My parents tell the story of me as a four or five year old, asked by a teacher if I'd rather be "smart, pretty, or rich." My reply was, "Rich. I'm already smart and pretty."

A friend of mine is like that. She's like, "But dresses are so cool and breezy!"

It was shockingly freeing when I decided to wear shorts again. (Well, pedal pushers. I have amazing thighs that rub together like whoa. I buy pants a size larger than I need at the waist or hips to accommodate my thighs of doom.)

At my best friend's wedding, in which I was a bridesmaid, this task somehow fell to my poor father, who objected to the task until my mother bullied him into it. He was still a bit confused about why he was doing it and where things should go, but most of the inconvenient at-wedding gifts did make it to the happy…

Cupcake Red Velvet? I'll come to your party.

I have a lot of trouble hitting the clutch when I'm shifting with my vagina.

And three extra paid sick days a month, for when I'm too in pain to move.

How does this even jive with privacy laws?

I don't understand what you're asking for here. Do you want health insurance to cover thermometers and calendars as well? Like, the equipment required for NFP? Because you can get that kind of thing at the drugstore for like $10 right now, no problem. Or is there more to NFP than that?

When my ex left me two months before the wedding, I kept the gift he'd given me and sold it. It paid for about 10% of the wedding-related bills he'd stuck me with by dumping me.

I admit that I never felt humiliated. Betrayed, yes. Angry, absolutely. Hurt, completely. But not humiliated.

Shatner's version of Pulp's Common People.

No. I ended up eating a lot of deposits. However, since he called off the wedding, which was to be in New Orleans, exactly one week before Hurricane Katrina hit, I did get a few deposits back, and the rest allowed us to reschedule. My parents' church used my reception to have a lovely fundraiser gala, and my parents…

I had the same thing happen. He called off the wedding 2 months out. No real explanation except, "I don't love you and I'm not sure I ever did."

Some of the shorts my father wore in the 70's and 80's were absolutely terrifying.

Read them again. They're a little like Harry Potter for a different age. It's not as showy, but there's a similar sensibility.

Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising Sequence

The trouble with women in STEM is that they frequently don't even make it to the workplace.

I am a large woman, and the one time I went into an Abercrombie & Fitch, it was with a male friend of mine who is 3 inches shorter and less than half my weight. He is a tiny little man. He is petite in every sense. He needed clothes. That's it.

I like to sing this song with alternate lyrics to my dog.