Teacher here, I agree completely. While I can enjoy someone's beauty (we're all shallow like that) I can't see my students in a sexual light. They're too young and, frankly, too annoying. The last thing I would want after spending the day dealing with them would be to spend some one-on-one time with them , much less…

I feel Martha Plimpton's pain, would love to feel her joy. I wouldn't even want the mansion, just the cute kitchen with all the latest and greatest. Anytime I see famous people's homes with fabulous kitchens I suspect they don't use I just die a little inside.

Just lived his life I guess. He kinda vanishes from the gospel after he is raised from the dead. At least from what I remember. (raised RC, currently agnostic)

I agree on all counts except for the kids. I can only imagine the war I would have caused in the family because both my sister, SIL and best friends had children under three . And my niece (and goddaughter) who was eight at the time would have been devastated to be excluded. But still, it was pretty low key, we…

One of the joys of getting older is not caring what other people think, I just love my complicated pretentious novels.

I've been craving Chunky Monkey like nobody's business but can't get it for love or money because Ben and Jerry's are not available all over the country, just n big cities. But I have some Straciatella ice cream to make do.

Oh I don't stick to Soaring Fancy Literature, I actually enjoy otheer things. I just finished (and loved) G. A.Aiken's Light my fire, because sometimes a girl just needs dragons and loudmouth girls. Other favourites include J. D. Robb ( Nora Roberts alter ego), Robin D. Owens and Gaelen Foley. I'm really omnivrous…

Oh, honey, give it time. I had a strict diet (doctors orders) the first two trimesters, no problem. Once I got to the third, whole different story. I crave sweets ALL THE TIME. Don't get me wrong, still eat the salads and fruit and healthy stuff but I'm like a vacuum arround the sweet stuff. Here's hoping you keep…

Yes on all counts. I read Ann Rice's which novels and Lasher (I can't remember the name of the series, google would fix it but I'm lazy) after all the hype with Interview with the vampire (yes, I'm that old, plus vintage Brad Pitt was just yummy ). I enjoyed them, but wasn't tempted to read other things by her I…

Razor's Edge will always be on my top 5 as it was so important when I first read it. Came into my life when I was sixteen and played a huge part in defining my own approach on life. As for Rushdie and Eco I kinda love them both, so choosing a favourite was not easy. The moor's last sigh was just magnificent, sooo…

Saramago really is brilliant, Blindness is as terrifying as it is uplifting. The convent is different, great love story, brilliant story, but it takes a patient reader because it can be very slow and complicated, once it's set in barroque Portugal.

Oh I love it so evocative and so sexy. And a great love story.

Can I play too?My favourites are The razor's edge by Somerset Maugham, The ground beneath her feet by Salman Rushdie, Love in the times of cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The convent By Jose Saramago and Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco. Why yes, I was a lit major in college, does it show?

How do you, as a parent, react to something like that? Report it, for sure, but other than that? Do you ground them until they're thirty? Take the kid and ourselves to therapy? Seriously, one of my biggest fears is to raise a little sociopath and not being able to recognize it or fix it.

She is only unatractive by Hollywood standards. What brings a whole lotta criticism (at least here) is her tone-deaf rich white girl POV. I myself can't stand her series because I'm nearly in my forties and have zero patience for her twenty-something existential poor little rich girl shtick.

I totally agree. Extremely beautiful people have a vastly different experience dating than us normals. Most beautiful women I know are so used to the admiring male gaze as their due they can't fanthom not having it, they're just too used to being adored. They can afford to play games because there will always be…

Catholic churches, especially here in Europe, are often very beautiful. As someone who was forced to attend Sunday mass every week until I was eighteen plus other special services and a rosary every single day of May, I just looked at all the art arround me. Also, music. Sacred music is beautiful. I turned off the…

Exactly. The prices are outrageously inflated in the US from what I read upthread.

Xenophobic is just a slightly more polite word for racist. You can't convince me that beneath that hatred for foreigners there is no racist ideations, because there are.

Yeah that's pretty common here in the Iberian peninsula. Also, you make a wish for every raisin as the clock rings twelve. Other supertitions include new underweare- blue- for luck,and havin the most valuable bill you can get your hands on in your pocket- for money. I forgot and had only a two euros coin, so that's no…