Did you know you're supposed to soap and scrub for as long as it takes to sing 'Happy Birthday' twice?
Faith Salie
Are we a people who put politics over integrity? Or are we a country of voters and leaders, men and women, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, colleagues, humans who care about treating each other with basic dignity?
This is America; our icons are complicated.
I don't mean to brag, but my water filter curates tap water, offering moi the finest combination of H, 2, and O available.
If you grasp the bathroom door handle to exit without using a paper towel, you're right back where you started, with who-knows-whose germs on your hands.
Adverbs, we know, are meant to modify a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. They help us understand things more clearly, more vividly, more... morely.
If you don't know what mansplaining is, or manterrupting or manspread, then you're probably a guy.
It's one thing to decry and defy political correctness in the name of efficiently achieving clarity or revealing an honest truth. But it's quite another thing entirely to support name-calling and nastiness.
Manspread, mansplaining, manterrupting - all of it, whether conscious or not, diminishes women's voices, minds, and bodies.
I'm a snowflake. And so are you. Your children are snowflakes. And so are mine. And those who protest the loudest about not being snowflakes? I can see your six-fold ice crystals from here! Because every person, empirically, is unique.
Women all over this great land are creating spaces just for themselves, most often out of sheds in their backyards. They're fantasy cottages, bespoke bungalows, 'mama maisons,' if you will, for mothers and wives who need a sanctuary - a haven where they can do anything, or nothing.
If you're ever bcc'd, do not go near 'reply all.' 'Bcc' is 'blind carbon copy.' It means you're a fly on the wall, dude! If you hit reply all, it's beyond bad etiquette to out the person who gave you the superpower of invisibility. It's like screaming, 'I'm a spy!'
Here's a simple guideline: if five names or fewer are cc'd, just go nuts and hit 'reply all.' But if more than five folks appear in the cc line, pause. Give it a thought. Some people are promiscuous and cc dozens of people who don't need to know each other's business.
On a meaningful day, everything you wear can have meaning. It becomes what I wore That Day, whether that day is a beginning or an end.
It's beyond TMI - oversharing is not just too much information; it's incessant sharing of non-information - breaking news about your gluten-free diet complete with duck face selfies.
As a mother, I don't want any girl twerking near my kid at a bat mitzvah.
Power is not nearly enough for Trump. Power he already possessed, starting with the money his father gave him, which grew into the money he never paid in taxes because he is 'smart.' No: Power and ambition pale in comparison to Trumpbeth's rapacious grab for applause.
Not that I'm any good at it, but the beauty of meditation is that it liberates us from our own thoughts.
'Man cave' seems retrograde, but 'she shed' seems progressive. Or maybe it's just a place for me to eat embarrassing amounts of chocolate in private.
Snowflakery is simply being human, which makes it a pretty flakey insult.
They say there are no atheists in foxholes, and in the foxhole of my divorce, I found solace in walking to St. Patrick's Cathedral and lighting candles.
I am an approval junkie.
Nothing ages you more immediately than being called 'Mrs.'
Boys have always known they could do anything; all they had to do was look around at their presidents, religious leaders, professional athletes, at the statues that stand erect in big cities and small. Girls have always known they were allowed to feel anything - except anger.
Whether you plan to labor with an epidural or the Pitocin Fairy pins you down or you end up having an emergency C-section, there are still choices you can make throughout your entire birth experience that allow you to feel some control over what is probably the most dramatic day of your life.
Am I an elitist because I like wine?
Social media provides a constant platform on which to feature what we deem beautiful, meaningful, and worthy.
If I could have had my baby sooner, I would have, simply to spend more years with him.
Having grown up Catholic, my prayers were scripted - memorized and deployed in church and before bed. As a young adult, I veered off script and talked to God more plainly. And by 'talked to,' I mean that I basically asked for things to turn out the way I wanted them to.
No longer is a geek identifiable by a pale complexion, black-rimmed glasses, a bowling shirt that says 'Nerd World Order.' No, geeks are everywhere. And they're cool!
Despite amazing advances in fertility to help older women get pregnant, the complications, increased chances of autism, and chromosomal abnormalities are significant considerations.
I once accidentally 'replied all' and sent an email complaining about my then-boyfriend to a bunch of strangers. It was meant for my friend who was a bride, but I ended up addressing her entire wedding party. Her marriage lasted; my relationship didn't.
Hours after I gave birth to my first child, my husband cradled all five pounds of our boy and said, gently, 'Hi, Sweetpea.' Not 'Buddy' or 'Little Man.' Sweetpea. The word filled me with unanticipated comfort.
Approval ratings matter for politicians, largely for good reason. A leader with plummeting approval ratings ought to take note of the needs and hopes of his people.
Mother's Day is a bittersweet day for many of us. We all have mothers, but some of us have lost them.
I tell my kids all the time that I'm so lucky they chose me to be their mom.
John Travolta is getting old, despite what his hair is trying to tell us.
Real love is more than a one-time, seemingly iron-clad pledge that we will never be apart. If you're over 20, you've probably figured out that meaningful love isn't constricting; it doesn't chain you to one place or to each other.
I have no problem being full-term pregnant and do not understand women who say, 'I can't wait to get this baby out of me!'
Wildfires can leave the land with burn scars that last for years.
It was my husband who had to open all the baby shower gifts which were haunting me in their candy-colored gift wrap - thank you notes demanding to be written.
I know how much sleep I need, how much time on the elliptical I need, and how much chocolate that buys me.
Twerking takes its place in a long line of dance moves deemed immoral, even apocalyptic. The waltz was called sinful because it demanded dangerously close contact between dance partners. In 1914, the tango earned a papal denunciation for being 'damaging to the soul.'
One man's content is another woman's crap. And the crappy content - let's call it crontent - will never go away.
I admit I feel funny when I use the word 'whom' as I'm talking to my diapered children, but I persist.
The desperate hunger our president has for approbation has led him to such lengths as claiming that God stopped the rain during his Inauguration. In fact, Mother Nature made sure it rained on Trump's hair the minute he started his speech.
Contrary to the negative stereotype that folks who swear have poor vocabularies, a fluency in taboo language correlates with overall verbal fluency. The more words you know, the more you know... and the more colorfully you can express yourself, with nuance, metaphor, and emotion.
I've spent my life being responsible, building a career, and waiting to find the right partner with whom to start a family.
Any responsible essayist or memoir writer who's writing about herself is not just saying, 'Here's what happened,' and opening up her diary. There needs to be consideration of other people's feelings.
We all think Al Gore invented email so we could save time and save paper, to save trees. And that includes phone trees.
