I remember my first period like it was yesterday, and the memory alone makes me cringe. I was barely 12 years old and was home from school when I screamed out for my mom from the bathroom. I was terrified by my own lady-business, and I didn’t know what else to do but cry for my mami. I frantically told her what was going on, and to my surprise, she just laughed and went back to her room. A minute later she came back with a pad ... Read More

One of the hardest things I've ever had to admit to myself and to others is that I'm a straight-up jealous person. I'm not jealous of people who have nicer things or better careers, and I no longer suffer from the kind of jealousy that compels me to send psychotic emails to my boo's ex, but I do get really super sassy when it comes to friends. I'm a BFF kind of gal, which means that all I need in this life of sin is me and my girlfriend AND ... Read More

When I heard that Whitney Houston died, the first person I thought of was my mother. In fact, the reason why the news hit me so hard, why my eyes got instantly wet and my throat instantly closed up, is because, in my mind, Whitney Houston and my mother are inextricably linked.  I cannot begin to imagine what Houston’s own daughter, Bobbi Kristina, is going through right now (reports are coming out that she was hospitalized for an ... Read More

I celebrated the 25th anniversary of my birth on Monday. Well, maybe “celebrated” isn’t the right word for it. I expected worse, to be honest. I thought I might suffer an existential crisis, brought on in part by Facebook’s new Timeline feature, which makes it seem like I was born in 1987 and then did nothing until 2005, when I went to college and got a Facebook and started recording my life in short, sometimes ... Read More

We all have them: our best "worst" stories.  They're our way of dealing with embarrassment, heartbreak, awkward sexual encounters, bad jobs, or unfortunate haircuts-- not actual tragedies, but anecdotes that reveal the humor in a shitty situation, and get funnier and less painful the more we share them with others. Since I'm a big fan of "best worst" stories, I'll be telling some of mine as the weeks go on-- and encouraging you all to ... Read More