Yeah my mom is so guilty of the, "Your body will be ruined forever, you will be fat and sloppy." It's such an american thing though - Mr Parade's mother is french and she finds the idea of not being sexy after childbirth completely ludicrous. She was wearing miniskirts with two kids at 35 and fails to see how that was…

It's the worst. The second worst is couples who have children and refer to each other as "Mommy" and "Daddy." No, that's what your children call you. You still have other names.

"I'm so utterly Mommy now I can't even remember how it felt to want to do the things that led to me becoming Mommy!"

The only middle ground-ish article I can think of was that woman who wrote about loving her children, but feeling more connected to/in love with her husband, and she was torn apart for daring to say that she put her marriage on an equal level as her children. I feel like women are expected to always have their…

"Becoming a mommy..."

Worst part is that it's tacky lingerie. Hello, Miss April 1984 Playmate of the Month.

That's actually really cute, and technically he's right...

Mr Parade grew up bilingual with French and English, so even though he's a native speaker I still get asked where the TV command is, to close the lights, and where the fuck are his goddamn pantoufles.

Can we have more stories about your dad? I want a pop culture + relevant quotes from Mark's dad version of DirtBag plz.

SO into young Stalin. What a fox! That hair! That neck thing! Meee-ow, send me to a werk-it camp.

They're both really great and easy, I make one or the other every week. Mr Parade grew up in Italy, so I could make pasta every day and he'd be thrilled. I also a lot of minced anchovy+garlic+oil, or pasta carbonara. Neither are that healthy, but through some lemon and olive oil on bag salad and it's fairly…

If you depend on alcohol to help you sleep (which I have, at times) consider looking into using melatonin short term - you basically replace the "it's time to sleep now!" cue + sedative effects. It won't keep you asleep, but for me a huge hurdle to cutting back on alcohol was that I never felt sleepy unless I was…

My gift to you:

Marcella Hagan's Tomato Sauce is a favorite because it's so ridiculously easy and delicious.

I completely agree that it's not fair, but at the same time - gay visibility didn't increase until more and more gay people started coming out, in the face of stereotypes and misconceptions and often danger. Although I would like it to be different for bisexual visibility, I can't say that it won't require the same…

Exactly. And as for frumpiness - I feel like a lot of acceptance of gay marriage happened when the visibility of not-especially-glamorous, not-very-edgy, middle aged married couples doing middle aged married couple things increased. When The Gay Lifestyle looks an awful lot like your parents' lifestyle, it's harder to…

I like banjos! It's strumming that gets to me, I much prefer banjos tbh.

Related: my worst ever was this super manipulative guy I dated for a few months who very seriously informed me he was a shaman, and used to poke at me with crystals in the name of "healing" (ie, the New Age version of emotional abuse). He was really into tantric breathing too, which is fine, I guess, but sometimes you…

Pretty sure we've all banged Guy with a Guitar, if not Barefoot Guy with a Guitar or the close relative, Hacky-sack Guy with Nice Eyes.

Unless you're Susan, in which case the description of you as a vain, shallow girl who loves lipstick is all you get be.