I would wear this too! I love couch chic! (Not being sarcastic—I literally just made a skirt out of upholstery fabric.)

I’m straight-sized with plus-sized boobs, and I had the same revelation a little while ago! I found a beautiful seersucker on-sale dress in Gap that was ostensibly in “my” size, but I could tell that it would never in a million years fit over my boobs. I started to feel bummed about it, but then I was like, OK, most…

Thank you! :)

Ugh, people are awful. I conceived my two-year-old son on the first try and am now about to have IUI because of infertility (high prolactin, probably stress-related). I’ve spent the past year trying to get successful treatment and answers for the high prolactin, which appeared right when we decided to try again for…

Aahh! I had the same fear while pregnant! Also, I have a really big (skinny but tall) fetus/baby/kid who was low and in front, and also two very large fibroids and no weight gain or appearance change except for the baby bump, so people (mostly strangers) felt totally OK with going up to me and saying all kinds of…

Exactly! Also, the Pepperberry sales staff all seemed to be people who fit the store’s demographic and were wearing Pepperberry-type clothes, and they all looked so...I don’t know, sartorially comfortable and confident in a way rarely seen in the same demographic in the US. I wanted to be one of them!

I love this comment so hard. Also, we stopped in London for three days on the way to my husband’s home country and I spent 3+ hours in a Bravissimo/Pepperberry store, stocking up. It was amazing. I bought bras and the first well-fitting blouse and cardigan of my post-development life. I suspect that if I lived in the…

Faack, that’s awful, and so familiar! I’m in Toronto, and only now, four years after starting my search as an immigrant new to the system, have a decent female family doctor (GP). It took three months of calling and doing very little else until I found a female doctor (who turned out to be batshit and then quit, and I…

Your MIL sounds so very, very similar to mine. Just minus the church part (they’re casual Muslims in Central Asia), it is pretty much what she envisioned for Mr. Chortcake, her wayward golden child. Also, the first time we stayed there (it’s been two month-long visits five years apart), she was even shittier to me…

Ha! Yeah, they’re kind of landlocked, aren’t they?

Amen! I’m a smart prude, and I’ve always felt like people expect a certain caretaking and/or much more actively sexual persona from me, complete with a particular aesthetic, and that it’s almost laughable or unappealing or something that I don’t know what to “do” with my boobs (which for them would mean being sexy and…

I know, right?? I’m a 32H and once I actually DID go into Lane Bryant to check, and they got very annoyed and were like, “we don’t carry your size. At all. In any way.” But people still keep suggesting it.

I’ve always liked and disliked those same things! Now that I’m 36, I find that it becomes incrementally less weird in the eyes of others to like what I like as time goes on. It’s also great now that pretty much nobody thinks I should like staying out late and going to loud clubs.

I’ve never been to Uzbekistan and can’t say for sure, but Mr. Chortcake is Kazakh from an Uzbek-majority area just over the border in Kazakhstan, and they generally believe there regardless of ethnic group that the bigger you are, the better. I don’t think fat-shaming or diet culture will ever catch on. Somebody told…

I love everything about your comment, especially the toss-up at the end (I have a two-year-old and I hear ya), and the part about your daughter staring at bottles. With our son it’s metal grilles or filigree or chains of any kind. Kids are interesting.

I agree with all of this! I have a just-turned-two-year-old, and he’s pretty good about being quiet in eating establishments (it helps that we take him a lot to this shawarma joint where these kind guys who love him work). On the relatively rare occasion that he loses his shit, we take him outside. The only time I…

I agree. I grew up in the United States with intermittent access to health insurance, and spent periods of time in my twenties uninsured (though not by choice). A key reason I was excited about immigrating to Canada with my husband five years ago was the idea—that Canada advertises very heavily—of compassionate…

I’ve always had this issue too, though the gap is closing (I’m 36 and people usually guess 27-28 these days). I think it’s from my grandparents, who are toxically self-absorbed and at least emotional, if not actual, vampires. They’re around 90 and look 65, from what I can see from pictures since I’m not in contact…

He’s not a full-fledged ex, but this one guy I know who liked me and pursued me until I responded positively, but then didn’t want me but also didn’t want anybody else to have me, put me on limited Facebook profile when I got married. I know him well enough to know that it was intended to be retaliatory.

I totally agree! I live in Toronto, and many of the subway stops are extremely stupidly designed so that you have to hug the edge while walking to the stairs or elevator, and I’m always on high alert, especially since I usually have my toddler in a stroller with me. It fucking sucks, and this makes it more difficult…