Columns

Dear Dr. Jane I’m in love with my wife. We’ve been together for over 11 years, are best friends and have two great kids. The problem is that when we’re home and the kids are anywhere near us — even in their rooms on the other side of the house — she won’t have anything […]

I apologize from the very beginning if you began reading today’s message because you thought it was going to provide some enlightenment about the art of sexual love-making. But hopefully today’s message will be one of the most life-impacting you’ve ever read on this eternally compelling topic. I never was comfortable with these common words for […]

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): I invite you to entertain the following theory: Certain environments, companions, and influences enhance your intelligence, health, and ability to love—while others either do the opposite or have a neutral effect. If that’s true, it makes good sense for you to put yourself in the presence of environments, companions, and influences […]

Hello readers! Hopefully, you all set some lofty goals at the beginning of 2024 when it comes to exploring Oregon. Because we live in such a large state, full of diverse history and geography, I set goals the beginning of each year to visit specific places. I might not get to all of them, but […]

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In old Hawaii, the people loved their deities but also demanded productive results. If a god stopped providing worshipers with what they wanted, they might dismiss him and adopt a replacement. I love that! And I invite you to experiment with a similar approach in the coming weeks. Are your divine […]

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Unlike the Pope’s decrees, my proclamations are not infallible. As opposed to Nostradamus and many modern soothsayers, I never imagine I have the power to definitely and absolutely decipher what’s ahead. One of my main mottoes is “The future is undecided. Our destinies are always mutable.” Please keep these caveats in […]

I have a feeling none of you currently have (or ever had) “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” on the top of your must-read list, especially considering the subtitle: “The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation.” It sounds boring but trust me, Lynne Truss’s book, first published in the early 2000s and still going strong, is hysterically funny. The […]

While the experience of falling in love and connecting deeply with another person might be better left to the musings of philosophers and poets, the training of psychiatric professionals or the wisdom of gurus and clergy, one cannot help but be curious about the physiology of the experience we call love. It will come as […]

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Poet Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) lived till age 76, but her destiny was a rough ride. Her native country, the authoritarian Soviet Union, censored her work and imprisoned her friends and family. In one of her poems, she wrote, “If I can’t have love, if I can’t find peace, give me a […]

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Reading through the annals of famous authors’ quotes about love, I’m horrified by the relentlessness of their sour assessments. “Love is merely a madness,” wrote Shakespeare. “Whoever is not jealous is not in love,” said St. Augustine. “General incivility is the very essence of love,” declared Jane Austen. “It is impossible […]