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Jennifer Van Orman
Jennifer Van Orman

3.2K Followers

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May 29

Becoming a Parent Will Ruin Your Life

If you are on the fence about parenthood and think you could live a happy life without needing to procreate, my advice is unequivocal: stay the course because having children will ruin your life. — Look, I wasn’t doing anything all that interesting before my kids were born. I spent my twenties drinking way too much, smoking, and quitting jobs. Writing poems, moving cities, and actively ignoring attempts to process past trauma. Basically trying not to kill myself while also slowly killing myself. Methods my…

Mental Health

8 min read

Becoming a Parent Will Ruin Your Life
Becoming a Parent Will Ruin Your Life
Mental Health

8 min read


May 29

Pursuing an autism diagnosis blew up my marriage. Again.

Okay, you already know it’s not quite that simple, but it did follow a clear trajectory, so please allow me to expound. Because I don’t want to use his real name and because I love a good pseudonym, let’s call my husband Yousef. And two things from the outset: One…

Marriage

4 min read

Pursuing an autism diagnosis blew up my marriage. Again.
Pursuing an autism diagnosis blew up my marriage. Again.
Marriage

4 min read


May 24

Late Diagnosed ADHD and Autism

Receiving ADHD and Autism Diagnoses in my 40s Even a brief internet perusal would tell you that adult diagnoses of neurodivergence are a phenomenon of increasing frequency. Many of these adults receive a diagnosis along with their kids. Or they find out the particulars of the autistic spectrum disorders or ADHD symptoms aren’t what they thought they were…

Adhd

5 min read

Late Diagnosed ADHD and Autism
Late Diagnosed ADHD and Autism
Adhd

5 min read


Nov 8, 2022

Parent Daughter Decay

Physicist and chemist Marie Curie was born November 7, 1867. No, that’s not her. It’s not possible to predict the decay of individual radioactive particles, as it is a random process, but the parent nucleus produces a daughter nucleus. …

Science

2 min read

Parent Daughter Decay
Parent Daughter Decay
Science

2 min read


Nov 1, 2022

When Colby College Let Us Take Over the Airwaves as 10th Graders

Also known as my time without Pearl Jam For a handful of years in the mid-1990s, the good people at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, thought it fit to give me and my best friend Kristina access to the airwaves for far more weekly hours than was probably prudent. We…

90s Music

3 min read

When Colby College Let Us Take Over the Airwaves as 10th Graders
When Colby College Let Us Take Over the Airwaves as 10th Graders
90s Music

3 min read


Jul 30, 2022

What No One Ever Told Me About Being a Parent

There is nothing like staring down at an exquisitely vulnerable, miniature version of yourself every day to make you want to get your shit…

Parenting

1 min read

What No One Ever Told Me About Being a Parent
What No One Ever Told Me About Being a Parent
Parenting

1 min read


Mar 27, 2022

Don’t Do This On Television

16. You Oughta Know -Alanis Morrissette (Jagged Little Pill, 1995, Maverick and Reprise) I don’t like this song, though I suppose I did the first couple of times I heard it. Then it was several hundred more times and several hundred more after that, and I do not like it…

90s Music

4 min read

Don’t Do This On Television
Don’t Do This On Television
90s Music

4 min read


Mar 25, 2022

Your Weight on the Moon

There are so many more to go, but let’s wrap up this portion already. I am just going to be out with it. I can’t stand Sublime. Have you ever seen the movie Clue? I hope so, and if not, go watch it and come back. It’s worth it. Tim…

90s Music

3 min read

Your Weight on the Moon
Your Weight on the Moon
90s Music

3 min read


Mar 25, 2022

Point Break

Highlights: Neutral Milk Hotel, Yo La Tengo, Elliott Smith, and Tool. Bonus: More Remembering Headbangers Ball. Also, I read Lance Armstrong’s autobiography and lived to write about it. Okay, this next segment is quite a doozy, and I don’t have a lot of good things to say about it. It…

Pearl Jam

6 min read

When Colby College Let Us Take Over the Airwaves as 10th Graders
When Colby College Let Us Take Over the Airwaves as 10th Graders
Pearl Jam

6 min read


Mar 22, 2022

But Seriously, Where Were My Parents?

On Watching Headbangers Ball as a Fifth Grader, and Other Topics This list. Christ, this list. It’s bad. It’s really, really bad. I mean, the eyeballs of my sixteen-year-old self would not be recoverable they would have rolled back so hard. It’s not alllll bad, but collectively, it sucks. It’s…

90s

4 min read

But Seriously, Where Were My Parents?
But Seriously, Where Were My Parents?
90s

4 min read

Jennifer Van Orman

Jennifer Van Orman

3.2K Followers

Artist and writer. On double-secret probation.

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