Los Angeles Review of Books (BLARB) • 31st January 2019

Asking for a Friend #29: Turns Out I Don’t Like Parenthood. Now What?

Maybe your kids will grow on you, or just grow up, and you’ll find you like them better when they like the same books you did or have all their teeth in the right places.

Los Angeles Review of Books (BLARB) • 10th January 2019

Asking for a Friend #28: The Kvetching is Killing Me

In the last 12 months, I’ve changed jobs, relationships, homes, and hair colors; stopped being scared of killing plants (and mostly stopped killing plants); learned how to roller skate; and forgotten how to cook.

Los Angeles Review of Books (BLARB) • 1st February 2018

Asking For A Friend #27: How To Be BFFs With Boundaries

It would certainly be easier if all the things we needed came without asking and in exactly the right amounts — love without judgment, conflict without confusion, all cats without fleas, and every breakfast on every menu without any time limit. (I mean, as long as we’re wishing for stuff.)

Los Angeles Review of Books (BLARB) • 21st December 2017

Asking For A Friend #26: I Want A Kid, Though The World Might Be Ending

Fear is one product of that attention. Unlike panic (frantic and largely useless) or paranoia (imagination run riot), fear is the result of your antennae sensing danger.

Los Angeles Review of Books (BLARB) • 16th November 2017

Asking For a Friend #25: In Love and In Agony

I’ve always stumbled into love like the extra step at the end of the stairs, the same swoop of delight and spark of danger, the same surprising revelation while I’m...

Los Angeles Review of Books (BLARB) • 26th October 2017

Asking for a Friend #24: Is My Boyfriend Just a Boor?

Someone who not only delights in his own red flags but believes them to be permanently stitched into the fabric of his being is telling you with every one of...

Los Angeles Review of Books (BLARB) • 5th October 2017

Asking For a Friend #23: Try a Little Awkwardness

The thing kids forget, which grown-ups get to discover, is that being bold enough to make a first move is powerful, not weak.

Los Angeles Review of Books (BLARB) • 22nd September 2017

Asking for a Friend #22: Pondering Puppy Love

Or, okay, maybe you just want a dog. People get dogs all the time.

Los Angeles Review of Books (BLARB) • 8th September 2017

Asking for a Friend #21: When Can I Forget Someone?

Unlike legal contracts, rental agreements, or mortgages, friendships — even long ones — do not come with a “do not quit” clause.

Los Angeles Review of Books (BLARB) • 17th August 2017

Asking for a Friend #20: Proselytizing for Professional Help

It’s natural: we see a loved one in distress, and we want to help. We bring lasagnas, lend our ears, offer hugs and what little consolation we can — and...

Los Angeles Review of Books (BLARB) • 3rd August 2017

Asking for a Friend: Where to Draw the Line at Lies

I’ll be honest; your friend’s behavior is confusing to me, in no small part because the usual skeleton of my advice — have a conversation — bumps up here against...

Los Angeles Review of Books (BLARB) • 20th July 2017

Asking for a Friend: Sad in Grad School

There is, even in the midst of dreams coming true, a powerful desire to avoid their turning into reality.

Los Angeles Review of Books (BLARB) • 29th June 2017

Asking for a Friend: Confounded by the Cosmos

Seven seconds after each streak of electricity there’s a rumble, sometimes so frequent that it sounds like a low heartbeat echoing behind a veil, others like a flimsy baking sheet...

Los Angeles Review of Books (BLARB) • 15th June 2017

Asking for a Friend: I Can See the Stress from Here

To rank obsessions of inadequacy by their perceived utility in the world is to miss the point. So much anxiety boils down to one intractable, incessant torture: the certainty that...

Los Angeles Review of Books (BLARB) • 1st June 2017

Asking for a Friend: What If I’m Ross?

Think about how perversely satisfying it was to huddle under school desks during earthquake drills, picturing the ceiling tiles crumbling down over your sturdy shelter. You could still end up...

Los Angeles Review of Books (BLARB) • 18th May 2017

Asking for a Friend: Getting Over Not Getting Along

There are bound to be dozens of ways your three personalities will bump up against each other and come away bruised. For people who get along instantly, seamlessly, this is...

Los Angeles Review of Books (BLARB) • 5th May 2017

Asking for a Friend: I’ve Grown Up, But Not Apart

Love is about intent; behavior is about impact.

Los Angeles Review of Books (BLARB) • 20th April 2017

Asking for a Friend: Being Solid Without Being Stuck

It’s true, of course, that life can be difficult and draining — even the most honest, authentic parts of it. Deep engagement demands a lot from us. Wanting a break...

Los Angeles Review of Books (BLARB) • 6th April 2017

Asking for a Friend: I’m Tired of Aspiring

I wish I could count up for you the number of times I’ve all but completely lost my faith in the identity and future I’ve been imagining for myself, in...

LA Review of Books (BLARB) • 16th March 2017

Asking for a Friend: I Can’t Plug In to Online Dating

It turns out that cutting out all that negative whatever — the stuff responsible for 80% of ’90s sitcom dialogue — makes the rest sort of boring, like reading a...