I've recently lost weight and have been thinking of writing an amazing dieting book and selling it for a billion dollars, although suddenly I realize it will look like I'm stealing from these "French Women" diets. I was going to call it the "Never Eat Any Fucking Food Ever" Diet (except once a day you can have a…

Thank you! I'm...obviously people don't get 100% better but my life is amazing: I'm clean and sober, I have two daughters, 12 and 9, who don't remember ever seeing me drunk or wasted, I have a supportive, loving husband, and my abusive step-dad died horribly (I honestly was to the point of feeling sorry for him—and he…

Ooooh kay. Yeah, that you have to deal with right away. I imagine you are, like me, anemic.

I was a victim, at 16, of child abuse by a family friend, which my mom and step-dad actively encouraged because a) they were alcoholic fuck-ups at the time and b) my step-father had been molesting me already and my mom was...jealous in some sense? He was a teacher at my school, but also a guest at our house, and my…

Meh, I pour some cold water on the bedding, do some desultory rubbing with a towel, and then put a dry towel on it and go back to sleep. It's too late to be fucking around with bedsheets.

Ack—now I'm really sorry I mentioned it! It's like when people tell me about 'stupid' superstitions 'other, dumber' people believe and I'm like, "no motherfucker! Now I have to have that superstition too! I already believe a hundred stupid superstitions that I don't believe! What the fuck did you tell me that for?!" I…

Oh, it would have made way more sense to go Eugene->SFO->Narita->Singapore, it was just stupid money concerns again. I had bought all of us a round-trip Singapore/D.C. (Dulles). Then, I left the States early for work, and my husband took the girls on a domestic roundtrip D.C./Eugene, OR to see his parents. They were…

I look way younger with short hair. A pixie cut even, though usually I just have blunt bangs and then a wavy razored bob thing (that I cut myself). My face is a long oval and my long hair was sort of dragging it down; the bangs and shorter hair even it back out. It is way more flattering. YMMV depending on your…

They always have an awesome selection of truly creepy Hong Kong horror movies. Try to find the one or two that are from 20 years ago or more, they usually have a couple of "classics" for every genre, and HK horror films are the shit.

Ouch, yeah, for 1200 you should be upgrading to business. I've just been consistently overpaying to fly Singapore Airlines for years because I have children. Now they are 9 and 12 and pretty seasoned troupers who just came back from a harrowing 56 hour tragedy: Eugene, OR to SLC, missed connection so put up at airport…

People used to say, of the cod in the Northern Atlantic, that it looked as though you could have walked on the water, since you couldn't see any water, just endless silver cod leaping and sliding against one another, forming their own waves, as far as the sailor on the topmast could see, in every direction, all, all,…

Ha, ha, see, I'm right there with you, and that's fine, but what happens when a) you have to get sober/clean in AA/NA, because, noooooo, girl, this is not working out right here and then b) you have adorable children, with whom you used to worry you would jump off the 19th floor balcony when the suicidal ideation was…

This is probably just going to end up being a cruel and insensitive suggestion, but if they are truly long-haul (SFO-Narita, LAX-Hong Kong, NYC*-Frankfurt, or even the longest of the long hauls, the blessed 18 1/2 hour NYC*-Singapore) then could you possible finagle a code-share on fellow Star Alliance member…

I have tried my best to honestly answer my children's questions in an age-appropriate-way. Nobody's a golden goddess of perfect explanations. As long as your daughter knows you don't feel scared about it or feeling like getting your period is shameful or embarrassing for you then probably anything you said would be…

The what they claim now? I lost a tablespoon of blood reading this fucking thread, and it's partly procrastination because if I get up I should really take the sheets off the bed since I stained them last night.

Sisterly fist-bump of 'pig-slaughterhouse all up in the cooter' flow. The worst is waking up, and trying to roll over and stand up in such a way that you don't destroy the bed. Because when I stand up it's horror movie time with tragic bloody footprints on the floor leading to the bathroom. I can just feel it go…

Cold water and immediate friction washing is even more important than the type of detergent. Hot water or prolonged unwashed time will set the stain.

I cannot give you enough stars. My 12-year-old daughter was like—how do you even do this? And I said at some point, oh I throw away like one really crummy pair of underwear a month. And she said, "MOM! You didn't tell me that! I don't have enough pairs of underwear to do that!!!" Me, oh yeah. When we go back to the US…

I'm so sorry, that's a really awful experience! I'm not sure 100% what happened because I didn't think your body could maintain the lining of the uterus for so long that they get to be like layers on a cake—and it doesn't sound as if your doctor was doing at all a good or respectful job of telling you what had gone…

I had this problem when I moved from Berkeley to Singapore! I was swimming a lot, just rinsing my hair to get the chlorine out, and then braiding it. My hair is very thick. Normally in California my hair would dry in the braid and I would get extra waves when I took it out. Here it actually mildewed! Or, as we say in…