Last summer, deep in editing my first novel. I started reading a ton. I had just moved back to Brooklyn after 14 years away. My old home felt completely new, and I had no community.

I finished reading a book, and I had no one to talk to about it. And I really wanted to discuss it. I’d seen a walking book club in CA and looked for one in Brooklyn, but it didn’t exist. So, I put out a call on my Instagram, a few mom groups chats I’d joined, and a localized Instagram ad. Inviting people to join a WhatsApp group called the BK Walking Book Club.

By the time of the first walk a month later, over 20 people were in the chat, and 12 people joined for the first walk. A year later, there are over 60 people in our chat and a consistent group of walkers. I met new friends, fellow writers, and even a few authors joined us.

To celebrate a year of reading books, taking walks, and connecting, we’re inviting people to join us for a book swap party after our August 12th walk discussing Emma Straub’s American Fantasy.

Message me to join the WhatsApp group for the Book Club or RSVP for the party here. Below are the book picks and dates for the rest of the year:

Here’s a full list of what we’ve read - find them all for purchase:

August 2025: Hazel Says No — Jessica Berger Gross
September 2025: James — Percival Everett
October 2025: Everyone Is Lying to You — Jo Piazza
November 2025: Animal Instinct — Amy Shearn
December 2025: Sandwich — Catherine Newman
January 2026: Julie Chan Is Dead — Liann Zhang
February 2026: Atmosphere — Taylor Jenkins Reid
March 2026: Martyr! — Kaveh Akbar
April 2026: Heart the Lover — Lily King
May 2026: All the Mothers — Domenica Ruta
June 2026: Mothers and Other Strangers — Corey Ann Haydu
July 2026: Strangers — Belle Burden
August 2026: American Fantasy — Emma Straub (our anniversary pick)
September 16: Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
October 21: The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett
November 18: The Wedding People by Alison Espoch
December 16: Whistler by Ann Patchett

Money is an easy thing to desire and a hard thing to discuss. It’s a theme of The Wanting, and I want to address it in a way that feels authentic to me, within the context of a generation that finds it impossible to catch up to their parents. After the fires last year, it was hard to navigate.

When I had to rebuild on a small budget, my father chose not to offer any help because my mother has wealth. This isn’t speculation; he literally said, “Good thing your mom is rich.” As if that let him totally off the hook. As if there weren’t other ways to support my son and me that have absolutely nothing to do with money.

They divorced when I was 12 and went on to live very different lives. My mom wanted a big life, worked hard alongside my stepfather, and they achieved what will become generational wealth.

I find myself defending against the wealth while enjoying it. Even when my friends would come to my mom’s house, I needed to explain that I didn’t grow up like this. There are guardrails around it. And it’s not mine. I just get to hang out in the sandbox and play.

I feel immense pressure to fit into my mom’s world, while hearing my dad’s voice screaming,

‘Do you really need that?” as she unboxed a beautiful Donna Karen leather wrap jacket. She didn’t, but she loved it, and if she still had it, it would be worth a fortune.

As a single mom/ writer, I feel akin to other working artists, even though I have enough of a safety net to take creative risks. If this last year proved anything, I am always going to have a home to go to, even if I lose mine.

Even now, writing this, I feel the need to explain that I don’t rest on my laurels, that I work hard, and that I live within my means. But why do I feel the need to defend the wealth I so desire to achieve? I want to earn it myself.

I also think this feeling is amplified by my father’s outright disdain for my mother’s desires, and how I sit in the crosshairs of that. It’s a confusing feeling, and I decided to sidestep my parents’ opposing expectations of me to create a space of my own. I’m working to drown out two very different voices with my vision of the future. I desire the ability to live without financial insecurity, to have room for leisure, to ensure my child has what he needs to thrive, and a little beyond that, but I don’t need so much that I’m taking from others.

That brings us back to what happened after the fires, when I landed in NYC with three suitcases and a four-year-old. In the last year and a half, I’ve rebuilt a home, a wardrobe, and a community on a very limited budget.

I was forced to let go of most of my stuff and, in doing so had the opportunity to curate my outer appearance to match my personality. Being forced to purchase everything is like staring at a blank page. For some, a blank page is terrifying. For me, it’s an entire universe of possibility.

First, I focused on my son to ensure all of his needs were met. He’s always growing and has grown into enjoying a distinct ‘look’ for himself, which I find adorable. He has a natural ability to put colors and patterns together that feel like Brooklyn is more than a new neighborhood but perhaps a soul-level match to his inner identity.

I just got a few things for my son’s room, his trundle bed and kids sheets, mostly using a Target gift card and the generosity of friends and Miles’ half-siblings that sent the stuff he needed, like step stools and toddler cutlery. I felt guilt accepting help. But in that moment, I needed help, and it came. I’m emotional just thinking about it. These families I barely know; our connective tissue is our children’s anonymous donor, and they caught me before I hit the ground. My gratitude for that is almost painful to hold.

The way I survived last year was to stay with my son in my mom’s insurance rental - as her guest- and use the fair rent value on my home to survive and rebuild. I didn’t have any guarantee of when that money would come. It was the most financially insecure I’ve felt since I was just out of college.

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One of the most humbling moments was filled with the pressure to put on appearances without a permanent home. In his first week of a new preschool in a new city, we were still living in a hotel. I had to scramble to find a nap mat, water bottle, and lunch box, then make my son’s lunch from the little fridge. Doing all of this while making my son feel safe, loved, and normal was very challenging.

Eventually I secured a permanent home, some consulting work, finished my novel, signed with an agent, and went on submission. I was able to focus and achieve while under such a huge mental load colored by loss. I couldn’t have done this without all these small little gifts from a community that’s become my home.

This forced renewal gave me an opportunity to rethink how I present myself to the world. I got a clean slate, a new community; I can debut myself however I please.

As I dove in, I found it wasn’t about spending a lot, but it was about having a point of view and enjoying the hunt. Each purchase reminds me that rebuilding can be an act of authorship. I spent my whole life thinking wealth meant having more. Losing everything taught me it might actually mean knowing exactly what you want.

This Vintage Pierre Le Sommelier Corkscrew made me smile. I found it on ’s Substack. It sits on open shelves, and it makes every bottle of wine it opens an experience.

One of the ways I rebuilt my taste was by following women whose eyes I trust. One source is ’ The Love List newsletter and how she introduces me to new designers. Two she introduced me to are Janessa Leone and Jamie Haller. This Janessa Leone Crossbody, is genius. It also adjusts into a shoulder bag, and it holds everything I need while keeping my hands free for holding my son’s. It was a little pricey for me, so I scoured secondhand markets and purchased via Poshmark.

I love a little flair on my feet. And when I saw the Jamie Haller Walking Shoe in Metallic Blue I gasped. I immediately shared them with my mom. She asked if I wanted them for my 2025 Mother’s Day gift, and I accepted. They don’t make this color anymore, but I linked to the shoe in bare. I added rubber soles and could walk for days in them.

One of the privileges of having young kids is going into people’s homes for playdates. I went into artist Karen Lederer’s home and instantly became obsessed with her eye for color and design. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her wallpaper. She pointed me in the direction of the designer, and I smile every time I walk down the hall. Scandinavian wallpaper.

Living in Brooklyn now, I needed coats. I wanted a versatile transitional jacket for those days that are too cold for just a sweater but not so cold that we need a full coat. So I got this khaki bill jacket from Sezane. It’s not available anymore, but I found one on Poshmark for a lucky person.

Piece by piece, building a life with intention and joy feels like I’m building my wealth.

I froze. I was with my son, a friend and her son, my mom, my brother, and my soon-to-be sister-in-law. We were waiting for the ferry from town to Fire Island. My brother carried the surfboards. I got us there early to get our ferry tickets. On a beautiful day, the small ferry can fill up and need to shuttle.

And as people started to line up behind us, I spotted a handsome man with a surfboard, a daughter, and no ring on that ring finger.

Now, he’s going surfing. So maybe he left his ring at home. But if he isn’t a single parent, why bring his daughter, maybe 8, to hang alone for a little while on the beach while he’s in the water? That’s not the ideal setup. It gave single dad vibes. I could have read them wrong. But women have a spidey sense, and mine was on high alert.

I whispered to my friend. She acknowledged, a good wingwoman. We’ll get our kids talking. She chatted him up, offering his daughter free ice cream to play with our boys. There was consideration. My friend introduced him to me; I don’t even remember his name.

She opened an opportunity, and my body clenched. A huge lump in my throat, and all I could squeak out was a nice to meet you. The air suddenly felt heavy, like I was pushing through a thick fog. The world around me was silent except for his warm eyes looking at mine. It was too much, and I retreated.

Normally, I can ask about his board, how long he’s been surfing, what kind of swell he’s hoping to find. Offer up that I’m out of shape, keep an eye on me in the water. But none of that happened. He just got a stare and an awkward smile. Normally, though I have no interest in the men I’m talking to, no anticipation of possibility.

My mom even pointed out how sweet he was with his daughter. He was. It was cute. It felt like when I was 16 and had a crush on the Starbucks barista. Coming in, gazing intensely, hearing him call my name, cause it was written on the cup, and reading into every sideways glance. And when the barista asked me to a party, I ran away. It makes me wonder how many times I’ve shied away from potential.

At one point, my brother left my board where he wanted to set up. He gave me a thumbs-up silently, asking if it was okay for them to set up where my board was. I didn’t even realize I was spacing out in his direction. But I was, and I gave him a thumbs-up back. In the water, it was just him, my brother, and me. And there’s usually a little small talk, but he didn’t even acknowledge me. I felt like I may have made it awkward.

There was also some relief. This beach town of multi-generational families and beautiful gay men might have a single dad or two for me. When we decided to spend time in this town, I kind of chalked it up to a summer with family, and I’d start dating again in the fall. And I’m happy with kicking that particular desire up the hill a couple months. But when I saw him there, I saw exactly what I am trying to manifest. It was too good to be true, and I choked. Hopefully he’s out there for more weekends, and we see them again, and I don’t put so much damn pressure on myself.

But also, isn’t it weird when you want something, and it shows up? Sometimes the hardest part isn’t identifying the desire. It’s tolerating the possibility that we might actually get it.

I am whole. I knew it, but I didn’t realize it, not until recently. See, I’ve been in therapy since I decided to have a child on my own. I’ve done plant medicine ceremonies. I’ve searched all corners of myself, and that Taylor Swift song really resonated with me.

Hi, It’s me, I’m the problem, it’s me.

I went to therapy to make the right choice in having a kid on my own. To do my best for my future child to feel whole without a dad. But I learned that I can’t control how my kid will feel. He is his own person, but I can create boundaries for him and make sure I show up for him the best way I know how. He loves to tell me that if he were my parent, he’d allow me to have all the chocolate in the world.

Before becoming a middle-aged mom, I got stuck in the past, looking at all the ways my life would have been better if my parents did this or that. And then one day all that noise stopped.

They no longer determine my life. They don’t pay my bills (except my son’s private school, thanks Ma!) I can make most choices that affect my son and my life. I learned that’s called individuating, the moment your parents stop being the authors of your life. I was a little stunted, but I made it through, mostly.

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Because with one parent, I’ve individuated, and with the other, I can’t seem to. And being a person who dives deep into myself, for a very long time I felt like it was me. Something about me is unlovable, uninteresting, not whole. For a while, I tried to fix it and then finally stopped. I started to see the patterns in that person’s life. Other family members were feeling the same way, stepping away, and I came to a point where I no longer wanted his behavior to affect me, not anymore.

So I turned to my therapist, and she reminded me that I am whole. I do the work. And he doesn’t get the right to tell me otherwise. Like, does that mean I’ve won therapy?

Unfortunately, no, because even though I’m whole, I don’t always see it. Mostly because I’m not perfect and the world around me knocks me off balance.

I can always work on my reactions, patience, kindness, boundaries, etc. But wholeness is fundamentally there; I just need to protect it. And in that moment I needed that reminder. Because this parent had me believing there’s something not right with me, and there isn’t.

And our disconnect is that I’m open to moving forward and, for some reason, he is always dredging up the past. Reminding me why the teenage version of me, almost thirty years ago, made our relationship difficult. I’m not that kid anymore. I’ve invited him to know me as this woman. One who is whole but not perfect. Who is kind, funny, and with an abundance of love for the people around me. Who is willing to forgive his imperfections if he is willing to admit that he has some.

This experience has me thinking about all the ways I can forget that I’m whole because accepting help is where it gets tricky. It happens in every area of my life. Perhaps my parent is practice. Some people you look to for help end up knocking you down, pushing you off balance, making you doubt your own wholeness, and feeding on that to gain power and money.

It’s kind of the norm in this country. I’d say society, but I can’t speak for other cultures, just the high-key capitalism I live in. We’re trained to see what’s wrong, find the hole, and monetize it. It’s the noise of Instagram telling us we’re incomplete.

The assignment is to retrain ourselves to see what’s working, what’s nice, what makes our bodies sing. To be clear, I’m not preaching that Pollyanna; everything is flowers and smells good. I live in Brooklyn; the tree-lined streets are beautiful, but it smells like garbage. I could choose to be tortured by the smell on a hot summer day, or I can enjoy what’s on offer and let the stuff I can’t control fall to the side.

I’ve noticed people do this to different degrees and that our tolerance for negative stuff has a lot to do with how much sleep, food, and peace we have in our lives. So if goodness feels distant, almost like clogged gutters, that’s a clue you might need help. Help can be a massage to reduce tension; it can be a sitter to take some me time; it can be letting someone else wake up with your kid. For the first time in 4.5 years, we slept at my mom’s beach rental, and she took him in the morning to let me sleep. I slept past 8 am, and I had so much energy I thought someone might have slipped me something. That’s real help. Not opportunity disguised as help.

I’ve been taking inventory of clues that I need help. I especially see it with my child. He’s still young, and his behavior can trigger. This morning, while getting him ready for camp, I asked him to brush his teeth about ten times. I went to my bathroom to brush my teeth, and he ran in. No toothbrush. He has something important to tell me. When I’m stressed, or off balance in any way, all I can see is defiance.

When I’m not, I see his excitement and let him tell me that he discovered how to get his battery train to go around the tracks without falling. He discovered something he wanted to share with me. If I wasn’t taking care of my inner life, I wouldn’t have received that goodness, and that can damage our connection. The connection that I hope he chooses to keep once he individuates from me.

So, if my son knows his wholeness, he will individuate and still choose our connection.

There’s something happening in culture. Especially when women are allowed to write about desire. Many of us grew up with the idea that we’d meet a man, he’d be our everything, and we’d live happily ever after. This fairy-tale notion is being picked at and prodded from so many directions that it’s pretty clear there isn’t a single way to live and find contentment, joy, and happiness.

There are now more narratives than the fairy tale. Recently, I consumed two stories about ethical non-monogamy. Both from different corners of my world, one a book and the other a film. They aren’t in conversation with each other, and I’ve decided that they should be. The book is Skin Contact by Elisa Faison, and the movie is The Invite, directed by Olivia Wilde and written by Rashida Jones and Will McCormick.

Skin Contact is about a couple, Frances and Ben, who, after the loss of Frances’ mom, decide to open their marriage. It tells the story of falling in love with other people while staying in love with your spouse. It reveals what non-monogamy can look like. It’s honest, not romanticized, insanely spicy, and shows what happens when people are open and radically honest with themselves and their primary partners, your partnership can take on any shape.

A passage that I absolutely love from page 18,

…I put two fingers inside her, she went totally silent, and for a second, I worried that she might have stopped breathing. But then I realized that it was just that she had stopped performing for me. Stopped thinking about me at all and started thinking only about herself.

That’s the theme: that in true intimacy, a threesome or a foursome isn’t a performance, it isn’t a notch on a belt, it is a connection. With ethical non-monogamy, there’s no room to hide. The couple needs to be completely in sync, to be in it for the same reason, and all parties involved need to join together without expectations. They aren’t playing out porn or a movie in their head; they are completely present with one another and let it unfold in whatever direction the pleasure takes them.

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That’s the core of the wanting. It’s a deep guiding force that’s more in sync with yourself, and as you step into it, your body responds with peace, pleasure, and a sense of connectedness. And if you force something or move in the wrong direction, your body responds with friction.

A week after reading the book, I went to the movies. I had a sitter, no plans, The Invite was playing, and I had no idea what to expect. A couple stuck in a cycle of bickering and bitterness for how their lives turned out get visited by their upstairs neighbors and are invited to a sex party that never happens. And I saw the same thesis.

The film opens up an honesty that the couple desperately needed. They say things that are hard to hear, but the honesty allows them to see each other. A line that Penelope Cruz delivers, as I remember, ”‘This relationship is over. Sometimes you can start a new relationship with the same person”

And somehow, after all of that, it ends slightly hopeful. That there is a future where both can be happy. Is it together, or apart? Well, that isn’t answered. The movie is funny, quirky, and also completely floored me. A smack of reality, or the consequence for not telling your partner your truth, and how, through the pain and the distance, there might be a way back to each other. The inability to relax and have fun, even with other partners, causes neither participant in the relationship to take responsibility for their own misery. That they prefer to stay unhappy rather than name their pain. And when they do, even for a fleeting moment, they find the music.

I’ve been invited to two threesomes in my life. Once when I was in my late 20’s, a couple, the wife recovering from cancer, and the husband a former porn star. We were at the Rose Bar, which was a hot spot at the former Gramercy Park Hotel. They had a table, and the friend I was with told me that the couple was going to proposition me. And they did, each taking time to get to know me, knowing glances between them. I was so incredibly flattered, but I also knew that I didn’t want to be a couple’s third. That I wanted to be in a partnership so intensely that I’d only derive pain by being a surrogate for another couple’s passion.

The second time happened last winter. Just before the holidays, I had a rare night when my son was sleeping at my mom’s. I wanted to spend the night with the man I was casually sleeping with, who was separated but not legally, and still living in his family home. We never get to actually sleep together after sex, and I wanted that intimacy with him. We’d talked about our fantasies. He told me he wanted a threesome, and he decided without me that our one night to have intimacy would be used for a threesome with another woman, with whom he cheated on his wife. A woman I’d never met, and he’d already invited her over to my home.

I got the literal ick.

The feeling I heard about but never truly felt until that moment. I was then clear with him that if we were to do that, we’d have to be an actual we. For me, it needed to be about us exploring our desires together, which would only increase our mutual intimacy. He and I had barely found our intimacy; there were only glimmers of possibility given our insane chemistry.

It was clear he wanted to conquer two women at once. I was clear that I do not want an equilateral triangle. I asked him to leave. Our “whatever it was” turned into a friendship, one built on honesty. We have not been physically intimate again, and he’s finally getting a legal separation from his wife.

Can desire deepen commitment rather than threaten it? And what happens when women stop performing desire and start listening to it? I want to live in a world where men and women can both be free from the constraints that traditional values place on couples. I’ve avoided being in a partnership because it seemed like a prison. Being locked away from what some see as a shameful desire, and that if only I can find someone able to talk about it. To explore with integrity, that we can straddle the line between tradition, exploration, and love. It’s a duality that’s been hard to grasp. And I’m so grateful that through these stories, I’m finally seeing that I’m not alone.

I do not know what my future relationships will look like, but I know I want ethical desire. They aren’t the same thing. Desire isn’t something you can decide in advance. Every relationship will evoke something different. That’s the core of The Wanting.

Ghosting. People still do this. Even grown-ass divorced men.

Get this. I finally got myself to go on a few dates after a crazy year from hell. One was with a very cute 40-year-old lawyer. He works at a big firm, he’s gunning for partner, and he’s also got green eyes.

Getting ready for the first date, I wore heels. I rarely wear them, and on a first date from Raya — that obnoxious celebrity dating app — we don’t know much about the person we’re meeting. Only what they’ve volunteered to share. This guy didn’t share his height. And in my internet stalking, it could go either way.

At the top of the year, I decided I’d stop shrinking myself for other people’s benefit. I’d have the courage to be looked at, and I’d wear the loud red dress if that’s what made me feel good. I decided, with my newfound red-dress energy, to look and feel my best, which meant walking to the date in heels.

He met that energy, stood tall, and we gazed into each other’s green eyes. By the end of the date, we were already talking about going on a second date. He texted me before I even made it home, telling me what a great time he had. He also told me that he’s a litigator on two cases, and absolutely slammed until the end of the summer. I believed him.

So when he didn’t text to follow up about seeing each other again, I checked in. He responded warmly, and we went on a second date. It was a night I already had plans for early, but I already had a sitter. We met up, had appetizers and dessert, and then, the moment we left the restaurant, he kissed me. He grabbed my hand and asked if I’d walk him home. I said sure. Two glasses of wine in, he’s sober, and I was having fun. I also had a couple more hours to enjoy before needing to relieve my sitter. By the time we got to his place, he kissed me again. He invited me in. I wasn’t sure there was time. He suggested we make out a little.

My mind screamed bad idea. It is too soon. But my body wanted to be touched. It had been too long. I wanted to feel desired, to let go of all my hard work, and to keep the fun going. In that split second, hand in hand, post-kiss, my body won, and I followed him upstairs.

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His apartment felt like a post-college apartment. He had lived there for ten years, and he had lived there with his wife, which was crazy to me, because all sense of female energy was completely gone. I was surprised to find a successful lawyer at a big firm living in a home with a stovetop oven from the 90’s.

Yes, I judged him, but just a little, because I go on playdates with my son to similar-age families’ homes, and this just didn’t feel very grown-up. From the kitchen that looked never used, to the furniture that didn’t quite fit. And in contrast, I have worked so damn hard to make a beautiful home for my son and me. His home screamed immaturity, and it should have been a signal that we are in different places in life.

But perhaps he’s ready for the next step in life, which is why he wants to date a woman like me. A woman who lives with intention, like a grown-up. So I pushed the judgment down, and we made out, and then he got a little bit too naked, and then I got a little too naked, which led us down a path that was way too intimate for a second date.

After a very short amount of time, lying together on his bed, our naked bodies intertwined, I had to relieve my sitter. It didn’t feel good to get out of someone’s bed so fast. But he was respectful and kind. He walked me to my Uber and told me to text him when I was back from the beach, where I was going for the week between school and camp. And, of course, to message him over the weekend.

But this time, he didn’t text me before I got home, or even the next day, and I knew that something had shifted. But I wasn’t willing to give up. Maybe he was busy. My internal nervous system was on fire. I wanted to talk about what we did. Process it together. Tell him it didn’t feel good to leave so quickly, and not to hear from him afterward. We didn’t get to create a new navigation plan for where we were going and how we got there.

The weekend after we hung out, I checked in, and we made plans for the upcoming week. I was going to be in town for a night, and I’d love to see him. He said he’d try; he was out of town in depositions, but should be back. He texted when he said he would, only to say he had more work, and he canceled plans. It was polite. It was cold. The next weekend, I checked in again, then the following Thursday, one last time. I knew my gut was right. I never heard from him again. He slowly faded me to nothing.

This was a man who had been married for eight years, had divorced, and worked in employment law, so he knew how to handle an awkward conversation. And by ghosting me, he denied me one, and I had to have that conversation alone. Once I’m processing in real time on this page.

The first guy I went on a couple of dates with since the top of the year, treated me with such disrespect I felt nauseous. I don’t want to call him names or assume he lacks emotional intelligence, but for whatever reason, he decided I wasn’t worth the conversation. I’m a woman who has intentionally created a beautiful life out of literal ash. I made a family on my own, created a beautiful home, and have ambitions that are coming to fruition. I’m in control of my own time and am ready to make space for romance. I was open to sharing some of my joy with this man, excited to get to know him, and for some reason, he just let go of the rope, right as we were getting to the good stuff. The real intimacy both emotional and sexual. To really see and support one another. To amplify everything we’re building solo as we merge it together.

After this experience, I checked in with a dear friend whom I met when she was my matchmaker in Los Angeles. And she told me I should consider the 12-date rule from Matchmaker Maria. I have a lot of feelings about this. Why do I have to hold back my sexual desires to ensure a man respects me if I sleep with him? Why can’t he just respect me?

It’s meant to protect me and my nervous system, and to weed out the men who aren’t serious. But this man was dating with intention. We had deep conversations about the lives we wanted, and it felt very aligned. We were both ambitious. I didn’t think I needed to play games to make him my boyfriend. So, having this brought up shattered the illusion I’ve been living in. That if I lived authentically, in my skin, my wants, my desires, men wouldn’t judge me, or at the very least, they’d stick around. They wouldn’t need me to play games or withhold a huge part of myself so that he can connect emotionally. Does sex cloud my judgment? Maybe, but also, not really. I don’t want to fall in love with a man emotionally and hate having sex with him. That’s definitely not the life I want.

I let the ideas simmer for a few days. Maybe it lives somewhere in the middle. That there’s a push and pull, a sexual electricity that threads the dates, and my future partner and I take that journey together. The right man won’t put all the pressure on me to steer the emotional intimacy; he’ll see it as our joint responsibility to grow together.

In the end, ghosting isn’t a gift, but it’s a great lesson. He didn’t give me silence. He left me with a load to process on my own. He showed me who he is and that he’s not the partner for me. But he also showed me what I’m looking for, and helped me on my yellow brick road towards partnership.

“What do you want for dinner?” I ask, even though I know there will be one of three answers: pizza, hot dog, or mac and cheese.

It’s just my four-and-a-half-year-old son and me, and that was by design. But that means cooking for us is like cooking for one and a half. If I make something I want, something with a protein, a vegetable, and a starch, I’m lucky if he tries it. If I make something he wants, I end up snacking on mac and cheese or butter noodles and calling it dinner.

Our habits right now aren’t great. He’s a picky eater, and I know I’ve had a hand in that. But since becoming a mom, I keep noticing the patterns I’m continuing for myself and passing to my son. Good or bad, I’m not sure. What I do know is that when I close my eyes and picture feeling full, full of love, warmth, joy, it’s always a meal. A dinner party with interesting people. The chaos of cooking alongside someone I love. That’s what I want to build for us.

Thinking about my history of family dinners. There was my immediate family, my mom, dad, brother, and me. We had dinner at 6 pm every night. It was strict, and my dad was somewhat picky, which meant we weren’t exposed to many different foods. And that fell apart when they divorced. I was 12. We also lived in Ft. Myers, FL, where at the time we didn’t have many global ingredients, except when our housekeeper, Maharani, cooked for us. She infused spices and love, and Indian food became somewhat of a comfort food. Her samosas were divine.

Then, moving forward, it was my mom and me in NYC; she worked late, and I did ballet most evenings. So typically I’d fend for myself, or we’d order in Chinese food, steamed mixed veggies with chicken and brown sauce on the side. Sometimes I’d have some dumplings, and she’d sometimes add a hot and sour soup.

The only meals I remembered were when my brother came to town, and we’d eat as a family. My internal programming kind of set it up so that it was okay not to eat a full dinner if it was just me or just the two of us. It wasn’t the easiest of times for us, but she is the parent who’s always shown up for me. So understanding my ideas around family and food is by no means a judgment of my mom. She’s given me so many things, even if that meant making myself mac and cheese for dinner some nights in high school. Besides, I think it’s not so different from my grandmother and my great-grandmother, who cooked very differently for themselves than their husbands.

On the flip side, I remember holiday dinners. Thanksgiving and Passover, where we’d be prepping for weeks, and there’d be multiple tables of guests. Lots of extended family, love, chaos, catching up. Comfort and insecurity at once. We only saw each other every six months, so every visit they’d take stock of how I’d changed: taller, older, different. My whole identity on display for an audience of familiar faces. It was thrilling, and I loved it.

My son also loves it when we’re all together. From family Thanksgiving with all his cousins to family vacations or dinners out. Sitting together around the table, relaxing. When our family feels bigger than just the two of us, he comes alive in the chaos of family. The only times we have a real variety of food are when we order in or go out to dinner, usually with other people.

The more I think about it, though, it’s not about the picky eating. It’s about the desire to have a full table. Most of the time, I never question the shape and size of our family. The two of us feel perfect.

At the dinner table, though, it’s when I feel it. My failure to find a romantic partner, my belief that I’m not enough to make the effort, and my bad habits are all on full display. It’s hard to sit in it, to recognize it, that one of the symptoms of being a parent is how much it highlights your own flaws.

I try to remember that the size of our dinner table is not a unique problem to being a single mom by choice. Not all moms cook. Not all families eat dinner together. No one’s home is that perfect all the time, and the lovably quirky Spielberg family I grew up watching was fiction.

So yes, I want a full table. I also want to make the table feel full, even when it’s just the two of us.

Five things I want to do, or buy, to help our table feel full:

1. Colorful placemats

2. Cookbook: A Year of Simple Family Food by Julia Basuttil Nishimura

3. Salt and oil dishes (which may have ketchup instead of oil. Shhhhh, don’t tell anyone.)

4. Cookbook: Apples for Jam by Tessa Kiros

5. Parent / Child Apron Set

Why does it feel illicit to say I have desires? Not goals. Not priorities. Not a vision board. Desires.

Years ago, I stood on a stage at some self-help program in Santa Monica, which is the kind of sentence that already tells you a lot about who I was at the time. I was younger, earnest, overextended, still convinced that if I could just become clear enough, disciplined enough, magnetic enough, healed enough, I could bend the world into the shape of my wanting.

The host told me I couldn’t have it all. Not all at once.

And I remember feeling my whole body rise up in resistance. “That’s old thinking,” I said. I believed it, too. I believed wanting it all was a form of liberation. I believed the refusal to choose was the point. I believed the women before me had been handed a false bargain, and that my job was to refuse it.

I wanted it all. And I wanted it all at once. So I tried. And then I was humbled.

Not because she was entirely right. Not because desire is inherently greedy, or women should learn to want less, or “having it all” is some silly girlboss fantasy we should all be mature enough to abandon.

I was humbled because I learned that the world is not built for women to want expansively without extracting a price. The world is not set up for women to have anything without sacrificing something else.

A career asks for the hours your child wants. A child asks for the body that your ambition once lived in. Love asks for surrender. Independence asks for vigilance. Beauty asks for money, time, maintenance, and the shame of admitting you care. Art asks for devotion. Money asks for compromise. Freedom asks for loneliness. Motherhood asks for everything and then acts surprised when you ask for something back. And still. I want. Because wanting is the first step to receiving.

The Wanting is more of where I am than Cultural Currents.

This aligns with my fictional writing, which is about desire. My characters want real, complicated lives, and the antagonist is often the shape of the world they need to wrestle with on their journeys.

This is my inner current. And if I’m honest, Cultural Currents was a bit of a cop out. It was observations of a world I watched from the outside, and now I’m opening my book and inviting you inside my world of solo mom-ing, writing, shopping, and romancing.

I’m inviting you to witness my desire to live the life I want. To have the courage to want and the grace to receive and to be humbled by what still hasn’t happened. And to invite you to want right alongside me.

I don't know the exact shape this will take. But here is where I'm starting. Ten things I want right now, in no particular order of importance or likelihood:

1. A book deal. Draft is ready. Agent is preparing. Almost on submission.

2. To sell my next rom-com. Round of notes coming, we’re getting close.

3. Be in partnership, in love, in romance.

4. For my son to be healthy. For my mother to be healthy. For the people I love to continue to grow.

5. Get rid of the lines in my forehead and around my eyes

6. A good night's sleep

7. A strong body. Hello, SLT, my latest obsession.

8. Sell my Palisades home. Know anyone looking? I loved living there. But I’m settled in BK.

9. These Silk Taffeta shorts that sold out before I got a chance to buy them.

10. To surf more regularly again and for my son to be a strong enough swimmer to surf with me. I miss overcoming that nervousness to feel the ocean's energy, only to be inevitably tossed around by an unforgiving ocean. And the freedom to look like a wet puppy dog. And to remember the miracle of Earth’s gifts.

Twenty years of marriage. Three children. And then, during the early days of a pandemic, her husband left. Strangers is Burden going back through the wreckage — looking for the clues she missed, the version of him she didn’t know, the version of herself she’d set aside.

Joyce Carol Oates called it “riveting.” I’d call it the kind of book that makes you want to talk to other women about it while walking through a park.

Which is exactly what we’re going to do.

Tuesday, July 22.
DM me to join the WhatsApp group.

My 4-year-old son woke me up at 6 AM on Saturday morning. So even though he had an acceptable amount of sleep, I did not. He had a sitter scheduled for that evening, and the idea that I’d have two nights in a row with not enough sleep made me want to cry.

He has an okay-to-wake light that signals when it’s time to wake up. The wake-up time is 6:45 a.m. H…

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I recently tried. A creative PM role, a good team with meaningful work. And still, my nervous system went on fire. Not metaphorically. Physically. The low-gr…

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By this time next week, all the smoke, ash, and lead will be removed from my Pacific Palisades home. In planning this week and what to do with my contaminated items, I’ve arranged with the team to clean and pack the artwork encased in glass, my hard drives, and my NFT Ledger, and to have them sent to me in Brooklyn.

Everything else is being placed on th…

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I first learned of Carolyn Bessette’s death while sitting at my summer internship in the original Miramax offices. Someone passed around a CNN link, opened in a browser that felt barely capable of holding the news. The room didn’t stop, exactly, but something inside me did. It was the first time I understood that a person could belong to a city’s atmosp…

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A few weeks ago, I sent the latest draft of my first novel to my agent, and then came the waiting.

Writers know this particular kind of silence. It is the strange, suspended moment between finishing something and knowing what comes next. I did not want to lose momentum, but I also did not know where to direct it.

Around the same time, Anthropic released a…

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I went on a first date recently. It was a fun one, and at the end of the date, we wandered through a bookstore, sharing books with one another. We also talked about the music we grew up with. This date asked if I knew the song "Scentless Apprentice" by Nirvana, and he said he had recently seen an interview in which Kurt Cobain said it was inspired by a …

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It became clear pretty quickly that people don’t want to meet in the dark and walk in the freezing cold. And honestly, who can blame them? It’s been cold as hell here in Brooklyn. So I wanted to offer some alternatives.

I took the question to our WhatsApp group—Where can we walk together without freezing?—and, as usual, the group got creative. There’s a track at the YMCA Park Slope Armory. We could walk a mall like Navy Yard or City Point. Maybe even explore Industry City.

The YMCA Armory stood out right away. It has a wide-lane indoor track and felt like the most straightforward option. I emailed. I called. I followed up. Eventually, I learned we could get day passes for $20.

So when the date arrived, a small group of us—four total—met at the YMCA Park Slope Armory to discuss Sandwich by Catherine Newman.

When I arrived, I signed up for a day pass. A few minutes later, two others joined me and casually mentioned to the membership desk that the fourth person in our group was already a member. To our collective delight, they waved us all through—no extra charge.

And just like that, we walked.

We spent about 50 minutes circling the track, talking about the book. We talked about lies and relationships. Parenting. Creating rituals for our families. Aging parents. And how genuinely pleasurable the book was to read. Between the four of us, we spanned a wide range of life experiences: an empty nester, a childfree woman, a mom of two, and me—with one.

It felt easy. Grounded. Human.

Whether we find our way back to the Y, to a mall, or somewhere else entirely, we’ll keep walking together. And we hope you’ll join us in the new year.

Below are the upcoming dates and books. If any of them speak to you, DM me and I’ll add you to our WhatsApp group.

Dear Younger Self (A Newly Barely Surviving Solo Mom),

Remember that first holiday? The one with the two-week-old potato baby, a grieving parent, and—because your timing has always been impeccable—a fresh COVID booster right before Joshua Tree? When you felt so spectacularly awful you could barely lift your own child, your milk supply dried up entirely, …

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Lately, every time I open social media, it feels like a dystopian QVC channel.
A conveyor belt of strangers staring straight into my soul to tell me about the thing I absolutely must buy: a hair straightener, a magnesium gummy, an eye cream, a Korean pore vacuum that literally shows you what was inside their face.

I never asked to know that.

And the wildes…

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Since I don’t celebrate Christmas, the pressure to buy gifts for an entire extended family isn’t quite as intense. My biggest focus is my son, whose 4th birthday is the week before Hanukkah, which is the week before Christmas. He doesn’t yet understand that we don’t celebrate everything, so I’m spreading his gifts across the month and preparing for a ma…

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