My Husband Wanted to Break the Fast Early and I Didn’t
Breaking the Fast: My short essay on Yom Kippur and parental conflict.
My Husband Wanted to Break the Fast Early and I Didn’t
Across the Pond, a Lesson in British Mourning
Do people mourn differently across cultures? An essay about funerals, Britishness and cultural anxiety.
My Hoarding Anxiety
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.
How I Finally Learned to Accept My Face
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.)
New Mother, Leading a Secular Life, Feels Tuggings of her Jewish Past
How parenthood raised religious conflicts between myself and my husband, and made me a lot more Jewy.
A Hoarder’s Daughter Yields to a (Little) Mess
My musings on the messiness of motherhood.
Hoarding: A Love Story
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.’
Chicken
Hear the tale of my lapsed and relapsed vegetarianism. (I read it on this podcast.)
My First Won Ton
You can listen to my story about blossoming teenage womanhood and my fall from Glatt grace. (Again, I’m reading it on a podcast.)
Learning to Ignore Parenting Judgment – Even From My Feminist Friends
My part-rant, part-contemplation, part-story on how there is no formula for motherhood. A pinch of painkiller beats a dose of dogma.
My Rudest Date
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.
The Bus Stop
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.
Cat Adoption: Judgment Day
On how I was too maternally incompetent to even become a cat lady.
The Day I Died
An essay about being a North American Jewish comedienne in England – a place where Jewish humor is not only not mainstream, but potentially lethal.
Nine Tips for Befriending a Brit
Some tips I gleaned from my attempt to navigate the social, romantic and professional codes of the Brits – a true Victorian minefield.
In London, Her Wedding Space Shapes the Whole Experience
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 Joy of Kvetch
The only thing worse than complaining about your relatives is having nothing to complain about at all.
The Holiday of Light, Not Chiaroscuro
On my first Chanuka in England, I threw a party assuming that my posh cultured guests had heard of the holiday. They hadn’t.
An Interior Saunalogue
My attempt to bridge the Muslim-Jewish culture gap in an East London sauna.
