Melissa Petro

You may have heard the old joke that 98% of people masturbate, and the other two percent are lying.

"Certainly, my life as an alcoholic was not what most would imagine. I was a writer, living in the West Village of New York City, enrolled in a prestigious graduate program and working on a book. At least, this was my cover story."

So, I got an email from my brother yesterday telling me that he’s not coming to the wedding. “I want to be there,” he writes, “I really do, but the idea of being consigned to [our mother and her boyfriend’s] care for the duration of the trip is driving me mad. You know, the whole lack of autonomy and being on someone else's time and all that.”

Use insect repellent, sleep under a mosquito net, and just don’t get pregnant — is this the best we can do for Latin American women?

Sure, "friends forever" sounds nice. In theory. But sometimes it's better that two people just not be friends.

After gaining as much as forty pounds and pushing a cantaloupe out my vagina, I wondered: will my body ever be the same?

My relationship with my father was never father-daughter picnics. Maybe when I was very little — or maybe this is less a memory and more of a wish — I have an image of myself as a very little girl sitting on my father’s lap, and we are both laughing. Perhaps my father enjoyed fatherhood when his children were very little, but that joy seemed to curdle into constant frustration as my brother and I grew up.

If you missed my weekly column this summer all about getting engaged and planning a wedding, here’s the highlight reel: after doing

No exaggeration, when I close my eyes— even for a second— I see white dresses.

Mark prayed to Saint Francis, a patron saint of drunks and (according to Mark) lost causes. Mark wasn’t religious, but he wore a St. Francis amulet around his neck, a gift from his father. Nights when he didn’t come home, I prayed to St. Francis, too.