Ooh, you're adding another layer. Judgmental/religious makes it much harder. Now you can be cool and frosty. Or mention that you're going to a friend's gay wedding, or how busy you've been volunteering at Planned Parenthood. That could get the message across.

Yes! agree on all those things. But no tripe. Haven't had tongue that I recall.

Well, I actually had a friend like that from college. I kind of phased, but she was a long ways away from me so it didn't really matter. Didn't see her for years except occasional exchanges on FB. But somehow, 20 years later (I'm old), now she's tolerable. It's no big deal. We see each other every few years and it's…

I try to be an adventurous eater but tripe and natto, I will never order again. It's possible I had a bad preparation of tripe.

Send a card! A lot of people like cards better anyway. Something plain, simple, maybe even blank. Happy belated birthday, Dad! Hope it was a great one. Love, Marillenbaum. Done.

You're really busy. Unavailable for that event or drinks or whatever. Phaseout.

I've had natto but tripe was grosser. Wait, natto was pretty gross. Nope, I'm going with tripe. I just don't even want to be in the same room with tripe.

Me too. And that was... not a funny scene. My tweener self had nightmares. :-(

I watched that whole weird unicorn club video. And I didn't understand. And yet... I did. I did.

Agree on Letterman. One of the best moment of TV coverage I've ever seen.

Seriously, I think about that cake story all the time, whenever something awful happens and there's nothing I can do. I think, what am I going to do, bake a fucking cake? And the answer is: Yes. I am going to bake a fucking cake. With dignity.

I took my girls (then 8 and 11) to a Pony con in Seattle a year ago. We had a great time. We went in the middle of the day for the costume contest, wandered the hallways, toured the vendor's booths, then took off. We skipped the panels because they were clearly going to be too boring for kids, and we had no interest…

It's worse. If you only know you love her after you "let her go," you are an asshole. And bonus, "let her go" is assholespeak.

Beautiful. The poem is by Walt Whitman, by the way. Thank you for posting it here.

True or untrue, his statement at the time was that he had not relapsed. He returned to treatment to fine tune his sobriety. Which was laudable. There was nothing about a relapse.

It was actually a really good book. You can read it. It'll be all right. It's in the fiction section, I promise.

Agreed. I am seriously not understanding the commenters. There is a lot of "we" were left alone anecdotes: we being two kids, whether siblings or friends. Or, they were left alone at home, in a private house with a locking door. This, on the other hand, is a 9-year-old without a buddy in a park. I'm not thrilled with…

No, it's a new (well, it's been around 2-3 years) loom for making things with tiny rubber bands. The kind people used to use on their braces. Usually kids (and Mark, apparently) use them for making bracelets.

As a fellow Old, I feel ya. I dye both my kids' hair so I can live vicariously. One is fuchsia and the other has teal streaks. Also, I've been meaning to say this: I salute your name. Poddy was my favorite Heinlein woman.

Well, that makes everyone then.