It's not like marriages didn't break up before the Internet.

So true. It only exposes a problem that was already there. It's the catalyst, not the cause.

People can get obsessed in anything to the point of neglecting their family. There's some people in my office who have a problem with fantasy sports, if you ask me.

Agreed, and if people are looking for something to obsess over or to help them escape from their lives they will mostlikely find it.

Hey, I resemble that remark.

Well, having seen Emma, I can better understand Evil Mother in Law's baffling comments - she does look like she could be an elf. She's a remarkable wee person, in that she looks nothing like Winston Churchill. Go figure.

But, for the love of God, The Empress is a babe. Maybe more of an Eowyn babe than an Arwen babe, but, hey, I know which one I'd rather shag spend time with. Ahem. Silly MiL.

probably similar to the sensation we all had when big batches of us first met at the Chicago F2F.

Or really, anytime Buffistas meet F2F. That sense of continuing a familiar pattern of conversation, just in an additional dimension, is the same no matter how large the group or how small. Hec, I'm really glad the reading went well, and it's so cool that Dee de-lurked in person. (Hi, Dee, if you're lurking now!)

That arms-out pose of Em's looks like she's attempting to fly. Miracleborn Baby! Up, up, and awaaaayyyy!

OMG, Emma is darling. I want to dress her up in a little black velvet dress, stripey tights, and teeny-tiny bat wings. Cute, cute, cute baby.

That reminds me, next payday I should invest in some high-thread-count white or purple sheets so I can use Beverly's lovely pillowcases without the rest of the bed getting all grumpy and clashy.

Aw, JZ, I hope you guys enjoy them. Also? The thing is in the mail. You know, that thing? No, not that, the other thing. Yeah. That thing. Let me know when it gets there, would you? And thanks again.

Deena, job-done-ma to you to the nth degree. Once done, you can play, right?

This was, unsurprisingly, a big thing in the freak-ass church. They equated any sort of consumption of porn (i.e., reading Playboy, renting a movie, even if you rent it to watch it with your spouse) with porn addiction, and therefore all porn is the devil's work and destroys families and society.

I'm embarrassed to admit this given my current writing aspirations, but my senior year in college one of our InterVarsity staff workers gave a talk on lust where he condemned romance novels as sinful because they might make us women feel regret once we were married "if our husbands couldn't sweep us off our feet like the romance heroes." Like the good little girl I wanted to be, I promptly came home and got rid of all my romances--which happened to be the relatively tame traditional Regencies, because I already felt guilty about reading anything with explicit sex scenes.

That said, I am seriously skeeved by what I perceive to be the typical porn image of a woman. It's almost like a caricature. So I'd feel creeped out and threatened if DH spent a lot of time looking at porn in a way I wouldn't if he told me he fantasized about, say, Natalie Portman or Kate Winslet.

Thing, eye, out-keeping. Will do. Just not literally, because, ouch.

t /cryptic