Many things about motherhood terrified me, including the ludicrous amount of stuff I was expected to buy for the bebe… It had taken me decades to build intimacy and a comfortable, calm, ‘white walled’ home, and now I needed to turn part of it into a chaotic, overstuffed nursery. Oy.
A tale about about the debilitating anxiety I developed over my aging skin. In this story, I learn that you can’t change your countenance with creams, but possibly, with perspective. (My original title: Saving Face.)
How parenthood raised religious conflicts between myself and my husband, and made me a lot more Jewy.
My musings on the messiness of motherhood.
At a holiday celebration, I found out that the man I was falling in love with was the child of a hoarder – a surprising coincidence, since I was as well. A story about home, shame, and skeletons in the closet – not to mention, everywhere else.
Watch me chat about this piece with Anderson Cooper on ‘Anderson: Living with a Hoarder.’
Hear the tale of my lapsed and relapsed vegetarianism. (I read it on this podcast.)
You can listen to my story about blossoming teenage womanhood and my fall from Glatt grace. (Again, I’m reading it on a podcast.)
My part-rant, part-contemplation, part-story on how there is no formula for motherhood. A pinch of painkiller beats a dose of dogma.
After years of dating in England, adhering to strict social and romantic rules, it was only when I dropped my act that I met a crass, hairy toad – who turned out to be my prince charming.
A reflection on the complicated process of travel-guide writing, set primarily in Cape Town. Featuring Austrian cockroaches, Parisian weight-gain, and seismic social change in South Africa.
On how I was too maternally incompetent to even become a cat lady.
An essay about being a North American Jewish comedienne in England – a place where Jewish humor is not only not mainstream, but potentially lethal.
Some tips I gleaned from my attempt to navigate the social, romantic and professional codes of the Brits – a true Victorian minefield.
My relationship notions were more informed by Sex and the City than the Talmud. But my orthodox wedding classes taught me that the age-old scriptures had insightful tips about contemporary romance. This essay was re-posted in the Huffington Post.
The only thing worse than complaining about your relatives is having nothing to complain about at all.
On my first Chanuka in England, I threw a party assuming that my posh cultured guests had heard of the holiday. They hadn’t.
My attempt to bridge the Muslim-Jewish culture gap in an East London sauna.