My husband always tells me to assume people have good intentions. When I’m frustrated with something someone has said to me, he reminds me not to immediately conclude that they are trying to upset me and then plan an elaborate revenge. The guy who just cut me off in traffic might not have seen me.…
There is this idea that keeps coming up in the travel writing community, that quitting your job to travel the world is a profoundly brave thing. You aren’t settling for life in a soulless cubicle. You are grabbing life by the pubic hairs and screaming the guttural war cry that Neanderthals uttered before they went…
The prescription says “post coital.” It actually says that on the bottle. When the doctor told me my instructions for taking the antibiotic, I sincerely did not think that he would have the nerve to relay that information to the pharmacist. I figured he’d use some sort of vague jargon like, “as needed” which is…
Last week, a dear friend of mine from childhood texted me to let me know that her mother had died. I’d known her – and, by extension, her mother – since I was in the third grade. During our awkward, formative years my friend and I and a cadre of other girls (equally nerdy and well-behaved, for the most…
When you are my age, everyone starts caring about your uterus. Not in a fun way, where they send it text messages or memes featuring shirtless Jeff Goldblum circa Jurassic Park, but in a very critical, “what the fuck is wrong with your downstairs human factory and, by extension, you” kind of way. Because if…
I am talking about relationships with a friend in a dark restaurant. Rand has left the table for a moment, ostensibly to use the bathroom, though most likely to try to steal the bill. I have seen the two of them do this dance before, a race to see who can put down his credit…
There has been a lot of talk about mental illness lately. It comes up in the wake of any major shooting to explain the assailant’s actions. They were crazy, people say. Insane. Unsound. Even when there is clear evidence to the contrary. Even when the people are competent to stand trial. It is an approach…
I like watching history unfold. I am understandably fascinated by those moments that dominate the headlines, that will become fodder for essay questions in college classes a hundred years from now. The time we landed on the moon. The time communism fell. The time Obama was elected. My affections do not end there, limited to the…
It is a hot night in Milan. It reminds me of when I was in Cambodia. The next day I will look it up and find that it was, in fact, just as hot. Temperatures in the high nineties, the humidity hovering around 80%, nary a breeze to disturb the swarms of mosquitoes. On that night, the…
Tales of Food, Feminism, and Fury
by Geraldine DeRuiter
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