Though I no longer follow the teachings of the fundie church I grew up in, one thing the pastor always stood by was just so reasonable and sane: if you're sick, don't bother choosing between prayer and medical attention; why not do both? All bases covered. People can still feel good and faithful through prayer while…

Back it on up with that autoplay video. If I want to watch it I’ll press the play button, thanks.

Gilly One-Eye, Mr. Jacks, and Momma Cat, the paralyzed clinic cat wearing a diaper.

The ears-slightly-back, thousand yard state cat look is my favorite!

Oh my god do not use fish as decoration. Look, I know PetCo and all those places make it seem like they’re cheap throwaway animals that last a couple years in the decorative vase you turned into a “tank,” but a goldfish with proper care lives 10-20 years. And proper care is not simple. It does not involve being put…

Let me tell you a thing. It could change everything. If you want to enjoy some raw cookie dough free of worry, put the flour in a dry skillet and toast it on low-medium heat (DO NOT leave it; it can burn easily, plus you can turn it up higher if you glue yourself to the stove). When it begins to change color, it’s…

You never know. They could just be into the moisture. Wouldn’t be surprising, considering how little rain there is there. They may not have been after the material itself at all. Butterflies, for example, are super into poop. And dead fish. Among other things. My boyfriend and I went for a walk in the prairie and…

This one is my mom’s. She recently went to Disneyland this past winter post-menopause; however, she’s been there two other times in her life. Heavily pregnant and vomiting copiously on each occasion. She rather enjoyed her recent trip.

What side blogs? Tell me the secrets.

When I was in college I would read TFM/TSM at the [horrible] suggestion of a hallmate, and the Lilly = my untouchable, wealthy whiteness aesthetic was firmly entrenched even in the site’s early days. The photo walls were full of lounging feet shots of a white woman on a porch with an iced tea, designer sunglasses…

When the check gets handed to my boyfriend. I’m teaching and he’s getting his master of engineering, so he’s poor as hell and I often buy his food when we go out (until he graduates and starts out making twice as much as I do). But with the exception of a few servers, they almost always hand it to him.

I read it as off the beaten path of their typical food choices, so a symbolic path, since it's written "our beaten path" and not "the."

It could be like people, where some cats' base weight is higher than others. If dieting and exercising doesn't change it, perhaps it is meant to be. One of my cats is 4 pounds, the other 12. He's an enormous, long-haired, lion-pawed lump. He's always been that way.

At least five men asked my mom to marry them in college. KNEEL. Here are her recollections.

Growing up in a fundie church, I have seen this so many times. It's like the most intense families are always hiding the closet atheists/non-heterosexuals/etc. Something about all the uncomfortably intense political views and fear mongering just pushes you away from that life as far as possible, ya know?

This kind of mindset gave me so much baggage for so long. In fact, I'd be lying if I said I didn't have at least one small bag still with me, whispering "sluuuuut" from somewhere in its depths every time I wear shorts or something with no sleeves. Friggin apostolic sexist culture. That was my childhood. I don't even…

Ew, ruuuuude.

My story isn't sad at all. In preschool I was first told about Santa, and I was extremely suspicious. I asked my mom if Santa was real, and she considered for a moment and then told me no. I went back to pretending I was a cheetah or whatever and spent the next several years being warned by my teachers not to spill…

But for real though. Toxins are not things found in your food that happen to be bad for you. A toxin is a literal poison/venom that is plant- or animal-derived. If you are actually ingesting a lot of toxins, you will get sick and/or die.

Some countries have very different views regarding people who are trans and people who are non-heterosexual. When I was in Korea, for example, I was told that the government and health care systems are legally supportive of transgender individuals here lately (surgery, gender ID change, etc.), but the general…