At least short women HAD petite departments to shop in!

I'm 5'9" tall. You'd think that with all those tall models, the fashion industry would be awash in clothes that "women of height" could wear. Wrong! As far as most of the clothing industry goes, tall women do not exist. It's hard to find clothes that are proportional to my height. Dress waists never fall in the right spot. Jackets are too short. Most long sleeves barely reach my wrists. Pants are almost never long enough -- or worse, appear to be long enough in the store but shrink short after a single washing. A few stores do have tall pants and jeans, but very few carry tall tops and coats outside of a couple of specialty stores. If I do manage to find something that fits, the store will inevitably discontinue it.

Yes, I can order tall clothes from catalogs, and I have frequently done so. But even those that do offer tall sizes often have them for only a limited selection of items. Plus I like to actually try on clothes before I buy them to see how they fit and whether the fabric and color are right for me (yeah, I'm crazy that way). And it's a pain to return catalog items that don't fit. The whole thing makes me feel like a second class citizen.

So you have my sympathy, petite ladies. And I am sorry that I ever resented you for having your own clothing department. Like us tall girls, you have now been deemed expendable.

You need to accept this and move on. Limit your exposure to your toxic family. Put some physical distance between yourself and them, if possible. When they contact you, be polite but don't let yourself be drawn back into their emotional circle. End the conversation if they start harping on you. You can't control their behavior, but you can control how you react to it. They are looking for a specific reponse from you. If you don't give them what they want, they'll be put off balance and may eventually stop their unpleasantness.

Keep dating. Get involved with groups and activities where you can meet other people. Spend more time with your friends and neighbors. In time, you will build a new family to replace the one you've left.

His claim of no divorces in his family is plausible and in any case can be verified through court records. However, there's no possible way he could be sure that there are no gays and lesbians in his family. The closets could be stuffed with them.

What he's really done is make his family the target of scrutiny and ridicule. So much for family values!

The pharmacy had made accomodation for his religious beliefs and did not force him to personally fill out contraception prescriptions. However, this wasn't enough for him. He actively tried to prevent women from having these prescriptions filled by placing them on indefinite hold when they called and by refusing to refer them to another pharmacist when they showed up at the pharmacy counter. It was this behavior that got him canned.

This pharmacist had no right to prevent others from getting health care -- especially since birth control prescriptions are written for many reasons besides preventing pregnancy. It's one thing to refuse to fill out a prescription because you've spotted a drug interaction that a doctor overlooked. It's quite another thing to refuse to fill out a prescription because you don't approve of that particular drug.

More than that, the pharmacist was interefering with the right of others to follow THEIR consciences. It is perfectly legal for women to use contraception. (At least for the moment!) The women who wanted to get these prescriptions filled are adults who are capable of making their own moral decisions. It is up to their consciences to decide whether to use contraception, not the pharmacist's.

If you have to do something that you think is immoral to keep your job, it's time to find another job. This goes for everyone, by the way, not just pharmacists.

You think you're the only person whose buddies thought marriage would mess with your friendship? This has been happening for generations.

If you want to get married, go for it. You and your friends are all going to face some kind of transition in the next few years, regardless of whether you get married. (Did your friends really think all of you were going to hang out at the womyn's center forever?) But I wouldn't cut your friends off -- disgruntled they may be, but they're still your friends. Ignore any barbed comments and play nice. Invite them all to your wedding! If your fiance is as great as you say, they will come around in time. (Who knows, they may meet that special someone themselves and regret their grumpy words to you.)

Having said that, I recommend waiting for at least a couple of years before having kids. They change your relationship with your spouse a lot more than getting married does! You're 21, so it's not as if your biological clock is striking midnight. Enjoy some time together as a couple before introducing a new variable into the mix.

Having kids also changes your relationships with your friends. Some of your friends will be fine with your kid, but others may detest your little bundle of joy. Some will proclaim themselves experts on childrearing and drive you bananas with well-meaning but misguided advice. (They will probably be the ones who currently lecture you about submitting to the patriarchy.) But the biggest threat to your friendships is the sheer amount of time you'll need to spend with your children. Unless you make a determined effort to keep up with them, your current friends will get pushed to the back burner.