Feeling this so hard. "Hi, I'm Erika...I make jokes when I'm uncomfortable." (Didn't Bitches used to be about another kind of...feeling someone. Gropes Epic nostalgically)

This sentence is giving me actual heart eyes.

I sort of...blinked and missed almost three entire weeks of the board? (I know, blah blah time blindnesscakes, but still, wow)

Epic, I'm so sorry to hear about your friend.

Aw, thanks. Not to say that I *am* Chandler, but it was hard to hear my brother(who is only three years younger than I and should get it more) complaining about all the Perry tributes. Like Chandler, I had food that made me sad about my parents' divorce(or, rather, them sniping at the table) for quite a few years...that's where the ham and pineapple pizza came from.. Mom and A. wanted to order pizza and, at the time, I couldn't abide the thought of one that would taste like the ones we used to have.(I've kind of gotten over that, now...it comes up so much more often than turkey with all the trimmings would. Still like ham and pineapple, though. Maybe it always comes from pain.) Latest would-be Chandler moment: Our big boss,who is lowkey with us, but Impressive in certain other progressive circles was on a panel called "What Progressives Should Do About Biden" and I like to make him laugh. So I said "Sorry I couldn't be there, but I'm guessing the answer wasn't 'make it look like an accident.'" If the Secret Service talks to me, I'll call it research. I'm sorry, Epic.

Didn't Bitches used to be about another kind of...feeling someone. Gropes Epic nostalgically)

I have missed that element of Bitches, now you mention it. *Gropes Erika back*

So I said "Sorry I couldn't be there, but I'm guessing the answer wasn't 'make it look like an accident.'" If the Secret Service talks to me, I'll call it research.

Made me snort-laugh too.

Epic, I'm so sorry to hear about your friend.

Thanks, guys. I appreciate having a place to process it. Mortality: I'm not a fan.

Ooh, hands in, well, gently-used places.(Not much can be truly new if you've had time to post for twenty years, but, okay, new for us.) As far as mortality goes, in theory, I appreciate that some people, including me, might do better with a deadline, but even some of my most nutbag profs, or the activists whom I swear never sleep or find themselves laughing at an episode of King of Queens that feels fresh because they've only watched it three times, could never be as arbitrary about changing things up as The Powers That Be. That is where I cry foul. It might be different if we all got, say, ninety fully mobile years to use as we saw fit,(and, of course a shot at stuff so great that even then, with the extended warranty, we complain at the end.) For a lot of us, it's not like that. Not that, to quote Denis Leary, I'm making any plans.(I *did* get to quote that back to Denis online once...a bucket-list item I didn't know to want...another reason why a demise I'm taking hard is twitter's). Even if I can sort of, I don't know, visit it in the convalescent place...we all know it isn't...well, I'd better stop with that thought or you won't let the Adapted Angel of Death visit you in the hospital.

Unintended cereal: Got my newest seat cushion early...wish me a happy ass for a change.

gives erikaj a little goose just to be sure the cushion is working well.

Ooh. Again, not exactly new(Although my mother tends it with the same passion she brought to her garden once) but it's been a minute.

OK, this is funny/sad. It has been so long since I have been fully turned-on by anything for more than a moment that when it happened to me yesterday, I didn't recognize it. It was a little more intense, given that all my equipment has been fully installed, and little-girl me, wondering why those camera ads made her tingle sometimes, also never had the words or cause to wonder whether her hormones were all right, but in some ways it was like being back there. I mean, I was beginning to feel that I like Ali Wong's comedy, but I didn't realize that I *liked* that comedy show on a very visceral level. Dirty talk about women getting everything and getting to step out, too. Kind of does it for me, I guess?(Not exactly shocking, but I'm also not the postpartum chick she's talking to either.) Even more than most, that would have been a hella awkward gynecological visit.

From the department of randomness: How is it that I've lost 60-70 lbs, yet I'm only down 1 size? I feel like I hear diet commercials with people bragging, "I'm down 30 lbs and 4 dress sizes!" Are non-plus sizes *that* finely tuned? Or are the commercials, as so many commercials are, full of crap?

there is a certain amount of arbitrary in sizes. four seems like a lot.