I got sober. Life got big.
This counts as a messy desk for me, believe it or not. I'm slightly stressed just looking at it now. I'm nearly finished with the draft of my next book, a memoir about the twelve years I worked for Amazon as, you know, a woman. I have a fairly granular list of what’s left to…
Continue reading ➞ Day 2,920: Events in the History of Female Employment; or, a Book Update
https://youtu.be/dPdSnDJoRzs Aimee Mann is, of course, second to none in the Deadpan Kiss-Off genre. But for me, this somber ballad from Welcome Home delivers a much more devastating blow in its recognition that when two people split, what's lost is not just the attention they paid to each other, but the specific, inimitable quality of…
Continue reading ➞ Day 2,898: Rat Pellets, Pizza Grease and Great Men
A prefatory note: This post is not about my sobriety, though it was written in sobriety. I've been sober for almost eight years now, and I don't have brand-new things to say about it as often as I used to. And yet, it informs every bit of who I am and the decisions I make.…
Elijah Muhammad with Malcolm X. No, it's not random. Patience! Read the post! (Also: isn't Malcolm so handsome?) At some point in this pandemic I lost the ability to carry anything lightly. It's never come easily, has always required effort; yes, I've worked hard at lightness. But now there's no fighting it. Seriousness has descended…
Heyyyyyy party people! It's been a few months. Is everyone having an awesome summer?!?!It's funny because it's sad. Ha! Ha! I generally try to write some words of reflection or wisdom on my soberversaries, something about what I learned in the previous year. But then came the spring of 2020. Fuck, man. I'm not sure…
Continue reading ➞ Day 2,557: Happy (Is Happy Still a Thing?) 7th Soberversary to Me
I laughed yesterday at the start of this otherwise long, dark chat with a friend freaking out over, you know, the possibly post-Constitutional state the United States is entering. ‘Don’t drink’ was probably sincerely meant on some level, but hearing it in his sardonic Boston voice—"two words of advice for you, boss," I imagined him…
[First, a quick announcement that I have an essay called "Yes, And" forthcoming from Amazon Original Stories on July 30th, and you can pre-order it here for just $1.99! This is a long, meaty piece about marriage, monogamy, and secrets. It took me three years to write and I really hope you enjoy reading it.…
Continue reading ➞ Day 2,191: Scrapping & Yelling & Mixing It Up
The asterisk above is because after I labeled my last one Day 1,917, Belle commented that she had it as 1,931. She's way more likely to be right than I am, so I'm adjusting. It's actually the second time in the history of Off-Dry that I've realized the day count was off. You wouldn't think…
Last week I was seated at a dinner next to a woman who's writing a recovery memoir. When she found out I'm a published memoirist, she had questions about how I'd structured my book to make publishers like it. "Did you put the message of yours up front?" she asked. "Or tell the story first…
So Nothing Good Can Come from This is out there in the world now, in paperback, e-book, and audio formats. It's been out for a week, and I feel like kind of a dick for not posting here sooner, but it turns out there is a LOT to do when you publish a book and I…
Off-Dry 