Age of Innocence

I reveled in my first watch of The OC because I wasn’t allowed to watch it in middle and high school. Shows about teenagers having sex were strictly off-limits. (However, watching Jack Bauer torture terrorists was totally fine.)

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As a Mother

You know that saying, “Mother knows best”? It’s a saying for a frickin’ reason. We’re the backbone of every decent household in America.

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What The Hell Did I Just Watch?

The list of far-fetched hobby-type things goes on—latte art, throwing things in a blender and showing the footage on YouTube (Will It Blend?), keeping moldy water in your garage and selling it to other people (home brewing)…

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Recipe for Disappointment

The pleasure of these videos comes from the small frame. Everything is contained, orderly, and clean. All of the mixing bowls—so many!—are matching. All of the ingredients and utensils are always there—without price tags.

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Dear Lauren, Love Lauren

The following is a completely fictional recorded conversation between my past and present selves. It is transcribed as it was spoken and it is also not real.   18-year-old Lauren: Dear 25-year-old Lauren, I hope you’re no longer miserable. Please tell me that...

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Dreaming Again

I feel sort of like Cinderella using every available moment to frantically clean up my life so that I might finally get what I want, except I have no animals, no magic, and no shoes made of glass (thank god).

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Writing Space

Perhaps the trick isn’t finding the perfect place, the perfect pen, the perfect aesthetic, the correct combination of elbow patches, pipe smoke, and whiskey. Perhaps the trick is simply to not have a trick.

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A Grandmotherly Half-Truth

It frustrates me to hear people complain that they feel like they’re choosing between two evils or that they’ll just stay home on Election Day or that they’ll pack up and move to Canada if things don’t go their way.

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The Big Clean

I drag around furniture, scramble on top of kitchen counters. I dust, I sweep, I wipe. I also bleach and mop, neaten, vacuum, air, fluff, and polish.

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Double Dutch

The dancers separate into groups of eight and begin the dance. There’s nothing quite like the sound of hundreds of wooden shoes clomping along the asphalt in rhythm. Or the semblance of rhythm.

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