Wildly Exaggerated

I read entirely too much news. And when I say "news", I of course mean "blatant clickbait stories that are promoted on Twitter until they trend". In 2021, when COVID was allegedly "finally over", I found that a disturbing number of these stories were variations on the theme of people frantically and insistently pursuing casual sex after a year of being home alone. Terms like "hot girl summer", "summer of love", “sexually charged”, “sexplosion”, “post-COVID dating tsunami”, and “Big Summer Sex Boom” proliferated all over the internet for what felt like months.  It seemed weird to me that the media took it as a truth universally acknowledged that anyone who happens to be single must be in want of an endless parade of random sexual partners for the foreseeable future post-COVID.  Before you dismiss this as me being an old fogey, let me assure you that there was never a single moment in my life, however long ago, when I thought casual sex w...

If there was any silver lining to the recent pandemic, it’s that Americans became much better educated about viruses, and about our legal rights around medical privacy. Many of us were surprised to learn that the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) actually made it illegal for anyone to know anything about anyone else’s body, under any circumstances*. In light of this new information, I thought it might be helpful to compile some examples of things that will constitute HIPAA violations under the right-wing ignoscenti regime! Enjoy. *unless/until the GOP thinks this information should be broadcast far and wide so we may receive the judgment of our Christofascist neighbors 1. The pharmacist knowing what everybody's meds are for 2. My crush holding my heart in his hands 3. Asking tall people whether they play basketball 4. Children accusing each other of “having a staring problem” 5. Possessing cursèd forbidden knowledge about how human reproduction actually w...

 People are always asking me, “Klara, how have you managed to remain so resolutely single, decade after decade?” I’m just kidding! People don’t ask me anything about my personal life, because most people are too polite to ask the question they really want  to ask, which is: “Hey! How come nobody wants you?”  And thank God, because that question is impossible to answer. There are so many reasons! And some of them are things I can’t help - some dudes only like women with brown eyes, or billionaire fathers, or a lifelong aspiration to be somebody’s scullery maid, or the ability to amass a huge collection of knick knacks that say “LIVE LAUGH LOVE” in that weird globby cursive font. I’ll never be that girl.  Some of the reasons are things I very much could  help, but I don’t wanna. And actually, I suspect that’s probably the biggest reason. Although I would also point out that some (possibly even most ) of the dudes in question aren’t exactly a blue ribbon prize them...