#3 Drinking: A Love Story

Part 3 of a 10-part series I was 22 or 23. I was in Boston visiting my college roommate Tara Copp, who had an internship at the Globe. I was killing an afternoon by myself, and I was hungover, because I was always hungover, so I was wandering through a book store when the title […]

Drinking in a global pandemic

A few years ago, I was talking with a couple female writers about what we’d do during a zombie apocalypse. One claimed she’d be good with a sword, and she clasped her hands and pantomimed slicing through the air. The other said she could forage. She could scour the cabinets and make dinner from any […]

Indelible in the hippocampus

I did not expect to write a story about the contentious nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.  Some of my best friends are lawyers (did that sound weird?), but this is not my territory, riveting as the drama may be. But on Thursday, I watched the hearing, sitting on my parents’ couch from […]

Are You An Alcoholic?

My twentysomething social life was one long drink special. Margaritas with a crust of salt on the rim, a frosty pint spilling foam, and the always regrettable “Who wants shots?” I had always assumed my drinking would calm down after I graduated college. Instead, it ramped up. The bars opened their pearly gates to me, […]

For poor women who have been tempted to sin by rum, 1878 version

“Men can reform. Society welcomes them back to the path of virtue; a vail is cast over their conduct, and their vows of amendments are accepted, and their promises to reform are hailed with great delight. But, Alas! For poor women who have been tempted to sin by rum. For them there are not calls […]

Whatever path you choose or whatever path chooses you

The Tibetan handmade gifts store is right around the corner from my old apartment in NYC. I went inside on my last visit, because my yoga-loving, slightly Buddhist mother had been charmed by this store years ago, and she had a birthday coming up. “Let me know if I can help you.” The woman behind […]

Little slips of paper that might have contained your future

In my senior year of college, I took a playwriting class. We were given slips of paper with dramatic scenarios and told to write a few pages of a scene. It’s been nearly two decades since I read the information on that strip of paper, selected from a pile, and though I cannot be certain, […]

“I fear I’m becoming undateable”: Letter to a young sober woman

After my story about dating sober ran in Elle Magazine, I heard from other women also learning to navigate the Tinder era without a glass of wine in their hands. I know many ladies (and gentlemen) struggle with these issues, too, so I asked one of them if I could share our correspondence, and she agreed. (I’ve removed her […]