When I was 12, we had guests for dinner—two women working as missionaries in our LDS congregation near Baltimore. My mom was super busy that day with needing to go into work/run errands/take care of the actual dinner. As I couldn’t drive and didn’t have a paralegal’s license, I figured I would offer to cook dinner.…

Here’s hoping this young woman can go off to college and put some much-needed distance between herself and her shitty, unkind parents.

It’s part of why we’re getting married so soon—it’s our best bet for getting assigned together at the end of this gig, while holding off means we’d need to be long-distance (potentially even further apart) for another two years. And I’ve known since about six weeks after we started dating that I wanted to marry him,…

Clearly, your reading comprehension and analytic abilities are somewhat lacking. Bless your heart.

Why isn’t the criticism valid? The problem isn’t one of a person writing about a culture of which they are not a part; the problem is writing about a culture of which they are not a part and reinforcing racist and sexist tropes (around the magical blue-eyed POC and subservient Asian women, romanticizing the West,…

Sometimes I fantasize about the Ina Garten marriage: spouse has their place, you have yours, and you get to be excellent partners to each other on weekends. As it is, right now my person and I are several countries apart, so the idea of even putting up with his weird habits feels worthwhile.

This is me! I have gotten over the worst of my insomnia thanks to melatonin and weighted blankets, but according to my fiancé, I both snore AND talk in my sleep (he very kindly pointed out that “it’s not as though [I] do it on purpose”). Luckily, he is a remarkably heavy sleeper when he has someone to cuddle, which…

A skirt-suit sounds lovely! And honestly, a little tempting, since the odds are that I’ll be doing a mostly bureaucratic, yes-we’re-technically-married thing for my job. I still want(ed) the experience of looking at dresses with my mother and indulge in the wedding-y fantasy for a bit. Hopefully, it will go better…

Hooray! I’ve heard it’s a lovely country, and I’m sure you’ll have a great time there. Can’t wait to hear about your new adventures! 

Thank you so much. The weird thing is, my mom and I are roughly the same size now—my mom was a single parent to two kids, raising us in poverty; I had severe undiagnosed depression for most of my 20s and had no idea how to feed myself as an adult while also being underpaid. For a while, the thing that got her to leave…

Luckily for me, I am currently working in a country with a strong tailoring culture (like, for $150, I got outfits made for an upcoming vacation), so I can absolutely get a dress made for whatever sort of wedding we end up having (fiancé and I are currently long-distance, and getting hitched is the easiest way of…

Not explicitly New Year’s-y, but my mother spent the last 20-30 minutes of our weekly phone call talking about why I should try to lose weight for my wedding. I have asked her not to talk to me about weight loss, I explained (again!) why I don’t want to put that pressure on myself, and while she usually gets it and…

Your boss sucks major ass. I’m so sorry. I hope that you find a better gig and that he steps on a Lego every night when he gets up to pee. 

Holy shit! I’m so sorry; that sounds absolutely awful. A staph infection is no joke, but getting your pap smear done on top of that is a big old bucket of yikes. My rule for myself is that any time a doctor comes near my cervix, I get a bacon cheeseburger because IUD insertions/pap smears/etc are horrible and I need…

I’m so excited for you! Where are you going?

I’m so, so sorry that they have failed you like this. Would it be okay if we check in with you again on SNS threads going forward? I’m sure I’m not the only person in this community who cares about how you’re doing, and wants to make sure you’re okay.

Honestly, yes. I’ll still call her Princess Megan to myself because she’s the only one I like, but let’s just wrap it up. They had an okayish run, but strip them of the titles and land and houses and wealth and have them all just go away.

Thank you for this! I didn’t realize about the compresses. It doesn’t help that I currently (and for the next 18 months) live in a city that routinely has the worst air in the world (Dhaka, Bangladesh), and it is winter—the worst time for air pollution (because all the brick kilns are burning, and the trash that is…

I’m so sorry. I am also nursing a painful sinus infection (they are a migraine trigger, so EXTRA fun for all!) which makes me weirdly grateful that I am a continent away from all of my family right now (though I do wish I had my fiancé here to bring me soup and meds). Here’s hoping we both feel better soon! 

So glad to hear your mom is doing better! I hope y’all have a wonderful time together. Merry Christmas from my couch in Bangladesh, where Christmas involves wearing my pajamas all day, fancy French toast and coffee, and watching the new John Mulaney special. Cheers!