Feminism means that as women should hold themselves to the same standards they are looking for in potential partners. Like attracts like.

Wow. WOW. This is a really poor review that seem to be based on the author having a personal crisis at the time that the book was released. Ignore all the noise. The main message of the book was this: separate the must have from the nice to have traits in a potential spouse. That’s it! That is all it was saying, can…

Gottlieb. *rolls eyes* I guess I have a follow up question with long, personal context.

Me: I’ll be 32 soon. I’ve called off 2 engagements and an additional near-engagement (marriage was agreed to, timing was not yet determined). The last relationship ended in November when I ended it. He is a smart, funny, loyal,…

And I mourn the day when know-it-all barflies were replaced by Google. We lost all our social capital.

1. I meant it was his film persona. The character of the parts he plays. Like all famous actors, he has his pick of a lot of scripts and parts. Choosing the ones he has is playing to a persona that wants the public to always associate him with. Same with Cruise and Smith.

Absolutely every story I’ve ever heard suggests that Tom Hanks either really is a genuine teddy bear of a human being, or he’s got a Manchurian Candidate campaign going on behind the scenes. Even as cynical as I am, I’m not willing to believe the latter until I can see some explanation for it.

I’ve noticed this too. Not only are smaller bookshops coming back, they’re thriving. It’s encouraging though I’m not ready to get my hopes up too much. 

I’m in my mid-40s now and have been married and divorced twice. I got married in my early 20s because I needed to try and make a family for myself...with the wrong person. I got engaged twice and then married again in my 30s. Again, a mistake because my motivation was that the marriage seemed like the right thing to…

Exactly. Perfection isn’t a Platonic state (well technically it is, but.) It’s something you build every day and every day it’s different. A series of sand castles and each one your own little lumpy, crooked masterpiece of the day.

Not all of the single men are players.  Many, perhaps more, are lonely men who could never get off the starting blocks due to ugliness or shyness. 

1. It would take an incredible amount of discipline to hold onto that persona for 30 years

What’s interesting is that ecommerce is circling back around to save many of the surviving mom and pop shops. I buy most things I want to read in hardback, and have purchased long out of print books from shops all over the country via Amazon Marketplace and Ebay. A while back I wanted to read the LA Quartet and was…

I have similar feelings, though they in turn largely revolve around the omission of any form of class antagonism, even when that’s what the film is entirely about. Like, if she owns that little shop, then selling it at the prices that were available in the Upper West Side commercial property in the late 90's would…

Am I the only person who doesn’t see Tom Hanks so much as “America’s Dad” but as a canny ambitious actor/entrepreneur, who at first lucked into and later carefully chose roles that changed him from loveable asshole in “Bachelor Party” to the 21st century Jimmy Stewart we now see him as?

I worked for the store that Meg Ryan’s was based off of for a year and a half (she literally worked at the store for a week to get into character before my time). I know this because my boss brought it up every single day for a year and a half.

Regarding the monolith Barnes and Noble store that Hanks runs - The scene where Ryan answers the question for the customer that the actual clerk can’t illustrates the moment where this country lost its way. When personal expertise was sacrificed to a generalized monolith of information, we literally lost track of…

I just wish that marriage wasn’t held up as a be-all for people by society. Many people stay in not-great, pretty bad, or terrible marriages for decades because of fears about being alone : loss of purpose, alienation from the “norms” of society, dying alone. I admire couples who can create and maintain good, healthy,…

Idea for a sequel: Kathleen is living with Joe, who escaped with a golden parachute after Fox Books collapsed in bankruptcy. Said money finances her revived book/whimsical artisanal baked good shop, and all seems good...until a mysterious bald man who created a massive online retailer walks in and shakes up her…

I’m honestly so tired of this anemic victorian child who looks 13 cast in EVERYTHING. 

He always looks like a dirty rat, like a literal greasy, little rat.