One time, my friend’s brother’s cousin’s neighbor’s sister’s stepdaughter’s boyfriend was walking by a park wearing a baseball cap, and the next thing you know, he was captured, forced to play short stop for six months, and then won the World Series.

I am confused. Why would I force a person to play basketball with me if he/she was dressed like a basketball player? Does that happen? Forced basketballery?

I have often said, when the time comes for my pets and others’ to leave us, that the only consolation is that life gets so much easier. It doesn’t make us miss them less, or have loved them less. I understand the relief. They enrich our lives while they’re with us, and they free us when they leave us. It’s possible to…

Thank you so much for sharing your story.

This is brilliant, thank you for writing it. And just to help you contextualize your experience a little, the second-largest group of women needing abortion in the U.S., (though not Canada) is women between 40 and 45 who are mothers. It’s not you, though your copper IUD failure is a spectacular one!

So you’re saying you made a well thought out, reasonable decision about your health and your body; the people responsible for it did not judge or subject you to their personal bias; and your supportive partner was there for you and cared for you before, during and after.

I was 13-14 in the mid-70s, and I got a lot of attention from grown men. I was thrilled by it. Boys my age either ignored me, barked at me, or called me names. Adult men talked to me like I was a person, admired me, complemented me. At the time, it was bliss, and I felt it made me special. And thanks mainly to a lack…

I appreciate your willingness to write a story that reflects deep ambivalence. I think there isn’t enough of that anymore (everything is always strident and polarized) but you did a great job sitting with the murkiness of what this all means about Bowie’s legacy.

tfw in the 1980s the DNC decided you were too dumb to vote so they’d handle it for you

Seriously. I had a 30% chance of having a successful vaginal delivery. So I opted not to try at all, even though my OB said I could try labor if I wanted. It never occurred to me to ask my then-spouse’s opinion on how I should deliver the baby. Like, I’m doing all the work here, it is 100% my choice of how it gets…

holy moses my dad was talking about this just a week ago. he was basically all but shaming my mom for having me via c-section and thus robbing me of those potent microbiomes that have left me an emotionally bereft glutten-eating heathen of schlubbiness.

maybe we should like

of course she should not be forced to do so...but she should be continually pressured to do so.

Whew yeah. That’s, that’s pretty not-good. Kinda like they went down the list of tropes:

I’m not a parent, but the thought of being in the position those parents found themselves in fills me with a kind of blind, impotent rage that brings angry tears to my eyes.

Egging property will get your shot dead in this country. Raping minors gets side eye for inappropriate behavior.

The incident only ended when his parents arrived.

As we address the inappropriate behavior displayed by several students ...

Two of these assaults took place on the bus.