Lately I’ve seen things like this circling around. Articles/tweets/memes (God help us, the memes!) that try to draw a partisan line between things that are non-partisan. As if we don’t already have enough division. Despite the obvious harm this is doing to our country, the rhetoric continues to grow – feeding off clicks and likes and shares.

I should have been going out every night, taking shots, standing on tables and screaming, “I’m a TV writer!!” until they kicked me out and banned me from ever coming back.Instead I was moping around the house in my polka dot pajamas.

To me, it felt like you read a piece about a woman struggling to start a family - longing for children - instead of showing compassion, you told her what she was doing wrong. 

I always considered freezing your eggs something women did so they wouldn’t feel pressured by their biological clock while they were advancing their careers or vacationing in Mazatlan. 

To me, this is more than a job. It’s the reason I left my family and friends to move to LA. It’s why I worked three jobs and once sold my bike to pay my rent

I was hit by a tidal wave of shame. It whispered to me that I was broken. Faulty. Not a real woman.

Across the street from our hotel was a Hardee’s with a sign that boasted Tuesdays were “10% Off Christian night.”

I was scooping pasta into a to-go container at the hot food bar when I noticed her. She was getting a salad.

I grew up eating organic and I didn’t even know that was special until I moved to Los Angeles.

Democrat or Republican, alt-left or alt-right, I think we can agree that the recent news cycle has been like riding an old, rickety roller coaster you’re sure is going to come apart at any moment.

The activist in me swelled with pride. The introvert in me wanted to curl up in a ball and scream, “Stop touching me!!”

I cast my ballot and felt the grey exhaustion of the past election fade a little.

She wasn’t exactly the embodiment of compassion as she handed me a robe and told me I could leave my socks on.

This Thanksgiving I wanted to make it special. I wanted to take on the impossible task of filling the giant, Spanish-speaking, long-story-telling gap Ron left at our table.

All I know is that after the election results, I engaged in my first ever Facebook fight and buried myself in bed with a bottle of wine to binge watch “The Crown.”

These last few months I’ve been pretty quiet but last week, during a normal day of rewrites, I suddenly thought of a joke.

I once pasted an ad from a clothing magazine into my scrapbook that said “When I Grow Up, I’m Going To Be President And My Husband’s Going To Be First Man.”

Jason often mentions that my anxiety might lessen if I lived in a more “peaceful” environment. I often mention that I don’t like it when he tells me what to do.

Ron’s death was like his life: dramatic and on his own schedule.

I hate fighting. Like any good Midwesterner, I prefer to shove everything deep down inside and never talk about it again until one day I passively aggressively give him the smaller piece of chicken.