Word: iras
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...treats the topic seriously, realizing that we concern ourselves too much with it, that we cannot live without it and that for some it can be the focus of a lifetime. Maggie Moran in Breathing Lessons is one of those people for whom love is everything. Maggie and Ira have been married for 25 years when they travel across Pennsylvania to attend the funeral of Maggie's best friend's husband. The novel alternates between Ira's and Maggie's points of view and is told mostly in flashbacks...
...while Tyler is not a stylistic innovator, she has an eye for rupture, for the moment where life becomes a little strange, a little alien. At one point in the journey to the funeral, Maggie and Ira argue and he literally leaves her behind at a truck stop. At that moment, Maggie sees the possibilty for flight, for change. She imagines starting over again, reinventing her life. When Ira comes back to her it's both a relief and a disappointment. Maggie goes on as usual, having confronted the possibility of a truly independent life...
...journey reveals the failure of Maggie's dreams. It's mild failure, a dimming of hope and not a crushing defeat. But the bickering in her marriage and her husband's condescension have worn her down. Ira treats Maggie in a dismissive, if occasionally affectionate way. He sees her as flighty. Eventually Maggie can't help but doubt herself and to hope for vicarious happiness to escape a life that isn't what she hoped it would...
Even dramatic new evidence of widespread cocaine use by pregnant women probably underestimates the extent of the problem. Addressing a meeting of the New York Academy of Sciences held in Bethesda, Md., last week, Dr. Ira Chasnoff of Chicago's Northwestern Memorial Hospital reported that a study he directed of 36 U.S. hospitals found that at least 11% of 155,000 pregnant women surveyed had exposed their unborn babies to illegal drugs, with cocaine by far the most common. "There are women who wouldn't smoke and wouldn't drink," he says, "but they can't stay away from cocaine...
...Ira Opper wonders how he got along without Surfline. A TV sports producer by profession and beach bum at heart, the Californian dials 976-SURF almost every day. For 95 cents a call, Surfline reviews beach conditions along 485 miles of coast from Santa Cruz to San Diego, updated twice daily based on reports from 100 part-time scouts. Says Opper, 39: "It's like having a direct line to King Neptune." Thanks to devoted dialers like Opper, the 3 1/2-year-old Surfline handles 1.2 million calls a year in California and has expanded to three area codes in Florida...