Getting organized and being a movement is great. Dropping the whole thing on anyone’s lap and say ‘fix this’ without some sort of guideline or plan isn’t.

Things the Gilbert School District will not talk to your child about:

I am a writer

I have two guys I regularly try to avoid on the metro, one at my regular entrance and another at my regular exit. There used to be a creeper in my office and I would hide in my cubicle by trying to make as little noise as possible on the rare days he was in the office, so that he wouldn’t realize I was there (he once…

In the spirit of talking about anything other than Food Babe: Who is the very beautiful woman in that .gif?

Yeah, it’s pretty rare to find an American who knows that Gypsy is a derogatory term for the Roma, or how badly they’ve been persecuted. And it doesn’t help when TLC runs shows like “Big Fat Gypsy Weddings” that delight in showing us rhinestone-studded women from trailer parks as if they’re grown-up versions of…

I’m not sure what their character count max is, but sometimes the headline is just about how many characters will fit. “Lady” is 4, “Woman” is 5, “Gentleman” is way too long.

I think the thought experiments are interesting because we as a culture have such diverse attitudes regarding who has the right to live or die in various situations. The death penalty, war, self defense, abortion, poverty, cigarette/toxic substance abuse, euthanasia...most of us are all over the place on when, how, &…

I used that exact argument once with someone who was fairly open-minded about the conversation, but anti-abortion. His response was that the two situations were hard to compare, because in the unwanted pregnancy, it’s “do nothing, fetus lives / take action, fetus dies” and in the transplant situation the reverse is…

Cheese blocks = bricks of C4 to an X-ray machine (probably; IANAXRM)

Jesus, I hadn’t connected those dots. Thank you for mentioning it. I want to give you 5000 stars and promote the shit out of this comment so it gets some attention.

On the one hand, I am a citizen of this country and I need to know this.

This is ridiculous. If you’re buying something for a kid, either you know the kid well enough to have a sense that what she wants is [very specific American Girl accessory here], or you know the kid so little you opt for something generic—something either educational or so trendy any kid would want it.

J.D. Robb, N.K. Jemisin, C.J. Cherryh, A.M. Homes...

I think the best thing to do is be proactive. You know two things at takeoff: (1) this is a long-ass flight and (2) you are trapped in the window seat. So turn to your seatmate (of any gender) and say, “Hey, if you fall asleep and I need to go to the bathroom, should I try to scoot past or would you prefer it if I…

Thanks for being a supportive person. I think your heart is in the right place.

Not quite as intense, but a guy deliberately brushed his hand over my ass in a public space about a month ago and I felt all of those feelings: anger that someone would ruin my day at the museum for no reason; a feeling of being completely alone in a crowd and the likelihood that I would be treated as a crazy person…

It’s a tough call. When I’m in the aisle, I smile and tell the people on the inner seat(s) that I’m a light sleeper and I don’t mind at all being woken up if they need to get up. I like to give people as few chances as possible to screw up. But without that conversation? I hate waking people up, I feel terrible about…

As a woman who gets pursued by men who won’t take no for an answer: thank you for taking no for an answer. It is frustrating and frankly alarming to let someone down with a rejection and then realize that they simply did not accept your polite/firm rejection and are coming back for more. I’m a non-confrontational…

Every single time I’ve used, “I have a boyfriend,” the guy has immediately cross-examined me.