They say that the world is run by C students. I’d like to postulate that it’s also run by extroverts–after all, they’re so much louder. Much of culture revolves around social traditions that require people to, say, leave their homes. And talk to other people. You know, go to parties and such. Symphonies rarely provide performances, for example, to an audience of one.

This all seems rude to me. I enjoy activities marked by solitude: reading, writing, drinking. I think it’s time for introverts to claim their piece of the cultural terrain. Susan Cain has gotten the ball rolling, and I applaud that. She’s even talking about tailoring education more for introverts, which would be great for my son, whose favorite part of social events is leaving them (he’s two. I applaud his early-developed excellence). As a heavily pregnant raging introvert writer from the South, I considered where my talents might intersect in promoting the nearly-antisocial agenda and I’ve decided to plunge intocomposing a tome on etiquette from the perspective of an introvert, focusing this post on What an Introvert Needs from You When She Has Recently Given Birth. You’re welcome.

Read the rest over here!

‘Wh-what? Jack?”

He grinned in the escaping light, and I wondered for a second if I had fallen asleep and was dreaming. Then he reached out and took my hand, pulling me to my feet.

“You’ve been here the whole time?” I asked confusedly.

He laughed. “Yeah. I’ve been below deck, waiting for Brian to come get me. He looked toward the setting sun, then back at me. “Pretty beautiful, huh?”

I nodded, though my confusion remained. Then he lowered himself to one knee.

Read the rest of the latest installment of my novel here!

courtesy popsugar.com

I am a few weeks away from giving birth to my second child, which makes me the world’s pre-eminent authority on the subject of having babies. As my husband and I prepare the nursery and ponder what life will look like when we are a family of four, I feel it necessary to share some observations I’ve gained over two rounds of pregnancy. And here is the first one: EVERYTHING ABOUT HAVING A BABY IS ABSOLUTELY INSANE.

Read the rest here!

courtesy netflix.com

I recently finished viewing the sophomore season of Netflix’s prison dramedy Orange is the New Black. Said viewings occurred mostly during my toddler’s naptime, which–in case you’re wondering–makes for a disorienting afternoon born of incongruous situations: lesbian love scenes and prison sewage crises in front of me, a two-year-old’s babbling in the monitor beside me. Anyway. After watching all thirteen episodes, I sought to find a cohesive narrative among the season’s themes (and a reason to justify watching almost fourteen hours of TV instead of coming up with a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or…decorating our next son’s nursery). Instead, what I came up with was a list of life lessons taught to me by the ladies of Litchfield, who resemble much of life itself: funny, sad, violent, transexual–I mean, transforming, and real.

Read the rest here!

Read more of my novel over here!

courtesy troll.me

Rage has been festering for a while now: on message boards, in comments sections, among the merely single-digit amount of Facebook “likes” for that picture of your nephew’s neighbor’s three-legged rescue dog. The people are angry, and they will be heard! Whether they’re right or not! Whether they’ve read the whole article or just the headline!

To see the rest–plus some Dawson and Joffrey memes–head over here!

“Are the twos terrible? Is it really going to get better? Are we asking the right questions at all?” she had to wonder, sitting in front of her computer pretending to be Carrie Bradshaw.

It’s an age-old dilemma: what happens when a working mom leaves her job to stay at home with her two-year-old but doesn’t want the employees at Total Wine to feel neglected? Find out here!

The Wheelhouse is posting another excerpt from my novel, The Growing Season, today:

The conclusion Abby and I reached, a few hours and another bottle of wine later, was to look up from the navel-gazing and let go of the drama. In short, to walk with Cara through this, however long it took, and support her any way we could—while going on with life. In that vein, she came up with a Halloween group costume that could work as a trio or quartet, though Cara wasn’t showing any more willingness to participate over the next few days than she had initially. We would be characters from Alice in Wonderland: Alice herself, the Queen, the Mad Hatter, White Rabbit, etc. Abby graciously offered to a paper-rock-scissors challenge for the coveted role of Alice, the most attractive character of them all, but we let her take the part. Kennedy wanted to be the Queen—said she had a debutante dress from her high school days (bitch still fit into it) that would be perfect—and I picked the Hatter, feeling no ache to strive for a sexy or even attractive look this year. It wasn’t exactly a vow of chastity I was going for—I would have been a little late for that party—but I needed a break from the whole flirting scene, the excitement that went along with a first date followed by the eventual, inevitable disappointment of a match not made. I wanted a fun night out with my girlfriends without the hangover and regret the next day (or at least, the regret). So I forged full-speed ahead on my costume. It was an asexual masterpiece.

Read the rest over here!