My friend has a six month old son. Her husband can pass for white pretty comfortably. She cannot, and her son skews to her looks. She told me yesterday that she never thought that she would wish her child didn’t look like her.

Someone on tumblr is having a “draw kittens” day to cheer people up. I doodled my kitty in his handsome Halloween sequined neckpiece of flamboyance that he loves. Such a weirdo. I’m taking a lot of solace in him right now.

The best option is the pizza bat’leth*:

He’s a handsome cat normally—in the cat sense, with the big straight nose and such—but damned if he isn’t just beautiful with it on. No one who comes over can resist squeezing him! We have decided to make him an elastic band with a snap on it and make our own bowties for him, haha.

It’s not so much a costume, but we bought this little neckband for our cat Madrigal on a whim and he just adores it. It’s pretty bizarre. You can pick it up and he’ll rush over and try to squeeze it over his head.

Ken Burns documentaries are my lifeblood while I work, so I’m in the same straits. Amazon Prime has a good chunk of them still available, though!

I can attest that inking is also very soothing to do. I know a lot of artists who find it really tedious, but I find it tedious in...a good way? It’s brain-numbing, but relaxing. Very enjoyable, and it comes out looking so clean and nice, more like I’ve accomplished something than sketching does.

Not to mention that I would not be surprised if she was actively unnerved by it. Many women have a (justifiably) hard time saying no outright, and having it ignored—repeatedly!—is frightening.

Me too. I was in a committed relationship with the man who I later married and am still with many years later, and I had supportive family members, I’d used protection, and I still felt like a dumb slut pregnant teenager with every loaded, shaming word I could imagine.

There are a variety of funds available if you’re under or around the age of 24—my GP said it would effectively be her sending in a request to waive the fee, my signing something, and we’ve be good to go (unfortunately, I was just over the age for the final two or three rounds, and with my sexual history and situation…

You may also be thinking of the actual-real-person “Emperor” Norton, a failed businessman in 19th century San Francisco who lost his mind and proclaimed himself Emperor of the United States and was quite beloved by the city!

This comment really made me consider how different the responsibilities society assigns to the idea of “my family is my most important priority” are between men and women.

Good point. I think the way the discussion is framed regarding older women contributes, too—while our favorite stars are, of course, largely beautiful and handsome people, no one says that George Clooney (or whomever) looks young and that’s way the judgement of his appearance hinges on. He’s older, looks older, and is…

My husband (to be, at the time) was going to change his last name to mine (for a variety of reasons—my last name is much more unique and would otherwise “go extinct” this generation; his last name is the result of a grandparent’s subsequent remarriage and he doesn’t have a ‘Grandpa Johnson’ or anything). We were both…

Yes! I rarely have “horror” dreams, but I often have dreams that are deeply uncomfortable because of a need to do some trivial task for an important reason (a friend is sick and I need to call a doctor) that my dream self just keeps fucking up aargghhh.

Also an adult who had to get a lot of vaccines later in life. I was 26 when I was offered the HPV vaccine; however, since my risk was very low (only had one sexual partner, married, etc), we decided it wasn’t necessary for me. 26 was listed as the cutoff point where insurance tends to pay for it (especially because…

I’m quite trimly built and always have been, save for having a very non-flat stomach. Even when I was extremely ill and lost way too much weight for my body, I still had a stomach! It’s definitely not a thing that’s represented in any campaign I’ve ever seen.

From my experience, and that of others who deal with their own “invisible illnesses,” I tend to fall back on a really basic example: happy, healthy, remission me looks almost identical to extreme, crippling physical pain me, and I could be either of those from day to day. So I tell people that the best thing to do, if…

Oh, definitely! Just saying that trying to figure out where you take the longest and practicing that, as well as identifying different methods for more painterly work (ie, some artists I know paint start to finish in chunks—this chunk of hair start to finish, then this half the face, then the neck, then the shoulder,…

I thought it was one step from a penis!