The option to freeze one's eggs is just about the most empowering choice a single woman who knows she wants to be a mother can make.
I am an approval junkie.
On a meaningful day, everything you wear can have meaning. It becomes what I wore That Day, whether that day is a beginning or an end.
John Travolta is getting old, despite what his hair is trying to tell us.
I asked God for a healthy baby. An answer arrived in my daughter.
I'm not actually perishing, but I do feel like I die a little every time someone uses 'literally' to mean 'really.'
To my knowledge, there are, pretty much, two ways to be interesting: One is to actually do interesting things, achieve the remarkable. The other way to be interesting is to be interested, curious about the world and about other people - not relentlessly revelatory about yourself.
Boys have always known they could do anything; all they had to do was look around at their presidents, religious leaders, professional athletes, at the statues that stand erect in big cities and small. Girls have always known they were allowed to feel anything - except anger.
Whenever I told women - friends or acquaintances - that I had to go to divorce court, they'd invariably, without skipping a beat, ask, 'What are you going to wear?' It was like instant female solidarity: of course it mattered what I was going to wear.
Women are blessed with lots and lots of extra ways to win or lose validation. If you're a woman, you'll be judged on your beauty and your wit and how often you smile. You'll be judged on how much hair you have in some places and not in others.
Making fun of people's looks is something that children do - mean children - and, in fact, linguists have determined that Trump actually speaks like a 3rd grader.
Power is not nearly enough for Trump. Power he already possessed, starting with the money his father gave him, which grew into the money he never paid in taxes because he is 'smart.' No: Power and ambition pale in comparison to Trumpbeth's rapacious grab for applause.
Shaking hands is a pretty good way to get yourself sick, not necessarily with Ebola, but with a million other germs that can cause colds and flu.
I once accidentally 'replied all' and sent an email complaining about my then-boyfriend to a bunch of strangers. It was meant for my friend who was a bride, but I ended up addressing her entire wedding party. Her marriage lasted; my relationship didn't.
The custom of clasping hands is thought to date back thousands of years, as proof of not holding any weapons.
Twerking takes its place in a long line of dance moves deemed immoral, even apocalyptic. The waltz was called sinful because it demanded dangerously close contact between dance partners. In 1914, the tango earned a papal denunciation for being 'damaging to the soul.'
I'm a snowflake. And so are you. Your children are snowflakes. And so are mine. And those who protest the loudest about not being snowflakes? I can see your six-fold ice crystals from here! Because every person, empirically, is unique.
Just as kids need to learn to respect their elders, we are a society that increasingly respects our youth.
One man's content is another woman's crap. And the crappy content - let's call it crontent - will never go away.
When I was a kid, we called every teacher, every parent - anyone over the age of 20, it seemed - 'Mr. or Mrs. so-and-so.'
It's beyond TMI - oversharing is not just too much information; it's incessant sharing of non-information - breaking news about your gluten-free diet complete with duck face selfies.
I know how much sleep I need, how much time on the elliptical I need, and how much chocolate that buys me.
Despite amazing advances in fertility to help older women get pregnant, the complications, increased chances of autism, and chromosomal abnormalities are significant considerations.
I spent my late twenties and all of my thirties figuring out what I was supposed to be doing and where my home was.
People who champion Trump say they don't want politics-as-usual. But 'politic' is also an adjective. It means 'tactful and diplomatic.' It's necessary for an elected official to be politic.
Manspread, mansplaining, manterrupting - all of it, whether conscious or not, diminishes women's voices, minds, and bodies.
Divorce court seemed to inspire in my girlfriends 1940s-era fashion fantasies, not only for me, but for themselves.
Real love is more than a one-time, seemingly iron-clad pledge that we will never be apart. If you're over 20, you've probably figured out that meaningful love isn't constricting; it doesn't chain you to one place or to each other.
I'm not proud that, in my time, I've tried to harness the power of prayer to fit into a pair of jeans.
Mothers of all ages delight in their children, but I don't know that, if I were younger, I would feel as acutely, profoundly, preciously grateful for every smile, squeal, and - yes - diaper blowout.
Wildfires can leave the land with burn scars that last for years.
Hours after I gave birth to my first child, my husband cradled all five pounds of our boy and said, gently, 'Hi, Sweetpea.' Not 'Buddy' or 'Little Man.' Sweetpea. The word filled me with unanticipated comfort.
Donald Trump, who surely has lots of high-stakes issues on which to focus, is consumed with the appearance of women.
Whether you plan to labor with an epidural or the Pitocin Fairy pins you down or you end up having an emergency C-section, there are still choices you can make throughout your entire birth experience that allow you to feel some control over what is probably the most dramatic day of your life.
As a mother, I don't want any girl twerking near my kid at a bat mitzvah.
I entered my egg-freezing adventure from a feeling of lack - a lack of fertility, of the right partner, of biological time. But this perceived lack actually produced abundance - of options, time, peace of mind, and microscopic chances of a child.
'Man cave' seems retrograde, but 'she shed' seems progressive. Or maybe it's just a place for me to eat embarrassing amounts of chocolate in private.
Snowflakery is simply being human, which makes it a pretty flakey insult.
Getting a pedicure seems to be a standard pre-birth ritual, presumably because it is relaxing and makes you feel pretty even though your little piggies are going to be covered in those awesome no-skid hospital socks which I kept on for three days.
The fact that oversharing exists at all as a noteworthy notion is a relief, because I'm afraid that our younger generations could grow up having no idea what it even means to overshare.
I've spent my life being responsible, building a career, and waiting to find the right partner with whom to start a family.
If I could have had my baby sooner, I would have, simply to spend more years with him.
Scientists have discovered that, as we age, our brains act like computers with fuller and fuller hard drives. So when we're trying to recall a fact or a word or a name, it takes us longer, because - to put it scientifically - our brains hold a lot of 'stuff.'
Contrary to the negative stereotype that folks who swear have poor vocabularies, a fluency in taboo language correlates with overall verbal fluency. The more words you know, the more you know... and the more colorfully you can express yourself, with nuance, metaphor, and emotion.
Are we a people who put politics over integrity? Or are we a country of voters and leaders, men and women, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, colleagues, humans who care about treating each other with basic dignity?
If you don't know what mansplaining is, or manterrupting or manspread, then you're probably a guy.
This is America; our icons are complicated.
By the time I got to college in the '90s, virtually every young woman I knew was on the pill. It was like a rite of passage, along with Doc Martens and Take Back the Night rallies.
I'm writing a book, and there's not even space for a desk in our home. So I spent my hard-earned book money and rented the small apartment downstairs from us.
