Mr. Slowtraincoming is Mexican, as is his family. The first time I spent Thanksgiving with them, they served lasagne. Now, 363 days a year, I'm down with cultural variety. But no one was watching football, there were no mashed potatoes, and there wasn't even a turkey (it was a chicken). At that point, I took over…

Dear Non-American, I want to talk to you about something revolutionary that will change your life. It's called the Green Bean Casserole. I know, since you're not American, you're thinking, "Green beans are good. They don't need cheese or cream or anything else! Why can't you diabetes patients ever just eat a…

I thought about that, but I knew that Jay Rubin translated this one, and he translated The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Norwegian Wood, After Dark...

I agree with all of the above, except that Tengo's character feels very intentionally that way to me. Without going to spoiler city—since I don't know how far you or other commenters/readers are in the book—I'm thinking of the focus on vacuums, and how that's reflected in him. Not that he's vacant, but sort of,…

The only thing my mom craved while she was pregnant with me was McDonald's cheeseburgers. And somehow, I managed to get born and survive for almost 29 years now. I'll go ahead an exhale a sigh of relief for J. Simp now.

There are a couple moments (I mentioned one downthread about Tengo's penis being imagined to be "big and strong") that are just...silly. I think Murakami typically writes sex very well, but in that book, he has some moments. Plot-wise, it's fantastic. But I think the writing is a little below his usual level, to be…

I love me some Murakami, but there's a sentence I actually underlined in 1Q84 where a character is thinking of a now-grown-up boy's junk, and she says, "By now, his genitals would be big and strong." And I wanted to puke everywhere. I've literally never used the phrase "big and strong" without being sarcastic. And,…

The opening music of "King of Queens" makes me wanna take a bath with my toaster—and I live in Queens!

I don't really understand this whole thing. Does Whitney seriously get better ratings than Community? Why can't they just ditch Whitney and go back to the old Community-Parks & Rec-Office-30 Rock schedule? It feels like there's some inexplicable reason NBC wants Whitney to succeed—and it's not because it's such…

To be fair, she just said her girlfriends, who could be either gay, straight, or anywhere on the sexual orientation spectrum. The only sexual orientation she did specify was that of her male friends.

Jezebel, seriously? As men, you are to be our protectors. I've typed probably 30 responses about how hetero- and gender-normative that sentence is, how it seeks to undermine the very tenets of feminism, how it should fly in the face of everything this website stands for. I know Jezebel can be out of its depth when…

Dear Dan Savage,

Maybe House Hunters (domestic and international) is the cure for what ails this country. Because even I, a religion-averse person, watched an episode with what I thought might be missionaries (I have a spider sense for these things) moving to Guatemala to open a school for women's education (women's religious…

No, we're going to Vietnam. But we originally wanted to go to Barcelona and then we saw one in Nicaragua and I looked at Mr. Slowtraincoming and said, "I think we're barking up the wrong tree. We want markets and handicrafts, not the same overpriced stores and museums that we don't even bother to visit here [NYC]." …

This is something else I've noticed! You're either a domestic or international House Hunter, but never both! Mr. Slowtraincoming and I are strictly international. Who wants to see how people live in Louisville, Kentucky? Show me Nicaragua! (While you're thinking, "I might actually live in Louisville one day,…

I have yet to meet someone who is not absolutely involved with House Hunters International. It's the only show on tv that my conservative aunt and my "radical queer performance artist" (whatever that means) best friend both watch.

Tell me this is 100% true. I don't want to repeat this like those people that claim to have known someone who had twin students named Oranjello and Lemonjello.

My sister was in an in-patient center for two separate, 28-day treatments for anorexia when I was in high school. My family lived in Michigan at the time, where the insurance companies do not cover in-patient eating disorder care because, get this, they don't recognize eating disorders as a disease (or at least, they…

I see, so since it's fiction, it has no responsibility to ensure that the messages that it communicates on a weekly basis are accurate, right? I mean, they should do several episodes where Kurt is called a faggot and nothing comes of it. And then one where Mercedes is bullied for being fat so she gets plastic…

That I thought showed a non-denial that Kim has issues. Though I guess I wondered to what end, since what would she have even done if Kim was drinking?