Wow. I mean, did she think she was just saying how beautiful your eyes were? My mom once turned to me in the grocery store checkout line and said, “Well, I guess you’re finally growing into your nose.”

Bookmarking this for later...can’t wait to read all the sure-to-be-awesome suggestions in the comments! I love using Goodreads to organize my books, but I seem to be mostly friends with people who only read mass-market romance and mystery, which just aren’t my thing, so I rarely get any good ideas of things to read…

My favorite thing about Rainbow Rowell is that she has said that, unless otherwise specified, all her women characters are plus-sized. NOT THE OPPOSITE. You can get a sense of this in how she describes them, but she never uses pejorative or judgmental language to describe larger-than-average size.

Ugh, that’s the worst. I’m an only child so fortunately missed out on that kind of comparison, but I take after my dad’s mom physically (sturdy Eastern European peasant stock), so my mom never missed an opportunity to point out that “you just have a different body type,” ie. the wrong kind.

*sing to tune of “Jukebox Hero”*

“Wait —my legs go HERE? You’ll have to excuse me, I’m a rookie at this!”

Omfg

Ugh, moms are so weird. She probably read some article about female hair loss and was obsessing about it. (That's what my mom would do, anyways.)

I’m sure there are lots of different reasons people say these things, and I’m not sure my mom is fully aware of why she did it, or even THAT she did it. She even expressed surprise that she had been hurtful to me for so many years. I think in her case she was internalizing behavior that she learned from her own mom,…

I don’t have kids myself, but I hear this a lot - women who either weren’t able to say anything to their moms about the bodysnarking, or weren’t heard, until they had their own daughters. The stakes get much higher when you need to shield your own kid from that kind of negativity. Good luck!

Ha - my mom once said to me after I had broken up with a boyfriend, “maybe if you wore more makeup, E wouldn’t have broken up with you.” (I may have actually blacked out from rage, so not exactly sure that’s what she said, but it was along those lines.)

In retrospect I think it took some growth on both our parts. I was probably about 30 by the time I was able to just say to her, these things you say just aren’t nice, and what is the purpose other than to make me feel bad about myself. Part of that was feeling like more of an “equal” in terms of being fully adult, I…

My mom, picking me up from college one year: Have you gained weight, or is it just your new haircut?

Basically every possible situation on an airplane gives dicks the opportunity to be dicks. And no, I'm not one of them.

When I travel with someone I always book us into aisle seats across from each other. That way we still get to be next to each other but nobody has to be in the middle.

Interesting. I often try to go with the row behind the exit row because the exit row seats don’t recline, plus I’m close to the exit without having to pay extra. I haven’t noticed if I’m less likely to have a middle seat neighbor in that row but I will pay attention to that now!

Depending on the airline, this is also when economy plus/comfort seats that haven't sold will sometimes be made available for no extra charge. I know Delta does this, but JetBlue does not.

There’s no need to be rude. As I replied above, I should have been more specific. But also, there isn’t necessarily merit to every lawsuit, and judges interpret things differently.

Yes, I agree (see my reply above).

Yes, I should have been more specific. Each fair use case has to be considered on its own merits, true. And there are precedents for both affirmation and rejection of sampling being considered fair use.