Sure, I’ve always had a dark sense of humor. But it wasn’t until my first child was born that I started taking a hard look at the world and wondering, what does the future look like? And the more I pay attention, the more nothing seems certain anymore.

In 2017, my family lost their home to wildfires in California. Out of nowhere, the skies turned orange, and “Smoke” became a season. I became determined to prepare my family for unexpected disasters.

Every website I went to in search of answers was more boring than the last. They were all super right-wing (not me!) or dense and complicated.

I just wanted to know — WTF is a disaster plan?

I started Here Comes the Apocalypse because it was so goddamn hard to find out the answer to that question. As an overwhelmed parent of young children, I didn’t have the time to dig through website after website sorting through the information. I needed concrete steps that I could follow. I needed practical advice that didn’t assume I was ready to build a bunker.

I didn’t want to be a prepper — I just wanted to be prepared.

So I wrote the Disaster Playbook — a guide that breaks down how to prepare for emergencies, wrapped in fun and terrible jokes. Because that’s what I needed and couldn’t find. And I knew I couldn’t be the only one who wants to get prepared, but needs a funny friend to light the way.

I invite you to join me. Take the first step and start preparing today.

The more of us who are prepared, the stronger we will be when a disaster comes our way.

Image inspired by instagram.com/blcksmth‘s amazing art.

I had just gotten fed up with the backup stroller and was looking on Craigslist for strollers to buy. Did you know that some people spend $1,500 on strollers? I guess it’s a status symbol. All of our strollers have always been secondhand, either as gifts from families who had outgrown theirs or used ones we got off Craiglist.

ANYWAY, over the weekend I asked Will and Quinn to go bike around and see if they could find a bookcase for Quinn’s room from the furniture that people had put out on the street. They did not find a bookcase, but instead acquired a used BOB stroller in pretty excellent condition that the fanciest house in the neighborhood had put out for free. It is by far the nicest stroller we’ve ever had. It has cup holders! (The only issue is that the BOB is a jogging stroller, and, um, I don’t jog.)

Here’s the thing: I was about to lay down $200 for a used stroller on Craigslist. I had even looked at versions of this same stroller and wondered whether some imaginary future Jen would take up jogging.

I didn’t have to spend that $200 and instead I got a nice-ass stroller out of nowhere. You see, I have access to really nice free stuff because I live in a really nice neighborhood.

And do you know why I live in a really nice neighborhood?

Generational wealth. I have family that was able to buy property a century ago in the Bay Area that appreciated wildly and allowed us to have a nice ass house. 100% we would not live here without it.

And now, because of where I live, I got an awesome new stroller. Saving myself $200.

Like interest on money in the bank or the stock market, privilege compounds on itself, building the wealth and increasing the ease of the people lucky enough to have it.

So, today I’m donating an extra $200 (on top of my monthly commitment) to @reparationsfund.

Because I have opportunity and ease in my life and I understand that racist policies made that happen for me and not for others.

Well, I’m nuts. But When our daughter was born at the end of 2021, I felt a satisfying sense of completion family-wise, and I really wanted to start a tradition of sending an annual update to friends and family.

And because I’m me, a simple holiday greeting from one of those awesome websites like minted wasn’t going to cut it.

My good friend and fellow designer Molly McCoy sends an amazing holiday card every year that plays with unexpected cuts to create surprising shapes. She introduced me to the Fold factory’s fold of the week and watching their weekly videos highlighting creative print design is one of my joys.

I remember gazing at him breastfeeding when he must have been seven- or eight-months old and thinking, “I can’t wait to stop breastfeeding you. I’ll treasure it next time.”

(Is that a weird thought? Maybe, but it was a real moment. Breast-feeding was hard with him and I was over it.)

Having been blessed with a second child and going through milestones now — like outgrowing the giraffe pajama for the second time — my brain is oscillating between feeling a sad sort of nostalgia that this period is over and actively trying to convince myself to have another child.

I don’t want another child. I don’t like being pregnant. I am not a huge fan of birth. And babies (and kids) are a lot of work. I always told myself that I would have three children (just in case one’s a dud, you know), but we. don’t. want. one.

End of story.

Except my brain does.

It says things like:

• Sure, birth sucked the first time. And it sucked even worse the second time. But next time, you’ll be good at it! Wouldn’t it be nice to be good at it?
• This child is amazing. Look at this amazing child you created. You should have another. Imagine what they would be like! 
• Think of all your friends NOT having babies. The future need thoughtful voters! It’s your responsibility to (try to) raise them.
• Remember that psychic in 2006 who told you that you were going to have three kids? She can’t have been wrong!
• What if it’s another girl? Oh but what if it’s another boy? How cute they would be!
• We have all the stuff already… And we’ve learned so much this time around. The next one will be a piece of cake, surely.
• You should keep the giraffe pajama. Just in case. You never know…

And it says shit like this to me ALL THE TIME. It had me thinking about stabbing holes in condoms the other day.

My brain is insane. I’ve posted before about all the crazy ways the brain changes when you become a parent.

Here I am, a parent over again and stuck in a limbo of both wanting and not wanting another baby.

Let me out!!

“That is what parenting is: wiping someone’s butt for a while.”

Do you want one? Send me your address and I’ll send you one!

As I embark on my fifth decade on this planet, I truly feel like the luckiest person in the world. My life is wonderful. I have ease and joy and love on a daily basis. I have a four-and-a-half-year-old to keep every moment interesting and a baby gestating inside to ensure the next years are even more full. I have a loving family, supportive friends, a wonderful home, a garden that never fails to deliver a dose of wonder and magic just when I need it. I have a business that gives me creative satisfaction and material comforts. I eat amazing food and enjoy modern comforts like running water each and every day.

I’m wise enough to know that appreciating these things is what will give me daily happiness. I’m practiced in the art of noticing and naming my blessings.

Yes, my life is full of the earthly delights. At the same time, what I want for the world feels impossible. I want to wave a magic wand and exhaust the Dixie fire, saving my in-laws’ house and so many others. I want to live in a society that values science and our responsibility to the planet, that somehow finds an immediate and effective solution to this climate crisis. I want ample reparations for affected communities to atone for America’s racist and genocidal history. I want to feel confident that today’s children and their children will have a chance for a livable and happy existence.

My therapist introduced me to the Rumi quote, “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”

I spend a lot of time in that field. I sit in that field with my gratitude and happiness.

I look into the eyes of the me filled with my perpetual anger at the status quo and my escalating fear for the future and my children’s futures. 

And we sit, the two of us together, today and most days. Wonder and joy and terror and overwhelm all creating this moment of my human experience. 

And today, on my 40th 34th₁₂ birthday, I ask for more. Please, more. Thank you, and more. 

I want to have sex with my dishwasher.

In any other year, this would not be good news. I’m happily married. I’ve never had any sort of sexual feelings about appliances despite my collection of increasingly provocative vibrators. But, in 2020, the desire to have an extramarital relationship with an appliance somehow lands in the Good News column.

I’ve spent my adult life doing my dishes by hand. I even convinced myself that I liked it. “I get ideas while washing dishes,” I told my friend Madeleine years ago when she introduced me to her portable dishwasher.

I was sure that having a portable dishwasher would be a pain in the ass. I like old architecture, kitchens with cupboards that were once ice boxes, with shelves with holes in them to allow the cold to float up. Nowhere that I had lived had a dishwasher and I was completely okay with that.

Then came parenthood and the incredible onslaught of tasks that brings. I calculated the number of minutes per week that we spend doing dishes.

“It is time to get a portable dishwasher!” I proclaimed. I told myself that somehow it would be worth the hassle of rolling it over to the sink.

And it was.

We got an old one, off of Craiglist. A Kenmore. I call him, “Ken.” An experienced, dependable lover…err… worker. Not as water-wise as some, but trusty, fastidious, detailed in his lovemaking…err… dishwashing.

That sexy beast. The vibrations as it moves through cycles. The steamy dishes, that come out so hot, so clean. Oh, the vigorous, sultry angles of his boxy shape. Oh, to be those dishes. To crawl inside, become one with him.

Right away, I came clean: “That is the sexiest appliance, I’ve ever met,” I told my husband.

He didn’t think that was a weird thing for me to say. But it didn’t stop there. If only.

While putting away the cleanest dishes I’ve ever seen, I would get frazzled. Go up and put on a touch of rogue, some lipstick. Come back naked!

“Oh hello, ‘Ken’… You won’t mind if I just sit on you a moment…” I look up, suddenly. The neighbors can see me. Better put my clothes on.

Rolling it around my kitchen. It’s so big, bulky, heavy. So effective. Oh how it gets my juices flowing.

The sexy escape I need from 2020: an affair with my dishwasher.

Hey, if sex dolls are becoming main-stream, then appliance-human love can’t be too far away. Time to talk to the hubby about an open marriage again…

My year was laid out before me. Six months of killing it at work and then a little baby as a reward. I had this plan to hire a project manager and potentially have a little maternity leave this time. I had a plan for world domination. I felt like I was on fire with my goals and plans and good energy.

I was 11 weeks pregnant; one week away from telling the world. We were calling it “Circe” and I was in an internal battle with myself over whether we should find out the sex. The baby was the size of a strawberry. I wanted it to be a girl so badly.

One tends to refer to a miscarriage as one would an on/off switch: one is pregnant, then one isn’t.

It’s not like that. My body spent seven weeks devoting all its resources to building a womb, that strawberry-sized baby, and the placenta to support it.

It’s closer to a birth than an on/off switch. Everything my body created had to come out. The uterus has to return to its normal state. Hormones have to stabilize.

Like birth, miscarriage has been so much harder than I ever would have thought.

I had no idea what to expect. I got in the car a couple of hours into it to drive to an appointment. I was surprised when I bled through my pad, my period undies, my pants, the car seat. Within twenty minutes.

The advice nurses hadn’t said, “Stay home, cancel everything, go back to bed.” Perhaps they thought it went without saying. It didn’t.

They had said, “Let’s make you an appointment with a doctor. If you fill four pads with blood in two hours, go to the emergency room.”

The doctor said, “Rest. Electrolytes.” She said it might be five or so days before I stopped bleeding.

She didn’t say, “Prepare for contractions. This is going to hurt. Your uterus has to return to normal. Prepare to pass large chunks of tissue. That was your placenta. One of them, but you won’t know which, was your strawberry-sized baby.”

She didn’t say, “Recovery could take weeks. Plan to rest. You will be tired. You might have headaches, dizziness, mood swings. You won’t feel like yourself. You’ll get through it, but the next couple of weeks will be rough.”

She didn’t say, “There will be a lot of blood.”

“No more baby,” I explained to our housekeeper when she asked why there was so much blood. Those were the words that came. In that instant, I traveled outside my body. I saw myself, saying those words, fighting back tears. I saw myself look quickly away so I wouldn’t see any pain in her face. I saw myself immediately put my reality out of my mind and reconnect with my son, spooning the yogurt into our bowls for breakfast.

I saw myself exhausted, spent, in need of rest. Not aware of the enormity of the situation, I saw myself trying desperately to carry on as usual.

The internet says that as many as 20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage. They are so common. Multiple members of my family have had them. A good friend of mine had three. Maybe you had one.

Why didn’t I know it would be so intense?

I’ve never had an abortion, but I imagine it must be a similar experience. It’s also the ending of a pregnancy, a body returning to a non-pregnant state.

I’ve been lost in a world between worlds, in the pain of those everywhere who have ever wanted a child desperately and then miscarried. In quiet compassion for those who had an abortion and had to hide everything from their families. Of those who were raped and lucky enough to have a safe abortion. Of all the physical pain that entails.

Ending a pregnancy is not something anyone would do lightly. I seethe with anger for the white men fighting to take away the right of women to control their futures.

I’m lucky that my first pregnancy was a success. I’m lucky that I have my son. I’m lucky that I can try again; that this isn’t the end of the story. Just an uncomfortable, painful chapter.

Every day I wake up, hoping to be back to me.

Hopefully tomorrow.