... is online here. It's about bullies (the grownup, "I was just kidding" variety). A sample:

People seem to think that this is a social juncture where having a witty comeback would do them no end of good. Perhaps it would, in a placebo confidence-boosting sort of way; some people might only feel comfortable speaking up if they believed their words to be unimpeachable. But you don't need a witty comeback when a dog decides to hump your leg. All you need is a command voice and the will to use it.

Another thing people outside Boston may not understand: We routinely drive, bicycle, and traverse our public roadways like utter maniacs. In order to free up sufficient first-response police and medical personnel, we could either learn decent manners overnight, or stay home. We made the right choice.

... is online here. It's a three-fer! Here's question (and answer) number two:

How does one respond to colleagues who say "You shouldn't have" when you give them a small gift as a thank you, get well, or going away present?

B.W. / Reading

You say this: "Of course we 'had to.' What kind of terrible people wouldn't [reward a job well done/bring a sick person a plant/honor your long years of service]? Now say 'Thank you' and [open your present/get well/let?s all go out for a drink]!"

Got it? People who say "You shouldn't have" feel uncomfortable being the center of attention. So you give Wally Wallflower a gentle shake to remind him that, comfortable or not, he is the center of attention on account of his brilliant job on the Macguffin account or his broken leg or imminent retirement, and the rest of you are responding appropriately. Then you feed him his next line ("Thank you!"), just like a stage manager would.

My synagogue cancelled service tonight. I support this decision, but I know it cannot have been made easily. The symbolism is painful.

But if I am going to be a Jew hiding in my house, I am glad to be a Jew hiding in my house with my city, not from them.

All my life I have loved stories of wanderers who find their home. Boston is my home.

I love you. Be safe. Shabbat Shalom.

Last week I blogged about suggestions from chatters for the problem of feeding foodies: what to do when you want to entertain people whose cooking skills and food savvy far exceed your own.

Here's another dinner-guest-having problem that occurred to me this weekend: Do you feel socially obligated to offer friends fancier/more indulgent food than you yourself normally eat? I don't usually eat bread, for example, nor do most of my friends--but if I'm having my homegirls over for dinner, even the most ardently low-carb of the Fabulous Bureaucrats, I will put bread on the table. Because you're entertaining, it's what you do. Also, dessert.

I'm trying to move away from this, and cook for guests the way I cook for Mr. Improbable and myself--simple healthy food, which I'm actually pretty good at. But there's still a part of me--that raised-in-the-Midwest-in-the1970s-part, I suppose--that feels that "company food" ought to be indulgent, buttery fare. How about you?

For Pandora, cooking is a form of love. Alas, her husband, Fletcher, a self-employed high-end cabinetmaker, now spurns the "toxic" dishes that he'd savored through their courtship, and spends hours each day to manic cycling. Then, when Pandora picks up her older brother Edison at the airport, she doesn't recognize him. In the years since they've seen one another, the once slim, hip New York jazz pianist has gained hundreds of pounds. What happened? After Edison has more than overstayed his welcome, Fletcher delivers his wife an ultimatum: It's him or me.

Do you have any tips for dealing with foodies, or food snobs? I have several friends who are great, locavore, state-of-the-art cooks and I'd like to reciprocate by having them over. But I'm not as accomplished as they are. It's not that they complain, it's more my anxiety over not having the best ingredients, techniques, etc. I try to keep it simple, but then it doesn't seem like I've done enough. How can I make these evenings go more smoothly and pleasantly without getting a certificate from the Culinary Institute? 

Figure one or two dishes that you can make well, and that people like eating. Then, when you entertain, serve those. Whether you are entertaining a king or a ... cabbage. (Wait, that's not a real phrase, is it?) Eating at some people's houses is a great culinary experience. Eating at other people's houses is a great conversational experience. If you don't have a huge amount of faith in your cooking, it only has to be good enough not to detract from the conversation. And people really don't mind knowing that an invitation to Not Julia's place means Moroccan Chicken again. (It helps them pick out a wine to bring.) Look how many people order the same entree every time they go to a restaurant, after all! Foodies also appreciate that sometimes the food is just the activity that brings people together. It doesn't have to be the star of the show. If I'm talking with old friends or exciting new ones, or listening to excellent music, or playing an engaging game ... hey, crackers and cheese are just great. 

• Eating and not having to do dishes, the best experience! sponica 
• A peanut butter and jelly sandwich always tastes better when someone else makes it! Daisy  
• What you are doing that is special is inviting them into your home -- the rest is details. Carolyn 
• I think uber-chefs are almost more like performers -- they love an appreciative audience. So applaud their own performances, but don't feel you have to put on your own one-woman show. bubu 

• Buy really good, high-end ingredients that they will be impressed with, but then make a really simple recipe with them. Tony 
• Also with summer approaching you can do a lot with a nice spread of cheeses (local or not) and good breads, seasonal produce, olives, etc. Foodies appreciate good food, regardless of how much work you put into it. bubu 
• I know this is super cliche, but if they're really friends they won't care. But, try something new to please their taste buds, and they'll be touched by the gesture. Also, it's really easy to get some nice meats and/or cheeses set up. Olives too. If you can, go to a higher end grocery store and talk to the employees about their recommendations. Elizabeth 

• If you have a certain ethnic heritage and related specialty, you could make that -- or even takeout from a cool local ethnic place. Foodies often are just really culinarily curious, so anything new or unusual will intrigue. Your Name 
• Have a pasta making party - let the cooks cook. You provide ingredients and make a couple of sauces ahead of time. Serve prosecco while hanging the pasta! Daisy

A reader sends in this amusing anecdote:

I was riding the red- line from Quincy Adams to Park Street at 6:30 pm on 4/6/13. There were many announcements over the intercom regarding no smoking on the train.

Sitting across from me was a young clueless self- absorbed non smoking woman who thought it was fine to give herself a manicure on the train with noxious smelling purple nail polish. It was making me nautious - to avoid regurgitation or passing out on the train I told her to kindly desist - which (by fair reporting standards - she promptly did). The post office doesn't allow folks to mail nail polish - the MBTA should not allow folks to use or open noxious substances on the train - they should post and announce those rules.

However I may have started a romance when a scrawny pubescent rock star wannabe in black glasses, black clothing, and a black guitar case - told the oblivious young woman that he LIKED feeling dizzy from the odor - "it did not bother HIM" - and told me - a fiftysomething woman - to 'shut up' - perhaps they will exchange phone numbers - mate - and spawn ill mannered children whom - I hope - will not be subjected to toxic fumes and dissonant music.

Now I feel better.

... is online here. It's kind of a festival of people who can't express their emotions openly.

Sorry for the slow posting week, folks. Mr. Improbable has been on tour since March 1st, and like Mrs. Obama, I'm beginning to feel like a busy single mother. And I don't even have children.

I do, however, have a bouncing baby project to share: I'll be playing the role of Jo-Jo Lamotte in the Belmont Dramatic Club's production of "Agatha Christie Made Me Do It," April 26-28. It's a comic murder mystery about a young heir who wakes up after a bender married to two women: Annie, who works in a chocolate factory, and Jo-Jo, a nightclub dancer.

Community theater being what it is, actors are asked to bring their own costumes if possible. The show is set in 1978, and my friends, it is truly impressive how many outfits I have that could plausibly be worn by an off-duty stripper in the 70s. (For the audition, I wore a black silk kimono over black velvet lounge pants and tank, leopard-print platform heels and a wide leopard-print headband. Very Joanne Worley. I did not anticipate getting lost on the way to the Belmont Town Hall and having to stop at a gas station for directions.)

I'll be posting more about the show as rehearsals go on. In the meantime, mark your calendars! Tickets are $18 and despite my character's profession, it's family-friendly G-rated silliness all the way (think "Carol Burnett Show" sketch).

A moment of social science: Priming refers to the way information you already active in your mind affects the way you make sense of any new information you get. Exactly how priming works and under what conditions is still unclear, but it's definitely a thing. Driving to rehearsal Thursday night, I was singing along to the radio in Jo-Jo's voice and trying to remember my Act II blocking. The car in front of me had a bumper sticker in the religious-symbol-font style more often seen with COEXIST.

Robin would have read that as TOLERANCE. Jo-Jo read it as POLEDANCE.

... is online here. The first letter was originally much longer and detail-ridden in that way that indicates a fair amount of suppressed freaking-out-ness. I think it got cut a little too much for readers to get that. Believe me, when I say the LW sounded "thin of skin and frayed of nerves," she really did.

In letter #2 I got to cite one of my favorite quotes, from Thackeray's Vanity Fair:

"By humbly and frankly acknowledging yourself to be in the wrong, there is no knowing, my son, what good you may do. I knew once a gentleman . . . who used to do little wrongs to his neighbours on purpose, and in order to apologise for them in an open and manly way afterwards--and what ensued? My friend Crocky Doyle was liked everywhere, and deemed to be rather impetuous--but the honestest fellow."

Continuing in a literary vein, here is a small art project I made to welcome Mr. Improbable home from a trip once:

Happy Easter, Christians! Happy continued Passover, Jews! Happy Spring, everyone!

I say "Writing is hard" not to vent my own frustrations, but to alleviate yours.

It's not you.

I wrote a book review this week, and I haven't written an actual book review in ages, and it was difficult. I spent 20 minutes tinkering with the first paragraph before realizing that what I actually had to say started in the second paragraph and the first one should have been cut. That's a rookie's mistake.

Because writing an advice column and editing business books and cases and blogging about the theater of everyday life isn't writing a book review. And I was out of practice and it showed. That's so annoying! It's like how you can work out at the gym four days a week and still, snow shoveling or spring cleaning leaves you sore in all these weird places. Looks like you did have some muscles you weren't using, after all.

And my book-review muscles were all stiff and unused, and it took a while to limber them up.

Americans, more than people of many other nations, believe in individual, innate talent. We believe in "good writers," "good athletes," people who are "good at math." Which can lead people, when they fail or plateau, to assume that they haven't got what it takes.

So, just a reminder: It's normal. Nobody's first drafts look good. Dancers look pretty silly when they're learning a new dance. And even Harvard mathematicians have a hard time dividing a restaurant tab.

Is your Facebook feed as filled with "equal" signs as mine? I hope so. This week is Passover, which makes it a beautiful time to focus on social justice and families and what it means to live tradition, not let tradition choke the life out of us.

That said, I must object to this:

Bert and Ernie are not gay.

Peppermint Patty and Marcie are gay--sweet fancy Moses, are Peppermint Patty and Marcie gay--but not Bert and Ernie. 

In addition to invitations and thank-you notes, this is also the season of asking for letters of recommendation. The Everyday Sociology Blog has some good tips:

• Come to class regularly
• Participate in class
• If you are struggling, seek help. I have written many recommendations for students who were not at the top of the class but worked really hard.
• Take responsibility for your challenges; if you are concerned about a grade, ask what you can do to improve your work rather than argue about points. Someone only seeking a higher grade could be missing a major learning opportunity?and employers prefer to hire people open to receiving feedback.
• If completing a group project, be respectful of teammates? ideas and do all the tasks you agreed to do. Many recommendation forms ask how well you can work with others.
• Be polite to your professor, teaching assistant (if applicable) and fellow students.

Also, ask for recommendation letters well in advance, and give professors addressed, stamped envelopes (or whatever else they need), along with a summary of your work together ("I was in your History of Psych class and wrote a paper on the Stanford Experiment").

And then for heaven's sake let us know if you get in, will you? We care about you, you know.

As we are getting into the season of outdoor parties, graduations, and weddings, I thought it a good time to re-run this blog post from 2008, on the finer points of creating a guest list. 

There is a question that I get in many, many versions, and which I suspect gives me as much tsuris in my life as it does everyone else. It is this:

Whom should I invite to my (wedding, Superbowl party, child's bar/bat mitzvah, barnraising, etc. etc. etc.)?

Variations include, "Do I have to invite everyone who invited me to theirs?" "Do I have to invite family/in-laws?" "Can I invite some people from work and not others?" "If I know someone can't attend should I invite them anyway?" and so on.

And I have no idea. I'm not even going to give examples from my own life in this post, because I don't know who of my friends and family read my blog, and I don't want anyone to find out about some party I had that I didn't invite them to and feel hurt. I'm posting only in hopes of reassuring readers that no, it isn't you. This is a real dilemma for everyone.

We all have the Platonic ideal of a party in our minds, in which time and cost is no object, in which everyone we want to invite, from our oldest and bestest high-school friend to that woman we got to talking to in the grocery line yesterday who just seems so cool--is there, and we don't have to invite anyone we don't want to.

This party does not exist, and maybe letting go of the idea that it can will at least help some of the strain. Space, time, and money always impose constraints and you will never be able to invite all the people you really want. And social politics impose constraints and you will probably always have to invite a few whom you'd rather not.

Here are some things that I've found can help with, if not solve, the problem:

1. If it's a wedding you're worried about, consider eloping. Really. There are a lot of states where you don't even need a witness to get married. Go away with your intended, tie the knot, and have a first-anniversary party instead of a reception. Perhaps you are attracted to the idea but think that family members would be terribly offended. You might be right, but any relative who would give you grief over eloping (rather than just, you know, being happy that you've found someone to spend your life with) would probably give you grief over the choice of venue, degree of formality, degree of religiosity, invitation wording, guest list, and so on. So you may as well rip that band-aid off in one fast move.

2. If you do decide to have a wedding, have a short engagement. The Traveling Psychologist and her fiance had their wedding six weeks after they got engaged, and as you can see, it was lovely. During the six weeks allotted to wedding planning, TP also had to finish up a semester, compute final grades, and if I recall correctly, finish a grant application. Know what? If you have 18 months to find the perfect wedding dress, it will take you 18 months to find the perfect wedding dress. If you have a single Sunday afternoon to find a good enough wedding dress, it will take a single Sunday afternoon, and you'll look just as pretty and be just as married. Nothing frees you from the tyranny of the Ideal of the Perfect Wedding like severe time constraints.

And those same time constraints made the guest list easier, as well, because it becomes obvious whom you have to invite and whom you just can't. (TP also had the wedding and reception on a harbor cruise, which is a very nice way to keep the numbers down--you can always shove more people into a church, but you really can't shove more people onto a boat.) And an 18-month engagement is enough time for relationships to wax and wane, which means that the ideal guest list will fluctuate. Most friendships hold pretty steady over six-week periods, once you're out of second grade, so there's no time for awkward "I asked Sally to be my bridesmaid but now we're really not that close anymore but I can't un-ask her, can I?" situations to develop.

3. Quid pro quo is overrated. The reciprocity norm is ingrained in the human species--"They say that life is tit for tat, and that's the way I live/So I deserve a lot of tat for what I've got to give!" in the inimitable words of Matron Mama Morton. But reciprocity doesn't always have to be exactly in kind. If you were invited to a casual acquaintance's Big Fat Amish Barnraising, and you tend to prefer smaller, intimate barnraisings yourself, you needn't feel obligated to invite them. Do something for them, but you don't have to do that.

4. Have categories of invitees so clear that you would be able to explain to someone why they weren't on the list if they should find out. "This is family only," "I'm not inviting anyone from work," "It's a girls' night out," "I'm only inviting people who are really into football," and so forth. It's easier to exclude people as a group than it is to exclude them as individuals.

5. Entertain small and often rather than big and infrequently. Having frequent small parties, however you define "small" (for us, it's four to 10 other people) enables you to eventually host everyone you'd like to. Having one or two big bashes a year is more work and more agonizing over the guest list. Mr. Improbable and I do "pizza and cheap champagne" nights every month or so, and planning the guest list for these is downright fun, as we go through our address books and figure out which subset of our friends would have good chemistry.

6. Recognize that everyone understands. Yes, there may be some people who are insulted to be left off your [insert event name here] list, and if you find out about them, take them out to a nice lunch and engage in some conciliatory grooming. But chances are most folks will understand--because we've all been in the position of having to make those tough calls.

This picture of Leonard Nimoy and his son, Adam (via Retronaut) gives me all the feelings about fathers and sons, and art and science and religion and what it means to have all of those things in balance. And the beauty of Jewish men.

I'm taking the day off for Passover. Chag sameach, everyone.