That sucks and I really feel for you. I have a chronic illness (or more) myself, I also get flares from stress, and I’m seeing people getting their PhDs faster than I am and feeling anxious and left behind.

Oh god, that’s a shocking thing to have happen. A good death for him, but a very very difficult experience for the rest of ye! Be gentle with yourself, grief and shock are both funny things that can come and go and pull the rug from under a person. <3

That is so unbelievably sweet! What a good move from that publicist and sounds like John Connolly himself is a lovely person. 

That’s exciting! It must feel good to have a date? Do you feel like you have things ready (as much as is possible)?

Well my theory with babies is they make everything more difficult but potentially also very rewarding? I suppose I’m approaching this as (a) someone who travels a lot and comes from a family of experienced and adventurous travellers and (b) a soon-to-be-parent separated from half the baby’s extended family by one of…

Ah I missed this going up! So since I missed last week completely, just a note, for those who know me here and might be looking, to say I’m doing mostly fine and kicky lil foetus is doing great. 

Oh wow I read the whole thing assuming the baby would come too?? Why would the baby not come too?? And it’s not weird to be cagey about leaving your baby, even if baby was older. (It’s also not weird to be perfectly content to go on a short holiday without your baby, especially as baby gets older. My parents went away…

I agree you can’t be racist towards a robot but you’re also not being bigoted towards the robot based on the robot’s inherent features (we don’t actually have a set of stereotypes for what robots of different colours are like), you’re instead applying a bigoted viewpoint so broadly as to accidentally include robots in…

Thank you for this (and replying also to bump).

Me too and you’re very welcome! It’s always nice to find each other, since we can be kinda stealth. I make a point of being as Out as possible, I’ll shoehorn it into conversations, my avatar on lots of things is me obviously at Pride, I’ll wear bi / Pride / queer pins, etc. People often overlook members of the LGBT+…

If you’re attracted to members of your own sex and members of other sexes, you are bisexual (or you might prefer another identifier, but you certainly “count” as bisexual if that’s what feels right for you). You don’t just believe it, you live it! I don’t have much experience with either men or women tbh but that…

They’re all slurs. My bullies used “gay” and “lesbian” and they were vicious and it lasted all the way through school. I wouldn’t use it for you, since you specifically object to it, but it’s a word with a much broader and more political & academic history than being used as a slur. If Julianne Hough or anyone else…

“Acting the maggot” is a great one. It’s hard for me to tell what’s an Irish-specific phrase and what’s a more generally well-known phrase so sometimes I get very weird looks from my American in-laws! 

WOW. “Okay girl” indeed.

Nah, I disagree. It’s the opposite of sexist to point out that something written ostensibly gender-neutral will nevertheless impact women more because of the gender biases at play in society generally.

Ha, glad to introduce you! It’s an Irish turn of phrase, we’re very poetical like that ;)

Yeah, I just saw Joan’s comment saying she’s bi too. I guess she was going for a fun/jokey tone but I think most of us have been burned too often by genuinely mean-spirited “jokes” about bisexuality/queerness that it doesn’t really land very well. Like it would be funny if we lived in a world where loads of people are…

Your anger is very justified! It’s really frustrating when straight people (a) consider your sexuality a fun quirky thing they can joke about trying on like a silly costume and (b) assume your sexuality is totally encompassed by whoever you’re currently in a relationship with. Glad she’s an ex-friend! 

Thank you! I’m lucky to have a really supportive spouse who already takes on most of the housework. And I’ve got a good support network of family and friends I hope will come through with all these promises of helping out and bringing dinners and babysitting. The campus nursery takes babies from 3 months so I’ll…

I can’t parse the tone of this article at all. Are we making fun of how ~silly~ it is for queer women in relationships with men to come out as queer? Even though that’s actually a fairly important discussion? Especially because bisexual women are more likely to suffer abuse*, and bisexual people generally struggle…