My middle initial is E, and trust me, that does not stand for Earnest. It takes quite a lot for me to shuck aside my crushing cynicism (which is really bad for your skin, by the way), and join the lemmings in a viral Facebook campaign. But that's just what...

"Don't Worry, Be Happy" is the song that often pops up on the playlist at Baldie's Blog, and it's a pretty jarring accompaniment to the heartbreaking and infuriating tale that is unfolding there.

Hillary St. Pierre is the reigning bad-ass baldie in question. She is a relentlessly spunky 27-year-old...

This is a quick treat that's great after hockey, and gets even better the next day! Can't negotiate on an empty tummy! Do they have microwaves in the Middle East?

TATER TOT CASSEROLE

1 (32-ounce) package frozen potato rounds
1 (16 ounce) container sour cream
1...

My town dump has been accused of having one massively putrid aspect to it, and I'm here to at least try to clear the air. National Public Radio recently profiled the "Take It or Leave It" area of the Wellesley Massachusetts recycling center, and while this 2000 square foot...

My brilliant artist friend Jackie knows a woman who filmed her own cervix for her MFA thesis, and I can't think of a more rigorous feminist self-examination than that.

I don't plan to show you my cervix here (though, as of my last colposcopy, I can report happily that...

There are three people who gave me a passionate love of news and the only one is left, John McLaughlin. The other two were my mother, who died a decade ago, and Tim Russert, who died today. This is one of the rare moments I'm happy Mommy isn't around to...

It takes a rare bird to find a rare bird, and Tommy Hyndman is one of the more exotic creatures to be found in the world of men. If Santa Claus and Picasso* had a bastard child, it would be Tommy: he's an enormously inventive artist and hat designer...

Did you know that Bob the Builder is a raging environmentalist? He's the portly handyman with an army of tweaked-out construction vehicles who seemingly run on air, who is constantly saying "Yes, We Can!" (years before Obama), and imploring us to "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!" As a mother of a toddler,...

To me, the most enigmatic feminist icon in this whole primary drama has been the woman with a man's name who's been dead for more than a decade: Barack Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro.

When I was writing a post awhile back that could roughly be summarized as...

In a stunning turn of events, Senator Clinton has assassinated her own soul, in the hotly-contested race for the Democratic candidacy.

The annihilation of her soul, which had been suspected for months, was formally complete after the Senator made this comment to the editorial board of South Dakota's Sioux...

Sarav is an Indian mama's dream. Handsome, well-spoken in Tamil and English, well-educated at top American universities, well-paid as a computer engineer at a top American computer company, assimilated but still immersed in his South Asian heritage. He'll make some man a wonderful husband someday. And that fact is precisely...

I've written about my adventures in Freecycling elsewhere, and even a writer without portfolio like myself is loathe to revisit old topics. But (rationalizing here), what better topic to recycle? And the Freecyle offer that popped up in my inbox this week was one I couldn't refuse, and wanted to...

I just looked at my latest status update on Facebook and was confronted first with the painful likelihood that I am a massive perimenopausal loser.

The update says "Linda has a BSG question for Rachel or Laura. I need your fraking help!" I'll enumerate the glaring embarrassments, as if...

As soon as I heard Senator Clinton likening herself to Rocky, I was incredulous. Is this campaign and/or candidate so feckless that they can't see the inevitable Maureen Dowd gore-fest that will follow, by comparing herself to the Italian Stallion?

But my slack-jawed wonderment had more to do with...

The only grandpa my 3-year-old will ever know and see routinely is a dead guy. He appears in my bedroom each morning, as Frank bounds up into my bed, literally pries my eyes open, and lunges for the remote. And there he is, our glorious ghost. To Frank, he is...

I've been reading and re-reading this quote from President Bush, above the fold of the New York Times: "I want to thank you, Mr. Secretary, for working over the weekend." (I was chasing my toddler all day yesterday, and all weekend, Mr. President, while trying to prop up my collapsing...

After unsuccessful attempts to stimulate a flagging economy and deflating stock market, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is now trying Cialis, crediting predecessor Alan Greenspan for the advice, and the pills.

"He's got a whole damn Walgreen's at his place, Cialis, Viagra, Miralax, Levitra, you name it, G-Span's got it....

OK, Margaret, you have a lot of white going for you already. Next to Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson, Margaret "Peggy" Seltzer is about the whitest name this side of Sherman Oaks, your true homeland. Now that you've been outed as just a plain old Nilla wafer like me, and...

When I first read that French President Sarkozy wanted every French fifth-grader to learn about a French child-victim of the Holocaust (to which someone I know said, "like, Secret Santa?"), I immediately thought, oh no, this is fercockt. A potentially great idea for a powerful history lesson, devised by the...

Sisterhood's a bitch, isn't it? A friend e-mailed me recently as we wrestled with the vexing feminist question in the race for the Democratic nomination. She asked "am I a bad feminist if I don't vote for Hillary?" I shot back an estrogen-powered fusillade of arguments that began "No! SHE'S...