On applying to work as an undercover agent.

A trip to the zoo, Charlie Kaufman’s new film, and human despair.

“Love purifies. Suffering never purified anybody; suffering merely intensifies the self-directed drives within us. Any act of love, however--no matter how small--lessens anxiety's grip, gives us a taste of tomorrow, and eases the yoke of our fears. Love, unlike virtue, is not its own reward. The reward of love is peace of mind, and peace of mind is the end of man's desiring.”

The author's first published article.

How we talk about—and live with—schizophrenia.

“At 54, after 30 years of marriage and two of loneliness, I went online to find a man and found Dean.”

A three-part essay on love, loss, and what comes in between.

Winona Ryder has always been trapped in her own anticipatory nostalgia, and the public has always wanted to keep her there.

An essay on depression, art, and growing up.

“Offhand, there are maybe three times in my life I can clearly recall laughing at something really terrible. One: when my mother told me my grandfather had a heart attack. Two: when a friend and I were driving to Cape Cod and a huge bird careened into the windshield, instantly bonking itself dead. Three: when my friends tried to keep me from going home from a party because they thought my boyfriend might kill me.”

The Castro, 1990, and a first night in drag.

On realizing you’re going to die.

An essay on the silent, secret grief of miscarriage.

On the false narratives of anorexia.

On the stories we tell ourselves about happiness and the indecent questions we ask women who decided not to become moms.

Race and Ole Miss football.

An essay on “how we ignore the long-term effects of violence on children, adults and our communities.”

On our ability to multitask.

Memories of living with the writer Andrew Lytle late in his life.

On the perils and rewards of feminism.

A mortuary employee surveys her scene.

An essay on its history and future during a time when “gayness, we are told, is over.”

The author discovers devastating secrets while going through her late father’s belongings.

An essay on a fatal car crash in the author’s youth.

“What I had going for me was teen rage, contempt impervious to offers of compromise; the power of the mask capable of turning ice to marshmallow, and all the time in the world, all the ability to sustain it without surrendering.”

An ode to Juiceboxxx, a 27-year-old rapper from Milwaukee no one’s ever heard of.

A novelist’s memoir of depression, whose “intrinsic malevolence” as a disease brought him close to suicide.