(Author's Note: This was originally published in the NY Jewish Week in 2008.) Free to Be... Growing up, I often listened to a work of feminism undercover as children’s album and book — “Free to Be You and Me.” From “Free to Be,” I learned that I could be anything, that parents were people and that “every boy in this land learns to be his own man, and in this land every girl grows to be her own woman.” I learned...

(Author's Note: This was originally published in the NY Jewish Week in April 2008.) Spring Cleaning  I’ve been cleaning my apartment in increments: a shelf here, a desk drawer there, purge a file folder or four. Part of it was tax-practical, to find my 2007 receipts so I could claim deductions for my freelance lifestyle—part of it was Passover, lurking as it does beyond the hamantashen. But in plumbing the depths of cabinets and drawers, there were unexpected finds. Earrings I...