As I’m putting together my summer plan, which involves a house share in my Xandau, I tend to ask my friends to come be a part of the share. My favorite response from my friends with kids has been the reluctance to expose me to the kids themselves. “The whining,” they’ll say. “The incessant chatter will drive you crazy,” they’ll also say. As if I wasn’t exposed to it myself, back in the day, when my child would invite her myriad friends over. Or my child herself, when going through those taxing phases (the three year old year, oh that was a doozy.) So many of those phases, by the way. Before she was able to control those flailing emotional moments, those days when she was in elementary school, when she was so reliant on me for her sense of stability. I can close my eyes and be right back there, the tears streaming down her face because broccoli was presented as a food option, or when the boys at school told her she couldn’t play with them because she was a girl. Oh, to be able to hold her while she coped with what was before her. I have such empath for my friends with children, younger than mine, I know what they’re going through, as adults, wanting the noise to stop. It does, eventually, replaced by a closed bedroom door. But when you’re in the parenting trenches, it’s endless. So I don’t mind when my friends are with me for a window of time at the beach, with their younger children. I just want to be with them. And I know that being with your girlfriend that you used to stumble out of Maxfish with at 2am isn’t the same as when she’s got three kids all needing their snacks right now, but I don’t want it to be. I don’t want to be back there, in those days, that woman I was then, so very child-free; I’m this one, now, raising a daughter. And I’ve learned the fine art of  Tuning Children Out. I literally can’t hear the decibel level a child achieves when they open their mouths. And it’s what makes it possible for me to invite my friends to spend time with me during the summer months, when it’s sticky and empty in the city. I will happily spend the summer with my friends, even if their kids are young and tantrum-y, I won’t hear a word they utter.

Monica Lewinsky: ” I stood up and called B.S. publicly.”

Salma Hayek: “The men are terrified. The predators are hiding. You feel this very palpable atmosphere.”

The genius of Carla Bley.

Is Letitia James the next Attorney General of New York?

Women are winning elections.

Please watch the Ali Wong special, like right now.

Icelandic mothers are bad ass.

Women, justice, yes.

This Whitney Houston documentary is going to be a bit badass.

Sex Stuff.

And now have a laugh with Ali Wong.