I'm white and I grew up on cornbread, black-eyed peas, fried fish, and fried chicken, and I've never once eschewed them or tried to get above my raisin'. I like to think I'm cool for refusing to adopt the tastes of the upper middle class. I find upper middles emotionally cold and a little threatening, although I…

Not sure I agree. I'm not a man, but I heard about a man who got severely hurt when the toilet seat bolt broke and the seat slid sideways, smashing his balls. YIKES!

Wow, was this in the KC metro area?

Yeah some drunk came into our house in South Carolina in about 1967. Also, I live in KC and there have been more and more home invasion robberies. Yesterday a woman wearing a diamond necklace was followed home from a shopping trip. Two guys knocked out the side window of the front door, let themselves in, put a…

They make graduated dilators for that.

Oops, I must seem like a crazy person. This is a huge coincidence! I didn't know there was a dry shampoo named Batiste.

I personally think a lot of commenters are mistaking the "Cool Girl" as described by Flynn and this article http://www.buzzfeed.com/annehelenpeter… and conflating her with the "All-my-friends-are-guys" girl. They may seem similar but I think the "Cool Girl" as described by Flynn doesn't necessarily *really* like…

BATISTE? BATISTE? IS THAT WHAT THAT EXTREMELY DELICATE WEAVE OF COTTON IS CALLED, the one my hippie headscarf was made of in 1977? The one that was already sun-faded when I found it from hanging in the J.C. Penney window, until I rescued it? The one I could tie around my whole head Rhoda-on-Mary-Tyler-Moore style…

If you haven't read it, you might enjoy a bit of fluff called "Shopaholic and Sister." Shopaholic (Rebecca Bloomwood) discovers she has a long-lost sister...who turns out to be one of those hiking-boots-no-nonsense-tweed-jacket save-the-planet sorts.

This was never a Cool Girl thing, because 1) I'm not pretty and 2) I get SUPER PISSED OFF, but I totally got the "You're not supposed to like that" from guys. I have ALWAYS loved electronic music. I didn't need any guys to introduce me to it, nor did I need their opinion on what I was supposed to like. I had a…

"that people are disposable, near-object entities who provide services."

—Unfortunately, yes, that's exactly how a lot of people operate.

If it helps any, the government is FINALLY, FINALLY going after those online payday lenders I think you're describing.

Oww, that's gotta hurt. Don't listen to the obvious troll who responded. Sorry that happened, her loss.

I hope you didn't say any of those things 1) junkyard version of your husband 2) backup husband in front of his wife. I can just imagine being in her shoes!

Don't worry—those women who think the backup guy is pining for them are probably delusional and over-optimistic about their marketability. As someone else pointed out, they probably married early and haven't dated around much and think there's this pool of guys who would drop whatever they're doing and come running…

I think a lot of people are reading this wrong, and thinking the backup spouse is still single. Having read some David Buss, however, I think a lot of people's backup plan is to poach some desirable, married person. A certain percentage of people do not confine their potential partner pool to singles. They think…

Don't know if you've heard, but there's new research on why some older couples die within a short time of each other. Supposedly, grief messes with the remaining spouse's immunities.

I was thinking Barbara Stanwyck and Fred McMurray...

This is how I know for sure that being gay isn't a choice. During sec0nd-wave feminism, some of us declared our sisters in feminism as our backup spouses. With all the sisterly solidarity and political will behind it—and there were good times in that movement—it wasn't all the infighting the famous people got up…

How much of this is because the cuckolded husband finds out and leaves the marraige, while the married man who's in the affair with the married woman can stay married even if his wife finds out? Not sure I explained that clearly. Bob and Carol are married, and Ted and Alice are married. Carol starts an affair with…