Disclaimer: This information isn’t a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. You shouldn’t rely on this article for specific medical advice. If you have any questions or concerns, please talk to your doctor.

If you are a vagina-owning individual and you are anything at all like me, you have found yourself sitting on the toilet during your period wondering what in god’s name is happening. Around the second day of your period, you have this deep urge to just sit on the toilet and relax your pelvic floor muscles and let it all go. Sometimes I sit on…

Somewhere along the way, someone offered me this sage piece of advice — when you go to a man’s house for the first time, check his bookshelf to get a better read on him; making sure to take note of the state of this bookshelf. Is it color-coordinated? Organized using the Dewy Decimal system? Are the spines cracked? Is there a stained and clearly overused copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance? Are pages ripped and dog-eared? God forbid, he has too much Hemingway, any amount of Bukowski, or says things like “Lolita is my favorite book.”

Armed…

A few weeks back when I was mindlessly scrolling through Instagram (a habit I am at all times trying to curtail as my screen time notification continues to mock me), I noticed some hubbub about tequila. More specifically, I had noticed a covert social media campaign that was underway — Kylie Jenner posting subtle hits about something coming, some “new-new,” and what lingered in the background of these immaculately well-lit photos was a bottle of alcohol that…didn’t exist. That is — it was a label no one had ever seen before. …

Travel. Svalbard. Northern Europe.

1. Polar Bears or People?

Perhaps the most exciting, endearing, and possibly dangerous fact depending on your general feelings toward bears and carnivorous animals — Svalbard (the northern Norweigan archipelago) has more polar bears than people.

The polar bear population in the Svalbard archipelago is around 3,000. The human population lands just around 2,300. Polar bears sightings are very common, which is why —

2. You Gotta Pack Heat

And while it is freezing on Svalbard, and you need to dress warm — you also need to carry a gun. …

After the festivities of November and December, we all seem to settle into some sort of renewed optimism come January. That optimism is of course challenged by the reality that we still live in the same house, we still can’t afford that gym membership, we still seem to have an insatiable lust for trashy television we swore we’d stop watching, and we are, plain and simple, the same person we were the year before. …

During my teenage years and early twenties, I never once considered what was actually happening inside my body during my period. All I knew was that once a month, every month, for what seemed like my entire life — I would bleed. No questions asked. I’d recall something about the blood coming from the uterine lining, or something about menstrual cramps preparing me for childbirth. But generally, I never thought about it. So, imagine my surprise when I’m nearly thirty years old and I am just now learning about the intricate phases of my monthly cycle. Not only am I…

It was June, or maybe it was April or August — it’s nearly impossible to know what month anything happened during this pandemic. Did Tiger King just get released last week? Did I just learn how to make a sourdough starter? I couldn’t tell you. Time seems to have stopped in March and yet we continue to live through somehow increasingly strange seasons of this year.

At some point during the summertime, when it seemed like nothing else could possibly go wrong in the world, I doomscrolled myself into a QAnon conspiracy. I, a college-educated, liberal-leaning, feminist, LGBTQ+ supporting, anti-racist…

Imagine it — you're nine years old, slipping a VCR into the bulky machine and listening as it churns and crunches; ever-growing anticipation raising as you prepare to watch your favorite Disney princess dance across the screen. Perhaps you are wearing your itchy Disney princess dress or crown or shoes or any of the other tens of thousands of Disney branded items. Now, these once naïve 80s and 90s-era children have grown up into adults living in the world of “unpacking” and wokeness. We seem to have a keener eye for everything these days and an obsession for pulling apart…