The "Adulting" Handbook

The pandemic has wreaked havoc on my sleep cycle and I cannot function on low sleep. So lately, I've been using bedtime stories to fall asleep. Yes: I allow people with soothing voices on an app to lull me to sleep. A lot of other people have caught…

Despite the fact that mental illness is quite common, it’s still heavily stigmatized across cultures and sometimes even challenging to diagnose and treat. Even if you are lucky enough to have good behavioral health care, your doctor has to combine…

I’m not much of a nickname person, and when I do use them, they're reserved for immediate family members and close friends. If I call you by a nickname, you hold a special place in my heart — which is why I was confused when I, like many others,…

While conspiracy theories are not limited to any topic, there is one type of event that seems particularly likely to spark them: mass shootings, typically defined as attacks in which a shooter kills at least four other people. When one person kills…

I snore. For obvious reasons, I can’t be sure what it sounds like but I have a feeling my snoring sounds less like a softly purring kitten and more like an asthmatic guinea pig. My boo says it’s cute, but I suspect that this is one of those things…

Growing up, owning a dishwasher was more of a concept than a daily reality. We used it when we were too stuffed, too Itis-stricken to make dishes anew after experiencing mom’s culinary wizardry, mainly after elaborate holiday dinners. Against my…

Until the pandemic inspired us to start cooking at home more, my partner and I would order tacos to-go from one of our favorite Mexican spots. I remember salivating over the savory aroma of crispy tortillas bulging with carne asada, wafting from the…

COVID-19 has done a number on our social lives. This terrible, no good, very bad pandemic has been around for more than a year and during this time, you might’ve decided to cut the fat on your friend circle (or that may have happened naturally since…

Sex education in the United States is notoriously bad. I attended some of the best public schools in this country, and when I had sex for the first time, I didn’t know how to use a condom. I didn’t hear the word “consent” until I went to a kink…

Oprah Winfrey was visibly shocked when Meghan Markle and Prince Harry told her someone in the royal family fretted about “how dark [Archie’s] skin might be” when the then-duchess was pregnant. The day after her bombshell interview aired, Winfrey…

When I was growing up, my dad would retell an anecdote about a time he and my youngest sister saw a little boy calling to his mother in Barnes and Noble. “Mom! Mom!” he yelled. His mother, who was standing several feet away, turned to face him.…

My sister and I have a coded phrasing that we use when we discuss queerness around our parents. “When he called me ‘sweetie,’ I knew his shoes must be shiny,” my sister Loree will say, to avoid the inevitable winces from our religious kin. We both…

Doing your taxes during a pandemic is stressful enough. Filing your taxes for the first time during a pandemic can feel even more stressful. Before you start spiraling, though, some words of reassurance: “As a young person, it’s actually pretty…

Starting a business is hard for anyone, but it comes with additional challenges for BIPOC founders. Both the cost and lack of access to capital take an outsized toll on BIPOC-owned businesses, according to a report from the Ewing Marion Kauffman…

For most of us, debt is a necessary evil. Paying it off can be one of the most freeing, empowering accomplishments in the world, worthy of celebration. Mic's new series Paid in Full tells the stories of these triumphs, and just might help you figure…

Like so many people, I lost a large portion of my income during the pandemic. A lot of bills went unpaid and, often, unopened. For months, I have been inundated with robocalls and neon envelopes from creditors. Last month, I was woken up by the…

It was never a question of if, but Hollywood has still moved at startling velocity to get the Reddit Wall Street debacle adapted for the big screen. Just one week after millions of investors teamed up through r/WallStreetBets to drive up the price…

Here’s a word salad that’d never make sense outside of 2021: AOC did a Twitch stream about GameStop stonks on Thursday night. The beginning of the livestream was plagued with technical issues ("This is an ASMR channel now," the Congresswoman joked,…