This is a really good idea that makes me wish all my vague book memories weren't SO vague. I have had one book gnawing at me for years even though pretty much all I've got is, "There was a lot of talk about plaid and house guests. I think they were near the ocean?" I should probably try to let that one go.

As one of those nerdy kids who was also terrible at science, I will never be able to say stuff like "what's cool about milk" because I don't know a damn thing about milk OR being cool. :(

Interesting. I did think it was fair and legitimate but... you know what, I am just going to go read it again and try to shift my appraisal of the tone.

Sorry if I scared anyone off reading it! It just made me a little sad is all.

Yeah, I had the same thought. Not like I thought the reply was disastrous or anything - just one of those "I wish this didn't have to exist"-level bummers.

NB: If you didn't click on the Gaitskill piece because you've already seen it, looks like the Rumpus added a response from Gaitskill today and it kind of deflated MY boner a little tbh.

I'm immediately suspicious of any recipe that tells you to use cast iron on high heat. That pan is going to get way too hot and it's going to stay that way forever. When I set my cast iron skillet on to heat up, medium is about as high as I go for any task (and yeah, obviously that depends somewhat on your stove, but I maintain that high is invariably too high).

I agree that that is an interesting point to be discussed, as far as asking: who is encouraged to think that childlessness is tragic, and who is not?

I mean, it's not to vilify individuals who have experienced pain, but to what extent is that narrative encouraged among certain populations that are deemed more fit to raise children? Every woman is not allowed to feel that way equally. While some women are sneered at and deemed irresponsible (that's putting it mildly - there are people in power right now who literally pin most of society's problems on women having children who "shouldn't") for wanting children, we give a suspiciously loud voice to other women who want them. Not to say that all women who seek to adopt are like this, but I've definitely read a number of sympathetically presented adoption stories in major publications that detail the pain of having everything one ever desired - except a child, and then basically having to put up with a few years worth of hassles, at which point they usually do end up with a child.

I don't think it's unreasonable to ask why that one experience is so newsworthy, when so many other experiences are not given any outlet at all. I don't think it's unreasonable to point out that having to struggle mightily to get something someone wants is most people's reality, and many of them will never actually achieve that thing.

So yes, I very much agree that we should be talking more about the personal pain involved on all sides, and how we all are taught to conceive of what specific kind of pain we are encouraged, allowed, or forced to feel.

Ugh, anti-white-chocolate people. White chocolate contains cocoa butter, which is the priciest and most temperamental part of chocolate, so you'd think food snobs would be all about it.

(And also it's delicious, and versatile, but then I haven't really met a chocolate I didn't like or couldn't find a use for.)

oh god I hope the sheets were black

Was just starting to think that this wasn't as fun as I thought it would be, minus the 'venting about someone who actually hurt you' angle, but then I remembered the guy who dragged me all the way out to Bushwick (this was a while ago, and the way the subway is in Brooklyn made this very remote from my own Brooklyn neighborhood, and it's not like you could just hail a cab there, and also it's very possible I didn't have sufficient carfare anyway) and then 'changed his mind' and left me to make it all the way back home by myself at like 4 a.m. which took hours AND I REALLY HAD TO PEE and had already told him that I really needed to pee. Like, SERIOUSLY fuck that guy.

He was very, very cute, and very fun, except for that one thing.