I've loved so many an article since the dawn of the Toast...and I love this the BEST. I am one of these hermits with a stoic face and a walled-off heart, like the Siberian lady, but that doesn't mean I don't long for hugs. It feels very good to know some want to attempt snuggles with my ilk and--even better!--my favorite internet writer is included in that group.

The nausea caused by the Hello Kitty detail. The closing remark about Miss Saigon, and claiming what's owed you...

This piece really matters.

Not because it helps anyone who doesn't experience this to be more compassionate.

No. Right here on this page, the experience of being exociticised IS the default. Thanks for claiming it as so. It's healing for so many of us.

You'll always be a part of bees
I'm part of you indefinitely
Boy don't you know you can't escape bees
Ooh darling 'cause you'll always be my baby

Thank you so, so much for this. The parts about feeling really seen, like hearing your name, and about being read alongside your mother got me good in the gut :)

I'm White Latina, with whatever indigenous ancestry I have being visible enough to mark me as also not White, and it's special to know other people have the same questions and feelings that I have. Like, things that mark me as Latina feel so good, even though it means being read as inferior in the U.S.

Because race is constructed differently up and down the americas it took me a long, long while to parse out one-drop stuff from the you-simply-are-what-most-people-read-you-are. And that nationality and race are completely separate things. To acknowledge that "mestizo" or White indicate *cultures* too. I've felt anger, feelings it's disingenuous for white Latinos to claim they're people of color if they're mostly white and are read as such. I've felt shame for not knowing where I fit.

Beyond race and the fact that there are of course hordes of white Latinos, it's been strengthening to remember that Latina is a culture-ethnicity that's immutable in me as a mixed race woman, regardless of how other latinos react when I fail at rolling my rr, or when I'm cornered and prodded as an exotic curiosity by white men.

Again, thank you for this candid piece.

Okay so I'd like to introduce the Brazen Bull. http://youtu.be/fBN_3YJKZrY

I highly recommend the Rothenberg aub Der Tauber Torture museum while celebrating Christmas in Germany. It's where I learned about the cage for drowning "bakers of too small bread," among other methods of justice.
http://www.history-of-germany.com/?scid=rothenbur...

Well, FifthBear, the German medieval punishment and torture museum I visited on Christmas vacation told a different story.

The men on the bus all spread their legs
spread their legs
spread their legs
So vulnerable
like soft boiled eggs
should your hot thermos fall down.

Oh, I like to slice the space between me and seat companion if they abuse the armrest-up idea, as well. It reminds me of using the paper cutter in my grade school's office. I think if we're going for the long-game here, see if you can start with the armrest up, because they will always use it to enter your seat space and then you get to slice slice slice and they never come back after the slice.

One thing: if you're seated beside a couple who has the armrest between them drawn up, you have rights to the shared armrest because you don't have anybody to canoodle with, regardless of the gender of your neighbor. I flew from Panama to Houston as a petite 20 year old, seated between the window and a married couple. The woman to my right was fierce. We stayed locked in silent battle for over an hour, gaining and losing millimeters. Soon, lunch was served, and I was pleasantly surprised by the savory herbed focaccia sandwich I ate while keeping my elbow in place. When the pilot announced that a crack had developed in the cockpit window, air pressure was dropping, and we would be making an emergency landing in Nicaragua, the woman started to cry and clutched her husband, relinquishing her half of the armrest. The lush volcanic valleys below were becoming clearer by the second. I was eating an amazing sandwich, and I had won the armrest. We slept on cots in the airport, but the armrest thing really lifted my spirits throughout it.