I used to beg to go to McDonald’s. I wanted my Happy Meal. My fries. I wanted lime-green pickles stuck to the bun. Little onion pieces poking through ketchup. The smell that made my mouth cry. The cardboard box. The toy. Of course, the toy. It was the distraction, the…

“Do you ever feel like a woman?” my mother asked. I’d come out to her at 17 in the room where I grew up — the room where the Snoopy lamp shined orange due to the burn mark on its shade from when I knocked it over as a little…

“Do you want to see a musical with me?” “Um, sure,” I said, pulling the covers up to my nose, like there was a thunderstorm outside. I was lying in bed with Matt, the older man I’d been seeing for two months (and who was the kind of guy who’d…

“Walk straighter!” Mom shouted, ending our pleasant sunlit stroll. “Get your hand out of your hair,” she snapped, reacting to my habit. “Where is your hair?” she asked, poking the top of my forehead. And that was just Thanksgiving. I’d recently graduated from arts school at NYU and took a…

My date was from OKCupid, told me he was bipolar but “over it,” dragged me to three different bars, and didn’t even make out with me for my trouble. So, in the dive we landed in last, I had no choice but to pick out someone else in the distance…