Yeah, I quit mine. But I was hardly the model group member for that group of Birth Survivors due to my disquieting tendency to blurt out things like "Okay, who'd you fuck?" I wasn't wrong. But that just made it worse.

---

Wow, I post a "Yikes" moment, and a great discussion ensues. I love this board!

I love that this place can be so full of real sharing. We talk about silly things, about frustrating things, about the most joyful things, about the things that damage us, and about the things that heal us. I feel grateful that there is such an openness here.

OK, that puts it much better than I could, so... THIS THIS THIS!

Bonny. Wow. I don't know what to type. Mostly, I admire your strength for moving on, and your willingness to share, and... well, what others wrote better upthread.

I haven't read anything about omnis' neighborhood, but I'm guessing the concentration was identified by a neighbor or other interested party, vs authorities making an announcement. Is that right?

Actually, it was an e-mail forwarded from the 2nd District Councilwoman, a city elected position, to the neighborhood association. The slightly freakier thing is, according to the website, several of them are flatmates! The thrust of the "rally" is against the LANDLORD for renting to that many registered offenders.

omnis - is it a large apartment complex that all of these convicted sex offenders are living in or is it a smaller apartment house, maybe a half-way house?

If I recall the right building, it is about 45 apartments or so (judging from the outside), so roughly 1/4 of the apartments have offenders in it, some of them double booked (I assume 2 bedroom apartments). Since there seems to be HUGE moral/community outrage, I'm guessing it's not a half-way house. Unless the landlord is somehow a former offender, or sympathetic to their plight, and has set up a defacto, unofficial halfway house.?.?

I do recall talk on the local NPR a while back on the proposed expanding laws, how registered offenders couldn't be within x feet of parks, schools, etc. And how the propsed law was phrased, it meant they could only live on a farm, or in the middle of nowhere, as most metro areas had city parks within that range to any resident, for "green zone" purposes. And how that is very unfair to those trying to re-assimilate back into society.

My personal experience with sex offenders is a very good friend of our family was convicted of a sexual offense his victim being his step-daughter. The problem being, the step-daughter and her mother later recanted the story, admitted to it being a lie...

I had a similiar experience in college. A friend was seeing this gal who had been raped by an ex, and then, any other date she went on she was saying "he tried to rape me". One of which was a double that I was the other half. I saw what happened. He tried to hold her hand after dinner. He tried to give a peck good night. That is it. So, I do wonder, how many "false positives" in sexual offense cases there are? It is scary, because that stigma does stay with you a LONG time, and now, with the Megans Law, even longer. I know after that incident, I was even *more* gunshy on dates. Like I needed any help in that dept.

On the whole. Very mixed feelings, it being two blocks from where I live and all. I want to be forgiving, and the liberal side of me wants to say they are on the road to making a new life for themselves... but for the first time, the NIMBY is like "hey! But wait!". I think that is scaring me more than anything.

ION:

I'm totally NIMBY today about my own effing body. I don't know if it's the communist invasion or something else but it can just stop wreaking havoc with my GI tract now.

d- O do I feel for you. Yup. I know how frustrating the GI tract can be. Much belly~ma for you. Hope it passes soon.

---

But I was hardly the model group member for that group of Birth Survivors due to my disquieting tendency to blurt out things like "Okay, who'd you fuck?" I wasn't wrong. But that just made it worse.

This is one of the many reasons I t heart Erika.

---

But I was hardly the model group member for that group of Birth Survivors due to my disquieting tendency to blurt out things like "Okay, who'd you fuck?"

Someday I'll turn gay and we'll run away to Denmark and get gay married.

---

Cool...reverse diaspora's fine with me. Full circle and all that(great-grandpa came from Copenhagen) And they never watched television, either. Ever. What can I talk to people like that about? Especially if they don't appreciate a good murder. I'm out, then, you know. It's how we roll in Munchkinland. Deflecting personal questions with jokes since 1978.

---

You can get gay married in Massachusetts! I heart my state.

---

Maybe we'll murder someone!

---

checks Gay Agenda, which was acquired through GOP website

No, no, no, I'm sorry. You can't go to Denmark to get gay-married. You have to go to Massachusetts. On ... lemme see...Gay Pride's that weekend, AIDS awareness that weekend, then there's Folsom...there's time in October. That work for you guys?

Wait. This is the Gay Itinerary. Dammit.

---

Sleeping Annabel: [link]

When we put her to bed, Clifford and Kitty were tucked next to her and were NOT wearing party hats. She was also under a sheet and a quilt, which ended up on the floor and out of sight.

---

After my mom was diagnosed with ALS (well, actually, at some point after she lost the use of her legs), my parents put me in counseling. I was 12, and all the counselor really wanted me to say was that my father was sexually abusing me. Which couldn't have been farther from the truth, and made me absolutely distrust all psychological counseling for years and years.

That sounds like the time I went to a counselor in college to talk about my issues with my mom, and all she wanted to talk about was why I didn't have a girlfriend. Never went back.

---