You don’t even have to say much. Just “people love people. Sure, usually it’s boys and girls, but boys can love boys and girls can love girls.” I don’t think I even had to be this explicit with my son. We live in what was traditionally a gay neighbourhood in Sydney, and he has always seen proof of this fact. Last…

That would be a GREAT pissing contest.

It sucks. doesn’t it? Did your lower device have a lip bar? Mine did, and it made my lower lip stuck out like Carol Burnett, which seems funny and kind of cool now, but did NOT when I was twelve. I had a huge gap created in my front teeth and a sticky outie lower lip. People took pity on me and said things like…

Oh, that’s one of my terrors. I am so sorry for you. My own entry is: I had extreme orthodontia, including a torture device my orthodontist invented. The roof of my mouth was very very high and had to be spread a great deal, so I had that key turning pain-mobile. And a bottom one to match, followed by braces. And I…

Well, I do. I usually clean it first. But I also took a bath in our dorm bathtub (which I also cleaned) in grad school. I live dangerously.

Her fangs! I love her little dear fangs so much. Sweet sharp kitty teeth. She’s dreamy.

I was recently in a Hyatt in a large metropolitan area and the elevator had several large splotches of blood on the floor. I told the front desk, but I felt like they were giving me “weirdo” looks. It was too much blood to be something pleasant like a nosebleed. Right during check in rush.

Party lines! I am old-ish, and also we lived in a really really rural area, so we had a party line till I was about 5. Our party line was my favorite pastime. My mom used to get so mad when she’d catch me having a listen! The funny thing is, I hate reality TV and generally don’t want to know people’s business as an…

Happens to me all the time, and it seems a mixed blessing. I write, so it gives me lots of ammunition, but then sometimes the weight of what people tell me (unsolicited) is painful. My dad raised me not to ask personal questions of people, and I wonder if my not asking gives them a perverse need to tell? Anyhow, being…

Thank you. Maybe Georgia got her trip to QLD mixed up with her ferry ride to Manly.

Very possibly an off night for him. This was a nice, chill reading in Louisville and I was introduced by the organiser of the event as a promising poet (ha!), but I had noticed already that he was lovely to everyone. And then I went outside and smoked a clove (because, as far as I can remember, we all went through…

Allen Ginsberg, on the other hand, was lovely. He signed my very old copy of Kaddish, told me I had a beautiful smile, and just generally shined on me. He took a moment with nearly everyone to look them in the eye and take in their humanity. A good egg.

Oooh! I like this. My kid is very good about the one bite rule, but I might try to transition to this. Good tip.

I do the “you have to at least try a bite” and my 4 year old is a champ about that. He shocked me by eating half a braised mushroom the other day, without prompting. When his dad sat down, though, he told him to avoid the mushrooms - they had spoiled. Anyway, I am surprised by the constant changes in his tastes. One…

How did you do this? I paid the damn fee, thinking I’d get it back in amex lounge and travel insurance costs (I live in Sydney and go back to the US frequently), but I don’t think it’s that great a deal. I’d love to keep the benefits, but it’s too $$.

I flag ‘em all I can. Rat bastards. But I’ve been grey since Kinja too, and I’ve been a commenter on this site since the grand ‘ol days of Slut Machine and Pot Psychology. I dunno. Frustrating.

No joke. Reminds me of when I was a wee lass of 19 visiting France and waved my waitress over to inform her, in horror, that there was a bug in my lettuce. She shrugged that wonderful French girl shrug and said, “Oui. Eez Lettuce. Ze bugs leev der.” I was mildly offended at the time. At Appleby’s my whole meal…

I just had this same experience at my son’s preschool in Australia. I pack pretty healthy lunches, in comparison to what I used to eat. Cubed cheeses, crackers, ham or chicken, veggies, olives, fruit, baked pretzels sometimes, and always a sweet rice or oat bar. We also have to pack a morning tea, and I pack honey…

No kidding. When I was in college my family accidentally “adopted” a Russian kid (he was 19, same as me) who had made his way to Ohio in the most circuitous fashion. I was very surprised by his experiences - same fear, same general sense of impending doom, and the same “othering” propaganda. He was so wary at first. I…

I think I presented my argument poorly. I was sort of talking to an imagined audience of millennials. Why? Dunno. I am Gen-X. Right there in the middle of that shitty failed birthright. Cold war, isolation, crap economy, and adults who had utterly and massively failed their revolution, and so decided to get rich…