I totally agree! I'm still mad because my year and a half or so on birth control fifteen years ago was awful, expensive, made my migraines worse, and messed with my metabolism in a way that I haven't really recovered from.

This is AMAZING—my Kazakh husband, who recently discovered Rebecca's blog, was reading me a section where a taxi driver insists on calling her Barbara after she tells him her name, just as I scrolled down to Rebecca's section! Hi Rebecca! We love your blog! Also, you've inspired me to try and see if I can get a…

I know, right?? We have all white frames (and white-based sheets, white curtains, etc.) because our apartment is the size of a postage stamp and we're trying to create the illusion of space.

I invest in Ikea framing and feel very classy.

My husband, who is generally supportive and kind, often turns into a needy whiner when I'm sick. I hate it so much. He develops a headache or "the flu" when I have migraines. I had gastroenteritis a few weeks ago, spent the entire night vomiting, etc., and was too weak in the morning to do anything like stand up for…

In Kazakh—a lot of Kazakh people think of him as Kazakh because his mother was supposedly from a proto-Kazakh tribe—it's Shinggis (with short "i"s). It means "victory" in Kazakh. My husband and I were thinking of this as a name for our first-born, especially me (I mean, if you're going to marry into a nationality who…

When I was pregnant, it was the whole "eat tuna! It's good for the baby! But only in minute amounts! It's bad for the baby! Eat 0.005-2 servings per week!" fuckery that finally made me ignore any fish rules (other than the straight-out "don't eat these" ones) and just eat however much I wanted. Because following…

Someone told me (I'm an American transplant in Canada) that Family Day was just created to be able to coincide with Presidents' Day (or is it that one? I should know but I don't. One of them.) in the U.S. so that business and trading schedules would match.

Yes. My sadistic, Narcissist/Borderline mother died when I was 23, and I was *relieved.* And, bad at times thought it's been, my life is better for it, because I don't have someone in it who wants to destroy it and smile about destroying it, and nobody's pressuring me to have that person in my life either. (Well, some…

Thanks!

Me too. I have some degree of gluten intolerance (wasn't aware that it was a thing—just ate all lower-gluten rye bread instead of wheat while living in a Nordic country, because it was there, lost 30 lbs and felt much much better, fewer migraines, less bloating, etc.). When I eat zero gluten, I feel best. But I can…

They'd be able to tell I'm not Turkish from Turkey, though they usually couldn't place me. If I claimed to be Turkish from Germany, I'd be seen as rich, so no discounts (ditto American, plus all American women are supposed to be easy and pining for dark lovers). Russian women are supposed to be prostitutes or…

This is not nearly as cool as your story, but when I lived in Turkey as a student I would lie in the bazaars and say I was Azeri, faking the accent and all, to get better discounts. I'm fluent in Turkish and look like I could be any number of different nationalities from, say, Prague to Siberia. I'm American of half…

I stay at home with my toddler, who's 19 months old and likes to destroy and rearrange things, especially the latter. Mr. Chortcake is in the habit of leaving half his wardrobe on the living room sofa at any given time, and leaving his rubber flip-flops in the tiny entryway in a place that ensures that they wedge the…

I'm lactose-intolerant and I love this article! When I was living in Finland, though, I found it really cute to see all these dignified adults in burger places sitting with their hamburgers and glasses of milk.

This may not be the same thing, but it also reminds me of when I was working at Barnes and Voldemugggh and people would sometimes request gift wrapping for their books at the register. The guys working the register at the same time I was would always toss the books at me and go, "AAGH FIX IT I CAN'T!11" I have…

Ohh! I also have a weird system of note-taking that involves pictures and shorthand that I developed over the years that borrows from four or five languages, including Chinese. I also only write down what I personally will need to write down, and tend to absorb the rest mentally. In my last job, where we monitored…

You're not alone. I didn't make any messes (didn't use the microwave, washed my own dishes, never let my stuff sit in the fridge for more than a few hours if at all, etc.), but I also never volunteered to clean the fridge (just did it once there was a rotating schedule), or take meeting notes when it wasn't part of my…

Absolutely. Also, I love baking and had started bringing things into the office when I was working, but it was completely misinterpreted. I'm not going to do that again.

I still don't really know how to make coffee, and it's deliberate so that I can refuse whenever someone might ask at work once I'm working again. (I'm not opposed to coffee but I'm more of a tea drinker.) The only time I was ever asked to make coffee was at my one NON-admin job, in which I was a fancypants analyst and…