Oh, I haven't. Just something one lives with ... it's really sad. My father is less painful, and more a sort of can-you-believe-this-shit? narcissist. I'm good. Good friends, kids I'm helping raise, loving partner, cute puppy. Just no parents or siblings left ...

Mine seems to be that fun combo of NPD and BPD. Ho ho fucking ho ... took me until I was 50, and she'd taken me for tens of thousands of dollars, but I finally had to cut her off. Sad part is, I still feel guilty about it ... but I don't miss her, much. She could be fun sometimes, that I miss. But not the rest.

Yup. That would be my parents, both of them. My dad might answer yes to this, but my mother would deny it because she just projects her own narcissism on others — for a couple of decades after the divorce it was my dad, then he left the country and, apparently (to quote the redheaded kid), *I'm* the narcissist. Of…

A couple of years ago I was helping out a friend whose sister had just had a concussion while he left the country on a trip. She went to take me to dinner to thank me at the end of the weekend, and when it came time to pay, she pulled these huge ziploc bags of coins! She was going to pay a 50 dollar tab with quarters!…

Oh. That made me cry. (I too had the "wrong body for ballet" — but not that kind of talent, ever.)

That's the arrangement Mr-Not-Porcupine and I have. He's divorced, never wants to marry again. I'm never married, would like the paper only because I don't have any family. Also, as I discovered when having to settle my brother's estate, in the eyes of the law, because we have no joint accounts, Mr-Not-Porcupine and I…

So you're saying that "if it's to save the mother's life" it's not "abortion"? Tell that to the doctors who denied Savita Halappanavar an abortion and killed her.

An the boy can ride too. Sigh.

Nothing will beat the year a fully-loaded cement mixer lost its brakes on the Kingsbury grade, came through the stoplight and onto the course. Driver managed to steer it down the rough and dump it in the creek. Johnny Bench, classy guy that he is, bitched about his shot as people ran over to help the driver climb out…

My relationship with Not-Mr.Porcupine hinges on the fact that we each have our own houses with small mortgages left on them. He has some rentals too. Far from intimidating him, he liked that I have my own money/house/stuff/life. But then, we're old, and no kids, and not interested in marriage anyhow. But what the…

Ooh. I want to grow those. One of the only crops that thrived in my short season are the brassicaias. And those are so pretty ...

I'm SO glad to see this. It's been driving me nuts for ages — I've had various conversations with other food bloggers about how we're all perpetuating it. Makrut limes it is from now on ...

I've got a pack of teenaged girls, and while it might not be original, ten years ago was a lifetime to them. So I think doing it again, sad though it is that we still have to, is a good thing.

My mother. In her 70s. Gave birth to all 3 of us highly sedated. Bottles and baby nurses all around. Hates her body and has been starving it most of her life. Think Nancy Reagan meets Betty Draper. Horrified by breast feeding. HORRIFIED. (sigh) Although I don't think she'd make a public stink, she'd just leave, then…

Best source I know for these issues: http://www.marlerblog.com/ I had a grad-school girlfriend whose two nieces got life-threatening e coli infections, and he was really helpful about the latest antibiotic that works, as well as being a clearinghouse in general for these issues.

I had trouble getting on in my 40s. Two different gynos talked me out of it saying it was too painful if you'd never been pregnant. Then I got pregnant (thanks ladies) at 48. Fuck you. Got the copper IUD after my termination and it's been great. Menopause periods suck, but I don't think that's the IUD.

Wow. And I was feeling perky for rescuing a stray bird in my house this morning before the kitty managed to kill it. Tip: To get a bird out of the house, throw a piece of cloth over it — napkin, towel, scarf. It'll pull it's wings in and go quiet, then you can pick it up inside the cloth, take it outside and let it…

As an Old, I want to thank everyone who is continuing to push the conversation around consent —it's clearly a huge point of confusion in the larger culture.

A) I'm old. But yeah, he came up and did a reading at UC Davis when I was in the writing program there. I think he was teaching at Santa Cruz that semester (?) — anyhow, there was a reading, and drinks and all that. Lovely man. Loved California. (I also met both Seamus Heaney and Seamus Deane when I was an undergrad…

I was lucky enough to meet him when I was in grad school in California. Lovely man (And Cold Heaven is one of the most deliciously creepy books ever). I've also really been liking Brian McGilloway's mystery series, and, of course, Tana French and Anne Enright. Curious to read this Irish writer who just won whatever it…