Articles

By Denise K. James For decades, everyone gathered at my grandmother’s house for Christmas. We lost her in 2020, but not much has changed. We still eat my grandmother’s breakfast casserole – now made by my sister – before opening gifts, as well as her dinner side dishes.  Every Christmas Eve unfolds with the same…

By Carita Rizzo This is the era of a solution for every skin problem. Wrinkles? Reach for retinol. Melasma? Brighten your skin with niacimide. Generally feeling dull? Nothing a little ascorbic acid can’t fix. But these treatments can create another skin problem, one that’s particularly pernicious: dermatitis.  “I see it every day,” says Dr. Tyler…

By Jill E. Duffy The frenzy started a little over a decade ago. It was 2012, and I was working as a technology product reviewer. Brand after brand would email to tell me about their health and fitness products. Would I like to test and write about a new pedometer that connects to a smart…

By Leslie Price It took a family crisis for Marni Blank to realize that, for all her type-A tendencies, she had been avoiding planning for – or even thinking about – her or her parents’ end of life. But pushing off the uncomfortable meant she was forced to figure it out on the fly and…

By Carita Rizzo “Have you tried lube?” an OBGYN once asked me, in all earnestness, when presented with my long-standing issue of painful intercourse. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. After dealing with discomfort for two decades, being faced with the doctor version of, “Have you tried restarting your phone?” wasn’t reassuring.  For…

By Kara StevensLast October, I woke up to a flurry of texts in the middle of the night in Ghana from my older cousin Renee in New York, who had received word from another cousin, Trevor in California, that my estranged father, who lived thousands of miles away from all of us, in Antigua, was…

By Liz Krieger  I came back to tennis five years ago after a 25-year hiatus. It was one of those things I had loved intensely as a teenager and then just... didn't. When I joined a local USTA team, I walked into something I didn't expect: the most age-diverse, body-diverse group I'd belonged to in…

By Leslie Price Sometimes, it happens quickly. Other times, it’s drawn out. And even before it has happened, we know it is out there on the horizon, waiting for us. It’s the question of what to do about mom. Or about dad.  When it comes to aging parents, the challenges are vast. There are health…

By Jill E. Duffy My first thought, upon reading the obituary of a friend, was, "Someone must be doxxing her." I had come across it after searching her name online to see what she had published recently. She's a writer at a high-profile publication, and I hadn't heard from her in a few months. If…

By Leslie Price It might seem quaint that, given the concern over reading levels in this country – and observed declines in literacy – that a coordinated, well-funded effort would be underway to pull books off school library shelves. It might also seem quaint to do this under the guise of protecting children from obscene…

By Fawnia Soo Hoo A year and a half ago, Nat, who runs No Context the Pitt on Instagram, was gifted an Etsy-bought bootleg T-shirt emblazoned with late-‘90s pics of Noah Wyle’s iconic ER character, John Carter. “It was a gag gift, but I don't think [my friend] realized how seen and heard I felt…

By Carita Rizzo It was the strangest thing. Six months ago, Kate, 52, walked into her house and was absolutely repulsed by the smell of her dog and two cats. “To me, the house reeked of pet,” says the author of Strong As a Girl. “I'm generally very, very clean. I don't think we have…