FAITH SALIE

I'm not proud that, in my time, I've tried to harness the power of prayer to fit into a pair of jeans.

I'm a snowflake. And so are you. Your children are snowflakes. And so are mine. And those who protest the loudest about not being snowflakes? I can see your six-fold ice crystals from here! Because every person, empirically, is unique.

The option to freeze one's eggs is just about the most empowering choice a single woman who knows she wants to be a mother can make.

Despite amazing advances in fertility to help older women get pregnant, the complications, increased chances of autism, and chromosomal abnormalities are significant considerations.

Are we a people who put politics over integrity? Or are we a country of voters and leaders, men and women, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, colleagues, humans who care about treating each other with basic dignity?

We all think Al Gore invented email so we could save time and save paper, to save trees. And that includes phone trees.

Well-done eyelash extensions make you look beautiful and doe-eyed without a lick of makeup.

My husband is a graduate of two Ivy League universities - with a degree in Classics! - and he sounds like a David Mamet character when I hear him on a business call.

I don't think, in my entire 18 years as a student, I ever used an exclamation point in an academic paper.

Getting a pedicure seems to be a standard pre-birth ritual, presumably because it is relaxing and makes you feel pretty even though your little piggies are going to be covered in those awesome no-skid hospital socks which I kept on for three days.

Wanting to be loved and appreciated connects us all.

It's fitting that an insult largely aimed at youth has made children of those who use it. 'Snowflake' reminds us how much we need climate change... in politics.

Adverbs, we know, are meant to modify a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. They help us understand things more clearly, more vividly, more... morely.

Approval ratings matter for politicians, largely for good reason. A leader with plummeting approval ratings ought to take note of the needs and hopes of his people.

I'm squandering invaluable gray matter by censoring myself.

Mother's Day is a bittersweet day for many of us. We all have mothers, but some of us have lost them.

As a mother, I don't want any girl twerking near my kid at a bat mitzvah.

Having grown up Catholic, my prayers were scripted - memorized and deployed in church and before bed. As a young adult, I veered off script and talked to God more plainly. And by 'talked to,' I mean that I basically asked for things to turn out the way I wanted them to.

Whether you plan to labor with an epidural or the Pitocin Fairy pins you down or you end up having an emergency C-section, there are still choices you can make throughout your entire birth experience that allow you to feel some control over what is probably the most dramatic day of your life.

I'm not actually perishing, but I do feel like I die a little every time someone uses 'literally' to mean 'really.'

I don't mean to brag, but my water filter curates tap water, offering moi the finest combination of H, 2, and O available.

The custom of clasping hands is thought to date back thousands of years, as proof of not holding any weapons.

If I could have had my baby sooner, I would have, simply to spend more years with him.

It was my husband who had to open all the baby shower gifts which were haunting me in their candy-colored gift wrap - thank you notes demanding to be written.

Contrary to the negative stereotype that folks who swear have poor vocabularies, a fluency in taboo language correlates with overall verbal fluency. The more words you know, the more you know... and the more colorfully you can express yourself, with nuance, metaphor, and emotion.