Since when is race encoded in genes? If someone has one black parent and one white parent, is there some gene to check to determine which race they belong to? It sounds like you were enjoying trolling this woman, which, fine, but it's not a surprise that she didn't want to sleep with you after that, right?

Don't some reform communities recognize children of one Jewish parent as Jewish, regardless of which parent it is?

I don't think the problem here was that she was Jewish. The problem is that you were trying to tell her how her own culture works when you obviously know nothing about it.

I will be 62 when my son is your boyfriend's age. I don't think that is particularly old. My parents are 60 and they are very young, healthy, and active. My husband is a little bit younger and comes from a very long-lived family, so even if I'm not, I really hope he will be around at 90. Mainly, though, having kids…

When we were working 20-somethings with no kids, I'd say we cooked 5 nights a week and ate out or got take-out the other nights. We definitely spent a lot of time doing it— we cooked together and it was time to catch up about our days, have a glass of wine, and be together. Normally one of us would be in the lead and…

My issues are that I would really like to get the pregnancy and newborn phases over with sooner rather than later— I didn't really enjoy them that much. And, I am staying home with our son right now, and would like to do that for the first year or so for the second one too. So doing it sooner would mean less…

How old is your daughter? We have a 9-month-old now and can't decide when to try for the second one. Are you going to have closely spaced kids?

That really gets at the weirdness of the tweet. If she had tweeted "I introduced Oprah to Cynthia" we would all be like, "Who's Cynthia?" It kind of shows that the whole point of the tweet is to show how magnanimous she is.

Are the dogs supposed to sit on the ground under their owner's seats? I feel like there isn't much room down there. Plus, isn't it covered with soda, beer, and cracker jacks? I guess that last bit is a plus from the dog's perspective.

Your comment implied that it isn't a real job because it sounds fun to you. I never said it is harder than being a single mom, construction worker, or anything else. I just said it is possible to do something that you enjoy and still be tired from it. There are many, many jobs I'd rather do than be a single mom or…

Just because you enjoy something doesn't mean it's not hard work or tiring.

I did, just because I am tired of the inevitability of cocaine.

I am just mystified by the power of Game Boy here. My little sister had one, I guess it seemed fun and everything, but why is it such a big deal?

What is the joke? If you had to explain it to someone who didn't get it, what would you say?

It's from Language Log. I haven't read it in awhile so I don't know if it as awesome as it used to be, but it made me really regret that I wasn't a linguist.

I don't think the tenure/10 year thing is that bad— I think it is called an eggcorn (when someone substitutes a phrase that makes sense to him for one he doesn't know). Tenure isn't a word that comes up much in conversation among normal people, and a kid probably wouldn't have seen it much in writing either.

I didn't mean to say that there's anything wrong with the way southerners do it, as much as to say that what can seem polite in one context can be unsettling (like "bless your heart" said in a sympathetic tone and with a smile) or even dangerous in another. I grew up in an area with gang activity, so you wanted to not…

I wonder if the size of the community has something to do with this? I live in NYC and we don't say hi to everyone— if we did, we'd be saying hi forever.

The thing is, as a northerner, I have had trouble in interacting with southerners, because I don't really know where I stand with them. (Ok, I am mostly thinking of my ex-mother-in-law here, which is often a fraught relationship.) Where I'm from (NYC), people generally say what they think. If they like you, you know.…

I agree with you that him not being ready to move forward doesn't mean the relationship is doomed or something. As someone who has been in a similar situation, I would say now that you've issued the ultimatum, totally let the conversation drop until the end of the year. I was in a LDR and at the age where we needed to…