The phrase is “case in point” and not “case and point.”

My own mother was a toxic fat shamer; she was heavy herself all her life and drove her two daughters mercilessly to be thin. My sister developed anorexia and is now struggling with osteoporosis. I was slender and had a normal appetite, but my mother used to tell me to lose weight. The day I got home from having my…

Yes you are, and you wear that beautiful dress beautifully.

Real licorice is great —- not that ultra-sweet, gummy, twisty stuff. But it’s not for the faint-hearted.

I wouldn’t bother with “milk” chocolate no matter where it’s from. It’s just bland, pale, creamym tasteless ick.

Not “uneducated and stooopid” but mentally deranged by any standards. Stick a coat hanger up into your uterus? That’s what’s called prima facie insanity. I had one perfect little baby, and that good luck, because that’s all it was, means I am morally obligated to show the deepest compassion to unfortunate people. I…

That woman was obviously mentally disturbed and horrifically self-mutilating. She was desperate, irrational, and required compassionate care, not criminalization. I’m an atheist but if there were a God I would call him down to punish for eternity the evil that Tommy Roberts has wrought.

Very confused and very angry. But not very rational.

You seem very confused.

I fear it’s not only males, but females as well, who derive their self-definition from loyal adherence to their men’s brutality. I noticed in newsreels the half-soused wives with their cotton-candy hair and grog blossoms, bringing along the hampers of fried chicken and booze for their fascist Mexican-hunting mates in…

I feel the same way, and I do believe he killed her in a murderous rage, which would, I think, be second degree murder. But this ability to override even the charging of a crime after the crime has been tried and adjudicated seems to me to verge on cruel and unusual punishment. I too am glad our system doesn’t permit…

Oh yes —- in fact, a rather well-known psychiatrist diagnosed her as borderline. She spent years cutting herself and lost a great job that would have showcased her talent. I recall that even as a very small child, she was a tempest, and we cousins (we were a very large family with cousins all about the same age) were…

Please treat yourself gently and be your own good mother. You are so right that this pain will pass, and you will be there for your son when he needs you and turns to you, as he absolutely will. I hit a very low place when my daughter was small and her father and a new wife took custody away from me, but I hung on,…

That describes my very beautiful and talented cousin to a T. She seems to hate everyone in our family, including her own mother and sister for a litany of grievances dating back decades. Everyone wants to try to address her issues (some grudges are baseless; on others she has a point). But she is volatile and…

That’s a fine tattoo, all right. I have nothing against manual typewriters BTW. some of them are downright beautiful. A Selectric was the original marriage of electricity and brain, though.

The Selectric was a fine machine, and an amazing piece of technology. I can still hear its clattering song and see its tireless type ball magically twisting and turning. Seriously, anybody who typed for a living on a manual knew the agony of those cuts that opened up under the nail after hours of pounding. You had no…

Well, if you don’t have sympathy, you don’t. But people don’t set out to injure themselves; in fact, the less experienced a person is, the more likely they are to come to harm. And once somebody’s judgment is impaired, whether with booze or drugs, they lose the ability to make a reasoned decision on dosage and…

Oh God, kicked in the head? Major concussion? Inflicting traumatic loss of consciousness is the goal of this "sport?" What are we, Caligula? How can we accept people doing this to each other?

It’s so catastrophic for everyone involved, especially him, of course, that I can’t even get my head around it. Your brain is Everything. Of all the reckless, stupid things I did when I was young, I was lucky that (apparently) I didn’t damage my brain. Being mentally acute is a gift and a luxury. I always took it for…

Me too. Although the animals are so fascinating and beautiful. As long as they have a well-thought-out environment versus nasty little smelly cages, I try to console myself. My daughter loved them, but when she got old enough we discussed the issues around holding animals captive, breeding programs and pros and cons.…