It’s an unassuming flower, the pennyroyal, with its small, pointed, lavender petals cupped by deep green leaves. Pennyroyal flowers grow in kusudama-like clusters that thread a single, delicate stem. A cousin to mint, pennyroyal smells good (if a bit overwhelming) and can help keep fleas and mosquitoes at bay. Ingested as a tea or an oil, pennyroyal can hurry along an annoyingly late period. And in high enough doses, the story goes, pennyroyal can allow…
Emily R.'s previous work for The Toast can be found here.
At the start of medical school we all had great aspirations. Vague notions of oncology research, of cracking open chests in the emergency department, saving the day, transplanting hearts. But gradually over four years it became clearer that those things were harder, and less glamorous, than they seemed in the abstract. A month in oncology was emotionally like being hit
Imagine with me, for a moment, the setting: The year is 1969. The Canadian Prime Minister is about to have an affair with Barbra Streisand; hair is long and flowing and is also a musical; and, one day in May, contraception, abortion, and homosexuality are all legalized at the exact same time. (Surprise! ‘Summer of 69’ actually could be about the year.)
Last week, my province made national headlines when it was announced that the Morgentaler clinic, our one and only private abortion provider, will be closing its doors in July due to lack of funding. I live in New Brunswick, a small province on Canada’s East Coast. We have a population of about 750,000, and a Conservative government. Historically though, it hasn’t mattered whether the Liberals or the Conservatives were in power; all of our…
It was January 29, 2013 at 11 p.m. when the pain started. A dull throbbing ache in my left lower abdomen that could have been indigestion or cramping. It was uncomfortable, but not unbearable, and I thought the best thing to do was go to sleep. I had flown into Austin the day before, I was tired and in a new place and the next day was my birthday; I wanted to be well-rested. But…
Previous installments of Jessica Valenti’s “Eat Me” column can be found here. I call it Sunday sauce, my grandmother called it “gravy.” The anything-but-plain tomato sauce--the cooking of which dominated the afternoon--is the food I probably associate most with my childhood. My mother would let my sister Vanessa and I dip pieces of bread in it as it thickened, the bread melting under the sauce’s weight. It seemed as if it simmered for hours,…
