.SOMETIMES RAW.

*Because it is all fun and games until you are in a bathroom stall.

You step inside the bathroom and shut the door.

You lock the door.

Get a good look at yourself in the dim lighting. You look great. Remember this because you’re about to look more vulnerable than a baby antelope at the watering hole during lion lunch hour.

Unsnap (why are there always snaps?) the top two snaps. Then, re-snap them.

You go back to the door. Double-check to make sure that it is locked. Jiggle the handle. Shake it.

Once you’re sure it’s locked, unsnap all the snaps and zipper (there’s always a zipper too), and slide your arms out of the sleeves. Unpeel yourself, you big, stupid banana.

Look down at your chest: you’re either wearing the bra you’ve had for too long and that you tell people you wash, but you’ve never washed it, because you’re worried it’ll lose some of the comfort it brings you. Or you’re completely naked. There is no in-between.

Hold the top of the jumpsuit under the back of your thighs so that it’s not touching the floor (gross) and also not touching the toilet (gross). This will be difficult but necessary.

You forgot to build a “toilet seat nest” to sit on. Build it now while holding the jumpsuit.

Bend your legs and assume a sitting position. You are ready.

As you are peeing, cold and alone, you consider the history of your choice: you’re wearing a garment originally designed by men for men to be worn in factories around dangerous machinery, by fighter pilots or people jumping out of planes or by specialized police and security units. But you think you look so damn cool with a jumpsuit or worse, romper (the shorter version), on. The jumpsuit you’re wearing tonight was purchased on Amazon with a gift card your mom gave you.

The door handle jiggles. You’ve never known fear until then. There is only one stall and the line outside is long. Pressure is on you. You start to sweat. Thinking straight is difficult at this point.

You say some combination of words to let the potential intruder know that the bathroom is occupied. Your voice is at a higher pitch than you’ve ever reached before.

You pee faster.

You reach for toilet paper while still managing not to let the jumpsuit fall to the ground. (gross!) You are so brave.

Somehow, the door opens, and someone (a man, damn these unisex bathrooms!) walks in. He backs out with apologies, but not before you make full eye contact. He has seen you. There’s nothing you can do or say. Everything will be different from now on.

You finish, jumpsuit yourself back up, wash your hands, and get back out there. You see him, the person who saw you. He is sitting at the bar with friends. He looks at you, smiles and waves you over. You blush but end up talking to him. He tells you he always wondered how women pee with a jumpsuit on. You are both telling the story of what just happened, and, for a moment, there is a sense of unity. The jumpsuit has made you one. Then you tell him a list off 33 things why life is easier if you have a penis. He laughs and you know he is a person with humor.

You keep drinking until, once again, it’s time. But he will guard the stall when you go in.

And now, one of my favorite topics: books. What are you reading these days? There is no shortage of amazing books right now and I am here for it. Both fiction and nonfiction, from hilarious to poignant, here’s what I have been reading…

Save Me the Plums by Ruth Reichl
Confession: I don’t care about food. Don’t get me wrong — I eat food, I make food. Sometimes, I’ll get unnaturally excited about a bucatini cacio e pepe. But I am not one of those people for whom reading about flavors and textures and ingredients holds any weight. That’s how good Ruth Reichl is: she’s a writer, who just so happens to focus on food. And anything she writes, I will read. Reichl’s latest memoir chronicles her time as the editor-in-chief of Gourmet, and covers everything from wavering over accepting the job to not knowing how a magazine works to worrying how to be a boss to the very real guilt of balancing career and parenthood. She approaches every subject in her frank, friend-who-tells-the-best-stories-and-keeps-no-secrets way. The result is compulsively readable, much like — sorry, can’t help myself — a dish you want to gobble up. If you like books by Stanley Tucci, go read Ruth Reichl.

Southern Lady Code by Helen Ellis
At first, I did not want to read Southern Lady Code. The cover was cute. It came recommended by people I trust. But I am not a Southern lady, and I feared the humor would be lost on me. I could not have been more wrong. Southern Lady code is “the technique by which, if you don’t have something nice to say, you say something not-so-nice in a nice way.” This essay collection had me howling — truly howling — with laughter. One evening while reading, my boyfriend put his book down to say, “WHAT are you laughing at?” which prompted me to read an entire chapter aloud. Ellis describes everything, from puzzles to airplane etiquette to riding the subway with a panty liner stuck to her back, in a way that is very, very funny. Run, don’t walk. 

The Farm by Joanne Ramos
Full disclosure: I just started The Farm last night, but you know those books that immediately draw you in and suddenly you can’t think of anything else? Joanne Ramos, formerly a staffer at the Economist, wrote this debut novel — a cracking, chilling but also human page-turner about Jane, a Filipino immigrant, who goes to “The Farm,” a retreat where for nine months, you get organic meals, daily massages and big money. The catch? You can’t leave the grounds, you’re constantly monitored and you’re cut off from your regular life, while you focus on producing the perfect baby — for someone else. If you liked The Handmaid’s Tale, I think you’ll love this book. Can’t wait to read it in bed tonight.

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
A few weeks ago, when I wrote about my newly discovered love of short stories, I was thrilled when people chimed in with favorite collections. The author that got the most shout-outs was Jhumpa Lahiri. Lahiri won a Pulitzer for her first book, Interpreter of Maladies, and a movie was made from her novel, The Namesake— but I decided to start with her 2009 collection Unaccustomed Earth. Like most of her writing, Lahiri focuses on the Bengali immigrant experience in America, zeroing in on themes of belonging, family and home. What is most impressive to me is there’s often nothing exceptional about the setting or person. But man… she gets it. A big thank you to those who recommended this beautiful book.

Normal People by Sally Rooney 
This is one of those novels that a) you don’t want to ever end b) when it ends, you can’t bring yourself to read anything new because you want to live in the story for as long as possible. Rooney, who is 28, broke onto the scene two years ago with her critically acclaimed (and wildly popular) Conversations with Friends. Her second book follows two Irish high school kids who hail from different worlds: Connell is working class and popular, Marianne is wealthy and weird. Once they head to Trinity College in Dublin, the ever-present tension of these basic truths informs their love story as it evolves from secret and sexual to deep and beautiful to intense and life-saving.

What are you reading right now? Have you read anything great lately? I’d love to hear…

Do you have kids? Do you want them to say more than two words at dinner? I have figured out (by reading about and studying linguistics and communication) ways to get a child talking (a lot!) during dinner. Here, I share my five brilliant conversation starters. 

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The whole concept of family dinner, if you think about it, is pretty elemental: you gather around a table in the waning hours, you and yours, and eat, converse about your day and, if you’re lucky, life itself. But sometimes — or, most of the time — our dinners can resemble not so much a family eating in the kitchen of our Dutch colonial but a pre-verbal gathering of primitive hominids on the veldt, hunched over a large rock, devouring the day’s kill with frightening, brutal efficiency — quick, before somebody steals it! — and doing it all through a silence punctured only by occasional lip smacks and grunts of pleasure. In other words, getting dinner on the table often feels like the easy part; it’s the conversing and communicating — the family part of family dinner — that often prove more elusive. And, okay, if you insist on greater specificity, it’s my ability to get my child to SPEAK TO ME that is often very much in doubt.

Does this exchange sound familiar to you?

“What’d you do today?”

“What?”

“What’d you do today?

“Huh?”

“What’d you do today?”

“Mmm, I don’t remember.”

“What’d you do today?”

“I need ketchup.”

Over the past few years, I’ve devised a few techniques to deal with this situation, ways to prod and cajole Joel into sharing and prompting and interacting — or, at the barest minimum, stopping for a moment to look up and acknowledge something beyond the food on his plates…

Mad-Sad-Glad

The most consistently successful of all my methods. Each person at the table has to share one thing from their day that made them mad, one thing that made them sad, and one thing that made them glad. In addition to initiating some real conversation (we rarely make it all the way around the table, once everyone gets going) this has the welcome benefit of clueing you into some things in your kids’ lives — anxieties, accomplishments, mean girls at camp, math difficulties, and the always-telling lunch table politics — that they might otherwise have locked away in a drawer and let fester.

The Negative Assertion

This doesn’t deliver the kind of sustained, substantive conversation you get with Mad Sad Glad, but it often helps break the ice and get some dinnertime energy flowing. Kids love to prove their parents wrong — or, at least, my kid loves to prove me wrong — so I’ll offer up an observation that I know is untrue, and wait for the kids to set the record straight. Like this one, from a beautiful, clear summer evening last year:

Me: “I can’t believe you had to stay inside all day at camp today because of the weather.”

Abby: “No we didn’t!”

Me: “Man, that must have been so boring.”

Phoebe: “We were outside all day! We hiked down to the river, and had lunch under the poison ivy tree, and…”

Other options: Why do you think Mrs. H. decided to skip math lessons today? I can’t believe nobody said a word on the bus on the way home this afternoon. Do you guys ever wonder how an ostrich flies? So a friend tells me you hate playing Playstation now…

Talk About Yourself (And Let Them Jump In)

My own life doesn’t always strike me as riveting, but you’d be surprised at what kids get into. An example: a year or so ago, I was working on an article about moving from Canada to Austria and studying full-time at Carleton University in Ottawa. How hard the winters in Canada were and such things. My son couldn’t get enough! He still asks me from time to time on how life was in Canada when he was still so small. The snowstorms and the Powwow Festivals. Seriously. Possible moral of story: we’re not as boring as we think we are?

The Misdirection Play

I hardly ever get an answer when I ask my kid something directly. (“What did you do at school today?”) Similar to the Negative Assertion approach, I find it helps to take the pressure off a little by asking to tell a story about someone else. But maybe don’t phrase it quite so overtly. Phrase it like this: “So [your kid’s name here], tell me about this new friend of yours, [new friend name here]. Does she have long hair? Does she like watching Young Sheldon? At recess, is she a cop or a robber?” Bet you anything your kid responds, and when he/she does, you’ve got them right where you want them. You can take the conversation anywhere from there.

The Awkward Silence

Join forces with your partner and resolve to say nothing, not a word. Kids can’t hack it. They fill the silence. (Only downside: my son fills it by saying, “Herpoooooooooouuuuuuuuu – don’t ask why or what this even means.”)

The Nuclear Option

To be deployed only in truly desperate situations: “Okay, if you don’t start telling me about your days, we’re not having chocoloate tonight.” This one has never failed — and believe me, I’ve wielded it way more than I should ever admit.

Thank you so much for reading my blog! What do you guys think? Any other tips you have for starting conversations with little dudes? Are your kids chatty at dinner?