One minute you’re fine, the next you’re crying over something insignificant, or picking a fight. Later, your actions hardly seem “like “you.” Who hasn’t had a mood swing? But how much of that is normal “hormones ” or “PMS?”? What is PMS and how is it different from PMDD? Are these things even real? If they are do we have to suffer through them? Are they just side effects of “being a woman” or “being on the pill?”? What’s normal, and when do you say, “enough” and seek professional help?

A few days after my thirtieth birthday, I woke up with intense back pain. Had I gone rock climbing and suffered a great fall? Spent the night at a dance marathon? No. All I did was turn 30, and my back decided to send me a painful warning signal.

Prior to that moment of sheer happiness, I thought it came in a bottle of anti-depressants, and therapy. From the age of twelve to about 25, happiness happened for me in an hour here, a day there, maybe a week or two if I was lucky.

When my father handed me the ripped-up, yellowed copy that he’d picked up for me at a half-price sale at a used-bookstore, my first reaction was, “Isn’t this a movie with Roseanne?”

It’s a good thing that Jews are the people of the book, because when I converted I fit right in.

Living or studying abroad - here is your manual!

It is this humble reporter’s opinion that the average American (humble reporter included) wastes an awful lot of time. Society dictates that work hours be long and downtime be spent playing—in bars, on the Internet, watching trashy reality TV. Ours is a culture with a soft spot for the “guilty pleasure,” a term we made […]

Nothing ruins a Paris vacation like traveling to the City of Light with one’s mother-in-law. All my life I had dreamed of my first Parisian vacation: la Tour Eiffel; le musée du Louvre; l’Arc de Triomphe. I had romantic notions of sipping my miniature espresso at an outdoor café while reading Derrida (in French, no […]

We’ve heard of people who hate their religious identity, or sexual orientation, but what about urban identity? Is there is therapy for that?

In May of 1998, I graduated from Millikin University with a degree in Chemistry. By July I moved cross country to southern Colorado to be a residence hall director. At only 22 I was considered the “adult” living with 150 college freshman. I also signed up for Dream Group—a form of group […]