Editor Tips for Getting Published

October 27, 2022
Allison Klein, “Inspired Life” blog, The Washington Post
Estelle Erasmus, Adjunct Professor, New York University’s School of Professional Studies

Tips from A Washington Post Editor to Get You Published
NYU Center for Publishing and Applied Liberal Arts
Continuing Education Programs

Excerpts:

Allison Klein: [“The Inspired Life” blog consists of] surprising and unusual life stories. In the news, we don’t cover landings. We cover plane crashes. This blog is about before the plane landed, a teacher received $600 from others on the plane to buy things for her students. The blog covers stories that don’t always get attention.

Estelle Erasmus: It feels like a grassroots situation.

Klein: What really resonates with our readers are “moment” stories: spontaneous acts of kindness and generosity that are surprising. We don’t write about established organizations. We very much like to stay close to the news, but it doesn’t have to be connected to the news.

• Example not connected to the news: A woman who lost her arm in a motorcycle accident reclaimed her fake arm with fashion and styling.

• News-related example: On 9/11, a woman was on a plane that was diverted to Newfoundland, Canada. Her former boyfriend died in the Twin Towers. The story was about what that meant to her.

I don’t normally like anniversary stories. [I like] tragedy and trauma stories turned positive. We only accept whole pieces, not pitches. These stories rely on the quality of the writing.

Erasmus: When it comes to the essay, it’s all in the execution, not just the idea. Do you accept more than one piece?

Klein: Generally, one piece at a time. I always appreciate a mini narrative, a thread that pulls the reader through—a beginning, middle, and end, even for reported pieces. I encourage mini narratives. I want someone uniquely positioned to write one piece. If it’s a reported piece, they have to have access. It can be interviews or first-person. Timely stories that come out of disaster zones work well for us.

• Example: saving dogs during a natural disaster.

Erasmus: What do you mean about a thread through a narrative arc?

Klein: How are they telling the story? Normally people start at the beginning. Walk people through and just explain what happened. Use action verbs and emotion.

Erasmus: How are they bringing out the emotion?

Klein: All “Inspired Life” stories have an emotional element. People are drawn to “Inspired Life” stories and need a break from “the world is on fire.” Before you pitch me, read the blog a lot. We generally publish news. Is it news? Is it consequential? Is it relevant?

• Example: A guy has an emotional support alligator. A lot of people in his life recently died, and he was recently diagnosed with cancer. He has a connection to the alligator. It’s a sweet, emotional story about how people are coping. That’s why it’s news. Disclaimer: Don’t do this at home—have an alligator as a pet.

Erasmus: Posts on social media are in the moment. Take it off social media and make it a story.

Klein: I find a lot of great stories on social media. “Are a lot of people interested in this?” I am constantly scouring Instagram and TikTok. “Can we interview you? We would like to write about this?” I don’t usually ask the person to write it themselves.

Erasmus: Is there anything you don’t cover?

Klein: We don’t cover corporate givings, corporate awards, anything business-related, a heartfelt remembrance of someone, score-settling essays, nothing that accuses someone of a crime, corporations doing good things. That’s not news to us.

The only way “Inspired Life” works is if we have a diversity of voices—both the writers and the people in the stories. We try to keep things fresh and new.

• Example: A white woman and a Black woman at the same company met in the bathroom. They didn’t know each other before. (Women chat in the bathroom.) Both husbands needed kidneys. Each woman was a match for the other woman’s husband. It was a beautiful connection. [When we published the story,] the surgeries had just happened, so it was newsie.

Stories go viral all the time. Not a lot of news organizations [have columns like this]. They are usually for niche publications. These are extremely shareable stories.

• Example: a Halloween story in which a woman goes to different cemeteries and finds recipes on headstones and makes them on TikTok. People love her. What do these recipes mean? Why do you go to cemeteries? Why do people put recipes on headstones?

Erasmus: Nitty-gritty details.

Klein: The optimum word count is 1,000 to 1,200 words. The stories are as short as 600 to 800 words. They are often 1,000. People stop reading after 1,200. I’m good at cutting; writers often don’t even notice what I cut. We pay $350 per piece. We take first rights. After that, you own the story and can pitch it elsewhere: movie rights, memoirs, anthologies, etc. We take straight essays and reported essays.

Erasmus: Any submission-tip pet peeves?

Klein:

• “Hey, can you assign me a story?”

• “This would be great for The New York Times.”

• You get my name wrong.

• No pseudonyms.

If I accept a piece, I won’t fudge anything. Stick to the truth. I know what works. I know what part should start the piece. I will edit it and move stuff around. Sometimes people push back. They want to start with a quote from their grandmother.

Very important: What would be the headline? Put it in the email. It helps me determine “what is this about? Why would someone click on this? Why would people be interested in this?”

Erasmus: The “so what.” What’s universal? A nugget.

Klein: A little bit of wisdom. A takeaway. What can I take from this to incorporate it into my life? I would reiterate read the blog before you pitch. Get a feel for what we do. Ideas will pop out at you.

Most readers are national. Ten to fifteen percent are international. The bar is higher for international pieces.

The blog is only online, but the individual stories often get picked up for other sections of The Washington Post [sometimes for print].

The stories have to be universal or deeply personal—something you learned. If it’s a story from thirty years ago, there has to be something full circle that’s recent, unless it makes me fall on the floor. Come full circle on an older story.

You can submit a story about someone else with permission. How do you know them?

If it’s published before on a small blog, it’s a case by case basis. It’s not my preference, but if it’s an incredible story, yes.

Response time: After a week, feel free to ping me again. If I love it, I’ll get right back to you. I do try to respond to everyone. If it’s uplifting and you think a lot of people will read it, submit it.

I still want a full draft if it’s someone I’ve worked with before.

I do like bios and links, but the story is way more important. If you’ve written for The Washington Post, send a link for sure.

Do you need a platform on Instagram or TikTok? Definitely not.

We run three to five stories a week. Three is a slow week. Five is usual. We have more reported pieces than personal pieces, but I really like first-person reported pieces.

I get about ten to fifteen submissions per day, and two regular writers send five a day, so I receive twenty to forty a day total.

Email allison.klein@washpost.com. Follow Klein on Twitter at alliklein.

Why THC and CBD Aren’t for Me

Before vape pens, chocolatey edibles, and cannabis tea, college co-eds fashioned makeshift bongs out of empty cola bottles and cored apples. When I was 22, dating a burgeoning pothead who tried unsuccessfully to grow a brittle marijuana plant with a heat lamp, my only drug experience was drinking cough-syrup-flavored wine coolers and domestic beer. That year, however, I smoked a joint twice, the sensation of burning coals scorching my throat. An involuntary cough was met with no payoff; I felt nothing else. Then one night I hit the homemade bong, and my body plummeted 30 imaginary feet through my boyfriend’s couch cushions as I heard a nearby friend speak the same sentence 10 times in a row—my first and last auditory hallucination.

“A match made in heaven,” one of my boyfriend’s sober roommates said, as he watched us devour day-old grocery-store apple pie, potato chips, and Butterfinger BB’s. I only left the couch to stare at my sweaty, abstract face in the bathroom mirror. That night I slept hard and awakened with a lead belly. My foggy brain struggled through the aftermath. I wasn’t impressed.

For years after, marijuana was everywhere. Subsequent lovers smoked it; smelly clouds filled concert stadiums; a neighbor grew six-foot-high plants below my patio; joints were passed freely, but I never partook again, until one night when I was 37 and already drunk. A handsome party host thrust a scent-less vaporizer in my face. I took two hits without thinking. Immediately, the house got hot; voices receded, and I started to spin. I puked and woke up with a top-three hangover. It’s true: Mixing booze and weed is bad.

Eight years later, I purchased avocado-oil-infused Indica tincture from the local legal dispensary, hoping it would lessen my lifelong anxiety and tame my tense stomach, like others who’d professed benefits of small doses sans alcohol. I’d heard, “I smoke weed because I can’t afford therapy,” and “THC did more for my stomach pain than CBD alone.” I was convinced.

I took less than half a dose. Within a half-hour, I couldn’t finish dinner. By 6:30 p.m. I lay in a spiral on my daybed. My heart thumped in my ears. My hands shook. My back muscles seized. My neck stiffened. An imaginary knife stabbed under my rib cage, and I was nauseous. I thought I hope no one texts me because I won’t be able to respond.

Sleep was fitful. Awake from 2:30 a.m. on, relieved the ordeal was over, I thought never again. Recollecting my ex’s glassy eyes, I marveled at how people function on marijuana. Even its scent is now stress-inducing.

Indica is used to lessen anxiety, curb insomnia, and promote a robust appetite, but for us outliers, the opposite is true. It’s official: I’m not a stoner.

One doesn’t have to be a stoner, however, to benefit from CBD. It’s found in the same plant as THC, but it doesn’t produce a high. Perfect for people who want to manage pain and anxiety and still function, right? Acquaintances call it their favorite natural antidepressant without the side effects. CBD is promoted for low energy levels, pain, stress, mood disorders, insomnia, and lack of appetite. It is an anti-inflammatory agent that comes in oils, creams, capsules, gummies, e-cigs, and even mascara. (What does that do?) It has been incorporated into bath salts, hair pomade, toothpaste, coffee, suppositories (yikes!), and even dog treats. I recently saw prominent CBD displays at CVS and the local mall, and August 8 is now National CBD Day. It’s hyped, but does it work?

Two years ago, I spritzed a low dose of peppermint-flavored CBD oil on my tongue for six days. The results were frustrating: nausea, insomnia, and a headache in the center of my forehead, none of which subsided. CBD gave me the energy of a teenager and eradicated my lower back pain, but, after minimal sleep and a compromised appetite, I returned to my go-to stress-reduction combination of pinot noir and the gym’s elliptical machine. I felt gypped.

Marijuana is now fully legal in DC and 11 states, including two in which I’ve lived: California and Washington. The rest of the country is mixed, with several states offering legal medicinal marijuana or CBD only. Cannabis makes me miserable, but I can’t deny it benefits others and disagree with the hesitation to make it legal nationwide. Joe Biden recently said he’d have to see much more evidence to suggest marijuana isn’t a “gateway drug,” a term I thought we rightly left in the ‘80s. To not allow people to choose the form of stress and pain relief that works without the threat of incarceration is malarkey. I will avoid THC and CBD but support anyone who finds either an ameliorant in this unpredictable, volatile time. I’m grateful cannabis is available, even if I can’t enjoy it. At least now I know.

Not the Opposite of Loneliness

“Do you like Seattle?” I asked my friend, whom I hadn’t seen in eight years. He’d been living in Washington for three. Before that, he’d spent most of his adult life in San Francisco and Los Angeles, where he once spent a summer on my former roommate’s couch so he could use the house copy of Final Cut Pro to edit his feature film.

Seeing him for brunch in September after I moved to the Pacific Northwest made me feel less homesick.

“No,” he said. “Sorry, I know you just moved here.”

We laughed.

He wanted to move back to California in part because he hadn’t had long-term luck dating and making friends and was caught up on all the Netflix shows.

Seattle “has no culture or diversity,” he said. “They think they do, but they don’t, and people hate when I say that.”

We talked about being in our 40s, not having our own families, and living in perpetual limbo.

“Why do we keep doing this to ourselves?” he asked.

I don’t own a couch because I’ll just have to move it again at the end of June—to where, I have no clue.

“I don’t know,” I said, but I understood what he meant.

***

One night a couple weeks before Christmas, when I, too, grew weary of Netflix, I ventured out to check off a cocktail bar from a recommended list of go-to Seattle spots.

I chose The Backdoor, a self-proclaimed speakeasy. Modern speakeasies are usually quiet and classy, perfect for a whiskey-sipping old lady like me. I fixed my hair, took off my day jeans, and put on my night jeans—my version of dressing up.

When I got there, a sign on the door said it was closed for a private party for 30 more minutes. I considered scrapping my solo date night and heading to Whole Foods, but I waited.

The Backdoor is not a speakeasy. It was too bright; they played loud hip hop and bad 80s music, and there was a disco ball. It reminded me of Taco Tuesdays in my 20s. I was the oldest person there by 15 years. No one glanced in my direction.

Being an invisible middle-aged woman is drama-free, but that doesn’t mean I always want strangers to look through me as if I don’t exist, especially now that I live in a state where I can count on two hands how many acquaintances I have, and I don’t see most of them, except my uncle and my roommate, who is usually traveling. As I suspected, a lonely telecommuter is much lonelier in a new place.

I tried another bar—a place I’d already been a couple years ago when I was visiting: Bathtub Gin. In 2016, when I told a bartender there, who was also from Long Beach, “I like rain,” he said, “Wait until it rains every day for a month.”

I can’t say I wasn’t warned.

Bathtub Gin is a speakeasy, and I felt hip knowing where the hidden door in the alley was without circling the street confused—like last time. Inside, I beelined for the busy upstairs, ready to mingle.

A server stopped me and said, “There’s plenty of room in the downstairs library.”

“Okay,” I said, deflated as she guided me away from possibility.

In the quiet, dim downstairs library, where low-level jazz music played, I was relegated to a high-backed leather chair, sitting across from two older gentlemen from the UK and three Millennials who huddled together as if to keep warm. A tiny, fake Christmas tree stood in the corner.

I sunk into the chair and ordered a drink called a Dapper as Fuck.

I smiled a couple times at the UK dudes and eavesdropped on the Millennials’ conversation, trying not to be too obvious and creepy.

“If he comes by my desk and swings his balls in my face, it doesn’t work for me,” I overheard, but I missed the context of that juicy nugget.

I was as incognito as the little Christmas tree.

The leather chair swallowed me like a toddler. It took work to reach over the armrest to grab my cocktail. As people chatted around me, I scrolled through Twitter on my iPhone, which is what I would have been doing at home. Here, I was alone in a crowd, and it was more expensive.

I went home having talked to no one aside from wait staff. That night I was invited to an LA literary community facebook page. I joined.

***

Recently at a trade show in San Diego, several people asked, “How do you like Seattle?” I said, “I want to like Seattle.”

When I drive around, I think this place would be cool if I had a life here.

It’s so pretty! It’s so green! The neighborhoods are so cute!

Before winter, I put in more effort. I signed up on Meetup.com to find other hikers and writers with whom to congregate. I joined a hiking group for singles in their 40s. All the invitations for day hikes, however, went something like this: “Let’s meet at 6:00 AM for coffee on Saturday morning, drive two hours, hike eight miles, and then drive back!”

I did the math: an eight-hour Saturday starting before the sun came up, none of which included food or bathroom breaks. Plus, the invitations had multiple grammatical errors. This was not what I signed up for.

Who are these fanatics? I wondered. What about hiking four miles locally at a reasonable time, then hitting happy hour?

And the one legit writing group I found meets on Wednesdays at 3:00.

Don’t these people have jobs?

I deleted my account.

Then I signed up on Bumble. Again.

I have never been on one online date, despite having scrolled through more than one dating app on more than a few occasions.

The last time I was on Bumble, I came across a friend’s abusive ex-boyfriend with court records to prove it, who is now married with a small child. I reported him to Bumble and deleted my account. (Bumble thanked me.)

This time, I was curious to find out if the men on Bumble in a new location might be more appealing than the ones I found in Los Angeles.

Spoiler alert: Online dating profiles are the same depressing charade everywhere, only more men in the Pacific Northwest post smiley photos with giant freshly-caught fish, whereas in Southern California, one can’t swipe twice without matching with an avid surfer.

I swiped right on about four or five men, only one of whom liked me back. Our conversation was limited. I introduced myself. Ten hours later when I was in bed watching TV, he responded, “How’s your night going!!!” with three giant red exclamation points. I waited until morning to respond because “I’m watching HBO, falling asleep” isn’t sexy, and his timing was presumptuous. He didn’t write back.

I deleted my account. Again.

***

Did I mention my stalker?

One of the perks of my apartment complex is a bright, clean gym in the leasing office. Early on, I used it often. But one day, as I walked through the door, a guy dressed in street clothes pretending to lift weights greeted me, stood next to my machine, and talked to me through my entire workout. He was from the Midwest, so I chalked up his friendly exuberance to origin.

We exchanged numbers with the intention of going on an innocuous, neighborly walk sometime in the future.

I knew I’d made a mistake when, that night, I received a goodnight text. When I was working the next day, he asked what I was doing and proceeded to ask question after condescending question, until he was providing unsolicited, audacious advice without knowing anything about me. I got angry. I stopped responding. He kept texting.

So much for being nice.

Saturday morning before 9:00 AM, after I’d blown him off, he texted, “Chelsey, wake up!” and said we were going for a walk. I responded I was already up, reading a book, and feeling sluggish. “Have a good walk,” I said. Then the full-on harassment commenced. He begged and became incensed when I didn’t text back. Two hours later, he called. I didn’t answer. I was scared.

I was also pissed my exercise sanctuary was ruined.

The next time I went to the gym, I did so during lunch with an elevated heart rate before getting on the elliptical, hoping he was at work. Two minutes later, he stood behind me, asking, “When are we going for a walk?”

I told him I was leaving town, which was true.

Now I have anxiety every time I go to the gym, so I usually don’t bother, despite not having seen him since before Christmas.

When I went home for the holidays, my girlfriends’ response was questionable once we found his photo online: “He’s cute. You should give him a chance.”

“Did you hear what I just said?”

I told them his full name in case anything happened to me. I’ve been listening to too many murder-related podcasts. Around a kitchen table, they held a mock Dateline interview in response to my future demise and posed pensively for Instagram photos, as if I was already gone.

“Being stalked is not the opposite of loneliness,” another friend said.

Bingo.

That’s when a long-forgotten Twitter stalker popped into my private messages. “Hi there,” he said.

I blocked him.

***

“It’s all about the people,” a fellow Californian said. She lives in Ohio and warned me before I moved. We often discuss our similar dilemmas. We were edged out of California’s steep housing market, but we spend our days missing loved ones, and the amount of money we save on housing is spent on plane tickets to visit family instead. It’s a wash, so what are we doing?

Moving to Seattle was like my first time snowboarding when I couldn’t tell what foot to put forward until I had the rental board in the snow and clicked into it left-foot forward and thought, “Nope!” and instantly knew I was goofy.

It took driving a moving truck more than 1,100 miles to figure out I don’t want to make a whole new batch of friends in a darker, wetter, colder place; I just want to see the ones I already have.

But I haven’t given up yet. Hugo House is a bright spot, where I’ve taken a few writing workshops, participated in a reading, gathered the oomph to finish a difficult essay, and realized for sure my idea for a short story is, in fact, a novel. (I’m doomed.)

Everyone has been gracious, but I’ve only made one friend there so far, a lovely woman I’m meeting for dinner this weekend, weather permitting.

Turns out, while Seattleites are pros when it comes to rain, they have no idea what to do with snow. With the snow came the shutdowns. Everything was canceled. The grocery store was some Red Dawn end-of-the-world shit. The bread aisle was empty. The water and other survival goods were cleared out. I didn’t know whether I should be more worried, or if everyone else needed to calm down.

The ducks outside my apartment weren’t concerned. They were frolicking in the fluffy white wonderland. I was giddy at first too. Snow is a novelty, but the novelty has already melted. I’m not sure how people do interminable winters confined indoors. My cabin fever has spiked, and right now I just want to go home. Wherever that is.

Food is Love, Unless You’re Intolerant

I was in a new grocery store, in a new town, alone in a new state, wondering if I’d find my new car in the parking lot when I returned. I’d mustered the strength to turn off my new Roku and crawl out of bed, feverish with a gnarly virus that seemed to start as a cold, but by the weekend was the full-blown flu. And I had no food in the house. Or, rather, I had no food I was able to eat anymore that wouldn’t be ill-advisedly fed to the ducks below my balcony instead.

I’d just purchased sliced medium cheddar and a new box of whole grain waffles I’d never open. The cheddar sat expectantly in the fridge next to the two containers of unopened yogurt, near the half-eaten eggs, light mayo, and string cheese I would later throw in the trash, despite the fresh box of Lactaid tablets I still had under my bathroom sink. In the door was a nearly full bottle of light ranch dressing I didn’t know what to do with and soy sauce that would now go unused.

I stumbled through Fred Meyer, unable to concentrate, deciding how much food to throw into the cart before giving up and scrambling back to bed. I passed the butter, cheese, yogurt, and milk without a second glance. I slid by the eggs, eyeing them with a whimper. I skirted around the candy aisle where my beloved Dove dark chocolates would remain forever, and the frozen foods I’d never bothered with anyway.

I halted in front of the bread. I picked up the healthiest, nuttiest, seediest, whole wheat-est loaf I could find and read the label. Sugar. I picked up another loaf. Sugar. I tried rye and potato bread, and I scanned the label on the muffins with the nooks and crannies. All sugar. I gave up on bread and set out to locate a bottle of non-creamy salad dressing. Light dressing. Sugar. Balsamic dressing. Sugar. Natural anything. Sugar. Cough drops. Sugar.

Or lemon.

Then I read the label on the Veganaise.

Lemon! Fuck!

I put it back and wondered what I was supposed to mix with tuna now, and what I would even put it on, since I am apparently done with store-bought bread.

I crept into the soup aisle and picked up my favorite sick-time chicken noodle soup in a box. Sugar. And egg noodles.

It had been years since I’d read labels beyond the exclamations on the front that screamed, “Local! Organic! Healthy!” As I wiped my sweaty brow and tried not to drop from weakness and chills, it dawned on me I would no longer be able to eat anything I didn’t make from scratch, and just then, I was too sick to cook.

How am I supposed eat out anymore? How will I socialize? I wondered. I’ll become more of a recluse than ever and die alone for sure!

I wanted to plop onto the cold, hard floor and throw a spectacular tantrum in front of all the cereal I would never buy again. I mourned the decaf lattes I would never drink. I mourned bananas and blueberries. I even mourned grapefruit, but only the juicy red kind from the farmers market.

What am I supposed to have for breakfast now? I thought. I can’t have oatmeal and tea every day!

This was a sick joke for a woman whose motto is “food is my replacement for sex.”

If an adult with a fever pounds her fists on the grocery store linoleum and screams into the abyss, and none of her loved ones are within miles to witness it, does it really happen?

After an hour trolling the store, my reading glasses perched on my nose, coughing into the crook of my arm, trying not to sneeze on other customers, I brought my weird assortment of half-vegan-half-not goodies to the counter, forgoing the sparkling water I couldn’t find because I no longer had the energy to stand.

As I unloaded the cart, the checkout dude looked perplexed.

Join the club, buddy.

I wiped my snotty nose on my sleeve and fought the tickle in my throat, as the teenager rang up my sugar-free steel-cut oats, sugar-free organic chicken broth, carrots, celery, rice, strawberries, agave syrup, crackers, olives, sardines, unsweetened almond milk, blanched almonds, lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, peppers, avocados, spices, Earth Balance vegan butter spread, and tofu. Then he grabbed the giant ribeye off the conveyor belt and asked, “Who’s the tofu for?”

***

Fifteen years earlier, the nurse at the outpatient surgery center hooked me up to an IV in anticipation of the Demerol and Versed that would make me “forget” the impending EGD procedure in a blissed-out, semi-awake state. The doctor was late. The longer I lay there hooked up to the IV with no drugs, the more nervous I got. He finally arrived in a hurry, administered the drugs and said, “Goodnight,” with a smile.

For months before, I kept returning to his office to explain my lifelong and worsening symptoms with no results, unending stomach pain my biggest complaint. He never believed me. I was 30, too young to have anything wrong with me. What a silly girl I was. He asked me repeatedly during each visit, “Are you sure you’re not pregnant?”

He sent me to the hospital for expensive x-rays that weren’t covered under my insurance, mostly to placate me and fill his wallet, I imagined, tests that involved drinking barium and holding still for much longer than an anxiety-ridden patient can handle without feeling traumatized. I referred to myself as a “guinea pig.” The tests showed nothing. I was angry and continued to live in pain, my guts bloated and blocked.

While looking at x-rays in an ER one late night when I thought I might need emergency gall bladder surgery, another physician once asked, “Has anyone every told you you’re full of it?”

But my current doctor was now about to stick a camera down my throat, and we would see, once and for all, what was wrong with me, only he didn’t wait for the drugs to kick in.

He promised I wouldn’t remember anything. I remember everything, except the recovery room.

I sobbed as I choked on the thick tube with the camera on the tip. He told me to relax. I cried some more, unable to communicate to the doctor, “Take this fucking thing out of my throat! You’re killing me!”

He pointed to a large screen, where a bright, clear image of the insides of my stomach appeared: a fleshy, wet, gurgling bag of raw skin.

“Everything looks normal,” I remember him saying.

I gagged and cried harder. Then I blacked out.

***

If that gastroenterologist hadn’t died soon after my procedure of surprise liver cancer, I would write him a letter today to explain, at 45, I finally know what’s wrong with me. I could prove it to him with lab results.

I’d say, “See! I’m not a malingerer after all!”

After a blood test and a tedious, ghastly three-day investigation requiring liquid poison in test tubes, biohazard bags, and stir sticks, I awaited my results with trepidation. Was it a bacteria imbalance, or was my beloved food the culprit all along?

On September 17th, I stared at extensive, disturbing bar graphs that suggested my body has antibodies that “react” to a strange assortment of stuff, and here it is: casein, cheese, milk, whey, yogurt, eggs, coffee beans, sugar cane, brewer’s yeast, bananas, blueberries, cranberries, grapefruit, lemon, pineapple, clams, crab, amaranth, sesame seeds, and mushrooms.

From this day forward, the doctor said, I should avoid all these items. My initial reaction was one of denial.

There’s no way. I can’t do this. I will just suffer. How will I live without these things? Isn’t there a magic pill I can take instead?

“What about wine?” I asked, panicked. “Can I still drink wine? Does it have brewer’s yeast in it?”

She said the brewer’s yeast in wine was “negligible,” and it shouldn’t be a problem. She also said whiskey was fine because it’s distilled.

Well, thank fucking god for that. If I must give up chocolate, I sure as hell can’t give up all alcohol.

But I won’t miss beer. I always knew that shit made me feel terrible.

I put the paperwork aside and tried not to think about it for the rest of the day. On the 18th, I got serious about listening to what the doc said. I would give this a serious shot because, if it worked, it would change my life.

Within a couple weeks, I didn’t really miss cheese anymore, and I only miss sugar on certain days, like when my nephew’s homemade Oreo cookie birthday cake was staring me in the face. (I had one bite.) In an unexpected twist, now, when I read labels and find food that only has ingredients that don’t bother my insides, I think oh my god, I can eat this!

And it turns out, you can have rolled oats every day for breakfast. I top them with strawberries, agave, almond milk, and nuts, which I never used to eat, and the outcome is delicious.

But I still have anxiety about eating out. I don’t want to be that person, the high-maintenance one who requests special treatment and this and that on the side. I have always prided myself on going with the flow and eating everything somewhat healthy that’s put in front of me. I even apologized to my family and told them I’d try not to ruin their good time.

And that was part of my problem. Not standing up for what’s best for me. Talk about the ultimate in not practicing self-care, then lying awake at night, with a bowling ball stomach that perpetually made me look five months pregnant and sounded like a Demogorgon. No thanks.

The tests were expensive—also not covered by my insurance—but it was worth it because I never would have determined what food I shouldn’t eat on my own. I was focusing on the wrong things. With steak and sautéed mushrooms, I thought it was the steak; with sushi, I thought it was the raw fish, not the soy sauce, which contains brewer’s yeast. And I thought I was lactose intolerant, but in addition to that, my body rejects dairy completely.

The thing is the results seem legit, and I was skeptical. I often wake up with a flatter, pain-free stomach that doesn’t drag me down. When I finished eating at a restaurant after ditching the buttery sauce that was supposed to come on my dish, I felt, dare I say, fine. And I never feel fine.

Everyone has been so supportive, especially my family and close friends, who have given me suggestions: nutritious gourmet vegan and fish recipes, yogurt made from cashews, pasta made from vegetables, breakfast bowls, and a bread recipe I can make myself. I never thought I’d be this person, but here I am. With a lot of planning and a lot of questions bestowed on restaurant staff, I will be a better version of me, and my body has been begging for this for decades.

Bye, Pizza Port. It was scrumptious—and excruciating—while it lasted.

In Search of Home

The unkempt woman with missing teeth said she’d show us the available ground-floor, one-bedroom apartment. Strike one: The apartment wasn’t upstairs, and I swore I’d never again live under late-night, lumbering footsteps. As we passed a grubby man changing a tire on a crappy car in the oil-stained parking lot outside my would-be apartment, I already knew I’d never sign a lease there. The stairs led down to the ground-floor living space. The woman from the leasing office made an offhand comment about it, as if gloomy basement dungeons were standard “first floor” rentals.

The apartment was akin to other empty apartments we’d seen that day—and those I would subsequently trudge through multiple times that week, feeling increasingly distraught. It was dismal, weathered, and claustrophobic. With three large steps, I was able to see all 675 square feet. (And that was larger than the other one bedrooms.) Depressing shades of decades-old brown covered every surface: brown outdoor paint, brown carpet, brown cabinets, and a brown fireplace. I nodded, thanked the leasing agent, and thought this is the place where sad, lonely people like me go to die.

I glanced at my uncle with big eyes, and we shook our heads hell no behind the lady’s back.

My uncle later said, “If it’s that dark in the summer, imagine it in the winter.”

Yes, and imagine all the rain I’m not used to.

On the way back to the leasing office, where I would retrieve my California driver’s license and escape this white trash refuge of misery on the outskirts of Seattle, we witnessed a young couple in another beat-up car parked with the hood up. They were screaming at each other. The leasing agent pretended not to notice. Instead she reminded us of the small, unclean gym and leaf-strewn, vacant outdoor pool. She said parking wasn’t “too bad,” and rent came with all-night security.

“The rent on the one bedroom is $1,325,” she said.

Fuck me.

***

I lived in my last apartment for 15 miserable months. When a slick, chatty landlord says, “Trust me,” don’t trust him. When you never meet him, even though his mailing address is a block away, don’t trust him. When he says the building is brimming with other women of a certain age—a readymade coffee klatch—don’t trust him then either.

I moved into a large downstairs studio in a vintage building with eight other studios on the border of Alamitos Beach and downtown Long Beach four blocks from the ocean. Tons of light, wood floors, a full kitchen, an extra vanity space adjacent to the bathroom, two giant closets, and a do-able price tag of $1,075—not including $45 for parking from 9:00 PM to 8:00 AM at the sketchy laundromat across the street.

My windows faced an empty building, an inviting backyard with a picnic table, and a high fence. On the other side of the fence was the patio of a day spa. It seemed I’d struck cozy and convenient housing gold. The landlord said, “If you don’t sign the lease by tomorrow, it will be gone.” On the spot, I decided this would be my new home for at least a year.

Within three weeks, it was clear the 27-year-old whose floor was my ceiling was nocturnal, and although the landlord promised one individual per unit, her glassy-eyed, Medusa-haired boyfriend with no ostensible employment unofficially moved in. I determined she worked in more than one bar to fund their questionable lifestyle, and when they’d return late on weeknights, it wasn’t with the intent to sleep. The first time I heard the repetitive slamming of her solid wood headboard against the wall, I was at my desk working in the late morning. At first, I thought a new tenant must be hammering nails. But then the same noise awakened me in the middle of the night.

The volatile lovebirds developed a maddening routine. They’d barrel through their front door between 1:00 AM and 4:00 AM, their brash, indecipherable voices echoing through the hall. Within 30 minutes, he’d be pummeling her. From my limited memory, the jackhammering was what I could only assume was terrible sex. You’re doing it wrong, I thought. My apartment was an earthquake at least four nights a week, until my landlord convinced them to move her bed. Her scrawny boyfriend trampled a nonstop path to the bathroom with his apparent elephant feet. Muffled pillow talk lasted for a couple more hours before they’d finally fall asleep just before my alarm went off.

Despite repeated attempts to reason with her, and my landlord’s stern threats to evict her, there was a mental disconnect between her actions and consequences. It was baffling. I tried to remember if we were like that in our 20s and thought if someone had ever threatened to evict me, I’d have been mortified. But I did recall oblivious shared-wall parties and close-proximity screwing and thought payback is a real bitch. In a constant sleep-deprived stupor, my anxiety and anger spiked to epic, sweat-producing proportions. I stumbled through life in a bitter haze.

She finally gave notice to move in with her boyfriend officially elsewhere and packed her belongings. In the middle of the night. Then they broke up. She swore he was out of her life and begged our landlord to let her stay. He said, “Okay, but you have to be as quiet as a church mouse.” She agreed. That night she unpacked and moved furniture. In the middle of the night. At that point, I was convinced she was a cokehead or a speed freak. Two weeks later, the boyfriend was back, and their regular habits began anew, just as I’d promised my landlord would happen. I came unglued.

I’d lie in bed, my heart pounding with dread, my stomach twisted, questioning every decision I’d ever made that led me to the point of being 44 years old living in the equivalent of an off-campus dorm, with no prospects for love of my own. My incapacitating loneliness, however, did not translate into jealousy of the girl getting regularly fucked upstairs. I didn’t wish I was her; I just wished they’d shut the hell up.

By the time my neighbor was officially asked to vacate the premises, I’d survived a year of agony, frequently retreating with a backpack and a pillow to my parents’ peaceful home an hour away to regain my sanity. On moving day, the sound of a dresser being lugged down the stairs was joyous. Get out. Get out. Get out! I thought, jumping up and down.

My landlord screened possible new tenants with supposed care and then chose another 27-year-old girl who worked weird hours in the food and beverage industry. She’d heard the story of the prior nightmare and appeared sympathetic to my plight. She warned me she was having a housewarming party one night that might last until 11:00 PM, and another night I drank wine with her, lounging on her bed. I was sure my life was about to improve. It didn’t.

Within six weeks, she had a new boyfriend, and all rules of etiquette dissolved. There was no headboard, only a broken-down mattress that was surely housing small, squeaky rodents and full cans of sloshing soda. Precious sleep continued to allude me.

I kindly mentioned we lived in the same house and asked her to be considerate in the dead of night.

“But I’m dating now,” she whined. So, fuck your ability to function during business hours.

This time, I’m the one who left.

***

I’ve found temporary refuge. My belongings are in the same storage facility as when I went on an extended Pacific Northwest road trip two years ago. I chose to leave a previous problem apartment in favor of living out of my Honda Civic, Airbnbs, and my uncle’s serene four-bedroom house in Maple Valley, Washington, the mortgage of which is the same as my sister’s current two-bedroom place in Long Beach, where I now sleep under a staircase in a tiny room that used to store my nephew’s toys before I rolled out a beige rug and moved in my mattress, an IKEA nightstand, and baskets of clothes. It’s fewer than 60 square feet of tranquility, complete with a built-in bookshelf, a glass door, and a window that opens to fresh air. My generous sister allows me to use her living room as an office, and my five-year-old nephew didn’t squawk when I acquired his walk-in closet. Every day is a “sleepover,” he says. The three of us have been sharing a bathroom since March, and it’s the most at home I’ve felt since I lived in my childhood home, where my parents still reside.

But if home is where the heart is, home is no longer a place but a longing. When I started looking for new apartments before escaping entitled neighbor hell, I made a list of what I needed to be baseline happy: the ability to sleep uninterrupted in a larger bed than I currently possess; my desk and bed in separate rooms (no more studios); no non-family roommates—unless romance is involved; a companion puppy (in lieu of a boyfriend); a gym in close proximity, since the one I used to go to closed; and a parking space. (Adding 30 minutes to every drive-time makes me insane.) This list doesn’t mention a literary community, excellent restaurants, close friends, and decent hiking spots, all important too. (I’d also someday like to date again, if I could only remember how.)

I’ve had the same quality job for 12 years; I’m not poor. But I’m also not independently wealthy, a doctor, lawyer, tech guru, or salesperson—the types of required professions to now be able to afford housing in desirable areas, I’ve learned. While in survival mode, combatting a contingent of self-absorbed Millennials, I didn’t notice I’d been priced out of the market in a state I’ve lived in since I was born, apart from a stint near Atlanta, where I’d have an ample dreamhouse if I hadn’t called off a wedding. (I still maintain I made the right choice.)

For the last couple years, I’ve debated the same dilemma with no answer: live near family and friends in a diminutive apartment that will never feel like home, stagnating in well-tread water, or move away from almost everyone I love to have a shot at creating my own life, where I run the risk of further isolation. It seems counterintuitive for a solitary person to become even more self-contained, so I promised myself if I did move, I’d force myself to interact with new people in new ways. (Online dating? Oh, the panic-inducing horror!) My excitement for a fresh start is tempered by the thought of missing out on my nephew growing up. What I want is impossible: to move and take everyone with me.

***

Scouring Hotpads, the exhaustive search for a new apartment in Southern California becoming increasingly futile, I zoomed out to look at a map of the rest of the country. In the back of my head, Seattle and Denver have always been options, so that’s where my eyes focused. What I found in and around Seattle gave me hope: one-bedroom apartments that were the same or less than the studios of Los Angeles. I made lists of places to visit, repeatedly returning to the photos of a newer building with an island in the kitchen and laundry in the unit. What I failed to remember while perusing these glossy, photoshopped photos of open space, staged, matching furniture, and rolling green hills was website photos LIE. Even the basement dungeon looked promising online. And the apartment I was most hopeful about was, in real life, a soulless, high-rise structure surrounded by nothing but parking lot. Plus, it was low-income housing, not mentioned on their website. I didn’t come close to qualifying. How does one who makes less than $44,000 a year even afford this place? I thought as I left the leasing office.

I put 16 apartments in the “no” column on my visit to Washington, some of which I only drove past, and one of which was a place I knew I couldn’t afford before visiting, with its rooftop jacuzzi and an expansive garden. By then, I wanted to see something spectacular, even if I couldn’t have it. The leasing agent asked, “What’s your budget?” after sharing the one bedrooms started at over $1,700. I stifled a laugh. “Don’t worry about it,” I said. She showed me a studio with a den. It was new, but it wasn’t bigger than what I was used to, and I wouldn’t have wanted to live in that fancy building anyway. It was a gleaming hotel in a shitty neighborhood.

One bright light that week kept me going: the neighborhood across the street from where my uncle lived before he bought his house eight years ago. It was grassy with a dog park, a lake, a high-ceilinged gym, and a large, sparkly pool. We were shown an already rented apartment that hadn’t been moved into yet. It was upstairs on a corner with tons of windows and light and a gorgeous green view. The rooms were bigger than the square footage suggested. The second I walked in, I had a glimmer of hope for a home.

“That one,” my uncle said.

“Yep.”

If it had been available then, I would have signed a lease. Instead, the friendly woman at the front desk took my information and told me to call her on July 11th, when the next round of notices would be given. She had streaks of purple in her platinum blond hair, and her arms were sleeved with pastel tattoos. I liked her immediately. She lived there herself and had gotten a dog the previous day, an auspicious sign. When I returned a week later before heading to the airport to inform her it was the only place I’d liked all week, she said, “That’s what I like to here.” She put my name at the top of the list, emailed photos, and restored my faith in 27-year-old women.

One problem: The rent there fluctuates based on supply and demand and spans from “I can swing it if I don’t eat out as much” to “I’ll no longer be able to pay for my expensive bladder medication if I live there.”

It would be a stretch, but maybe a stretch is what I need.

I’m still unsure if I have the courage to move out of state alone, even though I continue to live in a treacherous state I know better than any other: limbo. Limbo is an internal home I’ve cultivated over many years of succumbing to fear. I telecommute; I don’t have children; my last real relationship ended 10 years ago. By all accounts, no middle-aged woman is freer, and yet I feel trapped. I can’t escape myself by retreating to a new landscape. The toy room is safe. In some ways, I’ve always lived in the toy room. But I can’t inhabit it forever.

So, what should I do?

Netflix and Chill

Netflix and chill and drink decaf tea, but not the kind that says “Sleepytime” because it’s only 4:40 in the afternoon. Watch Broadchurch season 3 episode 2 and promise yourself you won’t rewind it when you don’t understand what the Scottish dude is saying. Turn up the volume just enough not to annoy the neighbors. Strain to listen. Miss chunks of the dialogue. Realize it doesn’t matter. Try to remember who killed the boy in season 1. Fail to remember if the murderer was convicted in season 2. Berate yourself because you should be writing instead. Read three pages of a new book. Put it down. Continue to feel unproductive. Open the bottle of pinot you were saving for Christmas Eve. Decide you can buy a new one tomorrow.

Shiver in your lounge chair while you watch the rest of Broadchurch season 3 episode 2 because the space heater doesn’t heat your apartment quickly enough, and you’re too lazy to get a blanket. Play “crank” in Words with Friends and open a triple against the friend who beats you every time, but you continue to play against him because you’re a glutton for punishment. Fret about the giant gouge you made in your cellphone glass yesterday because you haven’t paid off half of your iPhone 7 yet. Delete your embarrassing Facebook posts from 2008 under the “On This Day” tab. Refresh your Twitter feed. Stress about nuclear war and whether or not your imbecile president is becoming a dictator. Wish Paul Ryan had food poisoning. Refresh Twitter feed again. Look at photos of the SpaceX launch. Decide it looks like a flying jellyfish. Google Elon Musk. Decide you have two years to become successful.

Facebook stalk the love of your life. Facebook stalk the other guy you wish you were fucking. Try to remember how many months it’s been since someone kissed you. Remember it’s Friday night. Google “dating apps for writers.” Find only one, and it looks janky. Think who am I kidding? Daydream about an invisible personal chef or an imaginary husband making you dinner. Realize that’s not going to happen in the next 15 minutes. Scrape yourself out of the chair to stir fry enough vegetables and cook a large enough steak to have leftovers. Pour a second glass of wine. Turn on Judd Apatow’s new standup special. Wish you had children. Google how old Judd Apatow is. Determine you have six more years to become successful. Berate yourself because that literary agent never replied to the best query you’ve ever written. Eat the whole boneless ribeye and shovel all the zucchini and mushrooms doused in butter and olive oil into your pie-hole. Top off your wine glass.

While you pee, wipe strands of hair off the floor with toilet paper. Stare at your reflection in the mirror. Determine whether it’s time to take off your make-up and put on pajamas or venture into the world and interact with people. Consider taking a hot bath and lighting multiple candles as an attempt at “self-care.” Laugh because you have yet to do that since you moved into this apartment a year ago. Shower. Remove your make-up. Put on pajamas. Brush your fine hair. Wish it was longer. Wish it was shorter. Wish you were younger. Wipe up more strands of your hair that just fell out. Berate yourself for dying it red because you already wish you were blond again, and you’ve done this before. Contemplate whether your broken scale was correct when it said you were five pounds lighter than you thought you were. Decide it was wrong. Check the clock: 7:54.

Clean the dishes. Decide it’s early enough to drink more tea. Make the kind that says “Sleepytime.” Consider taking out the trash. Don’t because it’s cold, and your wimpy California ass can’t handle 51 degrees. Light a fancy soy candle. Thank the molecules in the air you don’t have to argue with your nonexistent children about bedtime. Berate yourself for only publishing two essays this year. Remember you rewrote a whole damn book, have a craft essay coming out next month, and wrote three more essays to publish next year. Give yourself a fucking break. Pee three more times because you drank half a bottle of wine and two cups of hot tea in the last four hours. Search your own Facebook page for old photos to post to Instagram for Flashback Friday. Don’t find any you haven’t already posted. Feel pathetic. Check your fantasy hockey scores. Realize you should have started that crappy defenseman after all. Contemplate your worth as a human being. Blow out the candle because you might be allergic.

Return to your comfy chair—with a blanket this time. Wish you hadn’t watched all of Ozark season 1 already. Press play on the next episode of Broadchurch. Strain to catch all the dialogue. Miss 20%. Wonder if it’s too early to go to bed. Be grateful you have lunch plans tomorrow. Refresh your Twitter feed again. Check out who has watched your latest Instagram story and realize it’s the same 25 people as usual. Write a 900-word blog post. Contemplate whether or not to share it. Floss. Post your blog to Twitter, recognizing maybe two people will read it. Wonder how many more Friday nights you can Netflix and chill.

In Defense of my Solo-ish Essay

Two months after I published an essay in The Washington Post, I read the comments. Here’s my response.

On January 18th, I published an essay in The Washington Post titled “I’m not an extrovert—and that makes it harder to find love.” It was an ideal publishing experience. I pitched the essay. The editor accepted it the next day. The essay was published the day after that. Plus, the editor did a superb job of cutting a 1,700-word essay to fewer than 1,000 words without changing my original intent. I was impressed.

I’d published essays before, but never on a highly visible site that included a comments section. I was tempted to read the 47 comments that followed, but after reading the first one accidentally, I heeded the advice of authors everywhere who say the number one rule of self-preservation in publishing is “don’t read the comments.”

I waited two months, long after my standard publishing anxiety dissipated. The way I saw it, if I had Internet trolls, I’d made it.

Then I read the comments.

Those who understood what I was trying to convey validated my work, and the ones who bashed me fascinated me. The part of me that’s intrigued by online trolls is the same part that took abnormal psych in college for fun. Trolls project their own adverse experiences onto strangers without appreciating a flesh-and-blood human sits on the other side of the screen. A lack of empathy accompanies blistering online arguments because anonymity makes it safe.

I don’t understand why people bother. How often have people’s minds been changed after a heated social media exchange?

Exactly.

Hell, I’ve only ever written one Yelp review.

But after reading the WaPo comments, my first inclination was to react immediately to each unfavorable post. I didn’t.

One sentence in the essay riled readers most: “I can tell within five minutes of meeting someone if there’s a chance we’ll fit together.”

Key word: “chance.”

I have written more personal essays with grittier details than this one. I hadn’t anticipated these 16 words would touch so many nerve endings. Besides, the editor revised this sentence, which first read, “I know within five minutes of meeting someone if there’s a distant chance we’ll fit together.”

If the word “distant” had been left in, would this declaration have angered people less? Maybe, but I doubt it.

Readers complained I “judge” men within five minutes of meeting them. They presumed I “audition” prospective romantic partners with a quick “evaluation” and subsequent dismissal. (Isn’t that “speed dating?”) Part of my problem is I don’t audition people at all. I don’t date. I don’t remember how.

Readers ascertained my persona based on 992 words without knowing anything else about my life or meeting me face-to-face—equivalent to the swift individual assessment for which they criticized me.

Here’s what I meant by the gut reaction I have when I first meet someone new: I have fallen in this-may-be-love at first sight more than once. In my experience, the cosmic connection—or whatever you want to call it—has often been immediate. And my intuition turns out to be correct 98% of the time. I’m usually a decent arbiter of character early on. Where I go wrong is when I employ logic to negate my instincts.

Case in point: When I met the man I married, I didn’t feel an instantaneous magnetic pull in his direction, but after six months of friendly interaction, I gave it a shot—just like the readers of my WaPo essay advised I should do. Four years later when I signed divorce papers, I thought back to my first impression: He’s not really my type. I kicked myself for not sticking to the “let’s be friends” talk I had with him after the first night he stayed at my apartment.

Second, I made a friend playing Yahoo! Hearts online the night before I turned 26. I slid him into the friend zone after meeting him and kept him there until nine years later when we finally became romantically involved. He disappeared shortly thereafter. If I’d kept him in the friend zone, we might still be in contact. As it stands, I’m flummoxed by his vanishing act.

This is not to say experiencing that swift spark in the beginning means two people are a long-term match, but, for me, it works best if I at least start with attraction. When I meet someone I really like, there tends to be a twinkle of “perhaps” from the get-go, accompanied by reverberating thoughts of, “I must know this person”; “Where has he been all my life?”; “There you are. What took you so long?”; “That guy. Is he single?”

In my experience, these fervor-at-first-sight observations almost always end up substantiated with an easy flow of conversation. And if a guy I’m drawn to is smarter than me or makes me laugh—or both—I’m toast. So, that’s why I said it only takes five minutes to have an inkling of the possibilities.

We are, after all, an amalgam of our past experiences.

Other reactions to the essay focused on my aversion to online dating. People encouraged me not to dismiss the process entirely and advised ways to make it work. I get why they made suggestions, and I value the guidance, but, if they knew me, they’d know it’s not going to happen. I’ve scrolled through hundreds of profiles; they terrify me. While I’m adept at conversing with new people I meet casually in person, the thought of forcing an encounter with someone I don’t know under the guise of potential romance freaks me out.

Recently, I met an acquaintance for coffee so she and I could get to know each other better. While I waited for her in the coffee shop, it dawned on me how I would feel if I was anticipating an online date. My heart started pounding. All I could think was thank God this isn’t a Bumble date. (We had a fantastic time.)

Here’s a further example that was cut from my WaPo essay:

“Not too long ago, I listened to a story on The Moth podcast in which a mathematician working on his Ph.D. optimized his OKCupid profile while fiddling with a supercomputer by cracking the website’s algorithms. He treated 88 coffee dates as an experiment until he met his future wife. While the story was compelling and amusing, the idea of 88 brief coffee dates filled with awkward, fidgety chitchat with strangers is right up there with listening to the dulcet sounds of a neighbor’s tile saw outside my window. I don’t have it in me to treat dating like a job hunt. There’s not enough Xanax in Los Angeles.”

As one like-minded commenter wrote, for people like us, it’s about “self-preservation.”

One commenter advocated I join a community theater group; another said I should go to church. Those are the last two places you’d find me, right behind a Coldplay concert and a monster truck jam. I’d rather join Tinder. I’m more apt to whisper “hello” to a future mate in a hushed library where no one is mingling, and everyone’s faces are buried in books.

To the person who instructed me to “get off [my] couch,” I say this: Last weekend I hiked Sedona and wine tasted in Jerome and Cottonwood by myself. I made the effort to talk to new people. I talk to new people all the time. There’s a great restaurant a few blocks from my apartment I’ve dined in alone quite often. One night there I interacted with a friendly, normal, responsible, age-appropriate man. We got along well, but I wasn’t attracted to him. When he handed me his card at the end of the evening, I thought I will never sleep with you.

Believe me, I wish meeting a prospective partner was as simple as bellying up to a neighborhood bar for some gourmet fish and chips. As I mentioned in the essay I wrote for The Manifest-Station, having the pieces align for a lasting partnership sometimes requires good old fashioned luck.

But if I had all the answers to my relationship struggles, I wouldn’t have written a whole book about them. Wait until that more comprehensive remnant of my blunders is available. The online rabble-rousers haven’t seen anything yet.

Thank you to everyone who read my Washington Post essay and took the time to comment or private message me, even acrimonious cyber-goblins. If you had an emotional reaction of any kind, I did my job.

Except for the guy who said he wished the essay had been written by a man and that I’d fail any man’s five-minute test; he can jump naked into a rushing, icy river.

8 Types of Hikers

The people you’ll meet on any given trail.

On the return leg of a hike through Eagle Creek Trail on my first ever trip to Portland last week, I realized the same hikers in the Mt. Hood National Forest were also headed for the peak of Royal Arch in Boulder last summer. I thought of categories of hikers to amuse myself as I stumbled across wet rocks, including one for me. I enjoy hiking, but I’m no aficionado. I didn’t appreciate climbing mountains when I was younger, especially as a 16-year-old with devastating menstrual cramps whose parents dragged her to Utah on a bad week. I wore jeans to hike, and I complained on a loop. It’s a wonder my parents didn’t leave me on the trail. (I need a Bryce Canyon/Zion National Park do-over.) As a 40-something, I revel in nature more than I did as a miserable kid, but like teenage me, I’m not a camper. I’m a day hiker who looks forward to showering and hitting the pillow afterward.

From my observations, here are other traits of hikers you’ll find on any trail, starting with people like me:

The over-planner (me): When the over-planner prepares for a hike, she looks at ratings and descriptions on AllTrails. She searches for a trail with a moderate difficulty rating that’s a reasonable distance. She desires considerable exercise, but she doesn’t want to kill herself to burn calories. Fewer crowds and better scenery are bonuses. After selecting a trail, she packs a regular school-size backpack with extra bottles of water, a lightweight jacket, her purse so it doesn’t get stolen out of the car, and enough snacks to get her through the next ice storm, including, but not limited to, protein bars, fruit, a sandwich from Whole Foods, a bag of Dove dark chocolate, roasted pistachios from Trader Joe’s, and any other tasty morsels a squirrel might stuff in its cheeks. In other words, she over-packs, just like she does to head to the airport. She won’t eat all those snacks; instead, she’ll reward her hard work by inhaling a cheeseburger and a beer after the hike at a nearby microbrewery.

The over-planner reaches the trail early in the morning, parks too far away, and is finished by the time the masses fill the parking lot. The over-planner hikes in yoga pants but doesn’t do yoga. She wears a t-shirt and the same running shoes she also wears to ride the cross-trainer at the gym. She hasn’t set foot in an REI since the ‘90s. She’s puzzled by anyone using a walking stick. She has tons of energy at the beginning and none by the end, but she’ll happily put one foot in front of the other until her legs are Jell-o, reaching six to eight miles without complaining, unless the altitude is above 5,000 feet, in which case, forget it; she’s allowed to bitch. She’ll cry, “I’m a sea-level girl!” and after a mile-and-a-half, she’ll be hunched over sucking oxygen at 6,915 feet and will have the urge to punch the next person who bounds down the trail and says, “It’s not too much farther!”

Screw you and all your vigor, she’ll think.

Note: The over-planner will twist her ankle in the last few minutes of the hike while on solid ground.

The sprinter (the pro): Speaking of vigor, the sprinter—or pro—is a freak of nature. The sprinter a) does not wear an overloaded backpack that leaves creases in her shoulders; b) does not carry a bottle of water because she’s a super-human who doesn’t require hydration to thrive; c) does not admire the scenery (she’s seen it all before); d) passes other hikers with an agility so nimble one can’t even be jealous of her, and e) doesn’t have an ounce of fat on her bones. The sprinter has stamina one can only dream of, and it really doesn’t matter what she’s wearing; she’s a minimalist. Anything extra weighs her down. When she grand jetés her way around the over-planner and disappears around the bend, the over-planner will never see her again. What takes the over-planner two hours takes the sprinter 30 minutes. By the time the over-planner spills the contents of her huge backpack into the backseat of the car, the sprinter will have already made it home, showered, and eaten a Cliff bar as a main course.

Your mom (the able elderly): Unlike the sprinter, your mom stops frequently to admire the waterfalls, the sheer drop-offs, the sky-high trees, and the caterpillars. She travels in a pack of other able retirees who are in good shape for their ages and keep REI in business. Your mom sports a lightweight rain jacket when it’s not raining; a moisture-wicking top; convertible pants with cargo pockets; wool socks, and top-of-the-line hiking boots—all in muted colors. She wears what she thinks the pros wear, but her outfit is entirely unnecessary for the bird-watching expedition she’s on. Your mom carries a walking stick—two if she’s feeling feisty—an accessory only mandatory for downhill skiing.

The over-planner considers these walking sticks a hazard.

You’ll poke your eye out if you slip, she’ll think.

Your mom and her hoard of cheerful, unemployed friends mosey and won’t make it to the summit, but they don’t care; they never have to work again.

The tourist (the aimless foreigner): The tourist won’t even make it as far up the mountain as your mom. The tourist wears whatever clothes she put on to go to breakfast that morning, including a cumbersome sunshade-turned-hat. A camera hangs from her neck, but she doesn’t use it. The tourist travels in flocks, and these aimless foreigners look confused by their surroundings. The over-planner will see them on her return leg and knows the tourist will never make it up those steep rocks just around the corner. In fact, the tourist seems to be meandering in circles, not making much progress at all, like she’s inside a pinball machine. It’s as if the tourist happened upon this hike by accident with no plans to attempt it. The tourist will not have water, but unlike the sprinter, she needs it. The over-planner will worry about the ill-prepared tourist, who doesn’t speak English and can’t ask for directions if she wanders haplessly off the trail.

The blasé teen (the other ill-prepared): The other ill-prepared hiker is the blasé teen. She and her one friend neither have backpacks with supplies, nor any water between them. They either wear shorts or jeans, Vans, Keds, or other shoes with worn soles not meant for hiking. The teen and her friend have matching snarls on their faces, like someone forced them out of bed to use their feet to propel them forward through this harrowing life. The blasé teen will ask the over-planner for directions, when there’s only one direction to travel, as if she’s annoyed by this prospect.

“Do you know how to get to the Punchbowl?” she’ll ask.

She just passed the Punchbowl.

“No, I mean, do you know how to get down there?”

The teen will point to the bottom of the cliff at least 100 feet below at the raging river in the canyon.

“I don’t think you can get down there,” the over-planner will say.

You can jump, but good luck with that. Why are you even here? Clearly you’d rather be home draped over the couch like a throw pillow.

Like the tourist, the teen will not get much farther than a mile because, like, a mile is a long way, you guys.

The blasé teen will someday graduate to become the over-planner (me).

The 30-year-old hipster couple (your sister and her boyfriend) (dog optional): The 30-year-old hipster couple does this hike, or one similar, every weekend after scavenging the farmers market. They are dressed appropriately for hiking, except if the male with the gnarly beard is wearing open-toed sandals. They bring one small backpack between them that looks empty, and they both have one water bottle each. (The female carries the seemingly useless backpack.) The young couple is in shape and will hike the complete trail but will move more slowly than the sprinter. The two lag after drinking too much Mezcal last night. They may or may not have a dog of the hunting variety with them, and the dog is happier to be there than they are. The couple will celebrate the day’s jaunt later while sharing small plates of quinoa, duck fat fries, and bone marrow at The Blind Insert-Animal-Name-Here.

The photographer (the non-hiker): There’s always one photographer on the trail who isn’t there to hike. He is stationary, with his back turned to the astounding forest and epic waterfalls because he’s mesmerized by one green leaf. He is bent over, squinting through a long-range zoom lens that’s two millimeters from said leaf, as his girlfriend/assistant holds the tripod he may or may not use later. (See 30-year-old hipster couple.)

The badass (the unexpected expert): The badass hikes with one or two other cool friends. At the start of the trail, the badass’ physique will strike the over-planner as belonging to someone who gets winded easily and may not have seen exercise in the last decade. She’ll wonder if the dude with the pudgy gut can make it, but the over-planner will struggle to keep up with him. The badass is an unexpected expert who’s wearing shorts, a t-shirt, and old running shoes. His backpack is lighter than the over-planner’s, and he’ll only stop once to take a few bites of a protein bar. He has water, but the over-planner will never see him drink it. He chats with his friends as if he’s not exerting any energy at all, and halfway up the trail, his friends will point out the badass is two years into treatment for stage 4 melanoma and had treatment just yesterday. The over-planner will suddenly feel like a wuss and will think note to self: Do not complain during this hike.

After four-and-a-half miles, when the over-planner turns around because she has to pee and is doing the math on how much time it will take to get back to the parking lot, the badass will continue on to complete the six-mile one-way trip (a total of 12 miles, for you mathletes out there). The badass doesn’t keep up with the sprinter, but doesn’t care to, and the badass will win the prize for best hiker on the mountain, fighting cancer while acting as if he’s not sick, joking with his friends and finding more joy in everyday life than the over-planner ever will. The over-planner will learn a lesson from the badass and his friends, when they didn’t even intend to teach her one.

Enjoy the trail, fellow hikers!

Northern Road Trip

As of May 2nd, all my belongings will be in a 5 x 10 storage unit, and I’ll be on the road. I’ve been daydreaming about bailing for several months. While the standard American road trip involves heading west, I already live in Southern California and ache for fresh scenery, so I’m aiming north. I want to leave my shoebox studio to the termites. I want to tell my neighbor and his sons, “So long, suckers!” I want more time off the grid. I want to take my solo life where it rains, and I have that option because of the unique situation in which I find myself.

I’m a telecommuter who’s worked from home for eight years. I spend my days listening to silence (or my neighbor’s ongoing construction site), wondering if other people exist on the planet outside of facebook. Office politics are not in my vocabulary (thankfully). I don’t have a husband or children anchoring me to a fixed spot (sadly). I’m free, and yet I feel trapped by my circumstances. I am stuck, and I want to be unstuck. I want to take advantage of a lonely situation, flip it on its side to see it from an alternate angle, and turn it into a positive experience. Plus, I need some new shit to write about.

I’ve often joked I desire a milder version of Wild: a sort of Wild Light. I want the enlightening journey without tearing up my feet and running out of water in the middle of the desert. I want the writer’s retreat without the yoga. I want the Eat Pray Love without the Pray, and I don’t anticipate Love, so maybe I should call my next book Eat Eat Eat. (That’s the only section of Gilbert’s memoir I liked anyway.)

And yes, wine will be involved.

First stop: Napa, a wino’s wonderland. I’ve only been there once, and it was in 2002 when I’d started dating my future ex-husband three weeks before. To say, “I’m in a different place now” is like saying, “Donald Trump is a wee bit narcissistic.” Second stop: Ashland to see Twelfth Night. As an English major, I’m required to love Shakespeare; it’s part of a literature lover’s DNA. But I haven’t read any Shakespeare plays since I quit teaching—also in 2002—so I’m rusty when it comes to Early Modern English. And I have a dirty confession: I’ve never read Twelfth Night. I don’t know the story other than a meager reference at the end of Shakespeare in Love.

What kind of English major am I?

Third stop: Portland. I’m a 42-year-old Californian who’s never been to Portland. How is that even possible? I’m not sure what I’ll do once I get there, but I know hiking and whiskey will be involved. Look out, hipster tree huggers. Next stop: my uncle’s house in Maple Valley, Washington. I’m setting up camp there for at least a month. I hope to see as much of Seattle and the surrounding islands as I can. I haven’t been there since my 20s, when my family’s destination was Whitefish, Montana, so this will be a novel experience too.

Final stop: Vancouver for my birthday. Yes, I’ll finally set foot in Canada. I was hoping I’d get to see a Canadian hockey playoff game, but the Canadian teams are in the basement. (Part of me can’t help but be amused.) So, I don’t know what Vancouver holds, but you’re all invited.

Other than dates and locations, the trip is a giant question mark. I’ve never given up an apartment when I didn’t have another permanent home lined up, but I did it this time. I also signed up for Airbnb, and I already have a storage unit full of books. (It pains me to say I think it might be time to get a Kindle.) This will be the first time I hire outsiders to haul my furniture across a doorframe; it only took a slight midlife crisis and an immediate family replete with back problems.

I’m giving up Netflix and my precious DVR—for now—to see more of the outside world. (No Game of Thrones spoilers please.) I want to meet new people in new locales and see old friends I haven’t seen in ages. I want to plow through the unread books on my nightstand and trek through greener pastures. Mostly I just want to do something other than what I normally do. I’m done with the status quo.

I’m nervous and excited. I’m sad to leave my loved ones, especially my sister and nephew, the best neighbors a girl could ask for, but don’t worry, Tessa. I’ll be back.

My uncle says, however, “You may not want to go back once you get here.” I don’t have a return date to California yet, which is way out of my comfort zone. As a nitpicky organizer who doesn’t leave much to chance, I’m trying to stay open to wherever this journey takes me, even if it loops me back around to another tiny apartment in Long Beach after six weeks. At least I’ll have had a voyage that hits the reset button on my current claustrophobia. Who knows what will happen in the meantime? I sure don’t. That’s the point.

See you on the flipside.

Side note: All Pacific Northwest suggestions are welcome. Also, if you live in any of these locations, hit me up!