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A CAUTIONARY TALE I was visiting my sister in St. Louis when her housekeeper arrived. I’d never met this girl, a friendly, 40ish white woman. (I only mention that the maid is white for the novelty of it all. I live in California.) She plunked her tackle box of cleaning supplies down on the kitchen counter and sighed. “It’s my last day,” she said. “We’re moving to Tampa.” “Oh, nice!” I said by way of [...]

I think I might be too busy. Oh, don’t get all judgy on me, I’m not trying to impress you. It’s not like I’m living some glamorous Kardashian-inspired (a phrase I never thought I would utter) life where the excitement is nonstop. It’s not like I need a break from invitations to yachts on the French Riviera and ryads in Marrakech. (But if any of you have a plus one, I’m available.) I think I’m [...]

One of the best things about writing memoirs is getting letters from people who say, “My God, your mother Pledged the paneling every week? So did mine!” Or, “Hey, I threw up on a girl’s vagina, too.” The kinship of shared experiences is a pretty powerful thing. And when readers see themselves in my books, I feel like I’ve accomplished something more than just the narcissism of writing about myself (as lustrously fulfilling as that [...]

My sister’s son is a disease overachiever: he has severe autism and cerebral palsy and a bonus pack of other maladies that affect various cognitive and motor abilities. Brian cannot eat, go to the bathroom, or take a bath by himself. It’s like he won the Special Kid Powerball. He came to be because at the ripe old age of 21, my sister Valerie married her high school sweetheart. Naturally, they divorced 10 years later [...]

When my first book came out, People Magazine said of my mother, “Annihilating and loving by turns, she makes Sophie Portnoy look like June Cleaver.” I think I’m safe to say that this is not the kind of review most mothers stick on the refrigerator. By all rights, she should have turned to me at that moment and, with regards to our relationship, said: “And…SCENE.” I wouldn’t have blamed her. Having your warts exposed for [...]

I posted this photo on Facebook for Father’s Day, with a shout out to my endlessly patient Dad, who probably wanted to kill me in my sleep more than a few times. (That’s my sister with us – I’m not contemplating a team change.) The photo prompted my friend Paul to ask, “How come you’re so tall?” To which I replied, “We had a tall mailman.” And it got me thinking: that would really explain [...]

Recently, as my new memoir was debuting, some friends asked if I had plans for me to do a book signing at CostCo. I do not. But this raised a whole host of questions for me: Where would the table go? It seems like anywhere you put it in a CostCo, you’re just gonna end up getting banged around by carts filled with watermelons and car batteries. Sure, there’s all those little aluminum stands for [...]

Don’t tell my husband, but I think I’m in love with a woman. I was in New York a couple of weeks ago to see my agent, visit some bookstores, and have lunch with an author who blurbed my new book. This author, Judith Newman, is a well-known journalist – a writer for the New York Times and Vanity Fair, a ghostwriter for celebrity bios, etc – and I was lucky enough to have her [...]