People In Your Neighborhood

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1. If you've read my memoir can you leave a review? One sentence is fine. If I get 50, Amazon will promote my book for free, which might bump me into covering my advance! I'm at 36 reviews now. I would so appreciate it. Here's the book.

2. This is a serious overdose of heartwarming cuteness and made both Lola and I cry happy tears: I recognize this relationship.

3. My friend Sarah Fader wrote this great piece on gender-neutral bathrooms. 

4. This is the best writing I've come across in a while. Ellen Urbani 'There Is No Such Thing As A True Story'

5. I'm worried about our cat Maybelle. 25 Signs Your Cat May Be In Pain

6. I want to get this for Mr. Curry. He has a hard time sleeping through.

7. I'm reading Seabiscut right now (among three other books,  I have developed the habit of having one book for every room of the house), and came across this piece by Laura Hillenbrand on her onset and sickness from CFS. This is her distinct and powerful voice, that meticulously and relentlessly chronicles all her discerning eye can see. She is a powerful writer because no telling detail is left untold.

8. On Poverty by Alison Stine. I related to this, even though I live in San Diego in suburbia. 

9. Parents Question Vaccines As Epilepsy Rates Rise To 1 In 20 Children Under Five

10. This beautiful writing by Julia Whitty totally absorbed me: Grief And Wonder

People In Your Neighborhood

image: blog.ted.com


Let's be clear: people in your neighborhood = everyone who shares this planet with us. animal and human.

Austrians and Germans Turn Out To Welcome Refugees

In ScienceDaily, Infant Antibiotic Use Linked To Adult Disease

She's so crayyyyzyyyy: Miley Cyrus ( Dooooo It makes me happy )

I can't wait to read this novel: The Crossing by Andrew Miller

Elissa Schappel interviews Elena Ferrante for Vanity Fair

The More I Know About Breastmilk, The More Amazed I Am by Angela Garbes

You can add your name to the map on The Campaign For The Fair Sentencing of Youth- I did.

Julie Chiefetzz tells her story of working for Amazon, having a baby and getting cancer.

In WSJ, Why Turkey Should Be Called 'Catstantiniople'

People In Your Neighborhood

My first piece on The Mid: I Became A Runner At 40- And You Can, Too Click my name at my bio to read the other two I've written this week!

Very interested in Melissa Broder's work

A feminist roundtable talk with Lena Dunham, Amy Schumer, Gina Rodriguez and more

Read these three wonderful poems by Natalie Eibert in Cosmonauts Avenue

Drowning Really Is Silent

The Only Good Man Is A Self-Hating Man by Navneet Alang in Hazlitt

Vitamin Pill Cuts Skin Cancer Risk- NBC News

The story of one photo of one great white shark.

I've been looking at this magical blog for years. The Road is Home 

People In Your Neighborhood

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Adrian McDonald's photos of Jamaican childhood are pure magic.

I often find these kinds of 'love your body' things unconvincing. But not this one. I'm watching with Lola.

Loving this poem by Morgan Parker: ALL THEY WANT IS MY MONEY MY PUSSY MY BLOOD

Like many people around the globe I have a fascination with the excavated site at Pompeii. Therefore, I found this fascinating.

Karrie Higgens is one of the top three most gifted writers I've come across on the internet, someone who isn't well known but whose talent and craft is undeniable. Read on the 35th anniversary of my suicide attempt

If you think your gallbladder is going bad, please read this: It Ain't Your Gallbladder

Oh I got that brain orgasmy feeling reading this because 1. it's about one of my top five favorite novels ever, Lolita, and 2. the intelligence and skill of the writer weaving backstory. Fascinating, and deeply sad. The Real Lolita, by Sarah Weinman

I stumbled across this old interview with Elizabeth Gilbert in The Rumpus.

I found this Justin Bieber car karaoke with James Cordon super entertaining. The Rubix Cube thing- who knew? ( and don't say who cares, you snark )

People In Your Neighborhood

Creative Compulsive Disorder & Remembering Zina Nicole Lahr from Stormy Pyeatte on Vimeo.

Isabella Rossellini on who cares about aging. I'm becoming compulsive with collecting the quotes and ideas of women who instead of being honest about how aging is hard for women are really focused on how it's not. On how much more there is. We need their voices and their attitudes.


I told you about a friend's friend whose little girl drowned recently. This little girl, Kitty, was born in 2010, same as Ever. This is a remembrance of her with a beautiful poem. It made me cry hard. I think the first comment afterward is a little genius.


I really enjoyed this essay by Angela Flournoy on the recovery of her father and Detroit.


I can't wait to see this anime movie: Wolf Children

This short story on a moment in time on 9-11 is like glass in your hand: immediate and unforgettably cutting. September, by Anna Kovatcheva 


How the use of antibiotics in infancy is tied to illness in adulthood. Another example of the many I link here of the absolute importance of our guts to our entire health.

The combination of music, film and writing the NYT is using is brilliant. I could not pull myself away from this story.

Art is life.


Is Wifi Making Your Child Ill? There's a lot of conflicting opinions going around the scientific community, but I want to stay aware and do what I can to protect myself and my family.

Saul Bellow is an important author to me. My dad had his paperbacks and as a kid I read through them, often bewildered and lost, but totally compelled.

People In Your Neighborhood

take a seat ( with Milicent Rogers ) and read!

I would love every parent to have this information for their children: Why Gut Microbes Make Your Kids Picky Eaters

10 Brilliant Novels With One Fatal Flaw True Detective ( Season One ) was a TV show but is included in here for its novelistic brilliance- which I could not agree with more. This show haunts me months after I watched it, and despite its grim tone and horribly sad storyline I know I'll go back and watch it again. But---but! those last 15 minutes...

A Wrinkle In Time is one of the books of my life, so I love this WSJ piece on Madeleine L'Engle and a secret passage

This little girl was the daughter of the friend of a friend. Please don't turn your backs on kids in water. Please put life vests on kids in or near open water. She had taken swim lessons. It didn't stop this from happening. Unimaginable grief. I've been praying for this family out of lack of anything else to do.

I really like how Dani Shapiro- a well known, high selling author- reveals the bare bones of the writing life

This short essay articulates some of my deepest life values and guides: The Moral Bucket List

Sally Mann's iconic images have always captivated me on a subconscious and conscious level. I am remember a decade ago using them like online art, tacked to my MySpace page. I was born in Jackson Mississippi and returned to live for a year later in childhood. She writes for the NYTimes about the mixed legacy of her images.

A very interesting young woman: Mac McClelland, an investigative journalist who wrote a book about her PTSD after going toward the Haiti earthquake aftermath.

Melissa Hart writes about foster care and the importance of Annie, 91 years later.

People In Your Neighborhood

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It is satisfying and happy that I now have an Amazon 'Author Page'. It's the little things.

This has been all over the nets, for good reason. Anytime someone is brave enough to take a risk this large and change the narrative of their entire life, it's worth listening to. Why I Gave Up My $95,000 Job To Move To An Island and Scoop Ice Cream It's pretty annoying and steeped in avoidance when stories like this come out and people say, well, it was easy for her BECAUSE and then list whatever made it easy. There are always reasons a change this big is terrifying and impossible. To hear when it worked is good.

I know I keep posting articles that say essentially the same thing as this one, but it's because I think this is one of the most centrally important health issues of our time. The Cure For Brain Diseases Is In Your Gut

Shawna Kenney writes a fascinating, touching and timely piece on gangsters who now bake. Munchies

My friend Dena hooked me up with this article, and it's one of the most delightful ( I use that word sparingly so take it ) essays I've read on line in a long time, and memorable- I keep remembering it at odd times and laughing. When I Win This Fucking Award by Mallory Ortberg

Nanea Reeves brought me to quiet tears with this aching, raw piece, written as her husband is dying. Work Life Balance and What That Means When Things Fall Apart

Hayley Krichner on Hysteria and Teenage Girls 

Lorrie Moore interviewing Miranda July, practically perfect in every way.

I like to show Olive Us videos to Ever and Lola. Lovely, dreamy, charmed life. Someone should do an illustrated book on this family.

Lastly, if you have any issues with anxiety, please read this: How I Beat My 10 Year Battle With Anxiety Using Folinic Acid or just pass it on. I can't stand it when people suffer needlessly. I haven't been tested but Lola and I take magnesium, B vit. mix every night and I am considering being tested.

People In Your Neighborhood

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What a fascinating read: Spalding Gray's Catastrophe in The New Yorker

Poor Bennie Cucumber!!!

This is my girlfriend's natural soap and creams shop Bean Tree Soaps, she is awesome, this store is awesome. 

I am on the hunt for a job. My job ends May 30th and I'm looking for a SMM editorial/content position. This How To Score A Job Through Facebook is awesome.

One of the few blogs I've been reading for years and years where I know nothing about the 'real life' writer, not on FB, Twitter or anywhere else. For me, she only exists here: What Possessed Me

An important story of a mentally ill daughter recently lost to suicide, in The Washington Post, by Doris Fuller.

Nas' documentary on breakers and rappers in Uganda. People are amazing.

Jemima Kirke on her abortion and reproductive rights.

Why Your Teenager Gets So Annoyed With You by Joshua Wayne The more we understand, the more patience, compassion and creativity we move in.

'We are trained to misinform' a pharma rep's story.

Olivia Bee's images of teenage years Love, love.

7 Kids Who Were Literally Raised By Animals

People In Your Neighborhood

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Are you in the middle of life, in the thick of family and work and ALL THE THINGS? Check out The Mid. They are awesome.


Anna's post on the trade-offs and work of marriage is why I started reading blogs in the first place. I'll Have The Salad Wedge


An awesome crash course in cultural appropriation by Amanda Stenberg, 16. I watched this with Lola and Mr. Curry.


I have an unsettling attraction to Shia LeBeaof, which apparently he's determined to kill.


An abducted two year old was found after his babysitter saw his missing picture on Facebook. Sharing images for missing kids WORKS. Please share. You can find the Missing Kids latest posters on the left side ( scroll down ) of my blog.


This mummy is truly incredible.


Jemima Kirke does a short video on her abortion for The Center For Reproductive Rights.


Don't Hate On Sansa Stark's Powerful Femininity in Bitch Media



I love how Aline Ohanesian entertwines her son's rejection and hurt with her own as a writer.

People In Your Neighborhood

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One of the best essays I've ever read online. Keep an eye out for Lisa Marie Basille. She's got it. Translations

A sharp and cutting and beautifully crafted Rumpus Sunday essay by Alexis Paige, on a night in the drunk tank: The Right To Remain

Regardless of what you think of PETA on the whole, this is an important cause and worth the two minutes it takes to sign the petition to stop painful tests on animals.

The Paris Review created a magazine for young readers, 8-12 years old. I bought this month's Paris Review ( for adults ) and it was quenching, beginning to end. I loved each interview and fiction and non-fiction and most of the poetry. The interviews with Hilary Mantel and Elena Ferrante alone are worth it.

What happens when one partner wants, and gets, more children than the other? This is a painfully honest and self-appraising look at one marriage with children in Salon,  by Lauren Apfel.

The No-Bullshit No-Drama Friendship Manifesto by Janelle Hanchett on Renegade Mothering

I am a wee bit obsessed with Jemima Kirke. Here's her 'not to get skinny but to get thick and strong' workout at a workout studio run by Cadence Dubus, who Jemima also painted naked. I also have a whole Jemima Kirke Pinterest page. 

One of the funniest things  I've read online in a while: on Distractify

Costa Rica is now running completely on renewable energy

Do you know how to save a choking baby? Take 41 seconds.

I'm always interested, as a writer in a world where I have promote everything I do, in how to do a better ask. Five Tips On How To Ask People for Shit So They Will Say Yes on Shewrites.

People In Your Neighborhood

Jill Alexander Essbaum's debut novel 'Hausfrau' is getting great reviews, and I can't wait to read it. I confess to being more than a little interested in reactions for selfish reasons, as the novel I'm finishing now, although very different, also revolves around a highly sexual suburban housewife.

My last Purple Clover column was on how not quitting just a little bit at a time changed my life.

I am taking turmeric. 

A PANK review of Sarah Einstein's Shebook: Remnants of Passion

You had me at 'giant lemurs'

My son is mentally ill, so listen up on CNN. 

Lousiana prosecutor apologizes for being 'arrogant' and falsely condemning an innocent man to death row.

Elizabeth interviewed with National Geographic and exposed herself and her family to tell their story. After being published to a large response, the story is somehow 'gone' off the website AND the Facebook page. It's about vaccinations and vaccine injury. What. The. Fuck.

To Have A Friend Like This: On Holocaust, Friendship, Thriving

Lessons From Grief: even just for this insight: 
 Because I’ve written about her, I can now have empathy for her. It hurts that she’s so callous, but I am no longer broken by her inability to love me like I’ve always wanted her to. That in itself is so big: the acknowledgment that it hurts while not being suffocated by it anymore.

People In Your Neighborhood

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I moved my run from 4 to 5 miles now- mostly. I run 3 days a week and do other barbaric practices with names like squats 2 other days. Sometimes when my autoimmune diseases are kicking my ass, running is so, so hard. So I love this: Science of Running: Thyroid Madness

Lately I've been thinking of my Nana, Lura- my sister's namesake. Read her obituary. My Nana was very kind to me.

Enough Abuse Campaign: bringing together communities to end sexual abuse.

12 Tips For Gentle Weaning

Scientists Officially Link Processed Foods To Autoimmune Disease  ( duh )

Window Shopping

Dear Guy Who Just Made My Burrito ( this is the best )

Japan no longer gives HPV vaccine. The story I linked was the beginning.

For about 2 years I only eat meat that is humanely raised and killed to the best of my knowledge. ( 2 years of no In and Out, sob! ) This Rolling Stone article gives you a good idea of why. I eat Applegate 

Karen Russell: How I Write

This is a pretty amazing story and documented treatment for a little girl diagnosed with sensory processing disorder and verbal apraxia.

Martha Silano's poem is pure awesome: Song of Weights and Measurements

People In Your Neighborhood

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Reaching out to a troubled teen daughter with poems in a shoe. I love this so much.

Mr. Curry just went here for work. Extraordinary, the pockets of this wonderful crazy fascinating world, all over. These photos are amazing. Slab City

Great reporting on a horribly fascinating subject matter: when your father is a mass murderer

How online comments have changed everything for female essayists.

I was absolutely riveted with this information. It makes me think long and hard about the 10% gluten I let myself eat, even though it always comes with strange and random symptoms afterward- swelling, or an odd weak feeling, fatigue, brain fog. Gluten Ataxia

Emily is a young woman who has cystic fibrosis and is racing to assist researchers to find if not a cure, a treatment to slow it down. This campaign video follows Emily and discusses her disease. She asks that you watch. 

Lizi Gilad wrote this truly outstanding essay, Systems Terse, evocative, deeply felt writing.

The studies of Non Specific Effects of vaccines are almost non existent. We know vaccines mostly work to prevent the diseases intended, but we don't know much about what they are doing to the long term health of our children. Here is one story.  I follow the research of Dr. Peter Aaby, a leading vaccine scientist and the only one producing a body of research on the NSE of vaccines.

An adorable and talented teen dancer does a youthful version of Beyonce's 7-11. I love this song- it's on my running playlist.

People In Your Neighborhood

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Something adorable and charming: Fox Village in Japan


This young German author gives a complex and interesting ( though short ) interview: A Book Can Save Your Life 


Would you like to live on a floating greenhouse located mid ocean?


Where Babies Come From: I love, love this beautiful poem by Karen Skolfield 


Humans of New York represents the best of the net. Reminding us of how we are the same, instead of different, and taking the social power of the site and using it to affect change. Wonderful.


Loved this: This Is What Burnout Looks Like by Emily Ballard


Fascinating: The Dying Russians by Masha Gessen I've had a fascination with Russia and its history and people since growing up reading Russian classics and spy novels from my parents library.


Lynn Fuller was set on fire by her boyfriend. She  needs financial aid. You can help here


More on the link between gut bacteria and anxiety 


I love these animal egg cups

People In Your Neighborhood

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Anna Leahy writes The Give and Take of Grief on The Weeklings "Spread out, grief feels less heavy—the word grief comes from the Latin meaning to make heavy—and there’s some room to breathe and speak. I’m not stealing anyone else’s grief, but I’m letting my own spread or reach further than I’d expected it could."


Some beautiful writing in Fragment by Sally J. Johnson on The Manifest-Station


Jordan Rosenfeld takes a familiar subject and says something new and smart about it: women and mid-life crisis or 'opportunities'… I Think I May Be Having a Mid-Life Crisis at Dame


A fascinating article on our immediate future as human beings by Tim Urban The AI Revolution


This blogger Sarah Bessey wrote a blog on what love looks like, and it made me feel very sad, I admit. It reminded me of the kind of posts I used to be able to write. I'm so glad that she knows what she has, and beautiful written. 


One more reason I won't be giving my daughters the HPV vaccine even though I have had pre-cervical cancer and cryogenic surgery for it. HPV Vaccine and Primary Ovarian Failure


Higher Dementia Risk With Use of Common Drugs- important information.


I was introduced to a poet new to me, and her amazing work Song


Pushing my running a little this week: Getting Through Speedwork I run 3x a week for just under 4 miles, and do squats and lunges etc. another two days. 


I've Got Leaving In My Blood by Anthony Hamilton, a man who can write!

People In Your Neighborhood

Obsessed with Kiesza. Love this song and video. Love her style. Love the 80's influence, background singer, her crystalline voice.

Amanda Charchian's beautiful photos of nude women in landscapes.

Lena Dunham on ABC, short interview. Love.

Bought this book today, read an excerpt in Tin House and was really impressed. Lacy M. Johnson's The Other Side

Wounds That Time Won't Heal: the neurobiology of child abuse

Rene Denfield writes a deeply moving essay on the legacy of suicide in her family:  The Other Side of Loss

The murder of Tamir Rice continues to horrify me, and America. Tamir Rice and The Value of Life the new release of video showing him lying, dying, unattended to, while his 14 year old sister is thrown to the ground and handcuffed will make the most hardened heart cry out. 

Mark Lucach writes stirringly about his wife's nervous breakdown from Bipolar, in The Pacific Standard

Karrie Higgens is one of the most exciting new voices in writing I've come across in a  long time. Her essay Strange Flowers is, without being hyperbolic, brilliant.

People In Your Neighborhood ( I'm in The Rumpus, ahhh!! )

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I am thrilled to be the Sunday essay of the week in THE RUMPUS. Please take a read and comment, I'm nervous! We, The Crazy Ones

I donated for this lovely writer and blogger and speaker and lover of women, Jen Pastiloff. She could use our help, ladies. She's one of the good ones.

This essay by Emily Kaiser in The Washingtonian is a beautifully expressed piece on loss and the shaping of a generation. How Millennials Mourn

Interesting story of a 16 year old boy who ran away to avoid chemo and years later is now healthy and cancer free.

Astonish yourself and look at our universe

One small step in the right direction for a cause near and dear to my heart, something I fight for and will continue to fight for is an end to solitary confinement at all in prisons- in Penn. they have stopped using it for mentally ill prisoners.

New research supporting that depression is an allergic reaction to inflammation. All the more reason to eat an anti-inflammatory diet, and the largest part of that? Avoiding sugar. Take your fish oils and probiotics, people!

Janine Canty writes a searing and original essay for The Weeklings: Don't Blame Yourself I really loved reading this and read it twice.

We use primarily glass and stainless steel for everything. Another reason why: BPA-Free and Plant Based Plastics More Dangerous Than We Thought

People In Your Neighborhood

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" Without feminism, I would have been the worst bitch in the world " Vivian Gornick in The Believer


A blogger is being publicly, repeatedly flogged in Saudi Arabia. Please sign Amnesty International's petition to free him: SIGN


Melatonin as cancer treatment in Life Extension


'Sister, Interrupted: A True Story' by Maria Alexander in Medium, a heart rending story of what the consequences of distracted driving can be.


'The Disappearance of Rosemary Tonks' by Ruth Graham in Poetry Foundation. A writer with ascending renown and fame who walked away from it all.


I love this! A dad creates drawings based off things his toddler says, and things he hears himself and his wife say to her I Am Not The Babysitter


I am looking forward to reading this novel: Descent


A night out with Lena Dunham and Her Girls, in Inside TV


Continuing the important, national discussion about concussions, one family talks about the son they lost to concussions playing high school football.

People In Your Neighborhood

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This is a newsletter from The Realm of Caring that has a feature from my friend Elizabeth Aquino, who writes on her blog about her daughter Sophie's seizure disorder and the amazing results they've had with cannabis- after many medications have failed. 

One of my favorite authors gives one of the most entertaining writing interviews I've ever seen. Pat Conroy, and his wife who is also a writer, Cassandra King.

in The Gaurdian, It's Silly To Be Frightened of Being Dead by Diana Athill

If you believe that your reality is valid, that is matters, you can change the world like this 10 year old little girl did. As I read this, I kept wondering: What if she had told herself she was wrong, silly, just a little girl and didn't know any better?

An old one from Dressed Up Like a Lady: True Love and Divorce

Oren is a dad blogger of two who has Stage Four lung cancer. Read his words: Chemo Talk

Black and Missing Foundation: Providing An Equal Opportunity For All Missing

On 37 Paddington, important, deeply personal writing about the police and black people: PTSD 

So in love with this song It's on my running playlist and I dance down the street :)

People In Your Neighborhood

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My first piece in Your Tango with a headline I didn't create, ten truths about being married to someone with bipolar disorder

Beautiful Wildlife Crossings made by man around the world

Tia Jensen's non-fiction essay in The New Southerner is absolutely worth your time:  Empty

Help 9 year old Luke kick cancer to the curb

I recently found this blog- which I love- and this particular entry, which I love even more: Why I Told My Husband He Could Walk Away

How Exercise Changes Our DNA in the NY Times

The Heartbreaking Truth About My Mixed Race Family by Ramou Sarr

The Best Movies of 2104 in HuffPo

What Science Tells Us About the Heart's Intuitive Intelligence in Collective Evolution

I am fascinated by Jemima Kirke