Very true!

Good point!

Yeah, if being a parent means turning into a the kind of self-absorbed jackass who changes a diaper on a table in a restaurant, then thank God I’m child-free.

That’s how metabolism works . . . So far as you know. You don’t know what you don’t know. Not your fault (with you as temporary proxy for the medical community at large); that’s just how knowledge works.

How much therapy have you needed in consequence?

More than anything, I wish I could work for a living. I wish I could be a teacher, or an engineer, or a nurse, or anything, really, that would allow me to contribute to society. I do my best to cobble together the odd translation project or tutoring gig, but it doesn’t amount to much. I have no career. My husband says…

Oh, honey, he’s obviously confused about the relationship between fact and opinion. You can’t possibly take him seriously.

We have the same cat?

I beg to differ. I am totally my yoga pants. :)

Good luck with your career shift and also your love life! Men who know what’s important to them are very likely to attract the right sort of attention from the right sort of woman. Sooner or later. I hope in your case it will be sooner.

I know, that was bizarre! I’ll read the passage again, see if it strikes me differently now.

But GOT is also a drama. Of course, there are lots of ways to construct drama, and the tragic principle may not always be the most appropriate foundation for the piece in question. But surely it is at least legitimate.

Don’t forget Pity and Fear. After all, GOT isn’t just narrative; it’s drama.

You think? It didn’t strike me that way at all.

That’s so true! And yet plenty of folks do really enjoy the foreplay.

You think? I thought the books went downhill after ASOS, and I’ve found the show more rewarding as it has progressed. It’s really funny how drastically different the various responses are!

House Smokemonster! We should get t-shirts or something.

Amen. As a veteran migraineur with a history of (mercifully) minor seizures, I’m all to familiar with the crazy shit our internal software can generate. As you say — it’s not ideal, but it will do in a pinch.

我的英雄！

I used to buy lunchtime steamed buns from this stand on the corner of the Third Ring Road and Xinjiekou in Beijing. (This was a long time ago; the Third Ring was pretty far out and the Fourth Ring was still under construction.) The buns were so delicious, I used to buy them every chance I got. One morning I was in the…