I am standing in front of a crowd under blinding fluorescent lights. They appear to be listening to my every word.

And I am positively bombing.

The room is too bright, and I can see everyone’s faces, but I am absolutely unable to read their expressions. Are they bored? Disgusted? Concerned? Is it because the content I’m presenting is distressing, or because I’m just bad at this?

I am giving a presentation on online harassment. It’s one I have given before, but this time I am stumbling. I am jet-lagged and exhausted – the night before, I was so nervous that I’d somehow sleep through my start time, I kept waking up in a panic. It now feels like my brain can’t keep up with my slides.

It’s been a while since I’ve last given this talk, and I’ve changed a few things around, and now I can’t remember what I intended to say and where.

I have forgotten my glasses and can’t see the screen behind me, so I don’t know what slide I’m on. I am wearing a shirt that I’ve never wore before (bad idea) and it is stiff cotton. The room is too warm, and sweat has pooled in sticky little ovals underneath each of my armpits. For some reason, I feel the need to mention this fact to the crowd.

I have told them that I am profusely sweating and that I have forgotten my glasses and also that I am terribly jet lagged. It isn’t merely that I am bombing – it is that I can’t stop drawing attention to the fact that I am.

When it is over – an interminable 40 minutes later – people will line up with copies of my book for me to sign. My friend Rachel – one of the few familiar faces in the crowd, will hug me, ignoring my warning that I am a sweaty mess, and tell me how wonderful I was. Ashley, the organizer, is effusive in her support. My friend Laura will send me a text in all caps, screaming at me that I was wonderful (she was unable to make it in person and watched the presentation on the company’s internal livefeed, oh god, there was a livefeed).

Me after the talk. Not visible: my sweat stains and crazy nerves and my forgotten glasses.

One woman will tell me how she’s followed my blog for years, and how wonderful it is to finally meet. Several people will take photos with me. I will make a crack about my armpits. People will laugh.

When it is all over, I am hit with the anxiety of having bombed. But also the realization that based on other people’s reactions, perhaps I wasn’t as terrible as I thought I was.

After dissecting my public speaking experiences for far too long, here’s what I’ve learned about what to do when you think you’ve absolutely tanked on stage:

1. 1. 1. You aren’t as bad as you think you are. Trust me. You just aren’t. I once went completely blank on stage – I could not remember what I was doing or why I was there. The hiccup felt like it lasted a solid minute and a half at least. Later, when I watched the video of it, the silence lasted for (literally) about two seconds. And it simply looked as though I was pausing to collect my thoughts.
         –
      2. This is all new for the audience. They have no idea what slides you are messing up, what cues you are missing, what points you’ve forgotten, and how much worse you are doing this time compared to last time. So maybe, you know, don’t point those things out to them.
         –
      3. No one will remember the awkward parts but you. If you stumble over a word or get confused as to what to do with your hands, fear not: in two minutes, absolutely everyone will have forgotten. It’s the upside of social media giving everyone the attention span of a goldfish. So just move on – one slip up doesn’t necessarily lead to another.
         –
      4. Set a time limit for how long you are allowed to dwell on it. Rand once met an Olympian who had been the favorite to win a gold medal in his sport. And then he messed up during his event and didn’t made the podium. Rand asked him how he dealt with it, and he replied that he gave himself 48 hours. During those two days, he locked himself in a hotel room, and absolutely wallowed in it as much as he wanted to. Then, when it was all over, he put it behind him. He wasn’t going to feel bad about it again. Now, does forgetting what you were going to say warrant 2 days of self-flagellation? Probably not. But if you are one to dwell, set aside a few minutes to feel badly about it. And then move on.
         –
      5. Accept that it kind of had to happen. I’m absolutely convinced that you have to spend some time screwing up while on stage. It’s like a sacrifice you have to make to the public speaking gods. No matter how much you practice or how comfortable you are, you will mess up at some point. And then you’ll learn from it, and it’ll happen less and less.
         –
      6. It will eventually be a funny story. A lot of my friends do public speaking for their work, and whenever we talk about a particularly mortifying experience, I tell them about how I kept talking about my pit stains on that afternoon in Boston. And everyone laughs. Including me. Hell, it can even be a story you tell on stage one day. Because that sort of vulnerability is a great way of connecting with an audience.
         –
      7. Messing up will tell you what parts of your presentation need work. Odds are, there were parts of your presentation that you absolutely nailed – and some that you didn’t. The latter are clearly what needs work – so spend time fixing those spots. Correct that typo. Ruminate on those stats until you can express them in a clean, concise manner.
         –
      8. Charge through your mistakes like you know what you’re doing. I’ve watched a lot of people present over the years – professionals, celebrities, authors, amateurs. And the thing that separates the great speakers and the, um, less-than-great ones isn’t whether or not they make mistakes. It’s how they recover from them. The people who do a great job just slide over their errors, the way you would in casual conversation. It doesn’t throw them off, because they don’t let it. They’re just having a breezy chat with a group of several thousand people.
         –
      9. Screwing up will make the audience like you more. No, seriously. It’s called the Pratfall Effect, and it’s a known psychological phenomenon. When someone makes a mistake, we feel like they are human and vulnerable and we like them more as a result. So remember: the audience is on your side (unless they’re sociopaths, they are in the audience because they like you), and those little mistakes are just going to endear you to them. (If you want to know more about the Pratfall Effect, I talk about it in a presentation I gave a few years ago at Hubspot’s Inbound conference .)
         –
      10.  Don’t over-rehearse. If you have your entire presentation memorized, like a script, then it becomes easier to get thrown off. One word out of place and the rest fall like dominoes. Instead, try delivering your points lots of different ways – like a story you’ve told time and again. That way you won’t get tripped up if you can’t remember exactly what you said last time.

It’s been a while since that fateful day last year that I felt like I completely screwed up on stage. I’ve winced a couple of times at the memory, and moved on. Just recently, I even pitched the company again about speaking at a conference they’re holding this summer. They said yes.

Oh, and if you want to see samples of me making a fool of myself on stage, you can find some on my About page.

In summer, I learn to appreciate freckles and to not mind when the heat is so intense that you can barely touch one another without hearing a sizzling sound. In the spring, I feel like making elaborate tarts might be essential to a good relationship (no, there is no photo, it was gone too soon, leaving only flakes of crust in the bottom of the pan like petals of cherry blossoms). But I can’t say definitively because there is no control group. I’ve never not made tarts in the spring. And now, after so many years, it’s too risky not to.

That is where I am now, making tarts, watching winter receding so quickly I am suspicious. Spring can’t be here, not yet. That’s not how it works. March isn’t supposed to be sunny in Seattle. The last day of winter is not supposed to reach 80 degrees. We left a bar in the middle of the night yesterday and I braced myself for a cold that wasn’t there.

But I am not convinced; Seattle has taught me that the seasons can be more fickle than even my earliest dalliances with love. I’ve watched snow come down in April, turned the heat on July, had to convince my friends that August “really isn’t always like this” while we huddled, shivering, under an awning to avoid a downpour. Spring might be here in this moment, as I watch the light change in my office. But it isn’t here for good.

And so what advice do I have for love during those stubborn, lingering days of winter? The ones that hang on, miserably, and are made even longer by a late setting sun?

Simply this: wrap your beloved in a big ass scarf.

Now, you may already be in possession of a large scarf, but odds are, it is insufficient, because that scarf of yours still somewhat resembles a scarf. That is not what you want. You want a scarf that scarcely looks like a scarf. The sort of item that, when left draped over a couch could be mistaken for a throw blanket, or a cloak, or a circus tent. You want a scarf that forces people to redefine precisely what a scarf is. The kind of thing that makes people reference that meme with Lenny Kravitz wherein he is so enrobed in crocheted warmth that it defies the limits of space-time.

You want something that will lead to a discussion wherein the word “scarf” is said so many times that it just doesn’t sound right anymore. Scarf. Scarf. Scarf. Scarf.

Ahem.

Now, odds are, this scarf will start out as yours. Because you are terrified of being cold, and you think ahead, and the idea of wrapping a duvet around your neck appeals to you. But your beloved has not scrutinized the weather report as closely as you have. And so you may find that the two of you have escaped for the weekend, down to the town in which you were married, and your beloved is freezing.

And you are not. Even without the expanse of fabric that has been wound and wound around your neck like you imagine Rapunzel sometimes bundled her hair around her when she had a cold, you are just fine. And so you offer your husband your wrap.

He is reluctant at first.

And then you offer it again.

And he says no again. And you respect his answer.

But then he is shivering as you walk and he suddenly relents. You wrap it around him. And around him. And around him. (It takes a while.) He stops shivering. He looks at you like it is some sort of alchemy. It is not. It is simply a big ass scarf.

“This is amazing,” he whispers. He worries you are cold. You aren’t, but he holds you close anyway. He now radiates heat. The scarf makes his eyes twinkle. (Or maybe that’s unrelated.)

And so this is the advice I have for those last lingering days of winter: get yourself an enormous blanket of a scarf, and envelope your beloved in it. It will not make spring come any sooner. But it will take the chill out of the air.

One question kept coming up again and again, and because it’s one I get often, I wanted to share the answer here on the blog. The thing I am always asked, especially now that I’ve published a book, is this: How do I get better at writing?

Now, when I first started getting this question, it struck me as the literary equivalent of asking Cousin Eddie from Christmas Vacation for fashion tips. Like … perhaps you should look elsewhere? Maybe?

Although to be fair, Randy Quaid is ROCKING this look.

But I realized people weren’t asking me how to become a great writer, or even a good writer (WHICH IS GOOD, BECAUSE I DO NOT KNOW). They were simply asking how to become better. And I realized I can answer this question! Because I am not great, but I am way better than I was.

I started this blog nearly nine years ago. And if you go back and read some of my early posts, well … they’re bad. I’m not being falsely modest here. The writing is awkward and stilted and it doesn’t even sound like me. I hadn’t found my voice, or figured out what the goal of this site was. I didn’t even really know what a good blog post entailed. Slowly, with time, those things sorted themselves out. I got better. I figured out how to write a blog post. I still keep those early posts up, because I think it’s important that people see the progression of this site and know that things don’t improve overnight.

There are two things that I did that contributed to me become a better writer. Neither is terribly interesting or innovative or sexy. Neither is a quick fix. You’ve probably heard both of these pieces of advice before, but that’s because they work.

1. Just Keep Writing. I suspect everyone hates this answer, because it’s just so damn frustrating. Like, I just have to keep doing it? That’s it? But believe me – it works. The way that we get better at anything is to do it over and over again. Have you ever watched a baby do something? Babies suck at pretty much everything. There are so many things we do on a daily basis that are now second nature to us, but there was a point in time that we had to figure out how to do those things. So why do we think writing is different?
   –
   I suspect it has to do with the mechanics of writing itself. A poorly constructed sentence and a great sentence are essentially the same. They’re both made of words and punctuation. But imagine a wonderfully constructed house and a terribly constructed one. You can often tell just by looking that one is better than the other. You can tell that more work and energy and time has gone into one versus the other. But with writing, that’s not as evident. When we see a beautifully written paragraph, we just assume that the writer is talented. We often don’t see the time or work that went into it. We don’t think about the hours spent revising and rearranging and reworking sentences. It’s hard to see that in the finished product, especially because sometimes we’re able to write something brilliant right off the bat. That makes us think that all writing, if we were truly good at it, would be effortless.
   –
   Writing is easy. Good writing is not. The path between mediocre writing and good writing is not a linear one. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat at my computer and beat my head against my keyboard, and wrote garbage for days, which I kept deleting. And then, finally, I wrote something that was worth keeping. At first glance, it seemed to be totally unrelated to all the other stuff I’d written. But it’s not. See, I had to wade through all that worthless stuff to get to that good sentence. That journey isn’t often evident in the final product but it’s still critical.If you want to get better at writing, keep at it. Know that you will write things that you hate. Know that for every one fantastic sentence you keep, you might write twenty that you delete.
   –
2. Read the Stuff You Wish You’d Written. Admittedly, I am not the world’s most confident person, so this is difficult for me. Sometimes, when everyone is raving about a piece of work, I’m inclined to run from it. But I should be doing the opposite. If something is wonderful, if something makes you burn with envy because it’s so good and you really wish you’d written it yourself, then that is absolutely the sort of thing you should be reading. Great artists became great by studying other artists. It’s no different with writing. If something is being hailed as a work of genius, you need to study it. Take it apart, look at all the pieces, and try putting it back together again. Pay attention to sentence structure and word choice. If a paragraph resonates with you, ask yourself why. (This is also a great tactic to do with a piece of work that you hate.) This isn’t about copying or plagiarism – it’s about understanding the mechanics of writing.
   –
   Some will argue that such an analytical look at a piece of art is antithetical to its existence, but I’m inclined to disagree. Entire fields of study have been built around analyzing literature. And while poring over Dorothy Parker isn’t going to necessarily give you a blueprint of how to be brilliant, it might make you more mindful as you write, and force you to pay attention to stuff that you wouldn’t normally – and all of that will make you a better writer.
   –
   Besides just that, I’ve found that reading wonderful stuff, especially in the genres in which we’d like to write, can be incredibly inspirational. Just think of how many times you’ve read something, or listened to a song, or watched a movie, and afterwards your brain just goes into overdrive? It’s called filling your creative gas tank – and it’s something that a lot of us forget to do. Plus, it’s a great way to combat writer’s block. Whenever I’m having trouble getting words down, I try to consume something wonderful – in hopes that I might regurgitate something not terrible.

Honestly, that’s it. It’s the same advice I give again and again. If you want to get better at writing, keep at it. And if you want to write well, then you need to read well.

And while these questions usually run the gamut from pop to culture (No, I don’t know why peanut butter and jelly is a thing. Yes, our country is very, very large. No, I do not think I sound just like Rachel from Friends when I talk. Also, seriously, you realize that show ended 12 years ago, right? We have other TV shows, thank you very much, England. Many of which we stole from you), in the last few months, nearly every question I get while traveling is focused on one topic: President Trump. While on the road, I am asked on a near-daily basis to explain not only how our reality-star president was elected, but why he is still in office, and why we – the American public – “aren’t doing anything about it.”

For the record, I don’t often talk about politics on the blog. I tend to keep that to Twitter, where the abuse I receive for my opinions is quickly blocked and reported, and I can go about my day (after my blood pressure returns to some semblance of normal and I’ve eaten a cupcake or three). When I write about anything bordering political on the blog, it quickly becomes abusive on a platform which has always exclusively been safe and one that belonged exclusively to me (note: this abuse tends not to be from my usual readers, but from first-time trolls who have stumbled upon this site while presumably looking for something to rage-masturbate to). So I shy away from it here while being unabashedly politically vocal on more public forums. It’s a strange dichotomy.

But today I’m going to talk about how to explain the phenomenon of Trump to people who aren’t American, because it’s a question that keeps coming up for me and for a lot of other travelers. And it’s tricky to answer: a lot of Americans were stunned on election night. I sat in a bar, drunk for the first time in a decade, staring blankly at an enormous screen projecting the impossible results: that a man who bragged about sexually assaulting women was now President. Even seasoned journalists were taken aback – Brian Williams’ sigh embodying what so many people felt at that precise moment.

So for those trying to unlock this mystery from outside the United States, here are a few things to consider:

Hillary was hugely unpopular here in America. In Europe and the rest of the world, this can be rather confusing: she was highly respected and well-known as Secretary of State on the world stage, and incredibly well liked. A poll of the G20 countries found that 18 of them overwhelmingly supported Hillary. Only one – Russia – favored Trump. I spent the days leading up to the election working out of the local Democratic party headquarters, meticulously assembling buttons that read “MADAME PRESIDENT” and working the phone banks – and even so I could feel that there was a palpable dislike for Hillary that we were fighting against. I think that part of this was institutionalized sexism – anyone who tells me otherwise will receive a swift kick to the balls (because, let’s face it: virtually everyone who says it’s not about sexism is a cisgendered dude).

Now, when I say institutionalized sexism, I don’t mean that everyone who disliked Hillary was a sexist (though some, clearly, were). Instead, I mean that she was held to a different and higher standard than Mr. Trump. And she was consistently framed in a negative way – as being an out-of-touch, entitled woman. When Hillary expressed the need for affordable, widespread broadband in rural areas, her quote was cut up and taken out of context – so that it seemed like she was complaining about cell phone coverage in rural areas as a personal inconvenience, rather than a problem she was trying to fix. The media dedicated huge amounts of real estate to negative coverage of Hillary. Which brings me to my next point …

The news had a lot to gain in making the race close. In the U.S., the news is a big, money-making endeavor. Races that aren’t close aren’t interesting – and if fewer people watch the news, that means less ad revenue for those stations. In 2008, Obama decisively won the popular vote by 10 million votes and the electoral college by 192 votes (more on that later) – but coverage made the race seem appallingly close (even though McCain had always been the underdog), and kept viewers glued to their screens. In 2012, the same thing happened with Obama and Romney, even though the president won re-election easily. This election cycle, as Hillary started to pull away from Trump in the polls, negative coverage of her became even more salient – perhaps to give the appearance of a close race. Negative coverage sells more papers – and in this case may have swayed the public, too.

No one thought Trump would win. Seriously. No one. Not the pundits, not Nate Silver (our imperfect oracle), not even Trump himself (and now that he has, there’s a lot of talk around whether he actually wants the job.) So a lot of people who didn’t like Hillary or who weren’t that passionate about her just stayed home. Or people voted third party. Here’s seasoned ABC News commentators laughing at Keith Ellison’s predictions that Trump would soon be leading the Republican party.

The Comey Letter. There’s too much to unpack here in a simple blog post – and that’s part of the problem. Hillary had a private server. She was also hacked (but not on her private server). Misconceptions surrounding this issue fed into the already prevalent view that Hillary was corrupt or untrustworthy. Now, the truth has come out: that there was absolutely no reason to reopen the case, and that the only candidate under investigation during this time was actually Trump. And rather amazingly, both Trump and Pence have had some egregious security issues with their phones and computers (Pence was not only using a private email to discuss governmental issues, but he was actually hacked). But the timing of Comey’s letter was positively damning, and newspapers like The New York Times gave it a disproportional amount of coverage days before the election. The prevailing belief is that it likely cost her the election.

Corporations can donate to elections. This is baffling to a lot of my friends outside of the U.S. – lobbying is well-regulated outside of the United States. But in 2010, by a narrow margin, the Supreme Court upheld Citizens United, which said that corporate spending is equivalent to free speech, and it cannot be restricted. This means that for-profit organizations can give as much money as they want to support political candidates. Now, in this instance, both candidates benefited – and Hillary actually out raised Trump. But Trump said repeatedly said he’s going to do away with a lot of regulations on the coal and oil industry (and has already started doing so). This meant he had the support of powerful lobbies which represented the interests of people in key battleground states like North Carolina. It also means that politicians don’t need to appeal to the masses as much as they do their wealthy donors. Right now repealing Obamacare is drastically unpopular, but the GOP and Trump are pushing for it because it will provide a tax break to the wealthiest 1% of the population. GOP politicians are hoping they can win re-election with enough money, and not by adhering to what their constituents want.

Millions more people voted for Hillary than Trump. This becomes really confusing for a lot of people in countries where a simple majority will win you the election. In the United States, the presidency is determined by who gets more votes in the Electoral College, which is an antiquated system rooted in slavery. No, for real. See, back in the day, southern states had a large population of people (mostly slaves), but only a few people (white men) who could actually vote. Under a popular vote model, northern states would always win the election. The Electoral College, though, counted slaves as 3/5ths of a person (yes, yes it is fucked up) – so the more slaves you had, the more Electoral College votes you had. For states like Virginia, this is a big deal – if you won the state, you won all of its EC votes – and it had a ton. This is why so many of our early presidents were from Virginia. So the EC mitigates the votes of larger states, and overemphasizes the votes of smaller states. Because smaller states tend to go Republican, this creates some interesting electoral results.

Why do we still have the Electoral College, then? It’s something that a few states are reconsidering, but so far it hasn’t gotten a lot of traction. It’s very difficult to change U.S. institutions. Even our Constitution is 200 years old and it’s hard to update this stuff. Plus, people are worried that smaller states will not have their interests reflected in a national election.

Only 26% of eligible voters actually voted for Trump. He’s very much a fringe candidate. But his supporters were in the right states (see Electoral College, above). Trump ran as an outsider – but because he doesn’t have any experience in the political realm, he’s basically capitulated to what the GOP has wanted after getting elected. The GOP wants to destroy Obamacare (because, see above – it would mean tax breaks for their donors), which is something Trump specifically campaigned against. So what you have right now is an incompetent President going along with the doctrine of the Republican party – which was not even something the people who voted for Trump were in favor of.

(Source)

Why are the American people letting the government ban Muslims, take away healthcare, remove environmental restrictions, and cut funding to hundreds of organizations that benefit the public? Oof. I get this question all the time, and it’s a doozy, because here’s the thing: we aren’t. But there isn’t much that you can do after an election has taken place. The biggest checks to a president are Congress and Senate. Right now, Republicans control both of those – and they are all for the President’s plans. When the vote to repeal Obamacare came before Congress, not a single Democrat voted for it – but every single Republican congressperson (with the exception of 4) did. When Trump signed a ban on Muslims, it was an executive order – so it wasn’t even up to a vote. It was just sort of decreed. The only check on it was from the U.S. Attorney General – who, at the time, was Sally Yates. Trump immediately removed her from office and appointed Jeff Sessions. Sessions has a history of voter suppression and racism – he is not a check on the President’s racist decrees. Under Sessions, the DOJ claimed that precedent for the Muslim ban was a court case defending segregation of pools in the 1970s. So now the only way to stop Trump’s Muslim ban is from the lower courts – and they’ve been suing him, because that’s the only check on him that remains, and the case will likely end up going to the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, the GOP (who again, controls everything) managed to make sure that Scalia’s vacant seat, which should have gone to Merrick Garland, went to Neil Gorsuch – who is staunchly conservative and may tip a judgement made by the court in Trump’s favor.

Okay, but can’t you like, rebel? What about sanctuary cities? A lot of Trump’s more hateful orders – like his racist crackdown on immigrants who are working in the U.S. illegally – need to be enforced on a local level, so it stands to reason that cities (which tend to be far less conservative than rural areas and are also hubs for immigrants) could simply refuse to enact Trump’s orders. And indeed, many, including my own beloved Seattle have done just that by declaring themselves “sanctuary cities.” But that resistance is already getting stomped down. And both Attorney General Sessions and President Trump have threatened to withhold federal funds from sanctuary cities. The governor of Texas just banned them in his state – threatening fines of up to $25,ooo a day to governmental entities that refuse to comply.

Why can’t you impeach him? Again, only Congress can do that. And there’s tons of grounds for why they could. The emoluments clause, for one (Trump never divested his private holdings, which supposedly he needed to do before taking office). But Congress is controlled by the GOP and Trump is doing their bidding, so they clearly aren’t going to vote to impeach. They’ll only get rid of him when he proves to be useless (there is a very clear scenario where they make him the scapegoat for all the unpopular legislation they’ve passed, and then get rid of him).

Plus, impeachment wouldn’t actually be great for us. See, Trump’s incompetent, but he wants the people to like him, and he might actually do the right thing in hopes that they will. But Pence – who would take office if Trump is impeached – is an incredibly dangerous human being. He caused an outbreak of HIV when he was governor of Indiana (he claimed that needle exchanges promoted drug use. They don’t.) and his stance on LGBTQ rights is abhorrent. Already a bubble has formed around the Vice-President, in an attempt to shield him from any wrong-doing on the whole Russia issue, so we can rest assured if Trump gets the boot, we’ll have to deal with President Pence.

Okay, how did the GOP get control of everything? This is crazy. The problem is that demographically, Democrats don’t vote in mid-term elections. Over the years, this meant that Republicans slowly took over more and more seats in the House and Senate. But wait – it gets worse. The second they gained control, Republicans set out to redistrict a lot of areas, ensuring that they would always have a majority of seats in state legislatures even if they were getting fewer votes than Democrats on a statewide level. In Michigan, for example, Republicans received 30,000 fewer votes that Democrats, but they hold 63 seats in the House of Representatives, as opposed to 47 for Democrats. But redistricting doesn’t fully explain the problem. There’s also been massive voter suppression efforts throughout America (in areas that have historically voted for Democrats). In Wisconsin, new voter ID laws meant that 200,000 people were unable to vote this election. Trump won the state by 22,000 votes.  And statistically, minority voters have to wait twice as long to vote as white voters. In Georgia, Karen Handel, a Republican who is running in a special election against Democrat Jon Ossoff was enraged to learn that voter registration had been extended – meaning more people would vote in her race. She described it as Democrats trying to steal the election.

So, this will get fixed in the next election, right? Maybe. Maybe not. The next midterm election is 2018. Republicans control everything until then. And even if the next election happens, the voter suppression and gerrymandering efforts mean that it doesn’t matter if Democrats turn out in greater numbers (because that’s what they’re doing in a lot of states now, and it doesn’t matter).

Aren’t you mad? Every day is a constant state of panic, grief, and disbelief. This is why my Twitter feed is a never-ending series of attempts to channel my rage into 140 characters. But here’s the thing: the world is moving in the right direction. The U.S. elected Trump, but since then 6 European elections have had Nationalists underperform compared to the polls. So I suppose I’m cautiously optimistic. (I’m also privileged as f*ck, and live in a city where more than 90% of the population voted for Hillary – which helps on the optimism front.)

Can’t you all, like … take to the streets or something? We have and we are. But it doesn’t seem to be working – GOP representatives are avoiding their Town Hall meetings, and as I mentioned before, repealing Obamacare was drastically unpopular but the GOP still axed it. There are also bills proposed in five states to criminalize peaceful protest, but I don’t think those will come to fruition.

Rand at one of several marches we’ve been to this year.

Wait, so … is it safe for me, as a foreigner, to come to the U.S.? Rand and I had a long talk about this and the conclusion we came to is … we have no idea. On Election Day, someone spat on him for wearing a t-shirt that said “FEMINIST”, and he’s seen an increase in anti-Semitic comments and threats in his Twitter feed and elsewhere (I’ve seen a couple, too). There have been a rise of anti-Semitic attacks, as well as numerous attacks on women wearing hijabs – but keep in mind this is mostly happening to Americans. There is a rise of White Nationalist (neo-Nazi) groups in America right now, so that’s something to be concerned about, too. The ACLU has also listed travel advisories for people heading to Texas and Arizona, based on treatment of immigrants and people of color. Trump’s travel ban has been stricken down (at least temporarily) but it’s safe to assume that if you are from one of the Muslim countries on the list (which also align to countries where Trump does not have hotels, incidentally) you may have trouble at border control. Oh, and apparently a lot of border control agents are asking people to unlock their phones so they can search through them (illegally). So … I’m sorry. I just don’t know. Do what you need to do to make yourself comfortable.

If you are looking for further reading about the political climate that gave birth to a Trump Presidency, Ta-Nehisi Coates’ piece for The Atlantic, “My President was Black” is excellent. The New Yorker‘s John Cassidy also took at look at the election in its immediate aftermath.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: Wait, there’s glue made especially for vaginas? I’ve jut been using whatever I had lying around the house!

Just kidding, what you are actually thinking is something along the lines of What in the holy hell is going on this is fucking satanic no no no glue does not belong anywhere near my vaginal opening are you fucking kidding me dear god no.

The labia-glue’s creator is a Wichita-based chiropractor named Daniel Dopps, a man who lacks a vagina as well as basic of understanding of human anatomy (related: this does not bode well for the chiropractic community at large). Mr. Dopps – and you’ll notice I use the term “mister” and not “doctor” because HE IS NOT ONE- is the CEO and creator of the “lip-stick glue” as well as countless untold nightmares.

He has named his product “Mensez”, completely failing to see the utter hilarity of a dude making a product that no one who actually menstruates would want, and then calling it MEN SEZ.

The theory behind his “product” is that if labia are glued together then … honestly, I have no fucking clue. I don’t actually think there’s a theory here. As far as I can tell, this is just an elaborate prank by internet trolls and possibly the ghost of Maquis de Sade. But Dopps believes that instead of leaving our vaginas unglued, as they have been since human vaginas have first existed, we should glue them together. This will somehow create a leak-proof seal and negates the need for sanitary napkins or tampons.

The official Mensez website does not instill much confidence in me regarding the product’s efficacy or safety. It is also riddled with typos, and they’ve managed to misspell a five-letter-long word.

It sounds like a pretty terrible idea, though admittedly I can’t say that with any firsthand knowledge because neither I nor anyone I know has been stupid enough to glue their vaginas shut.

The labial glue dissolves in urine, which would make slightly more sense if the urethra and the vagina were the same thing, WHICH THEY ARE NOT. I thought most of us figured this out in the fifth grade, but apparently not.

While answering the many, many, many questions on his company’s hacked-and-presently-disabled Facebook page, Dopps dropped this gem:

“You as a woman should have come up with a better solution than diapers and plugs, but you didn’t.”

Okay, wow. Where to begin.

• Tampons are not “plugs”.
• Menstrual pads are not “diapers”.
• Glue is not a “better solution.”

I know, I know! All of this is confusing, so I’ve made a flowchart that we can easily reference should we need to.

Now, I realize that most people are going to look at this product, note that it’s fucking insane, and have that be the end of it. But the problem isn’t just that Dopps made a faulty, unhealthy, utterly barbaric product. It’s that he has no idea. It’s not just that he doesn’t understand female anatomy – it’s that he and countless others like him feel that they are an authority on women’s bodies.

As my friend Charlotte brilliantly puts it, this is mansplaining at its finest.

Y’all… Imagine a team of the best scientists created a lab to produce the most egregiously mansplaining incident imaginable… (thread)

— Charles Clymer (@cmclymer) February 22, 2017

And let’s be clear – this isn’t just a brainstorming session. This is an actual viable product that exists and HAS A PATENT. Now, if any other group besides menstruating women was targeted with a body glue, do you think it would fly? Imagine someone pitching a cure for diarrhea that involved gluing your anus shut.

Actually, nevermind, don’t.

At a time when women are still – still! – fighting for autonomy over their bodies, when the state of Oklahoma is trying to pass a law where all abortions must be approved by men because women are simply “the hosts” of a fetus, when the fucking President of the United States has bragged about grabbing women by the pussy, my patience for misogynistic batshittery is at an all-time low.

The first rule of vaginas is a simple one: If it’s not yours, and you don’t have explicit permission to touch it, leave it the fuck alone.

The second rule? Don’t glue your labia together. Ever.

Rand, reading an early copy of my book on a plane.

Though it’s been a year – almost to the day – since I sold my book, I realize I haven’t written that much about the entire experience. This omission is bizarre if you consider that it’s possibly the single most important moment in my professional career, but makes total sense if you consider that I’m SUPER superstitious. There was a part of me that thought writing about my book deal too extensively would be a bad idea, because someone at the publishing house would see it and think, “There is no way we agreed to publish this woman’s book. Please let her know we’re cancelling the deal and also mail her a box of cockroaches.”

(Note: I do not know why my publisher would be mailing me cockroaches, but this is how anxiety works.)

But now? I’m pretty sure we’ve passed the point of no return. The final PDF of my book just came in, and it’s available for pre-order, and people are already buying it SO THE JOKE’S ON YOU, PUBLISHING COMPANY SUCKERS. Ahem.

Having just insulted my amazing publisher who helped realize a lifelong goal, I thought I’d answer some of your publishing questions, and give you a breakdown of what the entire publishing process and timeline was for me. (Tomorrow, I’m posting an interview with my editor as well! Stay tuned!)

—————

How Long Did it Take You to Write Your Book?

About a year. I spent pretty much all of 2014 working on it. My goal was a chapter a month, which I apparently exceeded because the book is actually 15 or 16 chapters long. Everyone I tell this to always remarks that a chapter a month feels very reasonable, and it was. I think that’s why I was able to complete it. Set too lofty a goal and you’ll burn out quickly.

—————

How Did You Stay On Track?

If you know me, you’ve probably noticed that I’m horribly unmotivated. I’m not an ambitious person, and if it were up to me I’d stay in my pajamas until well after noon (which I just realized I’ve done today. Whoo hoo!) So in order to stay on track, I decided to make myself accountable to someone else. If you’re working with a publisher, they’ll keep you on track, but in my case, I enlisted the help of my friend Chad. I’ve heard that getting someone who you are afraid to disappoint is critical.For every day that I was late with turning in a chapter, I had to pay him $5. It worked.

—————

Do I Need an Agent?

Unless you are planning on self-publishing, yes. Working with a traditional publisher would have been a daunting and impossible task if not for my agent Zoe. I literally don’t know of a single publisher who will work directly with an author who doesn’t have representation. Not only do agents get your proposal/manuscript in front of publishers in the first place, but they also negotiate your deal, have lawyers look over your contract, and advocate for you in all sorts of ways big and small. They don’t simply sell your book – they help make your book worth buying.

—————

How Long Does It Take To Publish a Book?

The answer varies, but the number I most often hear is about 18 months from the time a rough draft is completed. I sold a completed (but obviously not final) manuscript in February of 2016. We’ve just finalized the copy and the cover this month, after a year of working closely with an editor (note: the book was not a full-time obligation, but there were months where it took up all my days). All Over the Place: Adventures in Travel, True Love, and Petty Theft will be out May 2nd. So it took me 15 months and that was with a book that needed relatively little editing. Some manuscripts need to be completely reworked, which takes more time. And obviously if you’ve sold a proposal then your book hasn’t been written yet, so you can easily add a year or more of writing to those 18 months.

My timeline went something like this:

2014: Work on and finish a very rough draft of my book.

February 2015: Find out my small indie publisher has folded. (I was going to work directly with them – it was sort of like self-publishing but with a slightly more established platform, so I didn’t need an agent). Lots of tears and cake eating ensue. I start halfheartedly looking for representation.

March 2015:  Convinced my book is going to wither on the vine, I start blogging more. I write a piece for Marie Claire about Rand picking out my outfits for a week. Later, a post I wrote on Paleo goes viral.

July 2015: I get an email from Zoe after she read the Marie Claire article and found my blog. She sees that I’m looking for an agent. I send her a sample chapter of my book. She doesn’t hate it. At all.

August 2015: I go to NYC and meet with Zoe and a few other agents (note: a lot of agents are based in Manhattan. You don’t need to travel there to sign with one, but I was heading there anyway). I arrive to every meeting dripping sweat because it’s August and the city is on fire.

By the end of the month, I decide to have Zoe represent me. She’s patient and optimistic and cheerful and oh god I just realized we’re opposites.

October 2015: I’ve spent the last few weeks cleaning up my manuscript so we can show it to publishers, and send it to Zoe at the beginning of the month. She gets her edits back to me a few weeks later.

December 2015: I’ve spent the last month working on Zoe’s suggested edits, and I email her the new draft.

January 2016: Zoe looks over my changes and says the draft is ready to go WHICH CANNOT BE RIGHT. She sends it out to a long list of publishers and imprints that she’s pulled together, along with info about me and a LOT of statistics about this site and my social media following. There are a lot of friendly passes, but several say they’re interested in setting up meetings.

February 2016: I head to NYC to meet with several interested publishers. It is easily one of the strangest and most exciting moments of my professional career. Zoe is there for some, but not all, of the meetings. We discuss the manuscript, my audience, and my plans for other books. I wear a sleeveless top and forget to shave my armpits. I crack jokes. Many flattering things are said. David Sedaris’ name comes up. I’m not sure what to believe.

Weirdly, Rand is also pitching his book during this trip – so while I’m trying to sell my manuscript, he’s trying to sell his proposal. And by the end of the trip, he’s sold his book in something called a pre-empt (which means the publisher makes a big offer in hopes of stopping the book from going to auction).

Later that month, my book goes to auction. This means that Zoe sends out an email to the various interested publishers requesting bids. They send in their starting offers, but they have a chance to raise them if theirs is too low. The auction goes on for several days, and the publishers don’t know who they’re competing against. Mine started on a Monday. Bids were due on Wednesday. By Tuesday night I’d lost my mind, convinced the book wasn’t going to sell.

On Wednesday morning, bids started coming in. I spent a lot of time emailing Zoe and Rand messages in all caps. I can’t discuss it too much, but there was a back and forth that led to offers being raised. I was at my friend Pam’s house, mashing waffles into my face and reading emails out loud while freaking out.

And then … it was over. And I had to decide on a publisher. I mulled it over for a few days before sending Zoe my answer.

In February of 2016, Colleen, my editor, recommends changing the title from Hopefully Lost to All Over the Place. I think it is a brilliant move. I give her a list of potential subtitles, and she picks Adventures in Travel, True Love, and Petty Theft.

Over the next year, Colleen and I work on the book. The work ebbs and flows – sometimes I’m waiting for her to get back to me, some days I’m just writing like a madwoman from morning until night. I’m used to tweaking sentences and jokes, but Colleen was asking me to consider things that had never occurred to me. She gave me advice like, “Be sure to anchor the reader in time” and would make me aware of when I switched from a personal story to making big proclamations about the state of the world with little transition (something I do a lot). She pointed out paragraphs that fell flat and how I have a tendency to write very short, choppy sentences that work on a blog but not necessarily in a book.

We had entire an entire back and forth about Ashton Kutcher and whether I could make a joke about the Punic Wars. We moved entire chapters. We deleted one or two. I rewrote huge sections of the book. We started out big – creating an entire narrative arc that was largely missing – and then focused in. And all the time, I wondered how Colleen was able to see the finished product – it was like a sculptor being able to see the figure inside a hunk of marble. Except that this hunk of marble was full of poop jokes.

Keep in mind: I was rewriting entire chapters, and that still constitutes “minimal editing.”

September, 2016: Colleen tells me that the book is done. It’s now off to a project editor, Melissa, who is equally patient and wonderful and oversees the rest of the publication process. I keep dragging Colleen back in to the conversation, though, because I’m having separation anxiety. I also keep making changes even though the book is done. Like a child with a scabby knee, I cannot stop picking at it.

Fun fact: the author helps write the content that goes on the inside flap of the book – so I describe myself in third person and talk about my own hilarity, which is weird if you’re super self-conscious. A modified version of this content is on the back of the galleys (a gally is an early paperback version of the book that go out to reviewers). I also write the About the Author and Acknowledgements sections.

October: I receive my final jacket design for the book. I also keep making small edits and adding in jokes. My final date to make changes is Thanksgiving.

November: I AM DONE WITH THIS THING AND NOW I WILL GORGE MYSELF ON TURKEY.

December: Colleen, Zoe, my marketing team, and I discuss who we can get to blurb the book. We send out galley copies to several people. The blurbs come back in January and February and are added to the back cover. The book is also sent out to various publications that need a lot of lead time to review a book, as well as individual reviewers.

Also, my dad dies. He never gets to read my book. But he knew it was being published, so I try and comfort myself with that.

January: I send a couple of options for an author photo to my publisher. During this time, early reviews are coming in for the book. Publisher’s Weekly posts a wonderful review, and the response on Goodreads is very positive.

February: I get the final PDF of the book, as well as the final cover design. It. is. done.

Rand’s grandfather calls him. He’s almost through with my book. “It’s not what I normally read,” he says, “but she’s very good.” I cry in the middle of my kitchen.

Rand, his grandfather (poking me in the nose), and my brother-in-law.

And now?

We’re now working on the marketing plan, setting up interviews, and planning some events around the time of launch. I still need to look over a few things – mainly the final PDF (sorry, Melissa! I’ll get on it!) The book will be released on May 2nd, 2017. 15 months from completed rough draft to final book. Almost two years after I met my agent. And about three years from when I started writing my book. Christ, some of the jokes I wrote don’t even make sense anymore.

And … well, that’s it. Writing a book takes some serious time. But I’ve found that the years pass just as slowly when you aren’t writing one.

If you’ve got any more questions, please leave them below and I’ll do my best to answer.

MY LIFE IS NON-STOP GLAMOUR.

If you travel enough, you will inevitably find yourself washing your socks, underwear, and at least two or three t-shirts in a hotel bathroom sink.

As any experienced traveler will tell you, this is the easy part. Getting your clothes wet in the confines of a hotel room isn’t a problem.

I just realized that sounds kind of pervy.

The point remains: washing your clothes is a snap. It’s getting them dry that’s difficult.

(I should probably warn you now, this post has actual, useful travel advice. This may alarm and confuse my longtime readers. I’m sorry, you guys. I’ve got a terrible cold and didn’t sleep very well last night, so this entry is a lot shorter and more practical than any of us would like. In my defense, the advice I have to dispel is pretty obvious.)

After you’ve washed your clothes in the bathroom sink (I like to use equal parts hotel shampoo and cursing), squeeze all the water that you can out of them. If they are particularly sopping, roll them up in a towel and twist the dickens out of it. If your clothes are delicate, this will probably pull them out of shape and make them look like burlap bags. (Note: this is how most travel clothing is designed.)

If you are in Europe, odds are your hotel room will have a towel warmer. Turn that sucker on. Take your hopefully-now-just-a-little-damp clothes and drape them over the towel warmer, like so:

(Now the entire internet knows I have pink underwear.)

Try to get as much surface area of the clothes in contact with the heated pipe as possible. (Again, this totally sounds pervy.)

You’ll find that the heat will dry your clothes in just a few hours. If you can, move the items around after a couple of hours, so you reach all the damp spots. (Again, pervy.)

(This method means your clothes will be stiff and a little stretched out, but they will be clean. )

And if you aren’t in a room that has a towel warmer? Try using a hair dryer to remove some of the moisture and then hang your clothes to dry (do not hang damp clothing on a wooden hanger or it will stain). I find an ironing board works pretty well, as does the shower curtain rod.

Okay, all this … real world knowledge is exhausting. I need to take some DayQuil and lie down. Tomorrow we will return to our regularly scheduled useless ramblings.

Silly fools, Summer 2015.

I am talking about relationships with a friend in a dark restaurant. Rand has left the table for a moment, ostensibly to use the bathroom, though most likely to try to steal the bill. I have seen the two of them do this dance before, a race to see who can put down his credit card first. My friend is unperturbed by Rand’s absence; I will later learn it is because he has already handed our server his card. The meal isn’t close to being over, but Rand is already too late.

And in that moment, when it is just he and I – which never happens, because it is always the three of us, or the four of us, or the six of us – that is when he asks me a question that leaves me stunned.

“So … what’s the secret to being happy forever?”

Initially, I am unable to reply. In the context of a romantic partnership, this question has blindsided me. And before an answer comes to me, I am hit with several realizations at the exact same time.

The first is that this friend is asking me for advice, which feels strange because I have seen him regard life like a magic trick he has already figured out. He doesn’t spoil the illusion for the rest of us, but sometimes, when he can’t help himself, he smiles at our naivete. And so in this moment, when he reveals a tiny gap in the armor of his knowledge, I am surprised.

The second realization is that, on the subject of love and relationships and bliss, he considers me an authority. I find this touching, and am tempted to reach across the table and hug him, but I’ve had roughly 1/3 of a cocktail, which is enough to make me question my ability to do so gracefully. So I stay firmly put, and in the back of my mind I remember that this is a recurring problem of mine: outside of Rand, I rarely tell people that they are important to me.

And then there is the matter of the question at hand: how can two people remain together, happily, forever? The response I fumble for is this: Rand thinks that we’ll never get divorced. I think we might.

Utter lunatics.

I should elaborate, because I’ve said this before in my husband’s presence and it (understandably) tends to unnerve him. For Rand, divorce is not an option – at least, not for the two of us (he thinks that it definitely is an option – and sometimes a very reasonable, responsible one – for other parties. Just not us. He’s made that clear – we’re never getting divorced). And since that choice is off the table, and we’re doomed to spend the rest of our days together, we need to make things work.

When he first said this, it terrified me. Because I didn’t know how to be happily married. I’d never really seen it done before. And I was fairly certain that there was some fatal flaw in me that would prevent it from working out. I was convinced that we were going to get divorced. That it could happen quickly, could settle in as easily as the flu. One minute you aren’t feeling 100%, and the next you’re puking into a bucket. One minute you’re fighting over which drawer in the kitchen to store the aluminum foil, and the next you’re trying to divide your assets.

Silly fools, February 2002.

People don’t usually get married thinking that the outcome will be divorce. I, daring to be different, was convinced that it was always just around the corner, lurking, waiting to strike. So I had to make sure that little fights didn’t grow into big ones. That anger never grew into resentment. Because the option of going our separate ways was always on the table, we needed to make things work. (Note: in the seven years since our wedding, I’ve become a little less paranoid about divorce attacking me while I sleep. But make no mistake: I remain haunted.)

In the end, Rand and I have the same goal: to be together forever. For him, it is inevitable. For me, it isn’t.

I try to explain this to my friend, but I’m full of curry and naan and maybe a little bit too much vodka. He is feeling intellectually generous, and tries to find more sense in my words than I’m able to convey in them. I will realize later, annoyed with myself, that my explanation has not answered his question. I’ve simply explained our motivation. I haven’t shed any light on how to do it.

Given the opportunity with a do-over, the answer I’d have given him is this: act like your spouse is a stranger.

(I promise, this is not a kinky sex thing. I mean, it can be, if you want. I have no problem with that. It’s just not the point I’m trying to make.)

Because have you ever noticed how sometimes we’re kinder to people we barely know than we are to the people we’re close to? That somehow friendship and love can cause you to take a person for granted, to treat them worse than you would strangers on the bus? That odds are, if you’ve screamed the words “I hate you” recently, it was not to someone you barely know from barre class (even though you do sort of hate them, because they have a six pack you could take to a frat party), but more likely to someone you’ve known and loved for years?

I think about this all the time. How there is often a sad trade-off to knowing someone cares about you. How easy it is to be a complete asshole to someone if you know they’ll suffer the awful things you are capable of.

Example: toddlers. Total dicks.

And yet if it’s someone you don’t know, you extend them all sorts of courtesies and niceties and display a level of patience rarely seen elsewhere. Can you imagine if a stranger did your dishes? If someone you barely knew grabbed you a glass of water? If the person in line ahead of you at the movies paid for your ticket and expected nothing in return? We’d be effusively, exceedingly grateful.

So why aren’t we like that to the people who care about us? Why does loving us entitle them to less?

I try to rectify the unfairness of that in my relationship with my husband. I thank him, every single day, for the infinite number of things he does for me. I tell him how wonderful he is and how grateful I am for him. I remember that while he’s told me time and again that he isn’t going anywhere, that doesn’t mean I can take him for granted. I think of how miraculous it would be if a stranger did all of these things for me and I remember that at one point not that long ago, he was one.

And that all of the things he does for me are still pretty miraculous.

Occasionally, I am a total dick. Sometimes, I march out of a room angrily and close doors more swiftly than I should, or I’ll shout “FINE” in a tone that suggests nothing of the sort. But I think even Rand would agree that those moments are pretty rare. That things between us are pretty damn good.

Last night, in the midst of writing this post, I asked him what he thought the secret to a happy marriage was.

“I never stop trying to be worthy of your love,” he said. That while my affection is pretty much unconditional, he was still endeavoring to deserve it. It’s not that dissimilar from my point of view. We both keep trying to deserve this ridiculous stroke of luck that fell into our pants.

But back to the table in that dark restaurant on the other side of the continent from where I now stand. Rand returns from trying to covertly snag the bill (having been thwarted), and I relay the parts of the conversation he’s missed.

“I was just saying how I think we work because I’m always convinced we’re going to get divorced-”

“What? NO. Baby, we’re never getting divorced. You’re stuck with me.”

I laugh. And I see us – the three of us, the four of us, the six of us – sitting around a table, years from now. I want to reach out and hold them all, and tell them I love them in a way that is wholly uncharacteristic of myself. I want us all to live happily ever after. I don’t think there’s any guarantee of it. I just figure you keep trying, you keep being grateful, and maybe we’ll all get there.

In the meantime, I’m doing what I can to make things easier before we leave. Cleaning up here and there, paying bills, and making cooking dough.

Yup. Cookie dough.

Because I figure packing and travel are crazy enough on their own, right? So if there’s something I can do to make leaving for and coming home from a trip easier, I’m going to do it. Here are a few life hacks to try before your next big trip – and one thing you should never do, ever.

1. Re-use Food Containers, and Ditch Them as You Go. Since fresh fruits and veggies are scarce in the airport, and non-existent at 30,000 feet, I like to take some to snack on during my flight.
   

   That’s right – we get WHIPPED cream cheese. Cuz we’re fancy.

   But some of the more fragile produce (like berries) won’t survive in a plastic bag, and I don’t want to lug around my Tupperware for two weeks. So I reuse recyclable food containers (you know, the ones we all stockpile in the cabinet) and then I toss them as I go, clearing up space in my bag. And as for the veggies that I don’t take with me …
   –

2. Make a Freezer Stock Bag. I originally got this idea via this Smitten Kitchen post, and I have to say – it’s brilliant. No matter how well I plan, I’ve found that before any trip I always have a small quantity of leftover fresh produce in my fridge. Rather than toss it (since it won’t last for the two or three weeks that we’ll be on the road) I’ve started collecting it in a gallon-sized bag in my freezer. Half an onion, a bunch of basil, spinach, some wilted celery – it all goes in. When we get home, the hubby will toss it into a pot with some water and make some fantastic veggie stock (or you can add some animal bones of your choosing).
   –
3. Freeze a Meal For When You Get Home. Or At Least Some Cookie Dough.
   
   One day, I will have my act together enough to actually freeze a meal, so we can eat easily have dinner at home our first night back (rather than attempting to grocery shop and cook while jet-lagged, which basically results in me buying a bunch of cereal and then forgetting the milk). And while an entire meal hasn’t happened yet, homemade cookies have. I’ve tried this numerous times with some of my favorite recipes, and it always works – you just have to freeze them properly and adjust the cooking time. Detailed instructions on how to freeze cookie dough here. Plus, cookies count as a meal, right? Just don’t forget the milk.
   –
4. Change the Sheets. Either the morning that we leave (if it’s not an early flight), or the night before, I wash and change the linens on our bed. It seems like a weird thing to do right before a trip, but trust me, there is absolutely nothing better than coming home and curling up in your own bed, between crisp, clean sheets. Plus, it takes the guesswork out of when you may have last washed them.
   –
5. Do the Laundry. Why wait until the last minute? A week or so before we split town, I do the washing. ALL of it. This means that I not only have a full closet of clothes to choose from when I’m packing my suitcase, but I also won’t come home to piles and piles of laundry (on top of a suitcase full of dirty clothes).
   –
6. Make a To-Do List for When You Get Back. I know this sounds totally counter-intuitive – a to-do list? Seriously? But it’s a great way to actually unwind before a trip. In the days before I leave, I’m usually in a frenzy, trying to get stuff done – even things that don’t necessarily need to be completed before I go.
   
   Inevitably, there will be some stuff I can’t get to, so I simply write them down for when I get home. It’s also a great way to “download” all of those to-do items out of your head, so you can forget about them for a while and enjoy your trip.
   –
7. Freshen Up The Garbage Disposal. I always take out the trash before a trip, but often neglect to clean out my garbage disposal – which isn’t fun to come home to. Now, a few hours before leaving, I either pour boiling water down the sink while running the disposal, or toss down some vinegar and baking soda followed by hot water. It takes two seconds, and I don’t have to play “What’s that smell?” when I get home (a game that has, frankly, no winners).

And the one thing you should NEVER do …

I was talking to a coworker of my husband’s a few years back at their holiday party. He told me how one year, before they left on winter vacation, he decided that a great way to save energy would be to shut off the electrical breaker to the house.

I wrinkled my brow.

“That sounds like a bad idea,” I said, “but I can’t think of why.”

“Refrigerator,” he replied simply.

“Oh, god.”

About four days into his trip, it occurred to him that shutting off the power to the house also meant shutting off a fridge that was full of food. It all rotted, leaked and overflowed onto their kitchen floor. The fridge had to be replaced, and the clean-up was the stuff of nightmares.

Bottom line: Turn off computers and lower the heat, but NEVER shut off power to your house entirely before leaving for a trip.

View from a tuk-tuk, Phnom Penh.

We arrived late on a Saturday night, by way of Seoul, a 12-hour flight followed by a 5-hour one. We’d elected to have a car pick us up from the airport, and pressed our faces against the backseat windows as we drove to our hotel, watching the landscape.

What was most surprising was that it didn’t look all that different, or that foreign. It reminded me a little bit of South Africa, and both of us of Peru, only it was … well, Asian. It was sweltering hot and humid, something that I’d anticipated but still wasn’t quite ready for; when we’d left Seattle, seeming ages before, summer had not yet hit, and it was chilly and rainy.

But in Cambodia, summer had arrived, or perhaps it never ended; when we asked people about the weather, they commented that the temperature had cooled down now. April and May, they said, had been truly rough, with the mercury inching close to triple digits.

Now it hovered in the mid-nineties, the humidity around 80%, a metric which baffled me. Was the air … 80% water? No. That didn’t seem right. A heat index told us that the moisture in the air meant that it felt more like 110 degrees.

The point is: it was damn hot.

We cranked up the air conditioning in our massive hotel room (sparse and spacious, with ceilings so high that I’d wake up in the middle of the night with the distinct feeling I’d been sleeping in my high school gymnasium) and plopped down onto crisp sheets and a stiff mattress, but jet lag had us up after a matter of hours.

We rented a tuk-tuk for the day, and climbing in with the giddy unsureness of strangers in a new place, we drove through Phnom Penh. The air was heavy with heat, weighed down even further by the smell of exhaust, dried fish, and a pungent smell that I first thought was rotting fruit, but later was able to recognize as durian.

Dear god, the durian. We will get to that a later date, but let me just say: the notoriety is not undeserved, and if I never eat it again I will be both sad and relieved.

Scooters zipped past us, as well as the occasional honking car, adhering to no discernible rules of traffic that I could make out. I imagined that if you looked at it from above, it would seem slightly less chaotic, like watching the paths of stars through the galaxy. Up close, though, it was madness, even though everyone seemed to get where they needed to go.

We took it all in, Nicci and I, she always with a smile and I occasionally with one. She would later dismiss her optimism as naivete, and I wasn’t entirely sure that was fair. Or at the very least, was not entirely sure that was a bad thing. No one, I told her, walks around wishing they were more jaded than they are.

I had found myself on a two-week trip with a rare breed indeed – a wide-eyed, optimistic world traveler.

Nicci. Also: Nicci’s necklace.

That first day we simply sat back and took it all in – the history and tragedy of the Killing Fields, the noise and the crowds of the markets, saffron-robed monks walking through it all like oases in the chaos.

As we drove through downtown, not far from the palace, my eyes followed a scooter on which was affixed a flat board with the bodies of two dozen or so chickens tied to it. I watched, mesmerized and sufficiently horrified, as one lifted its head and vomited; I’d thought they were all dead.

I was half turned around, and in that brief second I heard Nicci yell. I turned back to see a man on the back of a scooter had reached in and grabbed her necklace, and with a quick –snap– it was gone.

Nicci’s hands flew to her neck as I sat dumbfounded. I’d always thought that if something like that ever happened, I’d have time to react, to do or say something, but it was only well after it was over that my reaction came, a wave of oh-my-gods and are-you-okays that proved totally worthless after the fact.

We kept speeding along (no sense in making our driver stop because there was little that he or anyone else could do), clutching our bags more tightly now, aware that we weren’t simply watching the chaos around us – we were part of it, for the next two weeks at least.

And wouldn’t you know it, Nicci smiled almost the entire time, and I occasionally did, too. Because we were someplace new and exciting and a little bit frightening.

Nicci, sans necklace. The smile remains.

The events of that day stuck out, each one carrying with it a lesson, varying in significance. This was not the first one I learned, nor the most important, but it is perhaps the most concise:

Cambodia Lesson #5: When riding through downtown Phnom Penh on a tuk-tuk, keep a close grip on your personal possessions.

That seems like a good place to start.