She beamed with pride while my eyes slowly opened wide — My mom had her old Lippes Loop intrauterine device (IUD) plastered between the plastic sheet protector on the first page of my baby book. I stared at its snake-like shape and took it out at times to feel it throughout my childhood without really knowing what it was. I knew…

What started out as laziness turned into a bold act of defiance — I used to stare at my mom’s long underarm hair and feel repulsed and embarrassed. This happened around puberty when I started to grow hair in places I never had before. When I asked her why she didn’t ever shave her legs or armpits after…

There are plenty of good reasons to explore them but my top reason might surprise you — Yesterday, I had a life-altering experience that was so simple yet profound. I spent four hours at an incredible spa that is open to the public but also part of a four-star hotel in northwestern Germany. Before moving to Germany a year and a half ago, I had heard about…

I wonder how many people will correctly guess my reason why before reading my story — It was the summer of 2016 and I had never exclusively dated any particular race, aside from the human race, in the many years of dating that I had experienced up to that point. Several years prior I had a friend, a Black woman, who was attracted to one of…

There is something very sexy about the rain that brings colorless fantasies to life in my brain — I used to hate November despite it being the month I was born, and I loved celebrating my birthday. It marked the beginning of the cold season which felt like my nemesis for many years. When I moved to Seattle in my late teens, I hated the cold and rain…

I stayed for the money and the benefits, but at what cost? — When that small voice inside my head started screaming at me throughout my mind and body, I finally listened. She told me that no amount of money that my company was willing to pay would be worth the potential long-term damage I was doing to my body. It was not…

It became apparent to me after moving from America to Germany — My German partner and I met online and were shocked by how much we thought we knew about the other’s culture, only to learn how wrong we were. For one, I thought that Halloween was celebrated in Western Europe, at least in major cities, to the extent that it was…

A feast for every sense, our plethora of fiction treats for you — While we’re in the grind of life, the turn of seasons is here once more. Leaves are falling, creating colors so heartbreakingly lovely they rival the sun. The weather might be wetter, colder, or both, wherever you are. In northern Germany, where I am, and in the great Northwest, where…

My lessons learned from extensive dating could come in quite handy as the nights grow longer and urges grow stronger — “It’s Cuffing Season and I’m ready to cuff!” he said to me in a huff one early fall afternoon. I looked at him with furrowed eyebrows, never having heard the term before, and slowly put the pieces together. This guy and I had been dating since early summer and I…