I don't have anything funny to distract you with or uplifting or enlightening to say about this week's awful current events so here are just some recent things that I have written and some lovely people have written and I'll just leave this all here for today.

• My friend Lisa Leone wrote a piece about her frustrating experiences as a woman in the ad world. It's called "Ad Girl, Interrupted" and it's over at Medium. Don't let the funny Super Bowl ads fool you--it's a rough business.
  
  
• This is not relevant to anything in my life but Sarah Miller's piece about one woman's joyful night at Celine Dion concert over at Jezebel made me laugh out loud. It might be what you need today.

I have written a bunch of pieces for Mom.me. And they are:

• 3 Things I Won't Be Doing For My Kid's First Birthday Party (these include turning on the oven)
  
  
• The One Thing All Moms Need to Stop Saying (hint: with great power comes great responsibility--and do you really need all that?)
  
  
• My 14 Commandments of Parenthood (sure to be amended as life goes on)
  
  
• My son doesn't kiss or hug his brother: When Sibling Love Doesn't Look the Way You Thought It Would

And here are some non-mom things:

• Last week, at Idea Potluck, I delivered a 6 minute discussion about the process and what I learned from the two cover stories I published over the last few months. Click here if you want to see video of the performance. I am...not a professional speaker. Thank you to Shuling Yong for capturing it!
  
  
• I contributed a good deal to Chicago Magazine's Insider's Guide to Pet-Friendly Chicago.

Finally, a few weeks ago I interviewed Howard Eisenberg, who has been writing for about 70 years and doesn't seem to show any inclination to slow down anytime soon. He's got a sweet volume of funny poems about raising kids called Adorable Scoundrels--you can pick it up here and check out a few below:

That's all for this week. Be safe, be informed, be kind.