essays
(Electric Literature) - My Life in Plaid
The pattern first appeared to me in the school uniforms of my cousins: crisp, clean lines of navy and evergreen intersecting at perfect right angles. These uniforms, like everything else about my cousins’ lives, I envied desperately...
A freshman appears in my doorway, late for class again, extending an orange traffic cone.
She proclaims: “I found it in a ditch!”
This is the blessed randomness of a high school creative writing class...
(Adventure Cycling) - Twists, Turns, and Pumping
I got the idea to go on a bike overnight when my husband returned home from a friend’s bachelor weekend. When he saw our toddler and baby, he told me, “I had a lot of fun, but by the end, I really started to miss them.”
I thought to myself: that must be nice...
(The Rumpus) - Albums of Our Lives: The Front Bottoms
The summer of 2012 was my worst summer.
Let me preface that by saying that the details aren’t very mind-blowing. Nothing impressively terrible occurred. But the only way I could feel somewhat okay was when I was listening to the Front Bottoms’ self-titled album...
(Matador) - WWOOFing Horror Story
If you look at #wwoof on Instagram, you’d get the idea that it's a universally loved experience. The hashtag is filled with pictures of 20-somethings posing in greenhouses, holding sexy-looking tomatoes while sporting cute overalls and bottle-feeding lambs. All of the photos are vibrant, everyone seems happy and cool,
and every scene looks like Passion Pit should be playing in the background.
My personal WWOOFing experience was slightly different than what the carefully selected pictures from Insta tell...
(Scary Mommy) - How Facebook Fueled My Fear of Childbirth
Can you feel this?” a nurse says to me as she swipes an ice cold washcloth across my back. I nod. “But is it cold?”
“Yes,” I say. She looks perplexed as she confers with the other nurses.
“We’re going to have to double the dosage,” she informs me...
(Sad Girls Club Lit) - The Sensitive Geek
My first love was a TV trope.
I was first exposed to the Sensitive Geek through Seth Cohen, a character from The OC. He loved anime, video games, and depressing music. He made lame puns that fell flat among his vapid classmates--but I appreciated them. All we needed to do was find each other...