Or you're my 12-year old self! I've been the same way for as long as I can remember. My high school friends would want to hang out at the mall at Bath & Body Works (hey it was the 90s) and I would loiter outside the store trying not to feel ill.

Ha we're like sisters from different mothers!

In case the belt fails, your suspenders will keep your pants up - for me it's BC and condoms.

I think it depends on how big a role your own political beliefs take on in your life. I'm a far left activist and I've either worked full-time or volunteer for free half-time or more on social and economic justice issues for the past 10 years, so it takes up a lot of my time and mental energy. I only have two…

For what it's worth, I've seen too many women driven crazy and miserable by in-laws based on smaller things. This is huge and unless the boyfriend supports her and is in her camp about his parents behavior being inappropriate and not something that their children should be regularly exposed to, then she's looking at a…

Best sex education ever? Having an adolescent gynecologist for a mother. My mom brought home so many stories of her 13-17 year old patients getting pregnant and contracting STDs that I was totally paranoid about both. Neither of my parents ever actually talked directly to me about sex (they preferred the…

It's so true that trying shoes on is only a sliver of a preview of how they'll feel - ever notice that shoe departments are almost always thickly carpeted? It's also why I have over 50 pairs of shoes, 5 of which are converses of the exact same style in different colors. What sucks is that even within the same brand…

My parents did this to me when I moved into my first apartment by myself (a tiny studio barely big enough for my desk and bed.) They listed EVERY SINGLE ROOM in their house that was bigger than my apartment, and it's not like they live in a huge mansion. It was really depressing.

Can Jezebel award Dr. Elders a star already?

I have to take a head-and-shoulders shot for business school and they said "business casual or professional." I feel like whenever someone says "bus casual or prof" it's a trick question, and they really mean "professional if you mean business, jackass." Any tips on how to not look like a salesperson/real estate agent…

This is an argument that I can relate to, actually (and also a similar argument for all-girls schools, right?). It's true that in a large public school the squeaky wheel gets the grease - my mom was the most annoying squeaky wheel ever, and I had severe ADHD that basically forced teachers to find a way to deal with…

Sorry, I guess I didn't get my confusion across clearly. What I find strange is that these super-wealthy people don't have a good public HS nearby. I understand the socioeconomic inequities of education, but my HS was upper-middle class, most families probably made around 150k max. These prep-school parents seem to…

I don't understand the east coast prep school culture. I get wanting your kid to go to a good school and how that can affect your college prospects (my parents moved specifically so I could go to one of the best public high schools in my area) but are there really no public schools that can compare? My public HS…

Strange. I'm not watching the show because I have too much reading to catch up on: Andre Norton, Terry Pratchett, and Robin McKinley to name a few. Also, the NYT writer might be shocked to know that pink is not my favorite color. And the only book clubs I've been part of were focused on social justice/political…

Although you make a good point about the perceived efficacy/purpose of one rumor vs the other, I'd have to say that I think the birther theories have endured due to the neat intersection with racism. As a person who has been asked "Where I'm from" for 30 years and has been told to "go back to where I came from" more…

To me the main point of the story is not the son, but A) the inherent biases of a society that makes a white woman's birth experience "untouchable" (the "spiral of silence" he refers to) but allows continued speculation of a man's "origin" simply because he doesn't "look" American and B) the journalistic implications…

"conservatives have been extraordinarily effective at shaming anyone who has even brought up the matter, let alone investigated it." Meanwhile, questioning a man's very origin simply because he doesn't "look" American (whatever the fuck that is) is not considered shameful at all and is considered a legitimate topic of…

I think almost any statement along the lines of "women are fundamentally unable to [blank]" are baffling and usually completely wrong. For a long time women couldn't be sushi chefs because their hands were "too warm" would ruin the fish. Just ask my boyfriend about my icicle hands to confirm the wrongness of this…

This movie has haunted my relationships. My college boyfriend bought it for me for my birthday, having never watched it and only having heard that it was a good movie (and not that it would make us want to die so we could stop crying.) Happy birthday to me. Then my post-college Japanese-American boyfriend watched it…

I have actually done the ice-cubes/fan ghetto AC trick shown in the last photo before I finally had an AC...and trust me, when it's hot enough to resort to that, you are not wearing hose, a tight corset, and HappySexyFace. The outfit that goes with that setup is oversize boxer shorts and a ratty tank top, and…