Feb 24, 2026
They say death comes in threes, but lately it feels less like superstition and more like a pattern I can’t unsee. And the cause, in so many of these losses, is colon cancer.
First, the headlines linking colon cancer to Catherine O’Hara (RIP, Moira Rose). Then James Van Der Beek — yes, our Dawson, forever standing on that dock in my teenage memory — opening up about his diagnosis before his recent passing. And then the one that truly knocked the wind out of me: my mom’s best friend Nancy, who felt more like an aunt, gone far too soon from the same disease.
I kept asking myself: is this actually happening more, or are we just at the age where it starts touching our own lives?
According to the American Cancer Society's latest report, colorectal cancer rates in adults under 50 have been rising since the mid-1990s. It’s now the leading cause of cancer death in men under 50 and the second leading cause in women in that age group. That’s a staggering shift for something many of us still think of as a “later in life” diagnosis.
Researchers are still untangling why. Diet, ultra-processed foods, sedentary habits, microbiome changes, environmental exposures. Likely a mix. What we do know is practical: screening now starts at 45 for average-risk adults because of this rise. And symptoms matter, even if you feel healthy. Blood in the stool. Ongoing digestive changes. Unexplained weight loss. You are not dramatic for getting it checked out.
Lately, beneath the carpools and grocery runs and half-finished emails, there’s this heightened awareness of how fragile it all is, how ordinary and precious these days can be at the same time.
So yes, plan the trip, celebrate the birthday, stay up too late with your friends, and order the good bottle of wine. But also call your doctor, know your family history, and schedule the screening you’ve been putting off.
Two things can be true at once: life is precious and unpredictable, and protecting it is part of loving it.
Feb 23, 2026
They say some people eat to live, and others live to eat. As a second-generation Italian-American girl from Queens, I have always, proudly, lived to eat. Food is how we say "I love you" without actually saying it. It’s Sunday sauce simmering for hours, it’s too much bread on the table, it’s arguing about whose meatballs are better.
“Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” has, quite frankly, never once resonated with me. Carbs are a personality trait where I’m from.
But here’s the part that might surprise you: for most of my adult life, I didn’t love to cook. I loved eating, I loved restaurants, I loved being cooked for, but the actual act of planning, prepping, and executing dinner on a random Wednesday felt… exhausting.
Part of it is my ADHD. If you’ve ever tried to follow an online recipe while your brain is pinging in twelve different directions, you know. I do not need a five-paragraph origin story about your grandmother’s garden before you tell me the oven temperature, because by the time I scroll to the ingredients, I’ve checked my email, ordered socks, and forgotten why I opened the page in the first place.
And then, honestly, ChatGPT changed the game.
Now I type in what’s in my fridge ("salmon, cherry tomatoes, half a lemon, feta”), and I get a straightforward, no-frills recipe in seconds. No life story, no ads, just clarity, which removes the friction and means I actually cook.
And here’s what I didn’t expect: I love what happens while I’m cooking. Not the chaotic, multitasking version, but the steadier one: audiobook in my ears (hi, Wild Reverence), hands moving, knife hitting the cutting board in a rhythm that somehow settles my nervous system. I don’t even particularly love chopping, but I love how it quiets my brain while I’m doing something useful, something that ends with everyone gathered around the table.
For me, this isn’t about being a trad wife or optimizing protein. It’s about reconnecting to something that’s always been part of my identity — food as joy, food as love — in a way that works with my brain instead of against it. And realizing that maybe in your late 30s, you just become the nonna whether you planned to or not.
Feb 11, 2026
I did not have “Bridgerton teaches us about the pleasure gap” on my 2026 bingo card, and yet… here we are.
Just when we’d all quietly filed Francesca away as the soft-spoken, piano-playing sister, season 4 gently (and brilliantly) flipped the script. The Pinnacle storyline doesn’t rely on scandal or smolder. It slows down, turns inward, and asks a far more interesting question than “Will this romance work?” It asks whether she’s actually fulfilled.
There’s a moment when Francesca asks her mother what a “pinnacle” even is, and it’s tender and awkward in a way that feels almost too real, because how many of us were taught how to be desirable long before we were taught how our own bodies work?
What feels radical about her arc isn’t the steaminess; it’s the attentiveness. Intimacy unfolds with her, not to her. She’s allowed to not know, to ask questions, to figure it out in real time.
And that’s the part that lingers for me, especially in a culture where female desire has so often been framed as reactive or performative, something we measure by whether everyone else is satisfied. But for many women, desire builds with safety and emotional connection, which isn’t prudish; it’s physiology. When we understand our anatomy and communicate what actually feels good, intimacy shifts. It becomes less about performance and more about presence.
Francesca doesn’t suddenly become louder; she becomes more attuned to herself, and somehow, in 2026, that still feels groundbreaking.
If a Regency-era drama can help normalize curiosity, communication, and centering our own pleasure, I’m all in. Read the full Rescripted breakdown here.
Feb 10, 2026
People don’t talk enough about how hard it is to know you’re “done” having kids after years of infertility. Mostly because “done” implies a level of certainty that infertility never really gives you.
For some of my friends, done was a feeling. A conversation that landed. A vasectomy scheduled. Boom, chapter closed. Their families felt complete in a calm, decisive way that I still find a little impressive.
For me, it’s blurrier.
My husband and I still pay for embryo storage, which means the question never fully goes away; it just kind of lingers in the background of our lives. Every month, that charge hits my card and gently reminds me that the possibility is still there, quite literally frozen and waiting, even if I’m not totally sure what I want to do with it.
It’s not that I don’t love the life we have — I really do. But in another universe, one where groceries were cheaper, and someone reliably cooked us dinner every night, I could absolutely imagine a fourth kid fitting right in. In this universe, I mostly imagine needing a nap. And maybe a personal assistant.
What I’m realizing is that after infertility, certainty is hard to trust. You get so used to living in the “maybe,” holding multiple futures in your head at once, that it becomes your default setting. Embryo storage just keeps that muscle strong.
Maybe being done doesn’t come with a clear, confident moment. Maybe it’s just noticing you don’t feel the same urgency anymore. Or that the ache is quieter than it used to be. And still, if I’m being honest, there’s a small part of me that hesitates every time that storage bill hits. Like… are we sure?
Feb 9, 2026
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If 2025 was peak protein, I was fully on board. I tracked it, prioritized it, and mentally calculated grams while ordering lunch. For a while, it felt empowering, like we were finally done with the “eat less” messaging and stepping into something stronger. That era mattered. Muscle, bones, metabolism: it all still matters.
But lately, the conversations I keep having with friends sound different. They’re less about hitting 100 grams and more about why we’re bloated, crashing at 3 p.m., or thinking about sugar even when we technically “did everything right.” And more often than not, the missing piece isn’t protein. It’s fiber.
Most women need around 25 to 30 grams a day, and many of us aren’t even close. Fiber supports blood sugar balance, digestion, cholesterol, and estrogen metabolism (which becomes especially relevant in our 30s and 40s when hormones start doing their own unpredictable dance — hi, perimenopause). It’s not glamorous. No one is bragging about their chia seeds. But it is foundational.
When I started paying attention, I realized I was building meals around protein and treating plants like an afterthought. So I began adding flax to smoothies, berries to breakfast, and vegetables to basically everything. Nothing extreme. Nothing restrictive. Just more color. More variety.
In hindsight, I think I’d been chasing optimization when what my body really needed was consistency.
What I noticed wasn’t dramatic, but it was meaningful: steadier energy, fewer intense cravings, more regular digestion — the kind of subtle shifts that make a long week feel a little more manageable.
This isn’t about abandoning protein or chasing another wellness headline. It’s about supporting our bodies in ways that feel sustainable and grounded, the kind of care that doesn’t need to “trend” to be worth it.
If you’ve been feeling off, take a look at your plate this week. Not to critique it, just to notice. Sometimes caring for ourselves starts with something as simple as adding one more plant.
Feb 2, 2026
I am not, and never have been, a haircare girly.
I didn’t grow up knowing the difference between a mask and a conditioner. I’ve never instinctively understood which shampoo was “obviously” right for my hair type. I’ve always kind of assumed that haircare was one of those skills you either picked up early — or quietly accepted you’d never fully grasp.
For most of my adult life, my hair routine looked like this: wash when it felt gross, condition (because you’re supposed to), heat style if I was feeling virtuous, air dry if I wasn’t. If my scalp flaked, I panicked. If my hair felt dry, I bought something heavier. If it felt greasy, I solved the problem with… a lot of dry shampoo.
Then I started watching Abbey Yung on TikTok, and for the first time ever, haircare started feeling less like a chore and more like a system.
What people on social media refer to as “the Abbey Yung Method” isn’t an official program or a rigid routine. It’s more of a framework: a way of understanding hair that cuts through a lot of the noise, marketing, and frankly, nonsense that dominates haircare advice online.
If you’re starting a haircare journey and don’t identify as someone who’s “good at this stuff,” here’s everything you need to know. You're welcome.
Jan 29, 2026
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Like everyone else at the peak of COVID, my husband and I bought a Peloton bike with the purest of intentions. We’d ride every day from the comfort of our own home, it would pay for itself in less than a year, and we’d become the kind of people who casually referenced our ride streaks in conversation.
Five years later, the bike has technically paid for itself — thanks entirely to my cardio-loving husband — while I’ve mostly used it as a very expensive coat hanger. Meanwhile, I exercise at least four days a week, rotating between Pilates, strength training, and walking, just not on the piece of equipment that once symbolized my fitness aspirations.
For a long time, I framed this as some kind of personal failure, as if not loving cardio meant I wasn’t doing exercise right. Which is why two recent studies felt unexpectedly reassuring. One found that even a brief burst of intense exercise (as little as ten minutes!) releases molecules into the bloodstream that help switch on DNA repair and shut down cancer growth signals. Another showed that exercise variety, not just volume, is linked to a lower risk of premature death.
Translation: your body doesn’t actually care how you move, only that you do.
There’s something deeply freeing about that. Permission, maybe, to stop forcing ourselves into workout identities that don’t fit, or chasing whatever form of movement happens to be most optimized, viral, or aesthetically pleasing at the moment. Consistency, it turns out, doesn’t come from discipline alone; it comes from enjoyment, from choosing movement that feels sustainable rather than aspirational.
We already spend so much energy trying to “hack” our health. Maybe this is one place we can ease up. If you love running, run. If you hate it, don’t. If Pilates feels grounding and walking clears your head, that counts — apparently, it all does.
It makes me wonder if the healthiest shift isn’t actually exercising more, but judging ourselves a little less.
Jan 28, 2026
I’ve spent more time than I care to admit staring at patient portals, waiting for test results to populate. Fertility labs. Hormone panels. Bloodwork that’s supposed to explain why something feels off, or confirm what you already suspect. It's that specific kind of waiting where you’re still functioning, parenting, answering emails, but also mentally preparing for every possible outcome, all at once. When the word normal finally appears, there’s relief, sure, followed quickly by exhaustion — because if everything’s normal, then why does it feel like it took this much effort to get there?
Being proactive about your health, especially as a woman, is rarely just one test. It’s usually a series of them, spaced out over time, and they rarely tell the full story on their own.
Which is why a recent study stopped me in my tracks. Researchers found that routine mammograms may also reveal early signs of cardiovascular disease — specifically, calcium buildup in the arteries of the breast, something radiologists can see but don’t typically report because it isn’t linked to breast cancer. (Of course. Because women’s bodies are nothing if not efficient multitaskers.)
Here’s the part that feels both fascinating and infuriating: heart disease is still the number one killer of women, yet women are more likely to be diagnosed later and have worse outcomes. Not because we don’t show up for care (we do), but because the tools used to assess risk often underestimate us. Our symptoms are messier, our timelines don’t match the studies, and our bodies don’t follow the script.
But this new research suggests that information we’re already generating — from mammograms we’re already getting! — could help flag risk earlier, without another appointment or another scan, just a fuller picture using data that already exists. Which makes the real question less about what women should be doing, and more about whether the system is ready to connect the dots it already has… and maybe, finally, pay attention.
Jan 27, 2026
The best thing that happened to me this most recent postpartum wasn’t a supplement, a system, or a “game-changing” routine I would later forget to keep up with. It was something my Italian, no-bullshit aunt said to me while I was very much postpartum — tired, hormonal, and trying to be responsible about my mental health.
At some point, almost casually, I floated the thought: What if I get postpartum anxiety again? I wasn’t panicking. I was just mentally opening the tab, the way so many of us do when we’re trying to stay one step ahead of our own bodies.
She didn’t flinch or ask follow-up questions or suggest we keep an eye on it. She just looked at me and said, “Stop thinking about that. You don’t have that.” And somehow, that was the end of it. No checklist. No monitoring. No circling back later. Just certainty.
And honestly, it worked. I didn’t get postpartum anxiety — or maybe I did briefly, in a way that passed before it could turn into a storyline I carried around with me. Either way, it didn’t become something I worried myself into.
I thought about this again recently while watching Marcello Hernandez’s new Netflix special, where he jokes that he has ADHD, except his mom told him he didn’t, so he didn’t. End of discussion. No label spiral. Life just kept moving.
It made me wonder if, in our very real and necessary effort to name and normalize mental health, we’ve also lost a bit of trust in ourselves — the ability to feel off without assuming it’s permanent, to have a hard week without forecasting a hard year, to let certain things pass through us instead of defining us.
This isn’t anti-therapy or anti-awareness. It’s just a simpler question about balance: whether everything needs a name right away, or whether some things need time, rest, and maybe a little less attention. In this case, it was someone I trust looking at me, completely unfazed, saying, “You’re fine,” and me choosing not to argue.
Jan 26, 2026
On Rescripted’s weekly standup this morning, we acknowledged what everyone’s been feeling: things are heavy right now. With everything happening in Minnesota, layered on top of the general state of the world, it’s hard not to walk around with a quiet, background sadness — the kind you don’t always have language for, but definitely feel.
Then, in that same meeting, we pulled up analytics, which is where things took a (kind of hilarious) turn.
Our top articles right now are about orgasms, vibrators, ultra-thin condoms, and peeing during sex. If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry — and yes, we did laugh, partly because it felt absurd and partly because it felt painfully accurate.
At first, the contrast was jarring. But the longer I sat with it, the more it made sense. When everything feels overwhelming, abstract, and wildly out of our control, we reach for what’s closest and most immediate: the body, sensation, and questions that start with is this normal? and end with please tell me I’m not alone.
Sexual health content, it turns out, isn’t just about sex. It’s reassurance. It’s grounding. It’s a way of checking back in with ourselves when the world feels chaotic and unrecognizable: proof that even in hard moments, our bodies still exist and still want connection, comfort, and maybe five minutes of relief from the constant dread.
I don’t think people are reading these articles because they don’t care about what’s happening. I think they’re reading them because they care so much and need somewhere personal and human to land, even briefly.
Sometimes coping looks like grief or rage, and sometimes it looks like Googling why you pee when you orgasm and feeling deeply, embarrassingly relieved by the answer. That’s not unserious; it’s human nature.
Kristyn Hodgdon
