How I got roped into helping someone I barely knew give birth in a hot tub. Yes, you read that correctly.
Read more of Leigh’s essays.
I always wanted to be a writer but, in my early days as a young woman in a hurry imbued with a whole lot of hubris, moxie and age-appropriate pretension, I didn’t understand that doing a thing itself – and not the (desired) result – was what mattered most. And was enough.
My friend Trae and I have been spending weekends having Walter Mitty-like flights-of-fancy afternoons in Bryant Park—masked, six-feet-apart and socially distant. It's there that we (think we) met some new (very unusual) friends. But they might just be a figment of our imagination. It's hard to tell.
During the pandemic we've missed live music, dancing and all kinds of shared experiences, but we will dance and "jive" once again and, someday soon, have the time of our lives.
My foster beast, shelter-name "Lady," won't come out from under the bed when all I want to do is hug her. But she is teaching me patience during the sweeping, revolutionary change taking place right now.
"Lady” resisted getting into her carrier to go get spayed—twice! Now, my losing battle against this 2-year-old, 10-pounder in heat continues. But I’m hoping what a friend once said is true: “Animals know the courage it takes for us to help them.” I sure hope so.
I finally caught her—this white whale/foster cat of mine—whose Houdini-like escapes kept her with me for six weeks instead of the two she was meant to be. But I finally got her! So... now what?
In late July, I left New York City for the first time since the pandemic struck and, man, did I need to get the hell out of here. But it was even better that I went to my favorite place—Amagansett on Long Island—where I've been going with family and friends for decades. This is my attempt to experience a normal summer. (*Apologies for the short glitch in the middle.)
My retired 83-year-old father Larry lives by "color-coordination" and says his personal style is "smart," so I am on a quest to enlist him to become an Instagram influencer for geriatrics, where he can showcase his greatest hits: From the engraved "I Bring Joy to Women" '70s-era brass belt buckle to his Rube Goldberg-esque pickleball outfits today.
I don't know if it was the sunshine or fresh air after all those weeks of solitary confinement that "made me do it," but on a recent spring afternoon, I kind of stole a Modigliani painting from my apartment building's basement. Well, sort of ...
In 2005, I went to Kenya to help the Lost Boys of Sudan refugees, but wound up on a boondoggle instead and learned about the fickleness of good fortune.
I've barked like a dog in a West Hollywood Wild Oats, chosen a favorite vortex in Sedona and morphed into Meryl Streep in a classic film, all in a skeptical-yet-fun-loving quest for enlightenment. This is about that time I almost had an, um, accident in a BarcaLounger during a guided meditation and other tales from my “spiritual journey.”
In my college sorority, lurking among us was a prolific and unapologetic thief. Here is what happened when I confronted this emperor in stolen clothes, glommed on like a terrier and wouldn't let her get away with stealing my black Gap leggings, size small.
My tennis game is helping me during this GODDAMN PANDEMIC, and I can’t wait for the glorious day when this is all over and I can exact revenge on a certain (cheating) someone. As the late great Carrie Fisher once said: “Nothing’s ever really over. Just over there.”
Poor Zach. We've all been there, and we're all kind of there now in perpetuity. Zach just needed to walk off the White Claws. Here's the story of a recent afternoon in the park when my friends and I watched the ultimate "bruh" try too hard to fit in with his so-called friends.
Revisiting a middle school war in the 1980s when, armed only in my A Flock of Seagulls haircut, I took on the resident bully to defend Pat Benatar or, as I liked to call her, “The Ruler!”
The nearly criminal story of how I once made a friend spit-take so hard during a presidential debate that we almost wound up in the clink for attacking a sitting governor.
When I was a kid, my big brother Dan was a real jerk. Here's the story of when I was in third grade and he (kind of) got me into my first—and last—fist fight.
After my covert plan for a French kiss at the bouncy castle didn’t turn out as I had planned, I got my first lesson in love: humiliation.
A French exchange student in Lacoste sneakers inspired a lifelong love of wine, romance and underwater exploration.
Growing up, my neighbor Paul was my best friend. Thus began the inevitable end of a friendship between a boy and a girl.
My family instilled in me a lifelong love of betting … very, very, very low-stakes betting.