The Fainting Couch

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Hi! If you’re seeing this, you’re maybe wondering what happened to all my posts. The answer is that they’re all here now. I’m leaving my last post up, but all the others have moved.

I love my Airpods but the people I talk to while I’m using them do not; apparently they magnify all sounds that are not me. This makes no sense. I’ll be talking to Abby, and she’ll ask, “Did an airplane just land on you?” And I’ll say: “No, but a tree gently swayed in the distance.” “Did you just kill a mongoose?” “I was folding a napkin.” “Are you engaged in swordplay?” “I dropped a cashew.” So I’m sure it’s annoying for them, but counterpoint: it’s awfully convenient for me.

I am an enormous fan of being the parent of an adult. Sure, parenting a child is rewarding, but there’s so much sleep deprivation and negotiating and yelling about math! And then you get to the teenage years, which I would advise skipping. They’re no good for anyone. Outsource them. Boarding school? Military academy? Governess. OK, fine, I guess you’ll have to grit your teeth and get on with it, I’m so sorry.

This one is going behind the paywall, because there is NEWS and TENDER PERSONAL things and other REASONS to CAPITALIZE. A lesson I keep learning and re-learning is that good things don’t have to be hard. I learned this when I fell in love with Scott, after years of putting up with subpar boyfriends (why did I rename this guy “Mark,” in that essay? His name was PAUL, and he SUCKED. I am really feeling ALL-CAPS today).

Yesterday I woke up and saw that I had texted the following note to myself: “A fond response.” I was flummoxed. Fond response to what?! And then I remembered. But first, some backstory. I just finished ’s Animal Instinct, which was terrific—funny and engaging and steamy. While reading I kept thinking, not in a million years could I write sex scenes like these.

A couple of faithful blog readers have been requesting this one, so here you go. It is not for the squeamish but people seem to like it, the sickos. ( ’s husband Marcus still knows me as the “one who mooed.” ) I wrote this when Henry was three, and now he’s 22. He watched me perform this at a reading when he was 12. I don’t think it scarred him too much. It was fourteen days exactly before the baby was due. I was at my weekly midwife appointment, and I was leaking.

You know when your adult child comes to visit for a couple of days, and you’re so excited to see him? And you’re like, I need to impress him with how cool we are, so he comes more often? So you go to a modern art museum and resist regaling him with stories about how he used to cavort among the Rodins at the Brooklyn Museum when he was an adorable preschooler. But you think it. You think it hard.

Hi friends! You’ll notice that this one is (mostly) behind the paywall. Moving forward, I’ll paywall posts here that feel more personal. I’m also paywalling posts that are over 30 days old. Join me on the other side! My pal is working on a cool project to help fight fascism. The details are here, if you’re interested in volunteering! Abby recently revealed that she regularly uses the overhead light in her living room.

Friends! Everything is such steaming garbage. It’s incredible! I too am silently screaming into my pillow and yelling “What?!” at the clouds. A few posts ago I talked about quitting Instagram, but you know what? Not now. Not these days. I need all the input I can get. I need to hear from other people who are similarly confounded and enraged. I need footage of demonstrations outside Tesla and the Kennedy Center. I need priests calmly explaining why Jesus would be so fucking against Christian nationalism.