Articles

By Denise K. James  I grew up with Sex and the City. I know all the trivia; I've rated the romantic partners (Berger: zero); I forgave Carrie for her flaws. Hell, I liked her flaws, including her cigarettes and her ongoing drama with Big. And while I was occasionally disappointed, I held on. Each season…

By Hallie Lieberman I assumed when I was 45, I’d get a Cologuard test instead of a colonoscopy. The ads were everywhere, and pooping in a cup seemed much preferable to a day of fasting, GoLytely, and diarrhea, followed by sedation and a medical procedure that had a tiny chance of puncturing my colon. At…

By Leslie Price What set you off on this path to writing about Claire McCardell?  When I was in my twenties, I had a job at a museum and they put on an exhibition of Claire McCardell’s clothes. I had never heard of her, and was shocked to learn that a lot of what I…

By Jill E. Duffy After a delicate surgery to remove basal cell carcinoma from my face, my dermatologist suggested I do a round of fluorouracil. Known by the brand name Efudex, this topical chemotherapy may lower the chance of getting skin cancer. To prepare, I read as much as I could about how it works,…

By Ruthie Ackerman I sat with my back against the bed, my laptop opened on my thighs. I’d been hunched over in one place for so long that the heat from the bottom of my computer had penetrated through my thigh fat, down to the muscle until my leg radiated with numbness. But I didn’t…

By Carita Rizzo I write this on a day where, once again, I don’t feel quite like myself. Like I’m hungover, but I haven’t had anything to drink. Jittery, but without the caffeine hit. I know exactly what it is. I’m in a low-estrogen phase of my cycle and there is a migraine headed my…

By Wendi Aarons What nobody tells you about your nest emptying is how long it takes for the nest to actually empty. Birds just shove their little fledglings out of their branch-and-stick beds whenever they think the time has come for them to fly, hoping their wings work. Humans, not so much. I spent months…

By Emmy Favilla “This is one of the puppies who ate their owner.” I sent this to the group chat of my closest friends, along with a photo of an impossibly cute bat-eared mutt with what looks like a perpetual frown on his face, a la Grumpy Cat. He is small and light brown and…

By Heidi F. Stepzinski, as told to Denise K. James  Some names have been changed.  In early 2004, when I was 24 and living with a nightmare of a roommate, I picked up a copy of Apartment Finder (the print version of what is now apartmentfinder.com) and flipped through the pages just to see what…

By Alisha Fernandez Miranda It was 2011. I was living in London. Obama was President. The dance floor was alive with Rihanna’s “We Found Love.” It was entirely acceptable, even encouraged, to wear skinny jeans. And it was also the year I froze my embryos.  Even though I was one of the lucky few that…

By Julie Alvin I was at a cocktail party recently when, a few drinks in, someone (ok, it was me) bluntly asked the gathering of fellow moms in their late 30s and early 40s, “So… what’s everyone doing for birth control now?” Lately, the topic seemed unavoidable. In my social media feeds, pundits were discussing…

By Sarah Michelle Sherman I knew my divorce would change just about everything in my life, but I didn’t expect the fallout to cut so deep. It felt like a second heartbreak.  I was 37 when I left last June — a mother, a writer, living in Albany, New York. It’s the kind of place…