Archives April 2026

There have been complaints. Why has Molly not written any columns for two weeks? What is going on? Tell her to stop loafing around and get writing!

It isn’t that easy for me, because I have been blogging for twenty years. I have written about absolutely everything. So I often come up dry. I thought I would discuss my process, so that all of you might understand.

If my husband or I haven’t done anything noteworthy, that stymies me. So then I cast around in my head for past events, things I did as a mother that weren’t like what other moms did, why I hate certain foods, what I can say about my husband that makes him sound both ridiculous yet charming, or what I made for dinner that tasted awful. If none of that works, then I head to my news feed.

People do stupid things, like putting frogs in their pockets. But I have written about that, so I look for “interesting news.” But I haven’t found any headlines that make fodder for my writing lately.

I sit with my laptop, staring at the walls, waiting for something to come to me. For the past two weeks, nothing has floated to the surface, and I find myself thinking about what I could buy on Amazon, should I get one more geranium for the balcony, what on earth I can make for supper when it’s my turn to cook, or if I can skip my exercises today. But column ideas? Nada.

Books. I read so many books that I sometimes wonder, for instance, where “Amy” is–she hasn’t been mentioned for three chapters. Then I realize that Amy was the main character in the last book that I read, and I transitioned into this book too fast. But when in doubt about what to put in my column, I post book lists, which is what I am going to do now. The “Amy” book wasn’t that great, so it won’t be on the list.

Here goes:

• The Winter Soldier and The Piano Tuner, both by  Daniel Mason. This man is a doctor and a writer, and he is a genius. The Piano Tuner is one of my favorite books, ever.
• New People, by Danzy Senna. Anything she writes is wonderful.
• Best Offer Wins, by Marisa Kashino. Oh, my God. Obsession.
• Class Reunion, by Rona Jaffe. A friend recommended her as an author, and I thought she was just like Danielle Steel. I was wrong. All Jaffe’s books are remarkable.
• Hazel Says No, by Jessica Berger Gross. Thank God Hazel said no.
• Run for the Hills, by Kevin Wilson. This book has personal meaning for me, but everybody will love it.
• Cassandra at the Wedding, by Dorothy Baker. This one had me rooting for the title character, until I didn’t.
• Leaving Lucy Pear, by Anna Solomon. This one had me marveling at how the author even came up with this plot line.
• The Round House, by Louise Erdrich. How have I lived so long without reading this?
• Heartwood, by Amity Gage. This is why I hate hiking.

Maybe I will come up with something for a sparkling column soon. Maybe there is a person out there who puts toads in their pockets…

A few months ago, I closed all my social media accounts. My phone informed me that I spent an average of four hours a day browsing the internet. Four hours. This was embarrassing and shameful–what a total time waster. When I thought about a person of my advanced age wasting that much time, I tried to analyze what we Boomers want from social media.

Many of us apparently believe that all of the people who look at our posts on, for example, Instagram, want to see what we are eating. In restaurants, we take pics of our dinner and post those, thinking that perhaps Aunt Ida in Nebraska would love looking at that fried chicken and slaw. Seriously, how many shots of entrees have you seen on Facebook?

The photo above is one I actually posted on Instagram. Egg salad. What was I thinking? Who would care about my egg salad? Would it generate “likes?” (Nobody “liked” it.) My husband liked it for lunch. That was it.

Others of us old timers are convinced that the world needs to see our vacation photos. Fred standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, or Jeannine getting ready to eat clams in Cape Cod. Really–as a person who had to sit through endless slide shows of my in-law’s trips abroad, I have never understood this. Absolutely nobody who has watched Rick Steves really cares about your vacation shots.

Oh my gosh. Grandchildren. Here is the thing: the only grandchildren I want to watch grow up are mine. And nobody else on the planet cares how tall my grandson is getting. So all those cheerleader posts on Facebook are wasted on anybody that isn’t a close blood relative. But grandchild photos abound on SM (which I learned just last month means “social media,” and not sado-you know what).

I understand that teens spend nearly as much time as I used to on Social Media. But they like to make TikToks about makeup, gymnastics, and doing the choreography to Taylor Swift’s latest songs. This was shocking for me to realize that my scrolling for posts of other folk’s dinners and shots taken from the balconies of cruise ships consumed the same amount of time that teens spend looking at makeup demos and skateboarding tricks.

So, in one fell swoop, I deleted all of my accounts. It was hard at first; I reached for my iPhone for no reason. I felt a little frustrated that I no longer had any reason to take photos of my cat or my latest pedicure. I had all that free time suddenly. I began to fill my empty hours with television crime shows: it’s always the spouse. So then I started doing more exercising. This has caused an increase in in my visits to the chiropractor. But one benefit of doing all these Bird Dogs and Planks is that I no longer have to worry about falling and not being able to get up.

Are you still on Facebook? Well, get OFF.