A lapsed lawyer breaks down civil procedure — My book Bad Lawyer drops this May. It’s about my wack experiences in law school, courthouses, and law offices. The idea is to demystify law as a revered profession. And in anticipation of its release, I’ve decided to do a series of accessible and hopefully entertaining primers on legal topics…

U Up? drops today — Author Catie Disabato is my ex-girlfriend. Unlike her U Up? protagonist Eve and her ex Bea, Catie and I are on good terms. We continue to exchange writing and are even in the same writing group. We were dating for most of Catie’s drafting of U Up?, and in the…

A lapsed lawyer breaks it down — My book Bad Lawyer drops this May. It’s about my wack experiences in law school, courthouses, and law offices. The idea is to demystify law as a revered profession. And in anticipation of its release, I’ve decided to write a series of accessible and hopefully entertaining primers on legal topics…

The great psychotropic mindfuck — I’ve always fantasized about walking into my therapist’s office, lowering my sunglasses, and announcing: “well, I’m cured!” Sometimes I feel that way, when I’m on an upswing. I’ll talk to my therapist like I’m the most neurotypical person on the planet. “Anxiety? I don’t know her!” But as preeminent anxiety…

It’s just woo-woo-speak for toxic codependency — Last year, I was eating a salad and watching Bravo’s Southern Charm when cast member Madison LeCroy called her on-again, off-again boyfriend Austen her “twin flame.” A piece of lettuce fell out of my mouth. I’d been reading a lot about twin flames at the time, mostly because my messy…

2020 in review Normally these types of lists come out before the new year, but who cares about time anymore? 2020 was a weird one. A virus named for a Mexican lager ravaged planet Earth. The US government fucked up even more than usual. The chaos queen was voted out…

Coming to terms with my sexual anorexia — In her 2000 novel Aliens and Anorexia, Chris Kraus writes that it’s “impossible to conceive a female life that might extend outside itself.” That is, we expect women to be insular, private, shrinking. …

We aren’t all the Excel-loving, clean-freaks you think we are — I’ve always been annoyed by popular conceptions of the Virgo sun sign (which generally belongs to those born between August 23 and September 22). Most distill it to the following attributes: clean, logical, persnickety, and — worst of all — Virginal. I never saw myself this way. I can be…

Where does the real me end and the fictional one begin? — In her 2010 experimental novel, How a Person Should Be, Sheila Heti writes that “most people live their entire lives with their clothes on.” They are private and possess a natural modesty. Others, artists, she writes, cannot put their clothes on. …