Until I reached puberty, my vadgarincess wasn’t even on my radar. Unlike boys who stood up to hold their outdoor plumbing and pee, I sat down because I had indoor plumbing—this was the extent of my vadgeoledge. Though I liked boys at twelve, puberty officially courted me when I was sixteen. That was when I […]
Death is not my genre. My relationship with death is acutely dysfunctional. I’m terrified of death for the people I love, and also for myself, because I can’t reconcile the finality. Provoked by the thought of never being able to connect with the people I love again when they die, having just peeled and all, […]
When I menstruate it’s a war zone between my thighs, Baghdad in my vagina, with clots the size of a king’s ransom. My ovaries feel like marine boot camp, soldiers marching and punching my womb with all of their might to a Marine Corps Cadence, “We love the double time. We do it all […]
My preliminary dating experience on Who-The-Fuck-Cares-You-Need-A-Man mainstream dating site was as pleasant as having a yeast infection while menstruating, topped off by a sneeze-n-wheeze allergy attack (with no tissues or inhalers to be found) while changing a blown tire on a freeway shoulder during rush hour traffic and getting a ticket for having an expired […]
My maternal grandmother, Mary, was a precocious and austere woman. Fastidious and tolerant, presumptuous and nonchalant, and ballsy yet perceptive; I marveled at the clarity of her moods and the frequency of their intersection throughout each day. Mary was adorable, petite and campy. Proper lady outfits informed her wardrobe, pastel, and floral poly-cotton blend sets […]
I am plagued by so much guilt and shame that people can feel it in the air around me. Born three days late, I thought I felt guilty enough until I learned my mother spent seven hours delivering me. And then, I felt ashamed for not feeling guilty enough. Jewish guilt, person-to-person guilt, wasn’t guilt […]
There I was just sitting in Urth Cafe in Los Angeles finishing up an essay called, “Forgive Me Father for I have Sinned—Oy”, chronicling yet another humiliating sexcapade in my life, and drinking a non-fat cappuccino, feeling smartish, funnyish, and not as hard on the eyesish as I usually doish, when I looked up and […]