Yes, YOU, Meghan McCain.

I don't, won't, can't cook.

— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) February 21, 2014

You should cook. Yes, you. Even if you don’t want to.

This isn’t like saying that you should learn Ovid in the original Latin for the enrichment of your soul, or requiring that you hunker and hone your julienne and demi-glace skills until you emerge victorious in a battle overseen by Alton Brown or Anthony Bourdain. This is about getting yourself fed and taking a modicum of responsibility for it.

You eat, right? Maybe even more than once a day? (Or even if you ingest some combination of nutrients solely through methods that don’t require chewing, smoothies have to taste like something, don’t they?) And I’m going to go ahead and assume that you’d like to continue living in your body for the next while. Assembling foodstuffs for intake without the intermediary of a drive-thru speaker, menu, or segmented tray and microwave is the ideal way to facilitate that.

Yet people object, throw their hands in the air and simply refuse. Here’s why they’re wrong.

Read — 5 bad excuses for not cooking

I was the first one to say “I love you.”

I couldn’t hold back any longer. Since the moment I’d met my now-husband in the flesh, the words had been thrumming in my thoughts so constantly, I was surprised they hadn’t manifested in 3-inch letters across my forehead.

It was too soon. This man was too lovely to be true. I should wait for him to say it.

But that night, half-awake under the covers, curled together as a single creature, basking in the afterglow of having met his longtime friends (who clearly adored him as much as I did), the words kicked so hard at the back of my teeth, they just came clattering out.

Then I held my breath and waited. Three words. Eight letters. My whole self at stake.

Read — Have I told you lately that I love you?

When I was in seventh grade, my grandmother informed our extended family that I was a pervert. Mind you, I was as squeaky clean in thought and deed as you’d expect a badly permed, brace-faced, Catholic school spelling bee winner would be, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t curious about a few things.

I’d often give my bedroom over to visiting relatives, and this time, my grandmother had decided on a little light reading — in this case, my copy of Judy Blume’s “Then Again, Maybe I Won’t.” It might seem downright quaint in this age of instantly accessible porn and e-book readers, but an awful lot of ladies who came of age in the ’70s and ’80s and into the ’90s got a significant chunk of our sex education from young adult books.
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Two decades ago, I strode out of my house and knew I’d never think of it as my home again.

I hugged my mother goodbye and climbed into the car with my dad, my tape collection and every decent piece of clothing I owned. When he made the multistate drive back from dropping me off at college, the car would be empty, and the house would, to me, no longer be our family home — just my parents’ house.

Recently, it ceased to be even that.

Read “When home is where the heart isn’t” at CNN Living and enjoy some mortifying pictures from my youth.

Editor’s note: In 1990, Eatocracy’s Kat Kinsman didn’t have a date to her senior prom. Only opposite-sex couples were allowed to buy tickets, so she couldn’t just pair up with a friend. She was terrified to go without a date, but decided she’d take a leap of faith. Here’s the pep talk she wishes she could have given herself more than 20 years ago.

Dear 17-year-old self considering staying home on prom night because you don’t have a date,

Oh, you poor, stressed-out, self-hating misfit girl, just suck it up and go.
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I was always certain that I’d have my life worked out by the time I was 40. I’d somehow magically awake on my 40th birthday filled with the wisdom of the ages: a solid financial plan, inner peace and a tastefully appointed yet attractive wardrobe that wouldn’t just make me feel like I was playing dress-up at work.

As it happened, I did wake up that August morning possessed of new insight — mostly about how mortifyingly delicious birthday-cake-flavored vodka turned out to be, and how hangovers come on harder and stronger as the years pass. I shut the blinds and went back to sleep. An old lady needs her rest.

No one under 38 really considers what 40 and beyond is going to look like for them. They plot the ambitious beginning (“I’m going to become a successful ___”) and the triumphant denouement (“Then I’ll retire with my beloved partner and we’ll spend our well-funded free time by ___”). But they gloss over the mushy middle, where all the day-to-day doing happens.

Read “Lordy lordy, look who’s 40” on CNN Living