As someone shy but adventurous, I live with constant discomfort. I often find myself walking heal-toe on the borderline between two worse fates: being bored but comfy or experiencing interesting things while awash in anxiety.

Yes, this! And let me provide a counter example. I’ve recently lost a lot of weight and my sexual confidence while naked is at an all-time low. When I was at my heaviest (with some damn studly and gorgeous partners), everything was full and firm and luscious. If someone saw and wanted my body when it was dressed,…

Yep yep. Hell, when I find something that fits me and I really like, I’ll buy duplicates in the SAME color and archive the extra for later.

I was liberal at 20, a committed libertarian at 30, and now at 45, I have no idea what the fuck I am because no party comes close to my values. Idealistic libertarianism still comes closest, I suppose, but I believe in the need for — and societal value of — cooperatively funded (gubmint) support programs. I believe in…

Funny. One thing I like about crochet is having a hook at hand in case unplanned stabbing is required.

Husband and I were in Berlin earlier this year, so besides being insufferable by yelling when we recognize places this season, we’re also stressed that terrorists will blow up our beloved Hauptbahnhof. In a TV series. Yeah yeah, Carrie Saul Quinn Allison.. but spare our station!

On a bus at Walt Disney World a few years ago, a woman nearby was almost screaming at her little girl — maybe 6 years old — that she needed more sunscreen so she didn’t get “ugly, disgusting freckles.” I was honestly stunned. People always called my freckles cute or didn’t comment on them, so I had no idea that there…

Much easier solution if you’re dealing with jewelry: purchase a wooden rack used for spools of thread and mount it on the wall. I put one of these on the wall in my walk-in closet (the back of the door would have worked, too). I use the top row for rings, next row for bracelets, and then have lots of room to hang…

Already devoured, no photo. Leftover deep-fried turkey breast on homemade flatbread with a little mayo, pepperjack cheese, and cranberry sauce. I’d eat that every day, forever and ever.

I’m 543 months and I’m so into straws. How can I convince people to just buy me some damn straws for Christmas? Bonus for bendies.

What: jar candle convertible to LED lamp

And with free 3-6 business day shipping, too.

My training is in anthropology. In fact, the annual American Anthropological Association was just last week in Denver, and I bet that clothing, necklaces, hairstyles, and many other displays of cultures not the anthropologists’ own were visible everywhere, as they always are at AAA events. When we visit other…

One of my Indian Muslim friends offered to “do (my) henna” a few years ago before I went to an important conference. I brutally appropriated her culture by accepting.

I went into surgical menopause like Jolie 5 years ago, at age 40, due to cancer. This is different from natural menopause; it’s castration. I don’t think a more gentle word should be used for cutting out a person’s reproductive organs just because that person is female.

I’m late to this gathering, but let’s call this cheap therapy.

I’ve been on the Web since there was a Web, and Kitchenette has been one of the brightest recent spots for me. Fair sailing to you, and can’t wait to see what you get up to next.

It’s not just Boomers, it’s also Xers like myself who don’t understand this. I was one of those kids who was allowed to wander the exurbs and suburbs of my youth with no adult supervision and that was 30-40 years ago, not the 1950s. People also trusted me to babysit alone at a very early age. Childcare is cheap when…

So, I was an election inspector for 3 elections in Oakland County, MI, which was used as the example in this piece. The copier-looking machines they showed are vote tabulators here. People fill out paper ballots using pens, the ballots are then put into privacy folders and fed into the machines. The machines scan the…

Nightmares Fear Factory in Niagara Falls, Canada is similar to that. Completely dark maze with different textures, shaky and tilted floors, noises and gusts of wind, and actors in black that can grab or poke you (in one visit, it felt like a wet sponge brushing my arm like a cold tongue). It’s a long maze and FEELS…