“For some reason, this issue of atomic bombs has become a paramount issue for the Japanese.” - Mike Pence, circa 1945

As I have written before, my daughter died when she was five in 2011, two months after being diagnosed with an inoperable and malignant brain tumor. There is no cure for her type of tumor - DIPG - and current treatments do little more than extend life for a few months.

As we know more about her, her brand looks more and more tacky. Tweeting about champagne popsicles on Memorial Day? Tacky. Photo of herself in a ballgown with her baby-faced huckster of a husband’s hand on her ass? Tacky. Daddy is tacky, Stepmommy is tacky, her ghost-written book is tacky. Setting herself up with an…

Wal-Mart epitomizes almost everything modern conservatives claim to hate. The stores are filled with products made overseas. Wal-Marts drive ‘family’ owned businesses into bankruptcy and have devastated small communities. The wages are so low they actually help their employees apply for government services.

I’ve only ever seen her stuff at places like Marshalls or TJ Maxx or on amazon. Before all this trump president fever dream nightmare, I sort of equated her brand as slightly down market than Jessica Simpson (I will admit to owning more than few Jessica Simpson dresses).

Well, that’s the difference, though. Love marriages (good ones that seem like they are going to be pleasant) generally start out with sexual chemistry + some shared ideals + liking each other as people. To only have the shared ideals and possibly have the liking each other as people but not have the sexual chemistry…

Ugh, I can’t imagine what kind of horror show of a man my parents would choose for me. My father would probably insist on picking a “good Christian” for me, the atheist. My mother’s idea of attractive certainly doesn’t align with mine at all. Yuck, I can’t imagine having to sleep with someone I wasn’t attracted to.…

My parents were very conservative first generation Italian-Americans. Neither finished high school. Both expected me to stay one until Married. Since I started trying to run away from home at age 7, that wasn’t going to happen! I got to college because they didn’t have to pay much (back in the days of nearly free…

This article (or at least the headline) is really, really bad advice for anybody who lives in a city or suburb. Local governments have written laws explicitly addressing this. If you fail to mow your lawn and keep it at a reasonable length, the local municipal government will show up at your house and mow your lawn…

That’s how I got my middle name. Grandmother’s maiden name didn’t have anyone to continue the name, so I was given the maiden name as my middle name to continue it in some way. I’ll probably give it to one of my kids to continue it on in its own way.

Hummingbird assassins sounds like some super secret CIA program.

As the alias implies, I live in Barcelona. I got married to Mr. Barkce this Friday (wheee) and am not changing my name nor does anyone expect it. No one in Spain takes their partner’s surname so it’s pretty grand. That being said because of the traditional naming system, children end up with two surnames (father’s…

Me too! Whenever we went up north to a cottage, my family would be plagued by mosquitoes yet they always left me alone after they landed on my skin. I do not know why. Now wasps on the other hand, seem to love me. So needless to say, I do not like going outside at all.

YES!!! I am feeling the same way. I actually looked into changing my kids’ names legally so they had both last names but it looks like a total pain in the ass...

What about a hyphenated name for your kids? I think that’s the way they do it in England.

Your medication is totally playing a role in the mosquito avoidance. Your blood isn’t attracting them anymore. My brother and I can sit next to each other and I will have 10 bites and he will have none. I tell him it’s because of his demon blood. Or that they know he’s the middle child.

That’s incredible! Good on you for doing whatever you can to keep that information alive. I wish my mother and I had been able to do the same with her father, who survived gun running on the USS California during the Pearl Harbor attack (and got a Purple Heart), but he was staunchly private. Like, to this day — and…

This is on point. Do I keep my father’s name, a man I do not like by any measure and whose family is just awful? Or take up another man’s name like I’m expected to by society in general?

When I bought the .com of my family’s surname, my brother jokingly told me that I’ve now done more to secure the family name than he ever could have.

I think that’s a great idea!