O.K., ladies, who out there wants to marry Jon Stewart? And ladies, who out there has had a wine-induced bitchfest with your girlfriends about the fact that the Jon in question done gone and got married to some lady vet without having ever even met you? I would pretty much bet cash money that about […]

My concentration in college was poetry, a concentration that shelters its students from the real world perhaps more than most college concentrations. When I graduated and found myself suddenly out in the cold reality of this “real world,” I was hit pretty hard. One of my coping mechanisms was to distance myself from that thing […]

Back before “Seinfeld” made it a house-hold name, I was a total sucker for the J. Peterman catalogue. I would read those pages like I would read a book, imagining trips to Tangiers, Australian cowboys, Hemingway’s cufflinks, that kind of thing. I was in seventh grade then. Now, I think back on that catalogue and […]

I am pretty much convinced that I have one of the worst periods known to womankind. Cramps, headaches, joint aches, mood swings—the whole she-bang (pun intended, of course). I dread my time of the month the way other people might dread nuclear war, and when it comes, nobody better mess with me (although it’s hard […]

When I was graduating from college and moving back home for a bit, I did a fair amount of research into the various Charlottesville outlets to which I might be able to offer my meager services (read: skills) and thus keep my mind sharp and my creativity alive. It was during this initial exploration of […]

I’ve always been the person in my family accused of being the most in touch with my feelings. This is not a good thing in many cases, given that the phrase is usually offered as an excuse for some unwarranted emotional outburst I’ve just let fly. However, it’s hardly an insightful remark to say that […]

I am a lucky girl. Not because my mother looks 10 years younger than she is or because I was blessed with reasonably straight teeth. Rather, because for the past week I have been making my way through events at the HBO Comedy Festival and thus have had the privilege of sharing the company of […]

Ask any one of my close friends or family members to name my biggest neurosis, and they will undoubtedly come up with one of two answers: airplanes or diseases. I can’t get on an airplane without major sedation, and about once a month I am convinced I’m dying of a tragic illness. For example, once […]

It’s not that I don’t enjoy my current full-time job at a hoity-toity glossy, but occasionally, I feel like I’m not making good on that promise I made to myself—and all those with high hopes for me—to make the world a better place. I know I’m getting all Miss Rumphius (“go to faraway places, live […]

I know I’m not the only person who runs errands on Saturday mornings. I know I’m also not the only person who, while running said errands, enjoys a spirited contest against, well, myself and the various contestants of “Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me…”. I’m a competitive person: HATE TO LOSE or be less than I can […]