It’s 1:17 a.m., and I’m sitting on the floor of my kitchen drinking Dr Pepper Blackberry out of the can like it’s medicine for a heartbreak I haven’t earned yet. I haven’t cried today, but I can feel it coming, crouched behind my molars. This beverage might be the gateway. The label promises “Delightfully Dark. Subtly Sweet,” which, coincidentally, is also how I described myself during a short-lived phase in college when I tried to brand myself as “the mysterious girl who reads Bukowski and wear...

The crunching of crispy pine needles beneath my sneakers echoed among the trees. As I trekked through the small, wooded lot beside our home, my older sister, Donna, gripped the chains of her seat swing. She was completely oblivious to her surroundings, which included my random bursts of singing. Her legs dangled above the scuffed grass while she swayed back and forth. The Walkman cassette player clipped to her jeans pocket blared a Stevie Nicks song about white doves. Mom had instructed Donna to watch me that day while she worked yet another twelve-hour shift at Hollywood Memorial Hospital. Donna huffed and whined as usual. She claimed to have more important things to do than watch her obnoxious younger sister. “Mom, I’m almost twelve,” I said as my cheeks reddened from a mixture of anger and embarrassment. “I don’t need a babysitter!”

WHEN I WAS five years old, my elementary school held an assembly that included a special visitor, Harry the Habit Kicker. (Harry was actually our school resource officer in a giant bear costume.) He wore a shirt that read SAY NO TO DRUGS, and he carried a white bag with BAD STUFF scrawled across it. Harry demonstrated the consequences of drugs by placing the bag into his mouth. We all watched in horror as he jumped around, waving his fuzzy arms frantically, then fell to the floor, dead.

It’s difficult to devote your life to a family that will never embrace you fully. Especially when your newly acquired family, by law, constantly expects utter devotion. Such was the case for Mrs. Mary Louise Elmwood, a young woman from a highly respected family in northern Alabama. It was a fine match; a proper combination between two well-off esteemed families. Mr. Robert Elmwood, although barely thirty, had already established quite the reputation for himself as a steadfast lawyer in the newly exquisite courthouse in downtown Athens. He was a ruthless lawyer in the courtroom, who never let any criminal walk away without some legal punishment. Some said those reprimands extended outside of those halls, and into the streets of downtown Athens. But Mary Louise didn’t partake in such rumors.

There is a permanent imprint on memory when smoke infiltrates the senses. I was awaiting my cue with a few other clowns when the foul smell of burning canvas reached me. Dressed in oversized pants that were barely held up by my flimsy suspenders and an unshaven face covered in thick white paint, I called myself Weary Willie, a sad hobo clown with a permanent frown. I always got the short end of the stick, yet I never gave up. An important lesson my pa taught me and one in which I impressed on the children who came to the Ringling Circus. Had I known what was to occur that day, I wouldn’t have bothered plastering on my unhappy persona.

Pulling Up Azaleas: A cheating husband in a failed marriage blames his wife for the gun pointed at him.

Sweet Tea (unsweetened) Aunt Carla set out a full pitcher, claiming it was healthier this way, even though Mama always said unsweet tea was for Yankees and people with no backbone. The ice had already melted once, then refrozen in the drive from Jacksonville to Port St. Lucie. The cubes clinked softly as I poured a cup, pretending not to hear Carla whispering that I looked “smaller” than she remembered...

2. Chappelle’s Show: White People’s Reaction Videos Edition: Each episode features a vintage sketch followed by a panel of white millennials squirming in real time, saying things like, “This was funny in 2004, right?” and “I think we’ve grown… I mean, I’ve grown?” No jokes are made, only reckonings.

I once participated in a collaborative writing exercise where we each contributed a short passage to build a shared story. The setting was the rural South in the early 1900s: dusty porches, hymnals, women stirring pots while watching the horizon for news. One writer turned in a single page that read like a drunk voicemail. Every other word was “fuck” or “shit.” The voice didn’t match the setting, didn’t reveal character, didn’t move the story. It broke the entire spell.

Dear Squishy Humans, It’s been fifty years. Half a century since I gave summer blockbusters teeth. Since I launched a thousand therapy sessions and got slapped with the blame for every panicked pool noodle incident from Malibu to Miami. Since I dragged a man backwards off a sinking boat and became the poster fish for “Do Not Enter the Water.” And yet, every July, you gather in droves, slather yourselves in coconut-scented marinade, and fling yourselves into my dining room like it’s Shark Week: U...

Like many overcaffeinated, emotionally brittle mothers hiding from their children in the pantry, I was thrilled to see Meghan Markle’s new Netflix show: a lifestyle series where she does incredibly relatable things like garnish microgreens with ethically sourced truffle dust while her children are presumably learning Mandarin in a pastel nursery scented with cedar and subtle desperation. She’s just like us… if “us” means former duchesses turned Etsy-core influencers who froth oat milk in Restorat...

It’s August. Ninety-seven degrees with a heat index of hell itself. The sun is physically aggressive. My thighs are fused to the driver’s seat. The iced coffee in my cup holder has given up on being anything but warm beige sadness.And yet—I feel it.The pull.The whisper.The faint smell of cinnamon broomsticks drifting through the automatic doors of Michaels.Halloween has returned.Halloween has returned. Not in a normal way. Not in the way society agrees on.This is the feral, unhinged Halloween...

The lie left my mouth so smooth and casual, I nearly applauded myself. “I’m heading to the gym,” I said, tying my sneakers with the confidence of someone who once looked at a treadmill in 2017. My toddler was scaling the pantry like a gremlin in Velcro pull-ups. The baby was gnawing on the Roku remote like it was a turkey leg. My husband nodded without making eye contact. He knew better. I left the house like a woman on a mission. Plot twist: I drove straight to Chipotle. I didn’t even blink....

At 2 a.m., the world is quiet. Except in my head.The baby is squirming in my arms, sucking on a bottle like it personally offended her. Her tiny fists keep punching the air with righteous fury. She’s got reflux, which means I have roughly twelve minutes before she projectile spits up half the bottle and all of her rage onto my last clean shirt.The toddler is snoring in the next room, clutching a plastic carrot and dreaming of something probably violent and produce-related. My husband is sleeping...

My hands are hovering above my open eyes. I let out a deep sigh in the hopes that my wife will hurry up so I can get back to the game. I cast a quick glance below at my son, Bobby. I can’t help but smirk at his dogged determination to keep his tiny hands pressed firmly against his closed eyelids. A wicker basket filled with artificial green Easter grass hangs from the bend of his right elbow. “No peeking!” My wife’s giggles echo throughout our house. Her sneakers squeak against the tiled floor

Welcome to my definitive ranking of children’s programming based not on educational value, but on the sheer psychological toll they’ve taken on my adult brain.1. Caillou—Should Be Tried at The Hague I don’t know what war crime this bald Canadian toddler committed to earn a five-season sentence of whining, but here we are. His voice triggers my fight-or-flight. He never learns. He never grows. He just is. A sentient beige void of entitlement. Watching Caillou is like being trapped in a dentist’s...

While the rest of you are tossing your children onto iPads and calling it “Camp Netflix,” I’ve decided to take the high road this summer.That’s right. I’m hosting my own fully immersive, emotionally sensitive, screen-free, historically accurate Colonial Summer Camp. Located right in our backyard, adjacent to our composting station and beneath the ethically sourced sun sail I purchased from a woman in Vermont who only works in hand-loomed flax.We’re calling it Camp Colonially Correct. You wouldn’...