There are many authors who have taken the contractual requirement of a social media presence in stride. There are even those who have built entire careers on being ever-ready to deliver a pithy response or have a timely, relevant thought. There are a plethora of writers quicker-witted than I, who have taken to the concussive force of a Twitter feed, the collective hergh-blergh of Facebook.

These are people I admire because I am decidedly not among them.

The only online hubs I’ve felt somewhat comfortable in are platforms that allow for passive participation and anonymous, detached, maybe even somewhat omnipresent curation: Tumblr. Instagram. …

A doctor tells me I’m gonna die and my first thought is: I guess I should finally watch Star Trek: The Next Generation.

My sci-fi-loving friends had long insisted that I watch the show — if for no other reason than the character of Dr. Beverly Crusher, who bore striking similarities to my personal hero, Dana Scully of The X Files.

It was obvious, even then, that what I wanted more than anything was to grow up to be a redhead who did science. I might have done just that if illness had not found me first. …

The Proust Questionnaire is most well-known for appearing at the end of each issue of Vanity Fair magazine. James Lipton famously posed the questions to his guests at the end of each episode of Inside the Actor’s Studio.

When I was 18, I recorded my answers to the questionnaire for the first time.

The next year, I went back and did it again. Then, like many other less important things, it just became something I did every year that I lived.

When I started writing on Medium, the ever-growing post found a home here and has lived here ever since (here’s last year’s). …

ASK ME ABOUT MY UTERUS is now available in paperback!

A book getting published at all is special, let alone getting more than one printing & a paperback run! It wouldn’t have happened without you.

Whether you pre-ordered, bought online or in your local bookstore, checked it out from your public library (or asked them to get a copy!), gifted it to someone or received it from someone who thought it was a gift you needed — thank you.

My only hope for this book was that it would help others feel less alone. I never expected it would give that gift back to me, but oh, how it does.

If you’d like to catch up and/or help me celebrate, I’ll be doing an Instagram Live Q&A and book giveaway today (Tuesday March 5th) at 11 am eastern!

And you can always catch up with me there or on Twitter.

Not Another First Time Story

I am lucky-number-seven and have just entered into both the first grade and what will become a lifelong contract with myself: In exchange for the many hours I am required to sit in front of a computer learning how to type, I will be rewarded with a book.

I sigh, clamping my jaw to keep myself from asking the Computer Lab chaperone — again — how much longer until story time. I glance up at the clock on the wall. I’m still not entirely confident I know how to tell how much time has passed, but I like staring at it, anyway. All the clocks in our school are identical. As we’re shuffled from one classroom to the next — to the gym, to the art and music rooms, even to the bathrooms — the same clock hanging in the same position in each new location gives off an illusion of consistency. …

I admit, I’ve never worn a bikini in my life. I have nothing against them. I just hate being damp and cold. Thus, being damp and cold and nearer-my-God-to-nudity would constitute considerable summertime sadness for me.

While I may not be kini-ing, I would never begrudge someone else (who is better able to regulate their core body temperature) the experience. After all, the frisky fabric has been part of our cultural fabric for centuries. The concept of bathing attire that boldly strays from the full coverage, one-piece-suit variety dates back to at least the fourth century BC. At first blush it may seem like a thoroughly modern concept, but being scantily-clad aligns pretty consistently with the preference of our human nature about as far back as you can go. …

THE LAST TIME ANYONE SAW KURT NEWTON he was riding his red tricycle down a dirt road of a campsite where his family was vacationing Labor Day weekend of 1975.

Four-year-old Kurt was not a child that could go easily unnoticed: with a shock of white-blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, cute chubby cheeks and a sweet little pout, he likely would have been tutted at by strangers who would remark something like:“I bet that little face can get him anything he wants.”

Maybe it did. Maybe it even got him that little red tricycle he was riding, which was later found on the side of that dirt road, carefully placed out of the way of traffic. Just the way a little boy who had been taught to take good care of the things he loved might. …