@PrisonBreakShaker: It's true!!! Thank you, I feel so much better. My whole childhood was dismantled by American Studies and I'm trained in Middle Eastern Studies, so I'm just a hot cynical mess 24/7 now.

@Buffalove: As an American Studies PhD, my brain pretty much exploded. Ditto x100 on everything you wrote.

And that's just the point, Madge, this IS America.

Some of those outfits look like she pillaged the wardrobe department of the Ice Capades... unsupervised.

Every picture I see of Michelle Obama I think, "Now that's the kind of lady I want people to think of when they think of 'American' women: strong, fearless, classy, intelligent, accessible and not spewing patronizing bullsh*t at women in the so-called 'developing' world."

Please, if my kid wanted to be RuPaul, Rambo, or a table lamp, I'd be thrilled that he actually had a personality, individuality, and the chutzpah to say, "Hellz yes, I'm going as (a) _________. Like it or lump it!"

I remember a childhood friend's mother married a guy who owned a couple of McDonald's franchises. While they were dating and then after they got engaged, he would bring her the most recent toy displays, with the toys still intact, as gifts. I just remember thinking, "That b*tch got every single Fraggle toy without…

I'm not sure that I have the worst roommate as I have "Worst Ever Track Record for Roommates." Every year I inevitably say, "This could not possibly get any worse." I stopped saying that my second year of grad school.

@Future Cat Lady of America: I voted in Virginia for Krystal Ball.

I voted in Virginia. I then had to carefully explain to my elderly mother in Pennsylvania that yes, this morning I voted for a woman with the same name as a popular fortune telling device and that no, her name was not "Ouija Board."

@xpenley: YES! Love.

The night my Daddy died, he had fallen out of bed from an aneurysm and while my Mummy was calling the ambulance, Wooster (our bonkers, 15 year-old Maine Coon) stretched-out right on the floor beside my father, stayed right where he was and kept purring until Daddy slipped-away. The little guy knew instinctively what…

A classroom full of undergraduates, regardless of topic, is the most fascinating study in human development and the spread of contagious disease (especially when you teach Spring semester when they're not only sick but also randy). It's a sociologist's wet dream. I'm not a sociologist, but I think just sitting in on…

The best part about this Marie Claire disaster is that on the COVER of their vapid waste of paper and shelf space is none other than Victoria Beckham, a woman, who although I actually really like, spends most of her time and money maintaining her signature look of "Pez Dispenser in Perpetual Mourning."

"A winged skull symbolises ascension into heaven." Last time I checked, Hell involved descension, but eh, details!