Ignore it and stew inside? That’s not the way of New York. That’s some southern passive aggressive BS of the “bless your heart” variety. 

God I miss NY. Spent most of my adult life there. Now I live in a place where even on a glorious day in non-pandemic times, people will barely acknowledge your presence. In NYC yeah you might get yelled at, or you might make a new friend! At least you know where you stand with people. 

I’ve posted elsewhere here that I’m in grad school for my MPH and currently taking a class on public health law. My professor noted in a lecture that the public backlash against quarantine is upending centuries of legal thought and decades of academic instructions, since quarantine has always been looked at as almost…

THIS is the shit I often miss about living in New York. The absolutely terrifying ability of a group of people to call someone out and tear a new one. It has its downsides, but man...it is effective. 

“Whether Jane Roe is a “good person” or a con artist who spent her life spouting lines penned by fame-seeking people on whatever side was offering money and attention, she should have been able to have her abortion.”

Honestly my reading of this was

Decades ago my ex-fiance cheated on me. That betrayal and the gaslighting wrecked me for a long time, but in hindsight I’m glad I found proof of the affair because it made me leave him. I loved him so much that I wasn’t accepting the ways the relationship didn’t work.

“Here lies the body of the love of my life, whose heart I broke without a gun to my head.” -Beyonce

Yeah, and here he is kinda fishing around for strangers to let him off the hook somehow. He’s still trying to dodge the bullet while maybe hoping other people will sympathize with this dramatic ethical dilemma.

This guy fucked up bad. He then fucked up at least equally as bad by not telling the truth. The whole “I was trying to spare her by lying.” is complete horseshit. He lied to try and squirm out of painful consequences for himself primarily. Surprise...there is no escape. Speaking from experience because I did the same…

I was kind of curious about that as well.

As for how I use instagram I would agree with you. I have a limited number of people on my feed and its fun to see photos of their kids or a trip they are on etc. But I would say that the posts I see from young adults, and in particular women, are all about showing how they made a 5 tier birthday cake while parenting…

yup. I’m at the end of my PhD program. I realized recently that I gave almost 15 years of my life-including being poor, sick, mobbed, developing chronic anxiety and ailments, waiting to have a child longer than I wanted-for a lovely, beautiful calling. Such a beautiful academic job in which working overtime is…

Anyone who says depression is just you being bullshit is wrong. Depression is a real thing, it’s a physical illness, it’s as real as the flu or hepatitis or whatever else.

Thank you all for your super kind words. This shit is hard on a normal day, and I find that the pandemic situation is just forcing our hands to re-examine how we want to live our lives. And for all the darkness and despair, it’s also hartening to see that so many people are finding their happy in the simple everyday…

This is an excellent piece of advice. 

This is lovely and good advice. thanks :)

nothing wrong with finding one’s purpose. the problem tends to be that people look outside themselves.

Maybe you should write this column, as your comment is way better than the actual answer. 

I would say that if you are a consumer of social media, especially Facebook and Instagram, it would be good to step away from that. I have to keep reminding my daughter that Instagram is all about posting photos of your supposedly best life to make others feel ‘lesser than’ and anxious that they don’t have the same…