Melissa Petro

[I]t looks like our wedding will cost us more like $10,000. That is a hell of a lot of money. Still, it’s our one and only wedding. And for a wedding in Manhattan that includes most of the typical expenditures [...] that’s not too bad. Here’s what I’ve learned about how to make your big day (relatively) less expensive.

"I let your “Je Suis Charlie” avatar slide, but trust me: I unfriend people who can’t tolerate a complicated view of women’s participation in the sex trades and who don’t let “victims” speak for themselves. So it’s like Zuckerberg is purposely trolling the way all those ads for Punjammies are constantly appearing in my Facebook timeline, claiming my purchase of their culturally appropriating pajama pants will help some sad, far-off Indian women forge a new life. Without evidence, let’s just assume your PUNJAMMIES™ purchase is an investment in some ugly pajamas."

A lot has been written about what not to say to a pregnant person. Being on the opposite side of that, I’ve learned pregnant people make mistakes, too.

Stock photos seemed to get pregnancy and parenting all wrong. When a Facebook friend posted looking for a real life pregnant stock photo model, I offered.

Sometimes the fights I pick with my fiancé are really fights with myself.

There was nothing easy about recovery, but it helped that living the trainwreck lifestyle had stripped me of everything. Within sixteen months, I was unemployed with no job prospects, barely scraping through my last semester at school. I was drinking every day. Sex with classmates had led to casual encounters which bottomed out at trading sex for cash, something I spent a whole lot of time justifying.

You may have heard the old joke that 98% of people masturbate, and the other two percent are lying.

Everyone I talk to agrees: Apparently, wedding planning is the most awful thing ever! Seriously, I did not know that when I first got engaged. This got me thinking... What else don’t I know?

Would Sheryl Sandberg be able to get away with leaning in while donning Zuckerberg's signature v-neck T-shirt and jeans? History says no.

My relationship with my father was never father-daughter picnics. Maybe when I was very little — or maybe this is less a memory and more of a wish — I have an image of myself as a very little girl sitting on my father’s lap, and we are both laughing. Perhaps my father enjoyed fatherhood when his children were very little, but that joy seemed to curdle into constant frustration as my brother and I grew up.