That stuff is indeed great for hair, but I had to stop using it because I invariably sprayed some on the floor every time, even when trying to spray it into the palms of my hands. It quickly turned the bathroom floor into a frictionless surface; it was either give up the "It's a 10" or start wearing ice cleats in the…

There are situations where forgiving and letting go may be the best response. This was, emphatically, not one of them. The taboo against "speaking ill of the dead" presumes that there was at least something good to say about the dead person. Sometimes there just isn't.

Any institution that isolates itself from the outside world becomes a breeding ground for sexual abuse and domestic violence. The victims have no recourse (or are at least convinced that they don't). In a place like that, it's easy for someone in a more powerful position to target and harm another person without any…

One very important bit of planning: You should check the immigration rules for the countries that you are considering. You may not want to wait 10 years; for example, it becomes extremely difficult to move to Australia or New Zealand if you're over 45. I had this in the back of my mind when I was in grad school — but…

Adopting a troubled child — and an orphaned kid from a poor country has had a big share of troubles — is a lot of work. Adopting a half-dozen of them may seem altruistic on the surface, but how on earth did any of those kids get a fraction of the mature parental attention they needed to thrive?

This also upset me to no end. I'm very close to several people who were adopted, and were all raised with the utmost love. I'm also close to several people who were raised as second-class members of their own biological families. The bright spot is that the Previn-Allen-Farrow kids, for the most part, seem to have…

For sure. My working-class extended family was screwed up in numerous ways — some subtle, some not — but I'm extremely grateful to have grown up with them instead of the likes of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow.

Vermouth works well, too. You can use the dry white, the sweet red, or a mixture of both. You can also deglaze with a little stock or bouillon. But don't let the food burn first. Browned is good. Burnt is just burnt.

Beetroot rocks on burgers, as well as on many other sandwiches. I was actually introduced to it by an Australian vegetarian who put it on marinated grilled tofu. Either the plain or the pickled slices work. I'd stay away from "Harvard beets", though, which might be tolerable on ice cream if they weren't already…

So sorry to hear this. It sounds like you had a great relationship with your grandfather. Hugs.

Mine was introduced to me by a woman he had a crush on. She wasn't interested, so she maneuvered us into the same room, told us all the things we had in common (true), and left.We were dating within two months and married three years later.

I loved Ron and Hermione together, but I also think it's cool that J.K. Rowling mulled over alternatives both while she was writing the series and after it was completed. To me, that's just confirmation of her terrific creativity.

That's exactly the first thing that came to my own mind.

There is absolutely no reason to believe that someone who can sing "America the Beautiful" in a non-English language is refusing to learn English. Why would learning English make a immigrant forget or reject his or her own first language? Two languages are better than one.

I always regarded both Woody Allen and Mia Farrow as terrible parents and deeply disturbed individuals. I believe that Dylan Farrow's account of abuse by Allen is credible. I also wonder whatever possessed Mia Farrow to keep crawling back to Frank Sinatra, who was known to have beaten her during their brief marriage.…

I always read Draco Malfoy as an obnoxious kid playing out of his league. He was deliberately raised to be a snob and a bully, but not to have any real character or courage. Once shit got real, he realized that his family's wealth and influence had no actual power in the game — he was just another disposable wretch to…

I liked Ron/Hermione from fairly early on. I would have liked Harry/Ginny better if Rowling had given Ginny more dimensions; it would have been more believable to pair her with Harry if we'd been able to get inside her head more throughout the story. I also think Neville/Luna would have been great, although Neville…

Gaaaahhhh. So sorry you're going through this. I had a hysterectomy and oophorectomy in my forties, due to a truly miserable case of endometriosis. When I hear of someone shaming a woman for having pelvic pain, I want to kick that person in the stomach hard enough for him or her to empathize. (Fortunately, I'm not a…

Her father is a turd, but it sounds like she had a piss-poor surgeon too. Gastric bypass is a big surgery that requires a lot of adaptation afterwards, but nausea and infertility aren't supposed to be permanent complications of it.

We could send him to Australia, in retaliation for Ken Ham.