Irish Daisy

No, it’s not what you’re thinking. Really, it’s not. This is not the lament of a parent with a hormonal teenager, or a dirge about girls and emerging PMS, or a cautionary tale about how my once sweet daughter became an actual fire-breathing dragon because…HORMONES! No, it's not about any of that at all...it's actually a whole lot worse. Puberty Sucks Large I went through puberty, and it sucked, but wrapped up in my own hormonal shitstorm I wasn’t able to put my finger on exactly why it was so terrible and soul-sucking. 26 years later, I have a ring-side seat to Quokka’s voyage and, yes Martha, it still sucks. There has been tons of research about what happens to girls in our culture during puberty – in a nutshell, their self esteem and confidence plummet. Feisty, kick-ass little girls, shrink down into pretty paper-dolls, a two-dimensional copy of their younger self. Theories about why this happens focus on the cultural pressures that assault a girl and undermine her en...

I have decided, definitively, is that there is nothing in life that makes being a grown up feel more stupid than the winter holidays.  No. Thing. It starts with Halloween and keeps rolling right through November, with Thanksgiving, reaches the apex with Christmas and then slobbers all over you for New Years.  Then January comes, everyone has a holiday hangover and you’re a wreck because you've just spent the last two months frantically trying to make the holidays special and magical for your family to the point that you realize you’re not actually sure you even like the family you've just spent two months killing yourself for. After a highly unscientific, casual survey, I've determined this is largely a female (bonus complications for working mother) problem.  Sorry guys, but most of you seem to have been trained that making holidays special, or even making them happen at all, is not your job – I do know a few exceptions to this, but there’s a reason for the ster...

I love school supplies. Really, really love them – the waxy crayon smell, the shiny binder covers, the rows and rows of bright markers and pens and pencils. I adore the colors, the scents, the memories and every moment of shopping for new school stuff. Loaded with fresh supplies and ready for a hopeful new year  I've loved school supply shopping for forever, even though I never really loved actual school. I was a good enough student and a lot of elementary school came fairly easy to me (okay, there was that trimester in third grade where I almost flunked, but we don’t talk about that). It wasn't the academics, or all of the terrible spelling tests that made me dislike school. It was the social thing – the having to deal with and understand other kids. I was that kid; the awkward one who wasn't really sure how to fit in anywhere. I was teased a lot and spent a lot of time either crying or punching someone (seriously, none of the shenanigans I was involved with in s...