What a deeply moving, beautifully told and authentic piece of writing. I recall in 7th grade a girl was rumored to have “done it” with her own father. The whole school passed the tale around with great relish. I recall wondering how that poor girl, whose family was broke, and who appeared very bedraggled, tough, and…

So true, and it’s a relief to see that I wasn’t alone. My father adored Peanuts back in the Fifties for its sardonic wit, which matched his own view of life and people. Peanuts was really dark and radical back then, compared to strips like Blondie. The conflicts and existential despair of Charlie Brown, who was the…

My ex-husband, who is an attorney and an alpha+, got sole custody of our daughter —- after leaving me for another woman when she was 4 years old, with me having visitation. It was utterly heartbreaking and humiliating. Everybody asked me why he had custody, like, what was wrong with me? Didn’t I want her? I suffered…

The older I get the more I become convinced that true empathy, not just lip service, is a rare and complex phenomenon. We’re hard-wired to be able to “read” others; that’s an evolutionary survival trait. But to actually feel the pain of another and respond to it in a positive way is expensive in terms of…

Seems to be a pattern of a desire for attention, even negative, abusive attention if it has to be that, particularly if they’re not getting much acclaim in “real life.” They are observers and outsiders, angry, lonely, who want the mantle of power that polished, popular people wear so effortlessly. So they use a…

Conflict scares and worries me, but I summon my courage and try to be diplomatic if I so have to confront somebody. My sister, though, has an incendiary temper beneath a veneer of sweetness. Anybody who crosses her first gets what I call a “shot across the bow” —-she’ll warn me that my issue is causing her heart to…

Banging often isn’t something intended. It happens through propinquity. That's what at least half the rom-coms are about.

I remember our neighbor shooting a gopher in Minneapolis when I was a child. That did it for me. I’ll never understand how somebody can personally end the life of a sentient creature. But my distaste for hunting (rare big game is an outrage sui generis) is tempered when I think of animal farming, so much more…

Aw, why be mean and petty? So she didn’t choose the design school flavor of the week font. She chose what she liked. A little typo, big deal. Why use this forum to rip into her? I don’t like supercilious; there’s enough that really merits satirizing in the world.

My crowd’s motto is “everybody has something.” A few of us were driving along one day and realized that we were respectively an epileptic, a diabetic, an alcoholic and a hemophiliac. But to us, we were just our crowd —- individuals who each has his or her own situation, and we value and love each other dearly. It…

Mat Fraser is absolutely spellbinding! What a lovely, sexy guy. I’d never seen him until I followed this link. He looks perfect to me, and I agree that he would be terrific playing a regular dramatic (or comic) role without any particular focus on his arms but rather on him.

I agree. Feet are relatively clean —- it’s shoes and especially their soles that are coated with the detritus of civilization. I don’t allow shoes in my home; think of the sputum and mucus and jizz and blood and feces and germs and mold that shoes track into your home. You want to make your floors into another…

Imagine how she felt having to touch and rub your sweaty toe jam ick.

You're joking, right? Either that or you're a joke.

Thank you. This empty-headed suspicion is so annoying.

No, pregnancy and childbirth are really risky for Homo Sapiens, and for higher apes as well, for reasons of natural selection. Pregnancy is long and fraught; childbirth is the final test. I’m sure we’ve all learned how the female pelvis evolved to the absolute outer extent of its ability to expel that large-headed…

Pure sophistry. Deal with the reality on the ground today. Whatever obscure design origins that cloth had, that nobody cares about any more, the fact is that the flag, and those who flaunt it, convey approval, respect and support for people willing to kill and die to prolong —- and spread —- chattel slavery.

I’m heartbroken over this. I’ve been listening to her songs more now, and discovered so many I hadn’t heard over the years. An amazing talent. I wonder if she still has some ability to write. Sometimes it’s just the speech area that is affected, but the person retains their ability to communicate on paper. I doubt it,…

It only makes sense. I had very painful knee surgery when I was 20 years old after landing a cartwheel wrong. I am a 5’10-and-1/2 inch woman, and ever since I was 16, I had carried a nuisance 20 pounds that I could not get off, thanks to my teenage appetite. I was an extremely active college kid. So I was laid up and…

Her fivehead (sixhead?) alone denotes some aliens among her extended family.