Underneath my yellow skin

Loving yourself unconditionally

Most people I know, including myself, have self-esteem issues. It seems pretty endemic in being a human being–thinking you’re shit, I mean. Of course, it’s to varying degree, and there are outright narcissists who think they’re better than everyone else. But even within that group, many of them need constant praise in order to pump… Continue Reading

Family dysfunction: the gift that keeps on giving

I have pretty much given up on Slate advice columns because I don’t like most of the columnists and, to be frak, the commentariat is….not my cup of tea in general. Or rather, I never know which way they’re going to swing, and it’s frustrating to me. For the most part, I can guess which… Continue Reading

Fashion frustration

It is not a secret that in fashion, personal care, and hygiene, women pay mor ethan men do. I’m intentionally using the binary because that’s what most products are marketed at and as–men and women. A woman’s t-shirt will cost more than the male version because, ostensibly, it takes more tailoring. Uh huh. You would… Continue Reading

Silence and space are my love language

There’s a thing called love languages and it’s horse shit. The end. I’m just kidding. Not about it being horse shit, but I can’t really say that because I haven’t read the whole book. I know it’s heavily Christian and has rigid gender roles, which is pretty much all these books. Like The Rules back… Continue Reading

Private versus personal and reasonable boundaries

When I was a kid, I was taught that there was nothing about the family that you could say to anyone not in the family. I’m not talking about big things like marital difficulties (though, that, of course, was also verboten), but about the little things. The story I tell over and over goes like… Continue Reading