I’m not scared of flying at all, but I seem to kind of break through to the other side: I kind of believe that my life is totally out of my control after the doors shut, and have this weird liberating feeling of being a disengaged spectator.

“A great bushy beard!”

The woman living above me had sex like she was being mauled by a bear. This means that in the middle of the night, I’d be woken by the sounds of groans, grunts, and these long guttural howl-things that sounded like bloodlust. Words were rarely used, it was almost all pure animalistic frenzy.

The quiet car is my favorite! Partly because it’s quiet, and partly because when someone starts talking or making noise the entire car turns on them like we’re suddenly in a Shirley Jackson short story. It adds to the experience.

Farm life is different, but there are some points you’re glossing over here:

The weakness or immunity determines whether or not the asshole attacks you, but then there’s another level of how you respond to that attack: you might snap back and not care, you might snap back and hate the person, you might not snap back and not care, you might not snap back and hate the person.

Unfortunately, some people respond to sweetness and light with a sort of avid viciousness. Full-on Vandemar-and-Croup style of “there’s something nice and pretty, I’d like to completely destroy it.”

Sometimes someone is a complete shit to 97% of the people they encounter, but there are certain people in their life who are immune. I have a friend like that - on some level I understand that she is a legitimately terrible individual who flies off the handle and is makes others miserable, but for some reason the two…

“But remember this important piece of advice: Australians are just for the weekend.”

Honestly, I think Jesuits and the nuns have usually been on the same page: cut the bullshit and actually do something. So this feels about right.

It turns out that I am only interested in people who post about their babies (or dogs or boyfriends) if it’s funny. Luckily I mostly have very funny friends.

I have never experienced more startling ends of the spectrum than in academia. That means while I ran into some truly thoughtful, wonderful people who really made me believe in the value of a life spent constantly learning, I also met some individuals who had walled themselves in and knew how to use the lingo, but had…

Yeah, this is what happens when you’re in academia too long and forget that figurative/theoretical does not stand up well to practical/actual.

All those old ladies, lusting after that sweet turkey-baster action?

I guess she’s got 13 other kids to help out...?

I feel like Vili Fualaau and “Gone Girl”’s Nick Dunne would have some very interesting, insightful conversations about life.

Yeah, it’s very disturbing to see the “but married, so okay!” structure laid on top of this.

They moved to Alaska. Mary Kay stayed in the same community, so dad said “fuck this shit” and took the kids to Alaska.

My danger reaction is bright, cheerful chatter filled with lots of questions, which is weirdly effective. The guy who broke into my house (came in through the window while I was sitting right there) got peppered with smiling questions as to who he was looking for and let me give you the number of my landlord and oh…

Does anyone know if there’s some sort of active program to, I don’t know, de-escalate the behavior of individuals who transition from the armed forces to civilian police work?