I had 2 gynecologists try to remove my IUD, and it was so painful it had to be done under general anesthesia. Still totally worth it.

Hah! There’s a plot line in Carl Hiaasen’s latest book Squeeze Me where the Melania Trump character is sleeping with her hot Secret Service agent. He is being passed off as ‘Spanish from Spain’ to placate the Donald Trump character, but really he’s a Muslim.

I was never bullied by him, but there is a guy who was a complete dick to most people in high school who is now a teacher there. Like, if you had a unibrow, he’d call you ‘Brow,’ kind of kid. Probably not quite a bully, just mean. Another guy who was a drug dealer is also teaching there now. Where I grew up, teaching…

Even 20 years ago at my school, you could either pay exorbitant fees for a day pass or exorbitant fees for a yearly pass. All the streets around campus were no parking except on weekends. It did not matter if the lots were 80% empty, it was a revenue generator for the school and city.

And in the Netherlands, where there were 8600 new cases reported on Sunday (out of a total population of 17 million) and where almost 70% of intensive care beds are currently occupied by Covid patients, but still all anybody can talk about is whether cafes can re-open their outdoor spaces next week. The government…

My parents came to visit me in Japan when I lived there 15 years ago. One night my mom disappeared to the restaurant bathroom during dinner. She hadn’t come back 20 minutes later, so I went to make sure she wasn’t staring at a contraption in embarrassed confusion. She wasn’t: she was playing with the buttons.

A few…

My parents came to visit me in Japan when I lived there 15 years ago. One night my mom disappeared to the restaurant…

Where I live, most people travel to work by public transportation and only use their cars for leisure, so you see the full gamut from nose picking to mental health crises. I bring a paper magazine and wear headphones so I don’t have to see or hear most of it.

One time, the train pulled up and some people started…

My mom loves seafood and got my sister and I hooked on it as well. We did go to the east coast a few times to feast, but if we got to hankering on  a normal day, it was Red Lobster. I no longer live in North America, but it’s one of my must-dos when I’m there to go to Lobsterfest.

My husband goes to bed 2-3 hours later than me, and wakes up 2-3 hours after I do. He also likes a warmer room and constantly circulating air, whereas I want to sleep in a quiet refrigerator. We were always waking each other up and everybody was uncomfortable. So as soon as we could afford it, we got separate…

I disagree that Baby doesn’t change significantly throughout the movie. Her opening voiceover implies that she gains the confidence that summer to ask people to call her Frances. It’s hard to read the line about a guy as great as her dad: does she think Johnny is as great as her dad, or is it that she now sees he’s…

This is STILL one of my all-time favourite movies. I had it memorized as a teenager. Watching it now, I love how much agency Baby has, she completely drives the action in the movie and goes directly for what she wants. That still doesn’t happen in movies.

According to my husband, 9pm is too late to go and pick up a package from the neighbours, even if their lights are on and you can see them moving around. It’s late for dinner, but not for dessert. It’s too late to start watching a movie at home, but not too late for a sitcom. I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep then if…

Tenerife Airport Sud, a few days after New Year’s. Apparently the cleaning staff was still on holiday, because the entire airport was covered in garbage. The bins were overflowing, so there were food wrappers on the tables, chairs, floor, everywhere. The bathrooms were equally disgusting. In the one stall that still…

My in-laws lived in Oman for a while, and basically every toilet there is a horror show, with a few exceptions for major western hotel chains located in big cities. I think I was there 10 years ago, but there are still two that stand out in my memory.

In the first, we pulled into a gas station, and I asked to use the…

I work at a public university in western Europe in a country that generally has its stuff together. We didn’t have proctoring in June, so we were encouraged to do oral testing. Only a few courses do that regularly, so no one had any idea what they were doing and standards - and grades! - varied wildly. Some people…

The one time I tried to enlist the school’s help, it was with a different kid, and it was BS. He would through clods of dirt at me on the way home. My mom called the principal, who called us both into her office and concluded nothing was happening, so that was the end of her responsibility.

I’m not actually easy to…

In this situation, I don’t think of myself as the hero. I was being quite obnoxious handing out party invitations to everyone but her. I think almost 11 year old me was trying to hurt her feelings and rub it in her face. And I don’t think my mom ordered me to go back and give her an invitation, that isn’t her style.…

I don’t remember ever having a civilized conversation with her in all the years we were at the same schools. I didn’t have to interact with her much, I went to big schools where you often didn’t see the same people very much. I remember a lot of eye-rolling and snide remarks on the rare occasions we did have to spend…

Presumably the best thing would have been to hand out the invitations when she wasn’t around. I mean, I was never invited to her birthday party, and I don’t remember her ostentatiously handing out invites and deliberately skipping me. She said plenty of nasty things over the years, but she didn’t do that.

I don’t know why the mean girl in 5th grade didn’t like me, but she was awful for the entire year. I finally thought I was getting my revenge in June when I handed out invitations to my birthday pool party right in front of her, until she asked where hers was. I couldn’t commit to telling her she was an a**hole, so I…