Actually I think Twitter has been very enlightening on that score. I think it's too immediate for the publicists to get in the middle, hence most of them sound like, well, twits. Patrick Stewart and a few others are very noticeable exceptions.

Some of them fold really small. When I didn't have a car I used to have a thin one that stuffed into a tiny attached bag with a keyring, that I just kept in my purse all the time.

Really? This idea of not wanting to bag one's own groceries astounds me. What does it mean to be 'bad at bagging groceries'? It doesn't seem like the kind of skill that should require multiple years of higher education, and it sure slows the line down when people insist on standing there waiting for the checker to…

I find the Whole Foods store brand of biodegradable trash bags is much sturdier than the Bio-bags. (I dunno if that makes them take longer to break down in the landfill though, which would somewhat defeat the purpose?)

I just bring the darn plastic bags back to the store and reuse them until they get cruddified.

FTLOJ, can we *please* get some inch or cm-based sizing like the guys have?

You need way more stars for this.

Yessss. I would go further and say that this idea of breasts needing 'support' at all is also the work of the patriarchy. Breasts need 'support' to look perky and sexually appealing. I suspect they wouldn't need 'support' for comfort unless one has gotten used to strapping them high at all times, to the point at which…

Oh well, I'll throw this one out there too.

But Ecstasy turns stimuli that are normally neutral or unpleasant into sources of fantastic pleasure. Even nausea/vomiting. Super different from labor, which is truly so miserable that the misery of vomiting pales by comparison. I wish you could get a little MDMA for labor instead of a shitty epidural.

Perhaps that's like a dirty version of 'if pigs had wings they'd fly' - i.e. no point in thinking about counterfactuals?

What's not realistic is being 43 and "wanting to have children but not, you know, tomorrow."

I don't think it's permanent at all though. I've noticed people from other English-speaking countries (Ireland, India, etc.) who have learned to speak very passable American-accented English revert to their natively-accented English when speaking on the phone to their families. I find it endlessly amusing!

Yes! I'm not Southern At All and I regularly use y'all because it has no functional equivalent in English and it is sorely needed.

Since we're piling up anecdata here, I'm drama-free and honestly always had scads of men following me around (well since my late teens anyway). I seriously do not think these things are related. Probably there are some men who are attracted to dramatic personalities, and also lots of others who are more attracted to…

Natalie Angier's 'Woman: An Intimate Geography' was fantastic. Not limited to this topic but a really good read.

YES. THANK YOU FOR THIS. I have never understood how anyone could possibly claim that women are more 'emotional' when 90% of all violent crimes are committed by men.

I think the breasts-as-buttock-mimicry idea comes from Desmond Morris (The Naked Ape). I'm surprised he wasn't ashamed to put that one out in print.

Since trying to engage in a productive career while raising children acceptably well is kind of like trying to run a marathon with a half-ton millstone around your neck, I have to say I am suitably impressed at this person's accomplishments. Significantly more impressed than I would be if she were a man or a…

Exactly because her kid is in someone else's womb. Are you also in favor of forced abortions when the father does not want the child and the mother does?