Don’t Let My Baby Do Rodeo by Boris Fishman, published 2016. A backward look at adoption from the Russian adoptive parents’ perspective. Immigrants Maya and Alex Rubin get a call that a baby boy has just been born in Montana and he will be waiting for them to pick him up. Maya’s father-in-law says this …
If you have any doubts about what depression is and isn’t, listen to poet Sabrina Benaim of Button Poetry speaking directly to her mother. It’s powerful and heart wrenching. Depression affects 1 in 4 adults, and when you look around the party, that’s quite a few of us. That’s 350 million people in this world. It’s caused …
I just finished a very fun book, Do Your Laundry or You’ll Die Alone: Advice Your Mom Would Give If She Thought You Were Listening.. Some great do’s and don’ts of life. 1. When someone asks for help, always give her something. You don’t have to give her what she asks for, but you can …
The other day one of my very faves, Martha Beck, was speaking to me directly about something I do frequently. Venting. Oh, the joy of collective bitching! How sweet it is to speak the unspeakable truth about the stupidity of your boss, the tedium of your daily chores, the intolerable passive …
The Grownup by Gillian Flynn, published 2014. Flynn is most notably recognized as the author of Gone Girl, which came out as a movie in October, 2014. This one is a short story – a very short story of 62 pages – and the winner of the Edgar Award. It’s the classic ghost story set …
Hey Cool Mona – My sister knows I like everything about art and she told me about you. There are some truly interesting selections (are any of them yours?) on your site and I enjoy watching for new pieces to come on. I attend art school in Philly and hope to become an art therapist in a …
Hello Mona, I am enjoying your blog and felt the need to write. I recently relocated to Houston from my home in Connecticut to help out my mother. She has been ill for about a year and just couldn’t make it on her own any more. Care taking deserves some applause (not necessarily for me) …
Purity by Jonathan Franzen, published September, 2015 and listed on The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2015. The book is about storylines that could have been. Storylines that were dropped too soon, undeveloped. But Franzen did create some really vivid characters and several textured stories showing an interest in and understanding of the …
That wonderful Martha Beck has some sanity-saving strategies to pull you through not-so-silent nights and days with the family. Martha compares the Uncle Remus story of tar baby, when Brer Rabbit picks a fight with a lifelike doll made out of tar and turpentine. The tar baby is so gluey that when the rabbit punches it, …
Catch up on the first 5 reasons and solutions: http://www.coolmona.com/why-is-happiness-so-hard-10-reasons-10-solutions/ 6. Comparison Do you ever troll Instagram and think, Wow, if only my life was like Rita’s, then I’d really be happy? We are bombarded with reminders that our better self is waiting in the wings. The thing is, we’re viewing edited reality. Case in point: …