Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to tell women’s stories on TV I go

I have some exciting news, folks: I'm getting an MFA in TV writing. My mission: To change the way women's stories are depicted in popular culture. I did a lot of soul searching after the election last year and realized that: I must urgently devote my life to making sure this never happens again, and …

Women, we need to take up more space

In a world where 1 in 3 women is a victim of violence ... A world where too many women are victimized by predatory gatekeepers (Harvey Weinstein, cough. Tip of the iceberg, cough) ... A world where, despite these facts, 53 percent of white women voted for Donald Trump, aka The Pussy Grabber in Chief... …

The pain of conditioning my daughter for public school

Earlier this summer, I saw that an editor at Catapult, Morgan Jerkins, was looking for stories about education. I dashed off a quick note, saying that I'd been chewing on an idea for an essay about the tension between conditioning my 5yo daughter for public school at the same time I'm trying to let go …

Fellow white ladies: Please do more than eat sheet cake

I love Tina Fey. And in some ways I love what she did on Thursday's Weekend Update summer edition. She tapped into a gut level of desperation that so many of us are feeling (and attempting to eat/drink/binge our way out of). And she called Trump and the Nazis funny names. And it felt good …

It’s time for all of us to lead

An important reminder popped up in my Facebook feed today: To fellow white people reading this: For concrete tips on what you can do, read White People: Here's How You Can Help After the Racist Attack in Virginia. As the author, Kristen Tea, states, "It’s not enough to tweet condolences or show up once for …

Accessing the universe

It's been a year of spiritual exploration for me. As I've mentioned before, I'm participating in the Academy of Intuition's Here and Now program, which I must heartily recommend as life-changing. I'm practicing truly being in the moment: Redirecting my attention from my thoughts to the feelings in body, Tuning in to the one energy …

“I guess that wasn’t our apartment.”

Last week Jordan and I were this. close. to renting an apartment that would have saved us $1100/month in rent. (Meanwhile, my friend in St. Louis points out that her entire mortgage is $1000/month... and here I am trying to reduce my rent by that amount.) Anyway, we didn't get it, because the landlord decided …

The trap of “What if?”

What if she isn't happy? What if we can't make rent? What if we made these three choices and then this fourth thing happened — would we all be perfectly happy, then? This is the game that my brain wants to play. It's not playful though, actually, it's arduous. It's torture. I torture myself with …

The next right thing for my family

As the writer Glennon Doyle Melton says, when in doubt, choose the next right thing. But how does that work when you're in a family? What if the next right thing for me isn't the same as the next right thing for Ali, isn't the same as the next right thing for Jordan? How do …

Uggghhh

It's an ugh day— steamy here in NYC, air so thick you could cut it (or slather it all over you like swampy lotion). I have a blister on my foot that's screaming and I had to run an errand and then the person didn't show up and traffic on that block was awful and …