Only soy milk for baking, if you don’t do dairy. In a pinch, or if you’re soy-intolerant, you can use cashew, because it has more body. Almond milk in baking is disgusting.

I’m a size 2/4 and used to be a 14/16—everything doesn’t fit now, and doesn’t flatter (I can look like Gollum if I’m not careful). The difference is I have a lot more choice when I look for flattering things, and also a lot of people are willing to let something iffy pass on me than they would when I was bigger.

Yep. I learned my sense of style as a larger woman, and I love exaggerated cuts and big, big statement accessories—I was always told that they suited me, too, because of my size. I now get the message that I’m supposed to scale down (I lost weight, and I’m kinda short) but I don’t want to, although I still sometimes…

Yes, yes, and yes. We can’t let the normative beauty police steal a good word like “flattering.” When I was on the cusp of plus-size clothing, I considered something flattering if it was my colour, if it worked with my body (not hid my body), if it didn’t pull or look cheap and ill-fitting. Not to derail the…

Addendum: workout clothing in technical synthetics. Everything else, natural.

83 doesn’t look so great now that I’m 50 and aiming at at least a century, but yep, it’s not bad. The thing that’s getting me this year is the fact that my cultural touchstones are all going. Some of them are old enough that it’s legitimate, and that’s almost worse.

HA! Everything gets old indeed, and everything edgy gets dull (I remember listening to Marilyn Manson back when he was Alice Cooper—Alice Cooper is now a Republican golf nerd). When you get old enough, it will seem like a victory again, this time for old people not giving up (especially if nobody is making money off…