It takes something special to retain a close, friend-like relationship with a 13 year old when you are their parent, and it mostly involves totally reneging on the “parenting” part of the relationship in favor of the friend-like part. I’m not talking about a “good” relationship, or a relationship that turns good after…

I wish I had had a container to take some of that dark, peat-stained water home with. I’m going to Scotland again in October, and I’m sad I won’t have time to spend on the mainland again. (I’m going to Orkney to see neolithic architecture, and then to Norway to rediscover my family roots, so don’t cry too hard for me…

The only time I’ve ever eaten KFC was the year I lived in Prague. I love fried chicken, but always either make my own or spring for the far-superior Popeye’s at home. But in Prague, it’s KFC or nothing - about a week after I got there, even the frozen reconstituted fried chicken sandwich patties disappeared from…

If you want to see a DaVinci portrait of a young woman in remarkably less-crowded conditions, come to DC and see his portrait of Ginevra d’Benci - I think it’s a prettier painting, it’s certainly in better condition, and I’ve been in her gallery at 3 in the afternoon on an August Sunday and had her almost to myself.

Just by dismissing you so no one else has to read it.

People saying things like your above commenter seem to conveniently forget that this is exactly why we don’t let victims and their families have a role in the decision-making process around punishment - we already know that the traumatized do not make good, fair, or just decisions. Everybody who wasn’t involved…

Brief and to the point. We seem to forget in America, on this issue as, um, essentially all the issues, that we are not going through the process of figuring out how to make things work on our own in a vacuum (one of the damaging effects of American Exceptionalism). Other countries have things exactly like this…

Much like the little-known difference between ‘there’ and ‘their’.

Right, but “no boundaries and didn’t act like parents” is, in my experience, the only way with anyone to be cool with their parents at 13, the age where you still need a ton of boundaries but really, really start to resent them. YMMV on that definition.

It’s almost impossible to see unless you’re with people of that age range again. I was a “mature” and “intelligent” 13 year old, and honestly if asked I would probably say I haven’t changed very much between now and then. But then I had cause to actually be around 13 year olds for the first time in about 15 years, and…

I love the Astronomical Clock, and on the whole use Prague as a litmus test for good people (not all people who love Prague are good people, but people who don’t like Prague are not good people - unless you were literally murdered there, if you didn’t have a good time it is because of something you brought with you).

You are brilliant and perfect and everything you said is not only correct, but also wise. I honestly just had a thing to say (don’t be an asshole) and was reading through posts looking for someone to tack it on to who was both saying correct and wise things, and off of whom I could spin my own thing.

And that was how I became the proud mother of no kids, the day I pushed Suzie Thinks-She’s-Clever over the Falls.

I think this is the kind of thing that, had I seen it when I was 18, would have seemed really cool and made me envious (I also have a terrible relationship with my mom, and frequently idealized and envied my friends’ relationships that seemed better). But now I’m 30, and I’ve seen some things, including the fact that…

My mother is really, really into jewelry and I’m an only child (meaning, eventually I’m going to have more jewelry than I could possibly be interested in) so I’ve always thought I’d rather have an engagement experience, like a long trip together, that would be a little more meaningful, and then if I wanted to wear a…

Ah, I was thinking about getting a rose gold/morganite ring. I’m not very princessy (and this is all fantasy, anyway - I’m not in a relationship and am not the marrying type I don’t think) but something about being able to have a massive rock that is just PINK all over speaks to a side of me that I wasn’t previously…

I didn’t really get to have a teenagerhood (I saw my friends at school and spent the rest of my time at home as an only child - not by choice AT ALL) but I’ve been studiously packing in all the fun and success I can since about halfway through undergrad. It’s been great, and there’s just so much more time now that I…

The fact that she’s referred to as “Ms. Rosenberg,” while far from conclusive, suggests that perhaps it did not.

I’ve never met a person who was cool with their parents at 13 who is now an even borderline-successful adult at 30. Every single one of those people is still living at home/off the parental buck, and unemployed/unemployable. I don’t have the best relationship with my parents, and being a teenager with them was not…

I’ve so rarely been happy about the fact that my mother is an incredibly uptight prude that I’m not sure what to do with this emotion now that I’m having it.