The Mama Bear by Chairman Mom

Newsletter editor Lily here.

I loved Sarah’s introduction on Friday about her backup plan to live with other girlfriends if Plan A doesn’t work out, because despite the fact that Sarah and I are in two separate generations and at very different stages in our lives, all of the women around us seem to be having the exact same conversation.

Most of my close friends are in their late twenties or early thirties, and no matter whether they’re partnered or not, or have kids or not, many of them talk about The Dream™ being to own a house with their other friends and raise their kids together. Those who do have partners sort of jokingly treat them like an afterthought. Read more...

Is it just me? Is it just my age? Is It just my friends?

Is it all just talk and is anyone really serious?

I’d say 85% of heterosexual women I know have shrugged and told me lately that if things don’t work out with their partners, they plan on just going to live with their girlfriends, pooling kids and pets and assets and resources and calling it a day. Aspirational Golden Girls. 

I’m contingency betrothed to a few non-sexual potential life partners should things not work out with Paul for any reason. I will not online date. I will not even try. I want companionship and partnership, yes. But more than anything I want someone who understands, and I’m sick of having the same macro-fight about who should do what. Read more...

Well, after quite a 24 hours of planes, automobiles, meet-ups, and empowerment, Adimika and I have successfully delivered Radish from a farm (we got to meet his parents!) to my backyard. 

I’m pleased to report that mother, auntie, and baby are all doing well. 

This dog is a champ. It was just me, Radish, and three angry cats, and he let me sleep almost all night and held his pee and poop most the night DESPITE Chewy not delivering my crate or someone stealing it from my stoop. 

I made him a cozy spot in the bathroom, and there was minimal whining, thanks to a 40-minute battle of wills over his crate earlier in the day and my steely refusal to let him out if he was screaming.  Read more...

Newsletter editor Lily here.

A few weeks ago, I published an article about the world of asexual romance readers and the rise of asexual romance novels. It was a piece that was deeply personal to me: While the article wasn’t a “coming out” story per se, it was, in fact, my public coming out as being on the asexual spectrum.

Given that I’ve written political op-eds for over half a decade, I know first-hand that you have to think long and hard before you put anything on the internet. It’s permanent. Anyone can see it. Not to mention, asexuality — which means experiencing little to no sexual attraction — is so greatly misunderstood, misused, and distorted in our society that I wanted to think for a while about how I framed the discourse that I eventually laid out. Read more...

Yesterday I woke up to a rarity. We didn’t have any coffee. I had a food hangover from a deluxe billion course meal the night before at Al’s Place. (I’m eating my way through my final three weeks in SF. Follow along here!)

I had a Zoom meeting in about 20 minutes and didn’t have a lot of time, so I pulled up DoorDash. I sort of hate how much I rely on it, but here we are. Life is hard. 

Whoa. You can get fresh croissants delivered from Tartine via DoorDash?!

Twenty minutes later, I was eating an out-of-the-oven croissants from one of the best bakeries on earth and doing a Zoom call in my yard. I have to tell you, it felt really indulgent and luxurious in a way DoorDash doesn’t always.  Read more...

Tomorrow morning wayyyyy too early, I am waking up to head to SFO, with a small carry-on bag for me, and a slightly larger carry-on bag for Radish. 

A lot of you have been following the saga of Radish for some time now. 

It’s a puppy that came to me in a dream. And then I decided I’d become a dog person. And then it took years of misadventures to find the actual IRL Radish, during which Evie had a stuffy that looked like Radish named “Pradish” or Practice Radish.

We finally have the real Radish coming, and I’ve gone through a few waves of terror, regret, and fear that this is the absolute last thing I need right now. But I’m also really excited.  Read more...

When I was very young, I had a best friend. We went to a high-end private school in the South. My mother was a bit of an outlier as a much older mom, and we didn’t have as much money as everyone else. But my friend’s mom was really an outlier. 

She was single. The only single mom at the school. She was pretty. She was young and blond. She listened to rock music. She listened to Madonna! She drove a fast car, and my friend ate junk food on occasion; their house was cozy but unpretentious. She smoked. She swore when she was pissed. She took us to movies she probably shouldn’t have. But she had my friend’s back. They were an inseparable pair ready to take on the world. I remember her like a badass mix between Lorelai Gilmore and Cyndi Lauper.  Read more...

We need each other.

I just wrapped up an incredibly, incredibly powerful office hours for our Rage Rehab course. I’m still shaking a bit from it. 

I won’t go into a lot of detail, obviously, to respect the privacy of the group. But one thing that Catherine noted was that women’s liberation in every sense — financial, not being property, voting, right to work — was “a split second ago.” We didn’t have access to financial freedom until the 1970s. The decade in which a lot of women in our community were born.  Read more...

A few weeks ago, I went to the Palm Springs Art Museum, one of my favorite places on Earth. It’s tiny, it’s got an incredible permanent collection that is always in rotation, and it has captivating special exhibits. 

On this trip, I saw a disturbing piece I’d never seen in the permanent collection, made more disturbing by what went on around it. It wasn’t provocative for the sake of provocation or gimmicky. But it did — powerfully — what a lot of contemporary art fails to, in my opinion.  Read more...

Hectic morning. I got the kids to camp, got home, and then pretty much had to turn back around and get Evie for her annual doctor checkup. The poor baby was EXCITED because she’s had such bad allergies and we were going to get an allergist referral. She also prides herself on having zero reaction when she gets a shot. (Was disappointed she didn’t get to show off today, because no boosters were due…)

She was also excited because she got an extra hour with mom since…I guess two whole days away from her parents at camp has really caused some separation anxiety? Sweet thing. Read more...