GettyWhen it comes to dating, texting—an otherwise casual and informal way of communicating—takes on a different tenor. I'm given to histrionics, I'll admit, but I'd liken it to psychological warfare.
During the early stages of a relationship, texting is strategic. It is a game, and you have to play to win. Two of my hallmark "rules": Don't respond for four (4) hours after the first time "he" sends a text; never text first. The rules that govern calculated texting (to prove that you're busy, cool, whatever...) also require a concerted effort to masquerade said calculations. Yes, it's complicated, which is why it is important to come prepared with the most incendiary weapon: read receipts.
Advertisement - Continue Reading BelowRead receipts are a master manipulator. For the uninitiated, here's how it works: Once enabled, the read receipt will notify the person who has texted you that you have read his or her text. There's even a little time stamp. Read receipts do not lie. And using them, I've found, is like bringing a gun to a knife fight your opponent doesn't even know they are involved in.
A few weeks ago, around 10:30 p.m., my then boyfriend—with whom I was fighting—sent me a text asking what I was doing. I was doing crying and the first of three face masks, but when I saw his text in the preview window, I knew I had two options: a) be normal, read the text, respond or b) leave text unopened in order to incite a flurry of anxious thoughts about my activities and whereabouts.
More From ELLENaturally, I choose the latter, waiting until 11 p.m. to "read" the text, and before I even had time to concoct a response (another 45 minutes later), I'd received two new messages under the flimsy guise of "follow ups." Mission accomplished.
If you have ever wanted to seem busier, more important, or transparent, letting text buddies see your read receipts is the perfect way to achieve this. Opting in for those handy little notifications suggests that you are in complete control of your emotions and actions. And therein lies the beauty: You look like you're laying your cards on the table when you've secretly got an ace in the hole.
Few things will make an unassuming person feel worse (about themselves) for double, triple, quadruple texting you than receiving a visible time stamp saying "read [right now]" accompanying your response, "Sorry, no, I'm not ignoring you. Doing my weekly, voluntary community service."
Ignoring someone is one thing—something one assumes after, let's be generous, 15 minutes without a response. But being able to provide a glaring confirmation of your impertinence is vital. Nothing delivers a blow quite like a lingering ""delivered" changing to a "read" followed by absolute silence.
In a world where you're expected to constantly be on your phone, having enabled read receipts is a cunning way to establish yourself as an open book. Hey, it's not my fault if others judge me by my expertly designed cover!

Getty ImagesAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowPhoto: Getty Images
The walls of Dr. Mindy Lahiri's bedroom have come apart. The fashionable New York room, with its attached walk-in closet and luxurious bed, has been opened up. Massive lights hang from the ceiling, allowing Fox's The Mindy Project to shoot a scene there. The rest of the apartment, which is actually located on a sound stage in Los Angeles, has been decorated for what appears to be a wedding shower. But what that means for the upcoming second season is unclear. The writers of show won't specifically say what scenes are being filmed as they offer a tour of the set.
More From ELLEAcross the sound stage from Mindy's apartment is the medical office where the character, played by Mindy Kaling, works as an OB/GYN. The office and apartment are similar to the way they appear on the show, although the minutiae of the sets would be easy to miss if you didn't know where to look. Kaling, a former cast member and writer on NBC's The Office, created the series as a vehicle for herself and is deeply involved in many of its aspects. Actual photos of her and her family hang on the walls and the stylish decor of Mindy's office reflect Kaling's own aesthetic.
Not much has changed on set since last season, but the characters and their circumstances will. The show's second season premieres September 17 on Fox and will bring closure to some of last year's cliffhangers. At the end of Season One, Mindy chopped off her hair and agreed to go to Haiti with her boyfriend Casey (Anders Holm) despite a romantic moment with fellow doctor Danny Castellano (Chris Messina). Season Two will find Mindy returning from Haiti with a few things altered, including her relationship status.
Kaling, still in costume, took a break between filming scenes to discuss the upcoming season and the show's set alongside the rest of the cast and the series' writers. After snooping around Mindy's apartment, movable walls and all, one thing is clear: No one in NYC has an apartment this nice.
In honor of the show's second season (which premieres September 17), here are ten things you didn't know about The Mindy Project.
1. Mindy will be sporting the super short hair fans saw in the finale this season. But although Mindy chopped off her hair, clipped locks are not something Kaling shares with her onscreen counterpart. "This is a wig," Kaling said of her character's blunt hairdo. "Which I have loved. But my writing staff largely hates it. I was told by my writer Jeremy Bronson that if I cut my hair off the show would tank. But I think it's really fun. Chopping your hair off is something every woman fantasizes about doing so I get to have it both ways."
2. The National will be the first band to make an appearance on The Mindy Project. The indie rock group recently shot a music festival-themed episode with the cast. But the significant is lost on Kaling. "I didn't know what they were talking about when they said The National was coming to the show," Kaling said. "I didn't understand what that meant." A concert sets her character up for a good visual gag, though. "Imagine Mindy in a muddy, Coachella-type environment," executive producer Matt Warburton added. "[Executive producer] Jack [Burditt] and I both love music and we're subjecting Mindy to this episode."
3. Season Two will boast a bunch of guest stars, including Chloë Sevigny, James Franco, Adam Pally, Bill Hader, and Kris Humphries. Franco will not be playing a love interest for Mindy, however. When Mindy comes back from her trip to Haiti, which she undertook at the end of last season, she arrives to find Franco in her work territory. "He's the anti-Mindy," said Ike Barinholtz, who plays the show's off-kilter nurse Morgan Tookers. "He's everything she's not."
4. The New York City setting of The Mindy Project is central to the show, but the cast hasn't shot a single scene there. The series is filmed on two stages at Universal Studios in Los Angeles, as well as a fake NYC block on the studio's back lot. "It's done on New York Street," said writer Tracey Wigfield, who previously worked on the New York-based show 30 Rock. "On the lot there's a big New York street and that's where we do a lot of our exteriors like outside of Mindy's office and outside Mindy's apartment. Before I came to the show I was so impressed by how much it looks like New York."
5. Kaling has no qualms about her character (and the title of her show) featuring her real name. But there's one place she's hesitant to use it, thanks to some advice from Malcolm in the Middle creator Linwood Boomer. On her first day, Boomer told Kaling never to use her real name when ordering lunch in case someone hates her show and messes with the food–and she hasn't since. "This makes me sound like a lunatic," Kaling said. "Peggy is my name [when ordering food]. It's Peggy from Mad Men. Landon our writers' assistant picked it because it's a woman in an all-male field."
6. The on-set photos, both in Mindy's apartment and office, are straight out of Kaling's own photo albums. "All the pictures in there are pictures of me, my friends from college, my friend Brenda who was my writing partner before I moved to L.A., and my family," Kaling said. "And then you'll even see little surprises here and there–there's an old photo of Tommy Dewey, who played my ex-boyfriend. We try to make it very realistic."
7. Kaling actually decorated much of the set herself. Writer Jeremy Bronson said that Kaling showed up early on with much of set dressing in the back of her car. "Mindy went on Etsy and started driving around in her little Mini Cooper, and 90 percent of the stuff in here is stuff she bought and threw in her car," Bronson said. "It reflects the character," Kaling added. "The apartment is very eclectic and colorful in a way I'm more averse to. I like things to be more muted. It's very young. I'm 34, and to me, this has a much younger feel to it, maybe someone who's more playful."
8. The writers have fought to keep some of the seemingly unimportant set pieces around, most notably the sea-green glass chandelier that hangs in Mindy's dining room. "That chandelier we had many discussions about," Bronson said. "We came in this year and the chandelier had been changed and we were like 'No no no, it has to be this chandelier!' That's [Mindy's] favorite piece in the whole place."
9. Mindy's massive walk-in closet isn't just for show. Kaling makes sure her character is wearing the most up-to-date looks. "I send suggestions [to the costume designer]," Kaling said. "I obviously don't have time to go to all the New York Fashion Week stuff but I watch all the runway shows. I'll find something and send the images to Salvador Pérez, Jr., our designer." In that way, Mindy's onscreen look reflects Kaling's own sense of style. "It's very intimidating to have to dress for Mindy," Bronson said. "She has a very cool style so we all try to impress her with our looks."
10. Kaling feels that her success in heading her own show is largely due to her awesome parents. "My parents just rocked and they thought I could do anything," Kaling said. "Until two days before my mom passed away she was like, 'Don't get married if a man is going to tell you not to do things. Just do whatever you want to do.' So I was really lucky because I don't know how many people have parents like that."
Emily ZelmerPhoto: Emily Zemler

Alexander Neumann for MaiyetAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowI'm standing at the border of Peru and Bolivia, midway through a South American itinerary so punishing that when a teenage German backpacker is informed of the many stops we'll be making, she simply gasps in response. But my traveling companion, Kristy Caylor, cofounder of the clothing brand Maiyet, is not only unfazed, she's trying to figure out if our schedule will accommodate a side trip to Ayllu, an electronic dance music festival in the Bolivian salt flats. One of the few airlines that flies there is Amaszonas, whose primitive website suggests that its fleet might be fictitious, or made from balsa wood. Caylor is undeterred, looking up flights on her iPhone whenever an iota of service penetrates our remote Andean route. After all, being the company's president and creative director requires antipodean travel aplenty. ("Welcome to life on the road with Maiyet, where four days feels like 14," Caylor tells me after we've covered approximately 1,500 miles.)
More From ELLEThe two-year-old luxury brand draws from the native crafts of artisans all over the world and shows the resulting designs during Paris Fashion Week. A garment might be the product of three or four continents: "It could be that a button comes from Mexico; the fabric came from Varanasi, India; and it was sewn in New York," Caylor says. The resulting collections conjure a bohemian world traveler's wardrobe, where vibrant Varanasi silks nestle next to Mongolian cashmere.
The fall 2013 collection was heavy on knitwear, including a degrade sweater-and-skirt combo—and somewhat counterintuitively, Peru and Bolivia are ground zero for such wintry knits. Caylor's mission on this trip is twofold: checking in with the label's artisans, while taking a detour to explore the techniques of local craftspeople (and to nab some souvenirs, which she stows in an oilcloth bag that becomes more engorged with each passing day). Our first stop is a sun-drenched courtyard outside Juliaca, Peru, where knitters chew coca leaves to alleviate the heat. Caylor and a member of her design team, Beth Anne Caples, immediately dive in, correcting the number of cables on a sample knit for fall. Caylor tells one knitter admiringly, "You're much faster than I am! Good thing, or we'd never have enough sweaters."
The following day, the team boards a small motorboat and heads to ultraremote Taquile Island, located on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca. Even though it's a tad out of the way, the stop is a must for learning about local crafts; the artisans there are UNESCO sponsored. As women in vividly patterned traditional skirts work at their looms, Caylor and her team pore over a few of the finished products, in particular some bright woven belts. "I'm minorly obsessed with them," says Caples. Into her bag the belts go; later, they'll find their way to Maiyet's brand-new store in downtown New York City. Last stop: two workrooms in La Paz, Bolivia, where, apart from some confusion about the Spanish translation of warp and weft, Caylor makes plenty of headway on the meshlike sweaters the women are working on. "It's a lot of problem solving on the fly," she reflects later. "There's something that exchanges when you look someone in the eye and you see if they're understanding or not. I get my hands dirty." (Caylor is nothing if not process oriented, holding a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from Northwestern University; her fashion training came on the job at Gap and Banana Republic.)
It doesn't sound like Caylor's frequent-flier lifestyle is going to decelerate anytime soon: "I wish we could be everywhere all the time! To sit there and solve a tension problem in the room—meaning the tension in the fabric—will change the way we work with [our suppliers] for the next two years. Had we done it over e-mail, we probably never would have gotten there."

There's a funny line from Sex and the City's final season (yes, the terrible one in which Carrie and the Russian inexplicably run off to Paris and she wears tutus and feeds pâtisserie to oversize canines) when a French fan explains, in broken English, why he likes the writer's column so much: "I have the sex. She has the sex. We all have the sex," he insists breathlessly.
And, yes, for the most part, he's right. We all have the sex. Intercourse is all around us—on our billboards, in our favorite shows, and, if we're lucky, in our very own beds—but it's a topic around which many of us are still skittish.
Advertisement - Continue Reading BelowCan I tell him that I don't like that?
Will this toy actually get me off?
Does movie sex work in real life?
And, perhaps, the most common concern of all: Am I normal?
To begin with: As Dr. Erin B. Cooper, a psychology post-doctoral fellow at the Center for Marital and Sexual Health in Beachwood, Ohio tells us (and you'll hear more from her next week on the myths surrounding the female climax): "Very few women actually experience orgasm every single time they have sex." #intriguing
More from THE SEX ISSUE20 articles The 25-Year-Old Cam Girl Changing Porn The 10 Most Empowering Sex Scenes for Women Inside the New 'Lubed Up' Brooklyn Burlesque Rave... I Reenacted 'The Thomas Crown Affair' Sex Scene But it won't all be science talk, of course. In addition to real talk about our lady organs, we'll also introduce you to eight women whose lives changed after a single sexual encounter, what it's like to be a 24-year-old virgin living in New York City, the best products to achieve that post-coital glow, a trio of women who created television's most beloved lady porn, and so, so much more.
It's going to be a wild ride. We promise to be gentle.

NBCDear E. Jean: I'm reeling from an attack on my reputation. A higher-up who's quite powerful in my company (a major film studio) e-mailed a scathing critique of my performance to top management. My boss forwarded it to me as an FYI. You can't imagine the vitriol contained in the indirect swipes.
Normally, I let this kind of stuff roll off my back, but I felt compelled to defend myself to my boss. From the looks of things, the way I do my job (i.e., my long-standing career here) is not the way they want it done. I'm both terrified of losing my job and angry enough to say screw them for not valuing my work!
Advertisement - Continue Reading BelowI've also been spending hard the past few months on the assumption I have an income. Now it looks like I'm out. My question is, how do I spin this "bad performance" to prospective employers? —Didn't Know I Suck
Didn't Know, my darling: Get up! Come on! Go save your job! You're angry? Good. You want to tell them to go screw themselves? Use that gall. It will make you look, paradoxically, a little more in control. Here's the plan:
More From ELLEBypass your boss. This is your battle. Go straight to the person who wrote the "scathing critique."
Once you're in her office, be upbeat, not aggressive. State your case without challenging her judgment. You know her passions, her vanities. Launch your ideas accordingly. Quickly note your major accomplishments and then present ideas for new ways to raise the fortunes of the studio, which will help her. If she interrupts, if she froths at the mouth like a rabid skunk, keep your composure. You don't have to smile, but look optimistic. She probably knows more than you, so let her speak. Studio execs are under a lot of pressure.
If you can remain standing the whole time, your energy will be higher. You understand she wants you to do things differently. Tell her you can do it! Ask her to give you a month to turn things around. Gird your loins by reading a Lee Child thriller, a Tana French crime mystery, or David Black's saucy, high-octane brain-burner The Extinction Event. It will show you new ways to be faster, stronger, and smarter. (Yes, I've finally come to believe that a woman can be more inspired by whirring through a thrilling page-turner than by slogging through 17 self-help books.)
E-mail your questions to e.jean@askejean.com
Related: Ask E. Jean: Are You Food Shaming Your Co-Workers?
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Amelia Coffaro and Elizabeth GriffinAdvertisement - Continue Reading Below"Because I have no breasts, I can feel my heartbeat closely." These are the words 30-year-old Milwaukee-based photographer Amelia Coffaro said to herself recently when reflecting back on two years of breast cancer treatment. She said them in recognition of the honor and love she now holds for her body and herself, after living through chemotherapy, radiation, and a double mastectomy. She said them to remind herself to listen to her body.
More From ELLEIn July of 2012, while living in New York City, and working day-in, day-out, that "voice" was something that was (as it is for many of us), very hard to hear, even after she found a lump. At first, Amelia thought it was exhaustion and back pain from life in the city. She wasn't quite sure what to make of the lump in her breast but felt something was amiss, so she decided to fly home and see her family doctor.
"Despite the lump and other symptoms I shared with my doctor, and despite the fact that I said I felt something wasn't right," says Amelia, "she reassured me the lump was 'nothing' because I was only 27, and it did not feel suspicious to her."
Amelia Coffaro and Elizabeth Griffin Left: Amelia's first mammogram, displaying her tumors; Right: Amelia in her hospital room on the morning of her double mastectomy
Amelia was given "a piece of paper with head and neck exercises" (to work out any possible swelling that could account for the mass) and was told to return in eight weeks if pain in her back persisted. But, like many other 27-year-olds, she returned to New York and "disappeared into [her] ridiculously fast-paced life." Some months went by and Amelia's health worsened. She recalls, "All I wanted to do was sleep; my bras no longer fit, and my chest appeared sunburned." So, in February of 2013, she went back for a visit with the family doctor once again. "I was hesitant to see her," says Amelia, "in part because I was uninsured and worried about medical bills, but my body was begging me to listen." Amelia recalls her doctor's eyes filling with tears during the exam. "She said, 'This is either a very bad breast infection or you have inflammatory breast cancer.'"
Amelia Coffaro and Elizabeth GriffinLeft: 1,000 mg of vitamin C; Right: Amelia's chemotherapy port
Amelia was sent for an emergency mammogram, biopsy, and ultrasound. When she looked at the films from her mammogram, she saw two tumors, each mirroring one another to form a heart shape. Eight days later, on Valentine's Day, Amelia began chemotherapy.
Amelia Coffaro and Elizabeth GriffinAdvertisement - Continue Reading Below

Everett CollectionDear E. Jean: I'm 5'11". The men in my life say it's "ridiculous for someone as huge" as me to wear four-inch stilettos. Should I hurt their feelings and wear the latest suede pumps that I love?
—The Weather's Nice Up Here
Weather: An unhappy alternative is before you, my luv. From this day, your feet must "hurt the feelings" of one of the two sexes. Sulky, immature, vertically challenged men will be chagrined if you do don heels, and every woman reading this issue of ELLE will be outraged if you don't.
Advertisement - Continue Reading BelowE-mail your questions to e.jean@askejean.com
Related: Ask E. Jean: 'I'm Jealous of Other Women's Bodies'
Related: Ask E. Jean: How to Untangle a Four-Way Tryst
Related: Ask E. Jean: Is it Uncouth to Wear a Rosary as a Necklace?

Everett CollectionAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowDear E. Jean: I was recently diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. I find it difficult to have sex with my boyfriend because I don't feel well and I'm on a lot of medication. I'm also experiencing severe financial problems including foreclosure, as I'm unable to work full-time until my health improves. I've told my boyfriend this. But he says he doesn't want to leave me, because he's worried about me "being alone." However, he says he has "physical needs" and wants to have sex with other women—with my permission. I am very uncomfortable with him making love to other women while he still lives under my roof! Am I being a prude?
—Really Hurting
More From ELLEHurting, hunny: Your letter crashed straight into my heart. Before I answer your question about giving your cad of a boyfriend "permission" (does he help pay the mortgage?), I also want to shout: Lyme disease mimics multiple sclerosis. I'm not a doctor, but I've been pulverized by Lyme, and I advise you to instantly see a specialist!
—Ravishing Regards, E. Jean
Dear E. Jean: Wow, you were so right about MS and Lyme! I was diagnosed with MS by a neurologist who discovered the telltale white lesions in my brain. "You have MS," he said. Luckily, I was allergic to Copaxone and could not continue the treatment. My MD here in Santa Fe ordered exhaustive tests, and lo and behold I have Lyme disease. She believes I may have had it since childhood. I'm now on an antibiotic cocktail of five different medicines and getting better. About my boyfriend: No, he does not pay any of the mortgage. And thank you for asking about me. I felt so alone.
—Hurting Less
My dear sister, Lymey: We are making progress! Tell your boyfriend he may not boff another woman while he abideth in your abode. Also tell him, from me, you'll soon be back to your old saucy self and will be getting a new man if he brings up the subject of his "physical needs" again!
Though this may be a daunting suggestion, if (when you're feeling rested and enjoying a brief respite from the intolerable pain) you can create physically less taxing ways of igniting your lover and yourself with surges of pleasure, it will lift your spirits. But never, never, never permit a man to Edwardsize you (as in John Thinks-With-His-Peen Edwards).
—Signing Off, E. Jean
E-mail your questions to e.jean@askejean.com
Related: Ask E. Jean: Looking for a Compliment
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Getty ImagesAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowPhoto: Getty Images
Public distribution of birth control has long been a heated political issue. The recent Hobby Lobby case unleashed a fresh wave of moral indignation from supporters and protestors alike. What's more, the clear gender divide in the Supreme Court justices' ruling seems only to have strengthened pop-culture claims that female contraception is controversial precisely because it is attached to women's health. As the saying goes, "If men got pregnant, we'd have gumball dispensers for birth control"—or something like that.
More From ELLELeaving morality aside, the male justices' ruling for Hobby Lobby raises the question: Just how much does the average man know about female contraception? Moreover, are men actually aware of its financial cost? Former legislator Rick Santorum's 2012 gaffe comes to mind, when he claimed birth control "costs a few dollars."
While the price tag for unsubsidized female contraception is readily available—news organizations have repeatedly publicized it—its everyday impact seems to be somehow lost on most males. So many moral fissions are attached to female contraception as to remove it entirely from the realm of consumer items. Perhaps it is time to reinstate birth control as a product—something that, yes, can contribute to an individual's health and well-being, but also requires a substantial financial commitment from women.
To break down how much birth control actually costs in terms of the items themselves, we translated the prices into tangible (and yes, stereotypical) "guy stuff," comparing the prices to other everyday items to make it more relatable.
Photo: Contraception prices; Image: Courtesy of Erin Toland
This is what it means for a woman to purchase unsubsidized birth control. The yearly price of the pill could cover 3-15 months of energy bills. A birth control implant is roughly the price of 7-14 tanks of gas. Staying within the category of contraception products, an IUD¹
is equal to approximately 900-1,800 condoms. That is 2-4 years of sex daily.
Birth control is a prescribed item, a surgical procedure. Its status as such ought to warrant the security of insurance coverage. Its price-points certainly make it necessary.
1. One of the forms of birth control taken off The Affordable Care Act's required provisions by the Hobby Lobby ruling.
2. Contraception prices.
3. Includes unsubsidized price of doctor's visit, device, insertion, and follow-up care
4. Includes doctor's visit, device, and insertion
5. Emergency contraception price.
Related: 10 Medical Reasons Why a Woman Might Be Prescribed Birth Control
Related: Lena Dunham Opens Twitter Discussion About Why We Use Birth Control
Related: The Birth Control Pill Has Become a Widely Prescribed Cure-All...But What About the Drawbacks?

Everett CollectionDear E. Jean: Please put me out of my misery. For a year I've been tormented: Should I give in to vanity and get modest-size breast implants, or should I endure my saggy breasts, which are causing me to lose my desire for sex? I'm a 28-year-old mother of two, but my breasts make me feel 40!—To Sag or Not to Sag
Sag, sweetheart: Alack! I can no more talk you into accepting your breasts as they are than I can talk you into accepting Pam Anderson as your personal savior. It all comes down to one philosophical question: Will you be happier with zippy breasts? For 16 years I've begged women to discover the "right" answer—i.e., to be happy with their bosoms, whether round, flat, small, large, coned, ballooned, barrel-shaped, or bouncing like two basketballs. And, of course, I realize (at last!) there is no right answer. A sexy, young mother of two, such as yourself, might actually feel 50 times happier with a sprightly breast lift (excess skin is removed and your cups are reconstructed) or with smallish implants. It's your body; make yourself happy.
—Ravishing Regards, E. Jean.
Advertisement - Continue Reading BelowDear E. Jean: I'm still in a quandry about my breasts. The sight of them kills my libido. But should I do the noble thing and "accept my body for the way it is?" I'm deeply conflicted.
—Insanity Over Vanity
Insanity, my craved luv: Wonderful hearing from you again! But for God's sake, boobs aren't everything. Do what makes you delight in yourself. —Ravishing Regards, E. Jean
Dear E. Jean: I received a reply so quickly, I was worried the advice was not from E. Jean herself, but from a protégé, an assistant, or an adoring kept man, and that E. Jean is out drinking pineapple martinis. On the other hand, if this is really E. Jean, you are much better-looking than Dr. Phil!
—Worrisome
Dear Worrisome, my pineapple: I raise a martini and toast to you and to all ELLE readers! May your umlauts bounce with joy and verve through the coming year!
E-mail your questions to e.jean@askejean.com
Related: Ask E. Jean: How to Cope When Your Ex Gets Engaged
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Getty ImagesI'm not the kind of person who often thinks to herself, "The universe has got this." My desk features two, sometimes three, to-do lists and files of meticulously labeled folders. It may look like OCD to outsiders, but it's actually a more generalized anxiety— the relentless kind that tells me if everything is spotless nothing can go wrong—that drives my perfectionism. But an event I attended last weekend, and a series of coincidences surrounding it, has got me thinking about a new way to let go.
Advertisement - Continue Reading BelowIn mid-March, I noticed a friend's Gchat away message about a dream experiment. It involved sleeping under Himalayan art at New York City's Rubin Museum—an event called a Dream-Over. I was intrigued and pitched a story about it. My editor responded quickly: "I like it, but I like it even better if it's a date!" I wasn't seeing anyone at the time, but I hoped something would work out and RSVP'd for two. (In case you were wondering, a Dream-Over date will run you $216 and secures you and your plus-one a sleeping nook under the same piece of art.) The entire idea-assignment-reservation sequence transpired in under an hour; uncharacteristically, I didn't labor over the details. Weeks later, after Tom, a guy I'd gone out with a few times, mentioned meditation and having once visited a Tibetan doctor, it felt easy to invite him to come along.
More From ELLEEasy. Not a word my anxious brain uses very often.
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I started to really wrestle with anxiety, obsessive over-thinking and stress-fueled freakouts, in college. I'd worry myself in circles until I literally got sick. My doctor prescribed different medications, but being on them made me feel as if I were staring out an airplane window into a cloud. After that, she told me to wear a rubber band around my wrist and pop myself at the first sign of hyperanalysis. (That didn't work either.) Finally, she suggested I devise a code word to say whenever conversation turned circular. Walmart had a bumper crop of kumquats that spring, and my roommate, Jean, kept buying them. That became our word: kumquat. Jean and I have been kumquatting each other for almost a decade now.
However, I wasn't thinking about kumquats when Tom and I got to the Rubin Museum at 8 p.m. on Saturday. I was preoccupied by logistics: Did I forget something? Would there be an awkward, couple-y focus?
The instructions said to dress in pajamas and slippers and to bring an air mattress and blankets, but beyond that I didn't know what to expect.
A docent showed us where to drop our things: under Mipham Chokyi Wangchuk, the Sixth Shamar. Coincidence number three: "Our" painting depicted an important figure in the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism; funny enough, Tom had studied at the Karma Kagyu center in Boston.
Bells chimed: 9:15 p.m. In the theater, we joined more than 100 adults—wearing everything from printed kimonos to velour jumpsuits—attempting to sketch their assigned artwork from memory. Then, Kyabgön Phakchok Rinpoche, a thirtysomething Tibetan Buddhist teacher, spoke to us about using "dynamic" or lucid dreaming to confront fear and anxiety, the idea being that consciously confronting a fear or worry in a dream is as effective as doing so IRL.
Related: The Case for Dating Men in Their '60s
Meditation is key for peak dream awareness, he explained. Remind yourself as you drift off, "I'm dreaming, I'm dreaming, I'm dreaming." Bring your focus to your forehead softly, he instructed, then to your throat; and then to your heart. Bells chimed again, the room darkened, and we practiced.
Next, we met with Ali, the "dream gatherer" who was to wake us at 6 a.m. to ask what we'd dreamt. Our camping neighbors were an older couple who'd been on the Rubin's waiting list for three years (since the last Dream-Over, which, like this one, sold out); a girl and her boyfriend who had bought tickets for her thirtieth birthday; and a psychic (yes, really).
After that, we settled onto our air mattress. The overhead lights dimmed. Tom looked at me in the half dark and said, "Do you think we need to blow up the air mattress more?" It would have been a logistical feat, dragging it across the gallery to the outlet without bumping into anything priceless. To my amusement, since he's so relaxed, he copped to being "a little OCD about it."
But just as we were weighing the pros and cons, a docent came over to read us a "bedtime story" about our painting. This was one of the potentially weird items on the agenda—when was the last time another adult read you and your partner a bedtime story? But, coincidentally, the tale was about a kumquat (seriously!) that inspired a student to embark on a mountain quest. I couldn't help but smile.
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The live sitar music ended at midnight, and afterward, we were serenaded by the sounds of the bathroom door clicking shut and the toilet flushing. I dreamt anyway. In my dream I was being prepped for surgery by Mary Kay ladies (what?) when suddenly a baby, who looked a lot like Hercules, appeared. Don't judge! I've been watching a lot of Twin Peaks lately. Anyway, its content wasn't as meaningful as the fact that when Baby Hercules popped up, I realized that I was dreaming—a clear step toward lucid dreaming. I sat up, looked around the gallery in that strange semi-REM state, and felt reassured. I slept until six, when I recounted it for Ali.
I wasn't enthused about the 8 a.m. group dream analysis (in fact, Tom and I slept through the breakfast bells and considered skipping it), but then I didn't want to pick apart my dream. I came away with the opposite conclusion: not to analyze too much.
Later that day, before a long nap, I explained the kumquat thing to Tom. He didn't think it was strange at all. That's basically how mantras work, he told me. They act like placeholders to refocus you on the present. I've been thinking about taking up meditation, and the Dream-Over outlined a method I can try. Starting tonight my new mantra is: kumquat, kumquat, kumquat.

20th Century Fox Film Corp/Courtesy: Everett CollectionAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowDear E. Jean : Since my best friend and I graduated from college, I've noticed that she's becoming more and more negative and officious-from her delusional ideas about being the most fashionable (she simply apes celebrities), to being the best writer in the world, to hating most people around her. It gets worse. She now loathes the city in which we live, has become a workaholic, complains constantly about her coworkers, starves herself, and is continuously talking about being fat and finding "wrinkles." (She's 24!!) I don't know what to do, E. Jean! I feel her attitude and behavior rubbing off on me. I don't want to see her (or me) like this!
—Best Friend
More From ELLEBest, my young beezle : The girl is a stinker. Shall I be blunt? Get rid of her. However, if you still see traces of your old friend in there somewhere, next time her bile starts bubbling, rev up your larynx and say: "Darling, you're wonderfully mad. And you know I love you because you're so mad for fashion, mad for art, mad to be the best writer since Plutarch; but you're making yourself mental. You've put yourself under just waaaay too much pressure. And where does that pressure come from? Please don't interrupt. No. That is not a wrinkle. The pressure comes from the stress you create with your ridiculously insane expectations. Because-listen to me-because gorgeous as you are, if you expect never to see a wrinkle again, you're going to be a complete mess for the rest of your life." She won't hear you. She'll be scrawned-out, bloated from lack of sleep, and trolling Patrickmcmullan .com for her picture, but keep talking. Tell her again about forming "reasonable expectations" when you drag her to an origami class (the girl must learn to purge her head and calm fricking down for 45 minutes) and to a holistic nutritionist who'll explain that hyperactive snarky young ladies can run all kinds of good food through their systems at the rate of 2,000 to 2,400 calories a day without gaining an ounce and how baked Brie with pecans will make her smarter, prettier, happier, mad as ever, but not batty. Good luck. In my opinion, you'd have an easier time getting a chicken to molt.
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IMAXtree.com/Matteo VoltaAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowAs the Internet has already explained ad nauseam, a trio of HSBC researchers recently dubbed affluent, fashion-conscious, young urban males, "Yummies." It's a terrible name for something not so terrible.
Take it from someone who knows.
When I met my husband in 2002, we were both undergrads living in the same freshman dorm. He denies it to this day, but the first time we hung out, my future life partner was wearing a plaid, short-sleeve button down and cargo pants. (The kind on which one might hang a hammer if one were so inclined.) They were baggy from the hip all the way down to the ankle, where a pair of sludge-hewn Timberlands resided. And yet, even then, I could sense a burgeoning aesthete underneath all of the L.L.Bean. "I like your blowy, blowy shirts," he once told me over a shared plate of General Tso's chicken. He was, of course, referencing my preferred silhouette at the time: a halter top that cinched in under the breast bone and then flared out into eternity. Even then he knew his stuff.
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Over the years, as he started making money, my dude became a little more Rag & Bone, a little less Jos. A Bank. I began to notice that he'd also adopted a new nomenclature. It wasn't weird for him to inform me that a pair of charcoal-and-white railroad striped pants actually "read gray." His friends, all former lacrosse players, started calling him Shia LaBeouf thanks to a growing predilection for floss-thin skinny ties. One time he asked a tailor to take in a pair of Levi's at the inseam and was regretfully informed that it wasn't physically possible to make them any tighter. My husband's fashion obsession has become somewhat of a running gag—one of which he is keenly aware. He's become fond of picking out his "fashion lewk" before nights out, inhales sharply when we walk past the Vince store on Washington, and often sends me links to male models wearing v-neck-hoodie-leather jacket pile ups with just one word in the subject line: "CHIC."
Now, before you go ahead and Google this guy to make fun of him, let me break something down for you. My husband is young. (Well, 30.) He is urban insofar as he lives in Manhattan. And he is male. However, he is not your typical "Yummy"—one, who, according to HSBC, is keen to "display social status" via his sartorial choices. There is no Buzz Bissinger shopping addiction happening here. The man is pathologically practical and never spends outside of his budget. He saves his favorite Rag & Bone henleys for special occasions so that they don't get worn out or stained. He doesn't own a single item of clothing that could be dubbed conspicuous.
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And yet, there we were last month, cracking open a Mr. Porter box the size of a house. For his 30th birthday, I'd splurged on a clearance-priced, shearling-lined Margiela duffle coat in a woodsman's hunter green. It was a Hail Mary, really. There was only one size left, an Italian size 52. The model on the site, a 6'1" fella, was wearing an IT 48. But when my 6'4" husband slid the thing over his shoulders, the sleeves barely cleared his elbows. The leather toggles, which were effortlessly fastened across the model's burly chest, were a world apart. For all intents and purposes, he was very much inside the jacket, but it seemed as if the garment was perched atop his shoulders like a backpack. To say it didn't fit would be the understatement of the year. I was crestfallen. "But it's Margieeeela!" I wailed in disappointment. The reaction elicited so much laughter—and more than a few "Maison, uh, Martin Margiela" Jay Z impressions—that we kept saying it all weekend.
My point is this: In some ways, yes, I married a Yummy. He loves fashion. He stresses about what to wear. He likes the way his Crystal Fighters concert T-shirt looks peeking out from under a navy James Perse hoodie. But honestly, who doesn't? It looks awesome. The idea that this guy is going to reshape the $1 trillion luxury landscape one Miansai bracelet at a time? Now that's laughable.
Related: How to Get Over a Boyfriend: Find a New One, Says Study
Photo: IMAXtree.com/Matteo Volta

Jordin Althaus / © Fox / Courtesy: Everett CollectionAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowPhoto: Jordin Althaus / © Fox / Courtesy: Everett Collection
My roommate and I have a game that we often play when we get on the subway. On our respective commutes, we scope out the guy situation on our train car and attempt to make flirtatious eye contact with one object of our hypothetical affection. The ultimate goal: to get a date. (Or, at the very least, a hilarious Craigslist missed connection). Silly? Sure, but you never know when you're going to meet your soul mate on the G train.
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But here's the thing: My friend has some kind of flirtatious magnetic power. She's managed to get multiple offers for dates through this strategy. Meanwhile, thanks to my status as a supremely awkward individual, my "flirting" reads more like uncomfortable gawking than coquettish glancing.
"You have to bump it up and start a conversation," NYC "dateologist" Tracey Steinberg informed me when I explained that I actually couldn't find love in a hopeless place.
"So, hypothetically," I said pseudo-casually, "If, say, one of our readers is shy, what advice would you have?"
"If you want to meet someone, you don't have the luxury of being shy," she responded.
Ouch.
When I called on Steinberg, I was hoping that she would give me her secrets to expert eye-flirting and I'd be batting my eyelashes to a date in no time. What I quickly learned from our conversation, however, is that just looking wasn't going to fly. Pitfalls be damned, Steinberg gave me the following guidelines to all but guarantee that I had a date by the time I emerged from my evening commute:
Start the conversation.
"I would start by asking him a question about anything in your environment—anything you see, hear, taste, touch, or smell," suggest Steinberg. "So, if you're waiting for the subway, you might say, 'Is that the A train that just went by?' Or if you can't think of anything to ask at all, you can just ask, 'Do you know what the weather is going to be like later?' Anything that's really easy to start a conversation is how you do it."
Body language matters.
"When you [talk to him], you want to do it with the right energy: You want to be smiling and looking into his eyes in a soft way; you just want to make yourself really approachable and friendly," says Steinberg. "You want to be focusing on his positives, and enjoying yourself and him. When you do that, you'll naturally have a more open, friendly body language. Some of my clients who are very uncomfortable talking to men will naturally cross their arms; turn away. That gives him the message that she's not interested in him, so he'll become less interested in her."
Are you at opposite ends of the car? No problem.
Crowded trains are also not an excuse. "I would do a little wave, like, 'Hi!'", says Steinberg. "Definitely smile—you just really want to give him the message that you're interested, available, and would like to get to know him a little bit."
Subtlety is power, and learn how to take a hint.
"My advice for men is different than my advice for women. Women have a lot more flexibility, because men in general aren't really afraid of us," Steinberg says. "Smiling, eye contact…you want to respect his boundaries. If he doesn't respond or he turns away, you don't want to get in his face. As long as you're giving off a friendly, approachable, available, light and breezy type of energy, then you should be okay."
So what do you do if he turns out to be not so great in conversation, creepy, or you have a terrible first date and are now subjected to seeing him every day on your shared commute? (Or all of the above.)
"That kind of scenario happens to everyone at some point in their lives—whether it's a co-worker, a friend of a friend, it's just a common scenario that one person is more interested in the other, etc.," agrees Steinberg. "As long as you see him, smile, and just continue reading your book or go about your business, just to give him the message...Most people, if you acknowledge but then don't pay attention to them, will move on."
With this insider advice in my arsenal, I was ready to suck it up, nip my awkwardness in the bud, and waltz onto that train platform with guns blazing. And a couple of days after our conversation, I got my opportunity.
On the way to work, my train was laughably crowded—so much so that we were at a standstill at a Brooklyn station as the doors cartoonishly opened and closed for five minutes straight. Most of my fellow commuters were unamused, but I caught the eye of the extremely attractive guy standing next to me (man bun and a scruffy beard...swoon), and we burst out laughing. It wasn't awkward, because I didn't make it awkward; I uncrossed my perpetually crossed arms and talked comfortably with him for the rest of the ride. And—thank you, fate—when we happened to get off at the same stop, he asked for my number. The lesson? I'd hypothesize that 80% of missed connections are missed because someone was just relying on catching the other person's eye. I, for one, will be using Steinberg's advice from now on.

Advertisement - Continue Reading BelowDear E. Jean: Are guys worth the effort? I'm 22 and having a hard time because (a) I am really sweet and conservative, don't go out looking like a slut, and never act like I want to hook up with as many people as possible; and (b) guys are mostly into getting laid, drinking, partying with their buddies, and doing it all over again the next weekend (with a different girl).
My issue: When I find a guy who's cute, funny, and nice, I end up hooking up with him (not sex—everything but). However, it never escalates into anything more. And I want it to! When I hold out, the guys lose interest and I'm back to square one. This has happened to me with three guys in the past six months—you'd think I'd have learned by now!
More From ELLEThey never call (probably because they're too intoxicated to remember they promised to). I don't see them all week, then the weekend parties roll around; they get a little Budweiser in them, become all excited when they see me, apologize, start feeding me lines, and we hook up again! I'm a good person! I deserve a nice guy. It's just really frustrating!—Stop Me Before I Do Something Stupid!
Stop, sweetie: This is going to be great. Trust me. You'll be the first young lady in the Year of Frustration 2006 to walk into a posh social function, grab a nice guy by the scruff of his Natural Resources Defense Council T-shirt, and kick the hook-up gods in the bollocks.
How? Social hierarchies are based on people's deep awareness of status cues, right? (Any half-awake homo sapienette in America can size up your clothes, hairdo, accent, etc., and in two seconds peg you correctly in the social pecking order.) The sexual Status Sphere works the same way. If you're positioned ever so "nice, sweet," and un-slutilicious, clasping (demure as a doily!) a plastic cup of Jack and Ginger in a specific environment at a specific time (i.e., your usual "weekend party"), the Bud boys will read your cues 100 percent correctly as the cute "frustrated" girl who's looking for, no, who deserves a nice guy, and they will take massive advantage of the situation.
Stop going to those stupid parties. Expand your personal zeitgeist. "Nice guys" are putting on guerrilla art shows, working with the NRDC, riding in mountain bike rallies, and campaigning to get morons tossed out of Congress. Why not join one of these groups and make a little difference in the world? The men you meet will sometimes be startlingly hot, but who cares? You'll have time to get to know 10 or 12 of the buggers and decide which one really does deserve you.

Advertisement - Continue Reading BelowPhoto: Peter Iovino/©Universal Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
You know Skylar Astin? Of Glee and Pitch Perfect and Spring Awakening, etc., etc., fame? Me too. Only I knew him as Skylar Lipstein and he put his hands down my pants while I lay on my extra-long, twin-size bed in my freshman year dorm room at NYU. We were watchingSay Anything. I'm 80% sure I was wearing Hard Tail leggings.
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More From ELLEThe first night we made out, I knew we were going to date. He's Jewish and sort of dorky. I'm Jewish and sort of dorky. We didn't go out to dinner. He didn't take me to red carpet events. This was before good 'ol Lipstein traded in for Astin, and I think the most expensive meal we had was at Chick-fil-A at a neighboring dorm.
He was an exceptional kisser. The kind of kisser that makes you question how good of a kisser you are. The kind that makes you think, "Did I really say GUY X was the best kiss I've ever had?"
I knew Skylar was at Tisch and I consciously tried to avoid learning much more about what he was doing there. "Male actor" didn't scream sexy to me. Until it did. And when it did, it really, really did. Yes, he sang to me sometimes, and yes, I liked it despite my best efforts not to. I mean, dude can sing.
Our love affair was fast and furious, but we remained close friends, and when he started talking about some little show called Spring Awakening, I knew that fame was going to happen for him pretty quickly.
I'd meet him between Broadway rehearsals and ask him if he realized what was happening. He'd laugh, but I knew he knew.
I'd meet him outside the stage door and see teenage girls screaming for him—MY Skylar—asking for his autograph. He'd pull me into pictures sometimes and I'd pretend to think it was totally lame.
The last year of Spring Awakening, I went to his birthday and sat next to his mother. "Can you believe all this?" I asked her. She looked at me and said,"Absolutely." I could, too.
Skylar called me one night to tell me he was moving to L.A. I didn't tell him at the time, but I thought it was a huge mistake. He was a singer. He needed to be in New York. What was Hollywood going to do with a musical theater dork? He's Sondheim, not Spielberg.
Related: The Life of Sondheim
Then came Hamlet 2, and then came Pitch Perfect, and then I knew it was a done deal.
When Pitch Perfect came out, I felt like I watched my entire freshman year play out on the silver screen. Okay, I wasn't in an a cappella group and we didn't have a riff-off (although I would have been down for that), but he does chase a girl during her freshman year of college. They do have a fast and furious affair. And I had to watch him kiss someone in (I swear) the same way he kissed me.
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I texted him as the credits ran to tell him how proud I was. I also told him how weird it was to watch him make out with Anna Kendrick in a freshman dorm room that looked shockingly similar to mine. We talked for a little after that. And then we emailed a few times. And then he started dating a beautiful (famous) woman and I never heard from him again.
Last night, I flipped to Conan and there he was. I wondered whether a stylist had dressed him. I remembered that he used to always complain about being hot, and I thought he must be sweating so badly under all those layers and under all those lights. I barely heard anything he said because all I could think about was how insane it was that I was watching someone I slept with on Conan fucking O'Brien.
At work today, I glanced over a coworker perusing a gossip site that had pictures of Skylar in Cavemen. My stomach curled a little. It curled in the same way your stomach curls when you see your ex across the street with another girl, but he doesn't see you. Only, with five million hits to his name on Google, I get that feeling all the time.
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Getty ImagesAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowPhoto: Getty Images
More From ELLEPlan B might not be as fail safe a plan as we all thought.
, which means countless women have likely been duped into taking an inefficient pill.
And lest you think this is only a problem in Europe, let us remind you again: Norlevo's got the same active ingredient and dosage as Plan B One-Step, Next Choice One Dose, My Way, and a handful of the most popular American-made emergency contraceptives. Different manufacturers, same product, essentially.
It is of particular concern in the U.S., where over 60 percent of women are obese. Speaking to NPR this morning, Linda Prine, medical director of the Reproductive Health Access Project and a practicing family doctor in New York City, said she's had many plus-size patients tell her " 'Yeah, I got pregnant using [the morning after pill].' So they've had the experience already of it not working."
Columbia University ob/gyn Dr. Carolyn Westhoff, winner of the Society of Family Planning's Lifetime Achievement Award for her extensive research on contraception, echoes that sentiment. "There has generally been a concern about the patient's weight and the [the morning after pill]'s effectiveness," she told ELLE.com today.
But Westhoff stresses that women shouldn't consider levonorgestrel-based emergency contraception like Plan B and Norlevo as a 100% emergency contraceptive no matter how much they weigh. "Except for when it was the only option available, Plan B has never been the most effective emergency contraception," she reminded us. "Other forms of emergency contraception, like copper IUDs and ella [a pill that lists ulipristal acetate as its active ingredient, instead of levonorgestrel] are far more effective."
BSIPPhoto: BSIP
The real advantage of Plan B, though, is that it's available for women of all ages over the counter— which does make it the only viable option when women can't get to a doctor or clinic. So should overweight American women who want to take it be alarmed? Probably. But Teva Pharmaceutical, the makers of Plan B One-Step, isn't issuing a warning like their European counterparts just yet. When reached for comment, a spokesperson for Teva Pharm said that while Plan B One-Step and Norlevo do "contain the same active ingredient, 1.5 mg of Levonorgestrel," suggesting that—where it matters— they're identical in chemical makeup and dosage, Teva Pharm couldn't speak to "the nature of the bioequivalence" of the two drugs.
When we reached out to HRA Pharma, the makers of Norlevo, CEO Erin Gainer generously praised the company's efforts to be "transparent with the healthcare community and provide regulators with the most up to date information to inform women," but was tight-lipped when it came to questions about issuing warnings based on body mass index versus weight. The study that prompted HRA Pharma to issue the warning looked at B.M.I., not weight. (Body mass index, or B.M.I., is different because it takes height into account, something potential Norlevo users might want to consider.)
Both companies were quick to harp on the "that's an American drug" or "that's a European pill" issue, which just adds up to a lot of cross-Atlantic finger-pointing. Ultimately, American or French or wherever they're produced, emergency contraceptives need to work for all women, regardless of their size, or be clear about the limitations of the pill's efficacy. If not, we could have a lot more women everywhere forced to consider not just a plan B, but a plan C, too.
Teva PharmPhoto: Teva

Courtesy Everett CollectionAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowOn the train headed back home to New York City, I'm reading, or trying to read, Buddhist-influenced therapist Mark Epstein's new book, The Trauma of Everyday Life (Penguin Press). I'm feeling tears gather behind my eyes, perhaps leaking out at the corners, but it's a 9 a.m. Acela, full of men in suits with briefcases—I'm not going to start weeping, not that I'm sure I could, even if I were home alone in my bedroom.
More From ELLEIt's not the book that's getting to me, or not just that. I'd gone out with B. the night before—I traveled to Washington, DC, largely for that purpose—but this morning I awoke to an e-mail in which he said he felt terrible, but he'd met someone else right after our first date, and it was a hard decision, and "you're a great girl," but….
Let me tell you about our first date. Midway through, B. rose from the table at the Brooklyn restaurant where we'd met, walked over to my side, sat down and reached for me, and started fiercely kissing me. While planning the date—yes he, not I, had planned it—he inquired as to whether I liked steak. (It's my favorite food.) I'd discovered, through a bit of googling (only a bit, I swear—though my husband and I split a year ago, I still haven't tried online dating), that B. is something of a wine expert, and when I sat down, he asked whether I minded starting with a bottle of white and then switching to red. (Did I mind? You mean I'm not the last carnivore or lover of plentiful libations on the East Coast?) Oh, and did I mention that he does fascinating, excellent work that requires him to travel all over the globe? That he is curious? (He asked me questions and follow-ups.) That we continued making out on a bench outside the restaurant on that cool, early summer night? That when his brother drove up to retrieve him, peering at us through the car's window was B.'s niece, who'd just come from a bar mitzvah. (My elder daughter attended a gazillion bar mitzvahs this year!) That when I got home, I found an e-mail from him saying he'd return to New York in the next few weeks to see me? That in these e-mails he deemed me "magnificent," among other declarations of affection?
But could you really call my rejection by B. even a small trauma? I ask the author of The Trauma of Everyday Life when I interview him in his TriBeCa office. I mean, I went out with B. exactly twice. I'm pretty sure Mark Epstein, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist who's written six books and is one of the earliest synthesizers of Eastern spirituality and Western psychotherapy, will say yes—not only because I read his book, but because I can guess how he'll respond to my queries; he's been my therapist off and on for 12 years. (So why ask him, then? Because if therapy teaches you anything, it's that you can "know" something and still find yourself needing to hear it again and again.)
And he does say yes. "Even though you only went out with B. twice," Epstein tells me, holding me in his calm gaze, "you had developed feelings for him and hopes for him, and then out of the blue to spring it on you, that's definitely a trauma."
However B. broke the bad news would have hurt, I protest, adding that my friends rightfully pointed out that B. was kind and prompt, that he didn't lead me on or try to sleep with me when he knew he planned to break it off. "So it's okay to call that little thing that happened to me a trauma, as opposed to…being pulled off the street and raped?" I blurt.
"There's a whole continuum of trauma," Epstein replies patiently. "The Buddha used the word dukkha, which means 'hard to face.' So I think that what's hard to face is traumatic. There's an instinctual feeling that we shouldn't face it, because it's difficult, so we turn away." In conventional psychological terms, which Epstein also employs freely, we "dissociate," or push off the part of ourselves that is in pain, isolate it somewhere in our subconscious. "And that turning away makes us a little more tense, a little more rigid, and a little more cut off."
In fact, I decided to write about Epstein's latest book because, in addition to addressing one of the most pressing issues of our time, the emotional impact of serious trauma, it offers a gentle yet rigorous explanation of how we limit ourselves—and, ultimately, our contributions to the human race—by fending off emotional pain, by insisting on what he calls "the rush to normal." And in an age where mindfulness, yoga, and celebrity visits to the Dalai Lama are all old hat, Epstein also corrects some widespread misimpressions about Buddhism by weaving together his interactions with clients; his own story as a young medical student riven by anxiety and uncomfortable in his own skin; and a fresh take on the story of the Buddha: namely, by focusing on the death of his mother when he was an infant and still the Prince Siddhartha.
Back on the train, Epstein's book in my hands, I endeavor to do what he has counseled over the years: just feel my sadness. I'm hurt, I'm sad, just sad—the words hover before me. I notice a sort of hollowness in my chest, a heaviness around my mouth…and then a yearning, and more words. I'm so disappointed; I had such grand plans. I want to be the one chosen. I'm so sad.
Emotions are not eloquent, as this passage amply attests, or at least their eloquence disintegrates in the movement from sensation to thought. And they're not so easy to stay with. In addition to dulling the point of the dart—only two measly dates!—other thoughts flickered in and out of my awareness as Chesapeake Bay whooshed by. Maybe I was too much for B., too tough-reporter girl, and failed to show my tender side. Or maybe I spoke too candidly of intimations of mortality—admitted that I'd begun considering how I wanted to spend my last 30 or so years on this earth. Again, too much, Laurie. You hardly knew the guy! And so on.
Buddhism teaches, Epstein writes in the first chapter of his book, that "trauma, in any of its forms, is not…something to be ashamed of, not a sign of weakness, and not a reflection of inner failing. It is simply a fact of life."
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© Ellen von Unwerth/Art + CommerceAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowA group of young women—ranging in age from their early twenties to early thirties—have gathered in my apartment ostensibly to talk about fundraising for an online magazine, but along the way we segue into a discussion of Girls, Fifty Shades of Grey, Internet porn, the manda­tory denuding of pubic hair, and all the rest of the phenomena that seem to characterize the present erotic moment. These young women routinely refer to men as dudes and appear to be at ease with casual sex—speaking dispassionately about their experiences, reducing them to amusing anecdotes—in a way that was once seen as more true of men. I find myself wondering whether this has been all to the good, whether some essential frisson has been lost along with the traditional self-consciousness about sex. I think of the film director Luis Buñuel's famous statement, "Sex without sin is like an egg without salt," which I've always taken to mean that sexual satisfaction requires an edge—that without some sort of impediment to bump up against, we risk vertigo-inducing psychological free-fall.
More From ELLEWhat strikes me as truly strange, however, is this: I'm older than these women and should by all rights be envious of their paradise of sexual opportunities, but I find myself feeling sorry for them instead—just as I winced when I watched Girls, finding it as sad as it was funny. I've read various defenses of the show's de­flated rendering of sexual engagement, and I'm still not convinced that the pivotal scene—in which Adam (played by Adam Driver) masturbates over the awkwardly naked body of Hannah (played by Lena Dunham) to the tune of a vocalized fantasy about her being an 11-year-old druggie—is impressive for its candor so much as dreary in its implications.
For one thing, what is so new, much less revelatory, about autoeroticism and a young man's "wanton absorption" in it? Why on earth would it engage the viewer, as Elaine Blair suggests in The New York Review of Books, more than Hannah's flustered attempts to connect at all costs, even if that means going along with said fantasy? "We can feel the erotic charge of the scene," writes Blair, "in spite of its limitations, qua sex, for Hannah. We can contemplate Hannah's lack of sexual confidence without condemning Adam. We can appreciate, rather than lament, Hannah's attraction to Adam despite the fact that he is wont to do things like dismiss her from his apartment with a brusque nod while she is still chatting and gathering her clothes and purse."
Related: A Different Way of Thinking About Lena Dunham's Nudity on 'Girls'
Can we? Perhaps, if we don't have our own identification with Hannah—and our own hopes on her behalf for something approaching sexual fulfillment (not to mention a little love). Unless we're all irretrievably jaded voyeurs by now, on the lookout for the next debased thrill, it seems to me that the erotic context is still potent with promise for many of us, remaining one of the last outposts of the unironic in a culture bent on demystifying every last experience. Or, at least, it ought to be, if we weren't so set these days on undercutting its power by holding it up to the light and examining it. What, one might ask, happened to the blissed-out dream of sex that came with the Sexual Revolution, the promise of intense intimacy and naked abandon—sex as "the long slide/ To happiness, endlessly" that the British poet Philip Larkin envisioned in his poem "High Windows"? Why does it seem to have been cast aside in favor of a more banal discourse, one bleached of excitement and mystery?
Let me make clear where I'm coming from. I'm not trying to speak for the joys of good, old-fashioned sex as against current subversions/perversions thereof. I'm not even sure I believe in such an entity as good, old-fashioned sex. Sexual arousal, to the extent that it takes place in the brain as much as in the body, is one of the most subjective of all pleasures, encoded in highly individualized scripts that contain our psychic histories in the form of charged images and fantasies. The details of these scripts—or "microdots," as the psychiatrist Robert Stoller calls them in his book Sexual Excitement—are designed to reproduce and, ideally, repair past traumas and humiliations that we carry with us from childhood. But as Stoller points out on the very first page of his book, the phrase "sexual excitement" is itself woefully inexact: "Sexual has so many uses," he observed, "that we scarcely comprehend even the outer limits of what someone else indicates with the word; does he or she refer to male and female, or masculinity and femininity, or eroticism, or intercourse, or sensual, nonerotic pleasure, or life-force?"
I should point out as well that my own tastes have historically run to the edgier end of the sexual spectrum—and, indeed, in some circles I am seen as a promoter of unsavory sexual preferences. I am referring to a lengthy essay I wrote for The New Yorker in 1996 called "Unlikely Obsession." This piece, which has continued to haunt me from the moment it appeared, was a graphic account of my longtime fascination with erotic spanking and my cautious flirtation with more serious S&M; it also attempted to trace the psychological origins of my interest and to envision a future less tied to this kind of scenario. "The fact is," I wrote early in the piece, "that I cannot remember a time when I didn't think about being spanked as a sexually gratifying act, didn't fantasize about being reduced to a craven object of desire by a firm male hand…."
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Photo: Pure Yoga
Advertisement - Continue Reading BelowYogis are bending over backwards to get to Pure Yoga on New York's Upper East Side this weekend.
More From ELLEThe state of the art studio (with another location across town) prides itself on fostering its students with the most sought after, seasoned, and dynamic instructors in the business.
Seane Corn, internationally renowned instructor will be in NYC to host and teach a weekend workshop that's not just about perfecting your back bend (she'll help you with that, too) but to better understand the mind/body connection and gain insight into an inner spirit that can get lost somewhere between the subway and the long line for a morning latte. In this workshop Corn will help students learn about their chakra systems, and how with yoga, they can use this knowledge for overall better health. What better way to start the new year?
You can register at Pureyoga.com.

Gregg DelmanAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowDear E. Jean: I'm a woman newly married to a woman—the love of my life. Everything is wonderful between us, except for one thing: When we first started dating we decided to wait to "go all the way" until we were wed. For us, this meant oral sex. We've now been married three months, and we've still not experienced oral sex with each other. She's scared and nervous about it; I've been understanding. Her fear is that she won't like it and won't want to do it again, which would be sad because she knows it's important to me. She's also uncomfortable about me kissing her breasts. We do other things sexually, but how do I persuade her to take it further, sooner rather than later?—The Robber Bride
More From ELLEMrs. Robber, My Dear: There are, I'm guessing, about a billion people on the planet who can't stand oral sex—and another half billion who'll only do it if the person wears high heels and a red garter belt. So don't think for a moment this is everyone's dish. It's not.
Another consideration, and I beg your pardon, but I must ask: Did she grow up so tormented by anti-gay attitudes that she became an expert in compartmentalizing and now can't open up? Or, perhaps, she suffered a trauma? Or was she given the message as a child—like practically everyone (well, everyone from a certain generation)—that her genitals were "dirty"? And one last question: It seems obvious, but is she gay? Or is it possible she's straight? I could guess a thousand things and not guess correctly why she's so hesitant, but if she's simply (miraculously!) inexperienced, well, well, well...you can send her to what the poet John Keats (a chap who probably never imagined going downtown) called "Cupid's college."
Pour two glasses of Chartreuse and read to her by candlelight while she's in the bath. I suggest Girl Crazy: Coming Out Erotica, edited by Sacchi Green, or Anaïs Nin's Delta of Venus. And for God's sake, don't babble about the importance of oral sex. And if you start yapping about taking it further, I will personally flog you with my loofah.
The next night, join her in the tub and watch the Naomi Watts–Laura Harring seduction scene in Mulholland Drive, or the vampire Catherine Deneuve devour a young Susan Sarandon in The Hunger, or Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman's naughty sleepover in Black Swan. The idea is to awaken ideas and, to paraphrase Vladimir Nabokov's Ada, to kiss her in so many new ways and enjoy so much fresh laughter together that she loses her inhibitions in the shuffle.
If it turns out you can't live without oral sex and she can't live with it, see a psychosexual therapist who specializes in gay relationships together. We don't want the stars in the heaven of your marriage to dim before they even start shining.
E-mail your questions to e.jean@askejean.com
MORE E. JEAN:
Why It's Perfectly OK to Fake
How to Start a Serious Relationship
Sharing an Engagement Ring With an In-Law?

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Gregg DelmanAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowDear E. Jean: I'm being discriminated against because of my weight. Apparently, I'm too healthy. My five-woman department is overseen by a female supervisor, and they consider my refusing cake a near-crime. None of them go to the gym or watch what they eat. Prior to joining this office and pushing papers, I'd been an incredibly active EMT in a trauma unit, and I've recently gotten back into top shape. I'm doing a serious power-walking program, and I've cut out red meat and dairy and limited my cocktails. I happily left behind (never say "lost"; you don't want to find that stuff again!) 50 pounds of fat in 18 months. My cardiologist declared me "best in show"!
More From ELLEHowever, my supervisor and coworkers shun and ridicule me. They tell others in our company that I'm "unbalanced" because I pass up sticky, fat-laden office "treats." Is this reverse weight discrimination? Or is this simply rampant jealousy? —Slim Pride
Slim, my lettuce leaf: I adore you! I'm delighted for you! But your coworkers aren't feeling "rampant jealousy." No. What these ladies are exhibiting—besides a powerful desire to make you conform—is rampant loathing. Refusing their gifts and preaching (even in the most amusing manner) about your "no dairy" lifestyle is impolite. It makes enemies. It's not that you can't advance by being a nonconformist and breaking rules, but you must break the right rules at the right time.
Courtesy in the workplace requires subtlety. When offered a cookie, you may pat your belly and exclaim, "I can't eat that. Too full. Wish I could!" But you must make up lost ground if you want to ensure career advancement. Offer treats (organic popcorn drizzled with honey, or baked sweet potato chips, or gingersnaps perhaps), and the next time a colleague foists cake upon you, open your mouth wide and cry out, "You cruel woman! You enchantress! How can I say no? Do you mind if I cut a big, big piece? Oh! Look at that icing! I'm taking this home for tonight's dessert." Then wrap the giant mess up in a wad of paper towels and put it in your bag. What you do with it after you leave the office is up to you.
E-mail your questions to e.jean@askejean.com

Gregg DelmanAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowDear E. Jean: I've donated at least $400 to Haitian relief, volunteered with local organizations to amass food, and been hard at work on a Haiti fundraiser, so I feel silly asking this question. The doctor I've been seeing went to Haiti to help after the earthquake. Once there, he never called, and I waited a long time for his e-mails. So the other night, I decided to call him to see how he was doing, and boy did I see how he was doing.
More From ELLEIt turns out that he must have accidentally punched a button on his phone with his hand or something, because I heard him and another woman having sex—very loudly. It was horrifying and hurtful. Though I know we're merely "seeing" each other and not in a committed relationship, I feel possessive of him. He's coming home soon, and we'll be working together on the fundraiser. Should I take this as a sign to leave him before I get into more trouble?—Dazed and Confused
Dazed, my darling: And here we all thought waiting for a guy to call was punishment. Hell, I'm happy he didn't accidentally hit "record video" on his phone and Skype the thing to you.
However, I like this Dr. Ear Splitting. You share two virtues: You both stand up for the downtrodden, and you each dedicate your time to something greater than yourselves. (His artistry in performing two operations at the same time with his fingers—punching buttons and undoing them—is a virtue possessed by few.)
So, as you weren't committed; as you wouldn't be "leaving" him even if you left him; and as you have several things in common, why not stick around for a while and see what develops? And for God's sakes, don't mention you overheard his shouts. Use the secret intelligence to amp up your romance—i.e., he may like a bang not a whimper in bed.
P.S. How loud is he? I need someone to frighten away the bears up here at my cabin.
E-mail your questions to e.jean@askejean.com

Gregg DelmanAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowDear E. Jean: I am 25, am just beginning my exciting adult life, work in a major department store, and want to start my own business. I'm passionate about my Mr. Smithers T-shirt line. Mr. Smithers is my two-year-old French bulldog. My concept is to make comfortable T-shirts like James Perse, but for dogs. I have the logo ready and a couple of sample tees, but where do I go from here?
Most dog owners think dog clothes are too costumey and uncomfortable, so I definitely have a niche: T-shirts that are plain and fit dogs properly. Should I go for it? I need at least $3,000 to start, which will be difficult. But I have a vision! It's for all dogs to have one T-shirt they love and feel good in! —Mr. Smithers CEO
More From ELLEMiss CEO, my bulldog: I called the immortal Carol Perkins, founder of Harry Barker (famous for its eco-friendly products for dogs and cats), and read her your letter over the phone.
Carol, a former Victoria's Secret model, started Harry Barker in the most agitating (some would say impossible) circumstances: She'd had brain surgery to remove a tumor and was unemployed. Thirteen years later, Harry Barker is global, selling to more than 3,000 wholesalers. Here's her advice:
1. You can get started for about $600. I'll itemize what you'll spend. It's nowhere near $3,000.
2. Trademark your logo and name. Before you do anything, get trademarked at Uspto.gov, or people will rip you off. It's about $300, but registering and filing is a breeze.
3. Get a domain and build your website. The name Mr. Smithers is probably taken, so be creative. Getting a domain is $10.69 at Godaddy.com. Building your basic site is free with Google Sites, Sites.google.com.
4. Make the T-shirts yourself, and give them away to your fancy friends with dogs. When I was recovering from brain surgery and hunkered down in my kitchen, one of the first dog beds I made was for a friend's pug. I gave it to her as a present. An editor happened to visit her apartment, saw the bed, and 10 weeks later I was in InStyle. Give it away! Word of mouth can make you a mogul. I made everything myself that first year. If people ordered 10 dog bathrobes, I personally made 10 dog bathrobes. It's fun, but not glamorous. It's called "Walk before you run."
5. Cold-call the pet boutiques in your city and ask for an appointment. I was turned down by most people I called. But I called them back every week. I never gave up! For months I never made one sale. But when I got my foot in the door at Canine Styles, it put me on the map. They are still a client after 13 years.
6. Now you're ready to go to the manufacturer. But never start negotiations with a factory, PR company, or anyone looking at your designs until they sign a nondisclosure agreement and/or an exclusivity agreement. If you don't get them signed before, then it's usually too late. The manufacturer should supply you with all your prototype samples—in various sizes and colors—for free. But be prepared to pay the shipping fees.
7. Be a press whore. Target the popular bloggers. Call editors and features writers, and work your social networks. Good luck!
My dear, compared with Carol Perkins, I'm a flea on the hind-end of a shih tzu, but permit me to add one idea: Hustle Mr. Smithers into one of those T-shirts, hie yourselves to the most fashionable dog park, and let the little cur create the epidemic. Be at the ready with two or three free shirts to give to the owners who wag and bark the loudest. (They're show-offs, and their dogs will be your best advertisements!)
E-mail your questions to e.jean@askejean.com

Getty ImagesAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowPhoto: Getty Images
The competition element of the Tribeca Film Festival concluded Thursday evening with a glitzy awards ceremony at the Conrad New York hotel in Battery Park City, hosted by Conrad Hotels & Resorts.
While the talk amongst the jurors—mostly actors and filmmakers—was about how grueling the process was of cramming so many films into a little over a week (for short films especially: they had to watch 38 movies), most loved the experience.
"I'm so honored to be a part of the storytelling," said Bryce Dallas Howard. "It's been a really creative week." She admitted she also enjoyed the nostalgia of retracing her steps as a student. "Getting to be around my old NYU stomping ground was great, as well as eating the food I ate 10 years ago."
"There are so many talented people out there," shared Christine Baranski, who was wearing a neoprene dress by Cynthia Rowley. "It never wrinkles, and you feel like a Barbie doll because it just has a look to it," she said of said frock.
Mira Sorvino packed her week with films, parties, and dinners out, despite traveling with her 11-month-old daughter. And, she added, "I went to Anthropologie in the Chelsea Market for a quick stolen moment to get a pair of jeans."
More From ELLEWhoopi Goldberg had quite a week as a juror making her directorial debut and winning the "Best Documentary Short" award for Coach, which she produced.
"That is kind of stunning," she admitted. "You bring your baby out and say 'Isn't my baby cute?' People say, 'Oh yeah, the baby's cute,' but you know the baby looks like a dog. We brought the baby out, and they told us we've got a cute baby."
Director Paul Haggis admitted the great luxury of the week was simply watching 12 films. "I haven't had the chance to watch 12 films over two weeks in years," he said. "I could have sat through more of this stuff. I was so annoyed that they were all good." His movie snack of choice could have had something to do with it. "I like popcorn with peanut M&Ms," he admitted. "The sweet and salty."
Jurors Radha Mitchell and Ari Graynor had different sweet and salty snacking plans. "Sometimes I sneak in sushi," to movies Mitchell said.
While Graynor is simple. "I have wicked sweet tooth. Sometimes it's a Junior Mint, sometimes it's a Swedish Fish. I like sweets."
Check out a full list of the Tribeca Film Festival winners, below
Winner, 2013 World Narrative Competition: The Rocket
Best Actor in a Narrative Feature Film: Sitthiphon Disamoe as Ahlo in The Rocket
Best Actress in a Narrative Feature Film: Veerle Baetens as Elise Vandevelde in The Broken Circle Breakdown
Best Cinematography in a Narrative Feature Film: Marius Matzow Gulbrandsen, for Before Snowfall
Best Screenplay for a Narrative Feature Film: The Broken Circle Breakdown, written by Carl Joos and Felix van Groeningen
Best New Narrative Director: Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais, director of Whitewash
Best Documentary Feature: The Kill Team
Best Editing in a Documentary Feature: Let the Fire Burn, edited by Nels Bangerter
Best New Documentary Director: Sean Dunne for Oxyana
Best Narrative Short: The Nightshift Belongs to the Stars, directed by Edoardo Ponti
Best Documentary Short: Coach, directed by Bess Kargman
Student Visionary Award: Life Doesn't Frighten Me, directed by Stephen Dunn
Bombay Sapphire Award for Transmedia: Sandy Storyline, created by Rachel Falcone, Laura Gottesdiener, and Michael Premo
Tribeca Online Festival Best Feature Film: Lil Bub & Friendz, directed by Andy Capper and Juliette Eisner

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Photo: Richard DumasAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowPhoto: Richard Dumas
Carla Bruni, who put her musical career on hold while her husband, Nicolas Sarkozy, was president of France, is back with her first album in five years. Written and performed in French, English, and Italian, Little French Songs includes a tune about hanging out with Bruni's former boyfriend Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Anita Pallenberg, a track that pairs words with a Chopin-composed piece, as well as an ode to Sarkozy himself.
The album—Bruni's fourth—features plenty of her signature lilting acoustic guitar and folky lyrics. That's the case for "Libereté," one of Bruni's eight original compositions on Little French Songs, which ELLE.com exclusively premieres below (grab the whole album when it hits stores April 16).

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Who: Katya Staretski
What: Do double-cross black basics
Wear: Missoni sweater, Tom Binns jewelry, Marc Jacobs pants, Opening ceremony shoes
Photo: Anne Ziegler
Think you are Street Chic? E-mail us your photo and you could appear in ELLE.com's Street Chic Daily.

Advertisement - Continue Reading BelowBelow you'll find the best of the best of this week's office-style.
No matter what kind of unseasonably tundra-like weather New York City throws at us, here at ELLE, as you can see, we forge ahead like stylish soldiers in the war against bad fashion.
This week, a python miniskirt, a backless ruffled blouse and a blazer every woman will want –and should have–hanging in their closet.
Enjoy!



Mary Jane patent flats lend a sweet touch to the toughness of a distressed, frayed skinny jean.
(Patent flats, Marc Jacobs)
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My favorite kind of sweater – unique, textured, subtly sexy and no accessories required.
(Sweater, Dior Homme)



A simple, gold statement necklace that gives her outfit some extra polish and her walk a cheerful jingle!
(Necklace, vintage)



Is there such a thing as refined bohemian? If there isn't, this is a perfect example of why there should be. The burgundy accents, pleasing print and impeccable tailoring make this an ideal all-season wardrobe staple.
(Dress, Derek Lam)



If it's neutral, fitted, sleeveless, and the neckline involves even a hint of rufflage, I'm so there. No seriously, I'm writing this in a cab as I head over to Club Monaco...
(Ruffled blouse, Club Monaco)



That's it, after four years of schlepping a giant shoulder tote filled with random-ass things I never use, I am determined to find a dressy mid-size satchel similar to this one. Downsize your bag, downsize the time it takes to find your travel-size bottle of Crème de Corps.
(Patent satchel, Fendi)



The ruched waist-line makes this skirt even more of an enviable item (no belt required!). Worn in the Summer with gladiator flats or in the winter with opaque tights and ankle boots – this is a perfect example of why skirts, more than any other item of clothing, should be the recessionista's primary go-to purchase right now.
(Python-print skirt, ZARA)



For those who aren't brave enough to go here, this is the perfect alternative to still look great in last season's, this season's and next season's biggest trend.
(Blazer, MM6)



Proving that wearing a single designer, head-to-toe, can sometimes be a girl's best option.
(Dress & shoes, Marni)



Depressing as it is that we still have to wear tights during the should-be-warm month of May, if you're gonna do it, do it like this with a hex-print, a mini, and a pair of killer legs.
(Patterned tights, Falke)