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Why I’m Making a Single Girl Registry for My Move to Los Angeles

Why should I have to get married to make it through the largest transition I’ve ever had in my life? Married people got two incomes AND two sets of stuff already! Let’s normalize single people gift registries!

I’ve lived by myself for 16 years.

Which I realize is something of an aberration for Millennials. But that’s just part of coming from the old New York: the only upside of shitty old buildings is rent stabilization. …

Did Millennials Accidentally Kill Our Friendships When We Killed Phone Calls?

Making and getting lots of phone calls was a raison d’etre for millions of Millennial girls in particular, but once we hit our thirties, the phone became the equivalent of junk mail. Did this have unintended consequences?

young woman in white-blonde wig wearing an orange jacket talking on a hot pink corded phone on dusty rose background — Licensed via Adobe Stock

Millennials, especially those of us on the older end who were born in Reagan’s second term, are a generation of many dualities. Duality comes up in so much of my work and I always thought it was just because of a vast amount of personal circumstances and life events.

But…

What if the Whole Samantha Jones Thing Was More Realistic Than We Thought?

Sex and the City’s Samantha Jones is treated by the media crit community as this virtually satirical character who’s been touted as unrealistic by viewers, particularly younger viewers coming across the show for the first time. But as my forties loom closer, I find her MORE realistic and relatable than ever before.

Still of Kim Cattrall as Samantha Jones in a red dress and sexy, confident pose from Sex and the City’s fourth season — ©HBO

I distinctly recall this conversation I had with this guy I slept with after a punk show in 2010.

“So, what’s your plans?” This was the exact conversation I wanted to avoid. I somehow woke up in some bumblefuck place in Suffolk County, a ways off from my safe and…

Society is Failing a Generation of Grieving Children

COVID has created millions of orphans, as well as children and teenagers who lost at least one parent or guardian. Yet they’re expected to just continue going to school like nothing is happening.

Content Warning: this entire piece is about death of immediate family. Specifically, losing a parent at a young age. If this topic upsets you, you might want to sit this one out or proceed with caution.

It’s safe to say that the pandemic has brought out the absolute worst in…

How Do You Differentiate a Komodo Dragon From an Asian Water Monitor?

They’re two giant lizards, but actually have several key differences!

three-image layout with light green scales and green text on the left side that says “Meet these giant lizards!” with a photo of an Asian water monitor on top and a Komodo dragon on the bottom — Made by me in Canva

I decided to try something different for the new year: content I don’t normally publish or even see on Medium. Instead of boring content about new year’s resolutions or complaining about algorithms, why not tap into something you LOVE? One of my greatest loves after toads is gigantic monitor lizards!

…

Leaving Home Isn’t Solely About Real Estate

A new place equals new beginnings, and leaving behind decades of history can be equally liberating as it is saddening.

Pre-war NYC apartment building hallway with two huge blue suitcases and one small blue cabin bag against the wall with more boxes, paper bags, and a green Aldi shopping bag with colorful avocados on it — The last day in my condo before my realtor listed it. En route to a hotel before the flight and after the movers and GotJunk came. I swear, the avocados were a coincidence given my destination!

I always had this distinct feeling that I was at the edge of the earth whenever I was in the reaches of far eastern Queens.

Of course, this sounds ridiculous if you look at a map.

The precise blip of land where New York City’s eastern boundary ends and Nassau County begins is barely palpable, just like how you’ll waltz into Yonkers quickly enough if you head due north on Broadway in The Bronx.

But…

The Duality of Stuff: Realizations When the Movers Came

We’re expected to buy and own things, yet we’re also NOT.

In all of my parsing of the human condition that I’ve done ever since I changed careers in 2014 then never looked back, something I constantly ponder is duality.

A major one I’ve noticed in American culture, particularly in the late 2010s and early 2020s wave of influencer culture, is…

The Dishwasher Was the Last Straw

A stupid appliance made realize what one of my C-PTSD triggers is.

Top rack of a full dishwasher with plates, glasses, and a colander, with a woman’s hand showing a plate that has a sad face smudged in dirt — Licensed via Adobe Stock // This sums up my feelings entirely

I’ve owned a condo for six years.

If it wasn’t for the quarterly bills I get from the City, my crappy botched paint jobs, and the huge plumber bill I was totally ass-rammed by when I had five months left until my move to Los Angeles, I honestly haven’t really…

And Just Like That: A Duality of Clinging to the Past and Moving On

It’s also a duality of meeting and subverting your expectations, if you came in as a Sex and the City fan.

Heads up, there’s spoilers of this show if you haven’t seen it yet!

Despite the fracas of my upcoming cross-country move, I sucked it up and got a HBO Max subscription solely so I could do a long-awaited review of what most people have dubbed the Sex and the City…

We Need to Address the Actual Sinister Intent of Anti-Choice Lawmakers

I absolutely refuse to pop out babies to fill Amazon warehouses and military uniforms just to enrich the few hovering above this sinking trash empire.

At the time of writing, the Internet has been seething at Rep. Madison Cawthorn referring to women as “vessels” now that it looks pretty certain Roe v. Wade is about to be overturned in a far-right dominated Supreme Court.

Maybe we don’t have much of a democracy if various human…