Let’s be honest here: it’s not easy to sit with your loneliness. At least for me, it’s not. After moving out of the Israeli’s house, it was agonizing to sit with my loneliness day after day. That’s when I found …

I celebrated my 35th birthday on July 20th. For as long as I can remember, my mom friends have always referred to me as “the baby.” After all, I had Mae when I was 28. When I joined a new …

If you’ve read my Literary Mama column for the past two years, then you know that my writing led me to love. Thanks to a San Francisco reader who wrote to me in the fall of 2005, I met the …

Ever since my daughter and I moved in last summer with the man I affectionately referred to as “the Israeli,” readers from across the country have emailed me to shake their fingers. If you think that I’m going to stand up now and defend myself, you’re wrong. Because things are not going well, and I have a terrible feeling that my readers might be right.

This morning, as I’m brushing Mae’s hair during our mad morning dash, I hear the front door click shut, followed by the roar of Yossi’s truck backing up the driveway. This is the third morning in the row that he has left the house without saying good-bye.

Last fall, Mae started soccer. The end of the season happened to coincide with a lice infestation on the team. And those creepy-crawlies were moving in just as, back home, our houseguest was moving out.

The book flew across the room and hit the wall. My mother was crying. I did not move. I did not speak. “Your book is trash,” she said. “It’s not even well written.” She spun around, out the door. I called after her, but she was gone. How does it feel to be cut off from my mom? There is no pointed simile to describe it.

After all these years of dating, I’ve arrived at my Cinderella ending: my daughter and I are moving in with the boyfriend. And life is only going to get better, right?

A few months into our relationship, Yossi called to tell me that he was dog-sitting for the weekend. I wasn’t surprised. Yossi is a right-hand man. One day, he’s moving friends into their new house. The next, he’s lending his …

“Why don’t you two move in with me?” Yossi says when we’re out for breakfast. “Excuse me?” I say, almost choking. Mae looks up from her hot chocolate, wide-eyed. Where is this coming from? And shouldn’t this be an adults-only …

The Israeli and I have been going out for five months now. If you look at our relationship developmentally, we’re still in the baby stage. We’re barely sitting up; we’re just beginning to trust. But there’s something about the way …