I had my first diagnosed panic attack on the NYC subway, on my way to work, when I was 21 years old. For the next two decades, I analyzed various triggers and tried to decipher the puzzle, of which panic attacks are just one piece. Hypochondria is another one, which, like a bully tends to edge the panic on. I’ve also noted in reviewing past … Continue reading “Curing Panic One Page at a Time” Club
I’m a procrastinator and I better write right now. Just as soon as I put in this load of laundry. I’ll have 45 minutes while the washer does its work for me to have a block of uninterrupted writing time. After I loaded six machines, I went for a quick cup of coffee in the kitchen and noticed the terrible mess on the kitchen floor. … Continue reading “I’m a Procrastinator” Club
I didn’t do my own laundry until I went to college. Even then, armed with 30 pairs of underwear, I would rather spend four hours in a car from Boston to Staten Island to drop off a month’s worth of laundry with my mother. Americans have over complicated the laundering of clothing. There are too many rules! Apparently those itchy tags on the inner side … Continue reading “I’m a Laundry Rebel” Club
I’ve tried running for exercise, for the ease of being able to do it anywhere, for the health benefits and mostly in search of the elusive runner’s high. The only problem is the brick wall blocking the running ability in my brain. I’m not an unfit person. I can walk 20 miles. I can rollerblade many miles. I have stamina and agility but my body … Continue reading “I Don’t Run” Club
It was January 2005 and we were celebrating my sister’s birthday in my Upper West Side apartment with my father and his new wife. We were ordering sushi for dinner and as we were discussing who would have salmon or tuna, my father looked over at my sister and me, and with a smirk on his face said, “Natasha can’t have raw fish.” My sister, … Continue reading “Impossibly High Expectations of My Father” Club
I’m on to husband number two, but in selecting both mates, above all else, I valued a man who would be an exemplary father. The first time I valued it more than connection, respect, passion, honesty with myself. Both times I wanted a partner who was signing up for exactly 50% of the parenting ride; half the diaper changing, feedings, bathing, lunches, doctor’s visits, playdates … Continue reading “My 2 Children Have 2 Fathers” Club
If I’m being completely honest, I never enjoyed viewing my step-mother’s life on parade bogging down my Facebook feeds. She was a postaholic, sharing photos of my 10-year-old half brother’s tennis lessons, playdates, and their twice yearly vacations. She was younger than my father by 30 years and a generation ahead in social media. Last March, my dad and his new family went on a … Continue reading “When Your Family Member Deletes You From Facebook” Club
Dr. Seuss’ Oh The Places You Go is sold in the children’s book section, but could be filed under motivational guide or self-help book. Struggling artists’ and writers should regard the book as a cheerleading bible, whose rhymes ought to be re-read over and over again until we believe them. “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer … Continue reading “Finally Taking the Road Not Taken” Club
I love the idea of love. I love being in love. I love writing and reading about love. Who doesn’t want to float on a cloud of oxytocin? Love is hip, decorated in heart emojis and rainbow flags, especially in light of a tragedy. Love heals, love distracts, love prevails, except for those who bury a piece of their heart 6 feet under with their … Continue reading “I Love Love” Club
I lived the career version of Sex and the City, jumping from one rebound job to another in search of the “right one.” For 15 years I refused to truthfully answer the question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” When I looked in the mirror, a ghost reflection of who I am stared back at me. My dormant passion burned on … Continue reading “Writing When Your Family Doesn’t Want You To” Club
A sunbeam woke me this peaceful Sunday morning; my 6-year-old daughter had let us sleep later than the usual 6:30am wake up. I got up and followed my routine footprints, the bathroom, coffee, checking email. I noticed there were several breaking news alerts. I read them out loud to my husband. “There was a shooting in Orlando,” I say. I read on to the next … Continue reading “America: What the F@#*?” Club
I never thought I’d get married, never thought I’d have kids, never thought I’d get divorced, DEFINITELY NEVER EVER thought I’d get remarried, God forbid. I’ll take my hypocritical bow as I acknowledge, even after four decades, I know shit about life, which continues to school me and remind me how words like ‘never’ should never be uttered from my pouty lips. Time can bring … Continue reading “I’m on My Second Marriage” Club
One of the most time-consuming elements associated with my 365-essay-a-day writing project has been the social media promotional element that goes with it. In the last 162 days, I maybe have spent at least 162 hours (that’s almost a solid week of 24/7) Tweeting and posting and sharing. It has been overwhelmingly easier to share with strangers on sites like Twitter and Instagram than with … Continue reading “I Was the Expert of the Minute” Club
I knew I was pregnant the minute it happened. Immediately after consummation, I looked at my boyfriend (we weren’t married yet) and said, “You just got me fucking pregnant.” He said, “Oh, I thought next week was the bad week.” I jumped to Google to serve as our Modern-Day Genie: “What’s the optimal date to get pregnant if your last period was August 21st?” Google … Continue reading “I Have a Daughter” Club
One of the beauties of being a writer is the convenience of a virtual office anywhere, everywhere. Since embarking on my “365 Life Clubs Project,” life hasn’t slowed down to accommodate my daily obligation to whip out an essay and post it for a universal critique. In the last 158 days, I’ve found myself writing wherever I’ve had the opportunity. Twice I’ve written at the … Continue reading “I Write at Starbucks” Club
I never realized how much time of my adult life would be devoted to cheerleading. Thinking back to childhood, I never participated in any events which elicited pom-poms and rah-rah action. It thoroughly surprises me how this grown-up role of perpetual cheerleader comes to me naturally. I encourage my son at track meets, I clap loudly at my daughter’s dance recital, and when my husband … Continue reading “I’m Everyone’s Cheerleader” Club
I don’t like to keep things in my pockets; I never did. I appreciate pockets as a resting place for idle hands or for a good pose, but I never thought pockets were convenient for storing things like wallets, keys, cell phones. I’m like the Princess and the Pea and I feel anything and everything in any pocket. After college, I purchased two “lady business suits” (one … Continue reading “I’m Not a Pocket Person” Club
When I started my 365 project, I had no idea how it would really affect my life and the lives of my immediate family. My project would entail a total re-shift of my priorities this year and within a month, it was evident around my house. Dishes lived in the sink longer than usual, dust bunnies grew in the corners, and the 8 loads of … Continue reading “I Write to Live and Live to Write” Club
My father and I talk almost daily, with roughly 50% of our conversations focusing on weather and traffic, another 25% on updates such as my daughter lost her first tooth or my son got an A on a French test, and the last 25% of real life stuff like how many more rounds of chemo for my aunt who has ovarian cancer. Sometimes I ask … Continue reading “My Father is Voting for Trump” Club
I fidget – a lot! My husband doesn’t understand us fidgeters, even though he is his own breed of fidgeter. He gave his condition a clinical diagnosis: Shaking Leg Syndrome. I call it fidgeting. He just can’t keep his leg still any more than I can keep my fingers idle. I’ve been doodling as therapy for as long as I can remember. I have never … Continue reading “I Doodle” Club
Despite my husband’s insistence that my membership to the “I Hate Crowds and Lines” Club developed with age (like a degenerative syndrome), I am convinced it is part of my DNA, transfused with my father’s blood when I was a baby. My dad wouldn’t be caught dead at an amusement park on a Saturday. Instead, he’d take us out of school on a Tuesday at … Continue reading “I Don’t Like Crowds and Lines” Club
The sun is the heart of our solar system and imperative to existence, but it’s especially important to mine. It is iconic as a symbol of life and energy. It comes as no surprise the great ball in the sky comes with a plethora of health benefits besides the Vitamin D rhetoric. It can lower blood pressure, improve bone and brain health, and the most … Continue reading “I Need the Sun” Club
I often speculate on how my husband, the perpetual dreamer and I got (and STAYED) together. To his dreams, I bring a sense of Russian pragmatism, which I call realism, but he calls pessimism. He envisions the movies he’ll write, Oscars he’ll win, old firehouses he’ll convert into the dream work/live space for us. I, on the other hand, put a concrete ceiling on my … Continue reading “I Put it in the Ether” Club
This year marks the 20th anniversary of my graduation from NYU (Magna cum laude, thank you very much). It was one of the worst weather days on record in New York City’s Washington Square Park. The Arch seemed to look like a huge concrete frown. There was marble sized hail hitting us as we sat through torrential downpours. Our pretty dresses were saturated under our … Continue reading “I Haven’t Listened to My Dream” Club
My husband is a unique brand of celebrity: he is a rock star to children! As one of New York City’s most popular professional clowns, his name elicits Justin Bieber-worthy teenybopper screaming reactions. “Looney Lenny! Looney Lenny!” From three-year-olds to ten-year-olds are the true die-hard set. These are the ones who come out whenever he’s performing, like mini followers of the Grateful Dead, only they’re … Continue reading “My Husband is a Celebrity” Club
My grandparents arrived in America two years before my mother, father and I joined them in 1979. My grandmother was good at hustling to make a buck. She was also a phenomenal cook and baker. In her new American life, she christened herself a baker. For 7 years, (until my family of now 4 moved to Staten Island in 1986), my sister, cousin, and I … Continue reading “I Don’t Like Cake” Club
It is biologically counterintuitive to NOT love your mother; you cannot un-love from where you were born. I wish I could un-love my mother. I’ve tried to build walls to protect myself, but instead, I built panic attacks, hypochondria, and chronic anxiety. I am a happy person because I work hard not to be sad, like my mother. My funny, sarcastic mother who biologically transplanted … Continue reading “My Mother is an Alcoholic” Club
Spring in New York City is a unique descriptor which means everything to the native city dweller. Walking through the streets of the greatest city in the world in 74-degree weather, the sun warming my newly exposed shoulders, I am dancing with every cloud. New York City is a high-fashion supermodel in every season, but with the blossoming pots of baby blue hydrangeas decorating even … Continue reading “I’m Never Going Back to a Corporate Job” Club
A decade ago when Twitter was this fun new thing, I jumped aboard like a hip wanna-be Gen-Xer. I was such a late bloomer with everything else, it felt great to be riding on the Millenial bandwagon. Thinking of tweets consumed my mind more than I care to admit. Driving my son to school, chopping carrots, staring at a blank box with a little blue … Continue reading “I Took to Twitter” Club
Two years ago my grandfather died at 87 years old. On our last visit to his house, he was so alive. He had retiled their bathroom floor and refinished the kitchen cabinets. He complained about a pain in his side and waved it off as he embraced my four-year-old daughter. He lifted her up, spun her in the air, and then looked for the nearest … Continue reading “Death Made Me Get Married” Club
I always check Google Maps before we go anywhere, even if I don’t need directions, just so I know exactly how long the ride is predicted to take. My husband, on the other hand, doesn’t care. He says, “I bought the ticket, I’m taking the ride and it’s out of my control. I don’t stress out about it.” (See: “My Husband is Always Late” Club.”) … Continue reading “I Ruin My Own Surprises” Club
I didn’t grow up valuing style. My parents and I immigrated to this country when I was five years old; my mother was 25 years old. My family had to learn a new language, secure housing, get a job, and deal with things like trying to obtain an immigration certificate for your daughter when you had to surrender her birth certificate when you defected and … Continue reading “My Husband Takes Me Shopping” Club
I was drowning in digital photographs long BEFORE I got an iPhone, but now I’m buried in them. They exist on my computer, on my phone, on portable hard drives (yes plural), on the Time Capsule, and now, of course, ON THE CLOUD (wherever the fuck that is). Now when I stare at clouds, waiting for them to morph into unicorns and amorphous hearts, I … Continue reading “I’m Drowning in Digital Photos” Club
I love the last five minutes of a home renovation show; skip the hard work, just show me the finale where it’s all pretty and clean. “Before and after” revelations amaze me; they are the ultimate visual catharsis for a problem solver like me. With a make-over, you can redo something, making it better and there’s a finite end to it; as opposed to working … Continue reading “Obsessed with the After” Club
There was never any good old days They are today, they are tomorrow It’s a stupid thing we say Cursing tomorrow with sorrow — Gogol Bordello, the song “Ultimate” “The good ole days” is an all-American phrase like hot dogs, apple pie, and the “Dukes of Hazzard.” I often wonder to which are these “good ole days” referring? High school? College? Why is our cultural … Continue reading “I’m Living My Good Ole Days Now” Club
One night last week at bedtime, my five-year-old daughter wrapped her arms around my husband and me into a tight embrace and said, “Oh I love you BOTH SOOOOO MUCH!” She squeezed us with all her might and looked my husband square in the eyes and said, “But mommy is one number higher than daddy. I love you the same, but she is one higher.” … Continue reading “Daddy’s Girl” Club
I’ve entered the online “Hamilton” lottery every day since it’s inception over two months ago. I’ve submitted two entries each day (one for myself and one on behalf of my husband), even on days I’ve had no babysitter. I don’t think mathematically I’m increasing my odds, but maybe I’ll be rewarded by the theater gods for my diligence and genuine adoration. Today “Hamilton” received a … Continue reading “I Play the Hamilton Lottery” Club
There is no greater satisfaction than filling up a page. There is no sound more rewarding than the rapid stroking on the keyboard. The quick tapping is reinforcement that it’s going, it’s writing; the machine is working. Quantity and quality aren’t as important as the physical act of stretching the muscle; like exercise. For a writer, to get the words out, to document, to annotate, … Continue reading “Valuing Your Writing” Club
My bathroom renovation evolved into the perfect metaphor for life. The renovation plan seemed simple enough; just a small bathroom, nothing major. No real organs would be touched; this was mostly a cosmetic procedure. We did extensive research, educated ourselves on protocols and materials, and always followed the mantra, “measure twice, cut once.” We gathered our supplies at Lowes and came home gung-ho, excited to … Continue reading “My Renovation Took a Detour” Club
At 19, I remember a precise moment when I felt I had a grip on this life thing. Somehow I thought I had matured to this ripe age, where I could function as a grown up in society. I was attending NYU and my parents didn’t want to pay for me to live in the dorm because they believed we lived close enough for me … Continue reading “I Moved in with My First Boyfriend” Club
I strongly believe I inherited the cheating gene from my dad. I have used this excuse more than once when I should have just taken accountability for fucking up royally. Cheating, in the cardinal hierarchy of human behavior, is considered a bad thing. I’m talking infidelity cheating, specifically, although tax abatement and stealing the SATs are two other examples. A lot of hype surrounded Beyonce’s … Continue reading “Cheater” Club
On our drive down for a weekend visit to Philadelphia, I said out loud to my car witnesses, “The only famous person I know in Philadelphia is Jennifer Weiner.” “Who’s that?” My 14-year-old son asked. He hasn’t had the benefit of jumping into her stories, engaging with her thoughtful, well-rounded, intelligent characters. “She’s one of your mom’s favorite writers,” my husband chimes in. “She wants … Continue reading “I Met My Favorite Writer” Club
I was calculating how many books I can read on a several-stop trip to Hawaii we’re planning later this year and the thought struck me about how heavy this would make my bags. For a minute, I considered plunging into the of benefits digital reading, but just as soon, my considerations were debunked. We can’t consume all our information from screens of varying sizes; our … Continue reading “I’m Team Paper” Club
I’m writing every day. Yay. Good job. Celebrating my little victories, ceremonial pat on the back at 100 days; 265 to go. What’s 28% of anything? I’m a marathon runner on mile 7.4 of 26.2. In the back of my head I’m thinking, OK so I’m gaining some expertise; I’m flexing my muscles daily but where am I getting. If I’m just doing the training … Continue reading “I Blog” Club
My father hasn’t read my blog since I started my “365 Project” on January 1st of this year. This is my 103rd piece and still I haven’t received a “good job” or “fun read” or even “nice to make me look like an asshole in that piece.” Instead, I got nothing. At first, I wondered had he read the piece which had gotten press, the … Continue reading “My Parents Aren’t My Loudest Cheerleaders” Club
The six-word memoir concept made me think of tombstones. For those of us who don’t write a memoir or autobiography, will the gravestone become the everlasting definition of ourselves? Historically, marble slabs are etched with names, dates lived, and titles. Our lives are summed up by how we related to someone else. Daughter, Sister, Mother, Wife. In the end is that ultimately how we want … Continue reading “Writing 6-Word Memoirs” Club
The first day of work often feels like the first day of school, and often just as memorable. My first job after college was as an Account Executive at an advertising agency. On my first day, I was paraded around the office with introductions, row by row in the maze of cubicles. I gave my name at least twice to everyone and shook their hand … Continue reading “Becoming CEO of Me” Club
I’ve had a love affair with glossy magazines for as long as I can remember. When I was an immigrant kid, I even prized those subscription squares from the TV Guide. I always painstakingly filled each one out, as if it was my job. To this day, I attest my beautiful penmanship to those writing drills I gave myself. As a journalism major at NYU, … Continue reading “I Conducted a Magazine Audit” Club
I joined Twitter in December 2008 (only 21 months late to the party) and pitched hard from the TweetDeck until 2012. Then I took a break. In those 4 years time, I sent about 1,800 tweets; averaging to roughly 1.23 tweets per day. I’m not sure what that means about me or my life, but I didn’t miss it when I dropped off the Twitterverse … Continue reading “I’m Back to the Twitter Party” Club
The day I met my husband just over 11 years ago he was working his “day job” as a professional clown. I was a young mother taking my son to his first Manhattan birthday party. Our how we met story is awesome, as anyone who is lingering in the happily ever after part, would say. We left the party together and the first question I … Continue reading “I’m a Reluctant Artist” Club
HeartsEverywhere 