RECOVERATI

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Our positive pregnancy test

Part II: Pregnant Pause

Human to Host Pregnancy is the most metal thing I’ve ever done in my entire life. I consciously decided that I was ready to become a mother–or more accurately, a host–to a living being for 40 weeks. Implicit in my decision was the understanding that my body would indeed change. I made the rookie mistake ...

Mother holding a newborn

A Mother to Be

Try as I might, I cannot pinpoint the moment I became a mother. My best friend/coworker/doula explained that I became a mother the moment I knew I was pregnant. I wish that were true. It took so much longer–so much more for me to experience–to grow into motherhood. To be clear, becoming a parent was ...

COVID 19 magnified cells

What a Time to Be Alive

Stranger Than Fiction I made it 1/4 of the way through Gabriel García Márquez’s novel Love in the Time of Cholera before I set my copy down never to return to it again. I mispronounced cholera for the duration of my time between those covers. The way I said it, ignorance sounded like ko-LEH-rah. I don’t do ...

Black lingere

Hands to Pants Combat

It was during my first weekend as a co-ed I discovered how to get rid of “the spins,” a phenomenon caused by excessive drinking on an empty stomach; see also: “cross-fading,” a physical state of vertigo-esque manifestations caused by smoking weed while drinking. When I engaged in furious making out and/or heavy petting, I became ...

Flames

This Thing of Ours

I’ve never read Dante’s Inferno, but I can personally testify to its veracity– there is more than one layer of hell to visit alone. The progression of my alcoholism was swift and perfunctory. The first time I got drunk, I blacked out. It was then that I smoked my inagural cigarette–a Marlboro Light–after which I ...

Knives with ornaments hanging from them

Five Ways to Celebrate Holidays Sane and Sober

Who says we can’t be truly charitable with our party personalities during the holidays? One thing I always keep in mind by the time Thanksgiving rolls around is that I have a lot to bring to the season. I don’t need to sway clumsily over the stove, slurring my words as I forget to add ...

Chocolate Christmas calendar

Chocolate Calenders

The first Christmas I spent entirely drunk was in Florida. Coincidentally, Florida was the last place I was drunk for the holidays. In 2013, I visited my twin and brother-in-law in Miami. I cornered her after I downed two vodka sodas to demand an explanation and an apology for why she never visited me. I ...

Petting Roberta

Dog, Interrupted

“Nice to meet you, Lucy, that’s my dog’s name!” For years now, this is how conversations with people I’ve never met have started. It is the reason I now know that “Lucy” is the most popular female dog’s name in the world. The world. I can’t say that I hate it. People love their dogs, thereby ...

PWD Gemini

Free Spirit

I’ve been referred to as a “free spirit” by no less than ten people in my lifetime. The first time I heard it, I bristled. What the fuck is that supposed to mean? I snarled. The first guy who made this observation was, by all accounts, a Grade A Douchebag, so I shrugged it off. He and ...

Two towels on the beach at Venice

The L.A.w of Diminishing Returns

My husband and I made a big decision last week. Other than agreeing on what apartment we wanted as our first together, where we went on our honey moon and how we spend our money, this decision is the biggest ticket item to date. I haven’t shared what we decided with many people because I ...