Goodreads Reviews I Left for Myself While Writing My Book

★★★ Idea Has Potential. I don’t hate the idea of this book. It feels like the author (full disclosure: it me) doesn’t really have a clear idea of it, and instead of writing the book they keep getting distracted and reading about dysfunctional relationships on reddit. I keep calling it a “book proposal” even though […]

A Dry January, All Year Long.

People keep reminding me it is January. I consider this an act of aggression. I keep writing “October” on all my checks. I also keep writing 1997. I also keep writing checks? What the hell is even going on with January, anyway? How can a January ever possibly feel normal? The year just started; the […]

Invisible Pie Labor.

It’s the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and as holidays bear down upon us, I find myself repeating the same refrain again and again: You do not need to make pumpkin pie from scratch. You do not need to make anything from scratch. You do not need to recreate a family recipe passed down for generations. Your […]

Hindsight is the Best Filter

While conducting an archeological dig of my office, unearthing crumbling notebooks that contained the early drafts of all the books I have written, and all the books intended to write but somehow did not, I found a box of old photos. They were from a summer I’d spent in Europe when I was 20 years […]

Enter The Goodreads Giveaway and Win an Advance Copy of My Book

You might have heard by now (from me, and the way I keep talking about it all the time, on this site, and also on social media, and in real life) THAT I HAVE A NEW BOOK COMING OUT. (Not apologizing for the all caps. I’m excited.) And if you haven’t already pre-ordered, please consider […]

Sometimes It Is Okay to Not Talk About the Awful Things.

I am old enough to remember when the Internet was a largely useless place for most people. My college dormmates would sit patiently, waiting hours for image files to download in large ribboned chunks, in hopes of something salacious appearing. If the image was mislabeled, they could find that they’d waited a good twenty minutes […]

The Power of Self-Doubt

A few weeks ago, Rand and I went out to dinner at a restaurant we hadn’t tried before. The menu was mostly Pacific Northwestern – so, lots of fish and expensive – with a few Italian dishes thrown in. We settled on a couple of things, one being arancini – tiny little fried balls of […]

A Girl’s 18th Birthday is Not a Countdown Timer

I have to warn you, this post is about Dane Cook. This is exceptionally depressing. Honestly, most days, I don’t think about Dane Cook – not even enough to hate him. Any knowledge I have of him has been gained through some sort of pop culture osmosis. I think he made a weird creepy movie […]

Hey, Lauren Boebert, I get it: Theater is Super Horny.

Several years ago, I crossed paths with the rusty, hateful jalopy that is Lauren Boebert’s internet presence. The Representative had recently shoved a few firearms onto her bookshelf with the care of someone trying to shove dirty laundry into their suitcase at the end of a trip. I decided to display menstrual products on my […]

Congratulations on Finishing Your Book, You Absolute Loser.

Congratulations! You just finished your book, and while we always knew you could do it, the odds in Vegas suggested that this was extremely unlikely, and some of us are out a lot of money this morning. But never mind! That’s irrelevant! Lifelong dreams have been accomplished, so does it really matter who gets thrown […]

It’s The End Of the Bird As We Know It: Thoughts on the End of Twitter

Last week, Twitter … did something. I don’t actually know the machinations of it, to be honest, and I’m at the point where I’m a little too fatigued to care. I heard whispers of something amiss. That Google could no longer crawl the site; that people were getting notifications that they’d exceeded their daily recommended […]

A Meeting Between Eartha Kitt and a Record Exec Regarding “Santa Baby”

October, 1953. New York City. Record Exec: So Eartha, we just heard the preliminary recordings for “Santa Baby.” Eartha: Lucky you. Exec: Uh, yes. Thank you. Eartha: You’re welcome. I assume we’re done here. Exec: Uh, no. There’s more that we need to discuss. Eartha: Well, lets make it snappy. I promised Orson Welles we’d […]

You Do Not Need to Make a Pumpkin Pie From Scratch. Ever.

I need to tell you something. Something very important. Are you sitting down? It’s not strictly necessary. You can stand if you want. Do you need a pen? I guess you don’t need one of those, either. This isn’t a particularly long message. Are you ready? Okay. You don’t need to make a pumpkin pie […]

I Tried 21 Flavors of Mountain Dew For Some Reason.

Explaining why I embarked on a quest to consume as many different flavors of Mountain Dew as possible is not an easy task. Why am I voluntarily drinking a beverage whose ad campaigns seem to vaguely suggest sexual violence? Why am I forcing my kidneys to undergo the aging technique used in that Benjamin Button […]