In the coming year, I will turn 80 — a reality I sometimes find unfathomable. But given our national discourse, I find many of today’s realities unfathomable. What I find most troublesome however, is how I am coping with these realities. Among my circle of friends, concerns surrounding aging, death and dying ...