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Courtenay is an author, teacher, and columnist. Her book, Okay Fine Whatever, is available wherever fine books about anxiety and sex club burritos are sold.
[What follows is one of the many merry articles in the Mercury’s Winter Guide 2025. Find a print copy here, subscribe to get a copy mailed to you here, and if you’re feeling generous this holiday season, support us here.—eds.] Every fall, it happens. The first moment you can feel hot air escaping through your […]
[Editor’s note: Read all our holly jolly HOLIDAY GUIDE articles here. Looking for a print copy? Good! You can find it in more than 500 spots across Portland with this handy map!] Back in the olden times, I used to host a public radio show that recorded in front of a live audience. In December of […]
I don’t remember ever having faith that love lasts forever. In my teen years, it became pretty clear that my parents never should’ve married, as evidenced by the fact that they had almost nothing in common and barely spoke to one another. They weren’t mad at each other, they just had nothing to talk about. […]
If you follow this column, you know that I have anxiety. It’s not a constant in my life, but when the intrusive thoughts of OCD do decide to visit me, I can often have a series of wildly sucky months. That happened in October, and they were still overstaying their welcome in January. Finally, I […]
KRISTINE EVANS didn’t partake in the slip ’n’ slide, but I did take the mushrooms. It was a hot, sweat-slick day in Denton, Texas, and I was with my college roommate, the same boy who had been my boyfriend in kindergarten. Now he had a boyfriend and I didn’t. Thank god I’d gotten over him […]
I didn’t partake in the slip ’n’ slide, but I did take the mushrooms. It was a hot, sweat-slick day in Denton, Texas, and I was with my college roommate, the same boy who had been my boyfriend in kindergarten. Now he had a boyfriend and I didn’t. Thank god I’d gotten over him when […]
It was Saturday afternoon and we were supposed to go to the gun and knife show. “You want to make yourself uncomfortable,” my boyfriend said, “that’d be the place.” He was right. I have a totally irrational thing I do where I become incensed when I’m surrounded by people who I assume voted for Trump. […]
I wanted to do something outside my comfort zone for this column. I really did. But in the past few weeks, the Kavanaugh hearings put me in a state of such discomfort that taking that even further seemed almost cruel. I’ve wanted to crawl out of my skin, out of my body (which is apparently […]
Kristine Evans According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, 18.1 percent of Americans—that’s 40 million of us—have anxiety. Since Trump was elected in late 2016, that number has gone up. Psychologists have noted a significant rise in “Trump-Related Anxiety,” Barnes and Noble has reported a 25 percent increase in sales of books related […]
According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, 18.1 percent of Americans—that’s 40 million of us—have anxiety. Since Trump was elected in late 2016, that number has gone up. Psychologists have noted a significant rise in “Trump-Related Anxiety,” Barnes and Noble has reported a 25 percent increase in sales of books related to anxiety, […]
Marlow Dobbe WASHINGTON, DC—In a shocking announcement on Tuesday, “President” Donald J. Trump announced that his entire 18-month tenure as commander-in-chief has been a prank for a new show he’s developing for NBC called Trump’d. “John McCain was no war hero,” Trump said when asked what he thought of the recently deceased US Senator from […]
WASHINGTON, DC—In a shocking announcement on Tuesday, “President” Donald J. Trump announced that his entire 18-month tenure as commander-in-chief has been a prank for a new show he’s developing for NBC called Trump’d. “John McCain was no war hero,” Trump said when asked what he thought of the recently deceased US Senator from Arizona. “I […]
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