You don’t have to be fancy to enjoy fresh pasta! My husband is a purist and great cook, and actually enjoys spending two hours making pasta (which I then get to eat — I am very lucky). But I would never put in that much time. So when I make us pasta, I just splurge on fresh noodles or gnocchi from the store. The…

This is great advice. Whenever I find the house getting harder to keep clean, I know it’s time to pull out some boxes and raid the closets and shelves for Goodwill donations. My husband and I have been purging for the last several months to get ready for our first baby — the baby stuff needs a home, which means…

I feel like there’s a huge difference between what you are doing and what people often think of when they think of a selfie. For me, a selfie is a photo of oneself, for the purpose of showing people a photo of oneself. I think of close ups of someones face or mirror shots to show off the fruits of a gym membership or…

When my husband (then boyfriend) and I were moving in together, I had a meltdown during the move because we were having trouble getting some of my furniture out of my house and I suddenly felt like I was abandoning my independence to go live in someone else’s home (I wasn’t — we moved into a new place together, and…

I totally agree. I think this “conventional wisdom” about the first year of marriage being hard is a holdover from a time when people were expected to marry young and not live together (or on their own, or with roommates) much or at all before getting married. I mean, if my first year of marriage had also been my…

I had the same experience. I think it’s partly what you’re saying, that cohabitation before marriage gets a lot of the adjustments out of the way in a slightly less high-stakes environment. So (1) you’ve already had your arguments about shared space and lifestyle by the time you tie the knot, and for the most part…

Right? I love how this is being portrayed as “tough love” because it is indeed about as effective as parents who beat their kids to teach them discipline. You’re only making things worth, plus you’re an asshole.

“And nobody’s going to die from their pensions being cut.”

THIS. People act like pensions for public sector employees are just handouts from taxpayers. It’s bullshit. In order to qualify for a pension, public employees have to pay into the system for years. And during that time, they get to constantly watch as their jobs are used as political footballs for politicians looking…

Well, (1) why shouldn’t teachers and police officers have access to generous benefits? They chose to go into teaching and police work, where we need good people, and then performed those jobs for many years. (2) the knowledge that they would get a generous pension likely factored into their decision to go into these…

I totally agree that those pension funds should be more carefully regulated and states should be restricted from investing in riskier investments with the funds. The whole reason this crisis is happening, despite the massive gains in the stock market over the last several decades, is because states violated their…

I wouldn’t, but mainly because I don’t think it would make any difference in people’s willingness to offer me their seat. I am very visibly 6 months pregnant right now, and have only been offered a seat twice (both times by middle-aged women on the subway). Last week, I boarded a half full bus in which no fewer than 8…

The problem with this argument is that CA and IL and NJ are not human beings, and that the pension crisis will affect actual human beings who spent decades in public sector jobs, forgoing higher paying work in the private sector in favor of security and, yes, that pension. When those actual people lose the pensions…

Totally fair — her advice is garbage. And I totally agree regarding job hunters being swindled. I once received a severance package during a layoff that included 6 months of “career help” from one of those places. I used it, because I wasn’t paying for it, but it was largely useless and definitely not worth the money…

I mean, it is possible to contact a recruiting agency and see if they’ll work with you (I’ve done it). You don’t usually hire them — companies hire them to help them find good candidates for roles, and they get a fee (usually a percent of position’s salary) if the company hires one of those candidates. But the agency…

I do think that ideal is changing for many gymnasts and fans, and Biles’ success has a lot to do with that (or is evidence of a shift that started before her rise — I think both patterns are occurring). I also don’t think you can discount the success of female athletes in others sports, who have helped change the face…

I also think we need to change the way we approach institutions in our culture. Over and over again, institutions use their power (which we give them) to abuse the most vulnerable in our communities. Universities, churches, corporations, government entities — any time an institution is allowed to operate without a…

It would simply be a different sport, with different rules, skills, and likely a shift in the kinds of apparatus used. But.... what’s wrong with that? Gymnastics has struggled for years with this problem — women’s gymnastics was developed around an ideal of a tiny, delicate girl performing. Stories like this should…

Doesn’t surprise me at all. My workplace is considered female-dominated even though the employee split is about 50/50 and women only make up about 30-40% of management positions. But people are so unused to even that much representation for women that even I feel like there are more women than there actually are.

Ugh. I didn’t know I was pregnant at that point, but that it was possible. It was hard to function for a while. The combination of Trump, getting ready to be a parent for the first time, not being able to drink, and throwing up daily for several months will always make this time very surreal in my memory (at least I…