I can't believe how productive I've been today. I sorted out some research stuff I've been sitting on, with the usual procrastination-driving terror, for literally months. I should do something to celebrate. There should be ice cream.

Seska, are you on LJ or Dreamwidth?

I used to be on both, but I couldn't keep up with my accounts (on top of various blogs I write/contribute to). I met some great friends through LJ (edit: two people who I still see, although they both moved away), but it just got too much. Twitter is easier in terms of time and energy - although not quite so good for connecting 'IRL'.

If someone would have told me I was going to be a children's librarian 4 years ago I would ahve laughted. It was so not my thing. Now I have to go buy eggs and ham for green eggs and ham day

Fun! I felt much like that about teaching. (Which I'm so excited about being able to do again next year.)

I am on the whole VERY happy with the life I have. The trip to Italy really helped me remember that, and remembering that pulled me out of the mire I was in.

This makes me SO HAPPY!

ETA: I forgot to send nothing-ma to Raq, but I was thinking it really hard!

Congratulations, Rick!! What a cute story.

Five years ago, I would not have guessed that I'd be working at an office and going to meetings.

I go back and forth between being happy about how much freedom it gives me to have my own life and being sad.

This is where I am, really.

Yeah, being single is pretty great sometimes. Other times, it is not.

I just found out Thrill Kill Kult and Lords of Acid are playing a club down in Deep Ellum. Would that I were in my 20's again.

Heh. I've been addicted to "The Crablouse" because of the Sucker Punch trailer.

PC, I'm sorry your parents and your brother are at odds, but I find a lot of my sympathy is going to the she-devil. I hope he prepared her for this.

I hope so too. She's really cool. We are now Facebook friends since the cat's out of the bag. And I think when my mom asks if I knew, I will just say, "Of course I knew." And if she thinks putting my brother over her is some affront, well...family's family. She probably wouldn't believe me if I said I didn't know anyway. She knows my brother and I are closer than that. Maybe I'm not a good son, but I'm a good brother.

If my mother opened a closet to snoop I would throw her out of my house. And she'd agree with me.

Yeah, we have different mothers. My mother burst in on me every night during high school as I was IMing with people with "Who are you talking to??"

Well, high school is one thing - you are still a minor with no "real" rights to privacy. But as an adult? Well, no.

Maybe that should be the OKCupid profile I've been trying to write.

My profile has an entire section of "don't bother messaging me if:" The whole thing is very much based on the glorious Dorothy Parker edict of "and if you do not like me so/to hell, my love, with you." Granted, it hasn't been successful in weeding out all the idiots, especially since many don't bother to read the actual profile, but it hasn't kept me from getting interesting responses, either.

P-C, you're a very good son, trapped between two vastly different worlds.

Congrats, Rick! And it's nice to hear from you. I was told by my wizened old great-aunt that I would have twin boys, so I fully expect to, should I ever become pregnant.

And I'm so glad for you, Sean. I'm glad the trip was such an important one in your life. We enjoyed it from here, for sure!

As for the children issue, I had a point a few years back where I did up a whole post to have you guys make the call for me on whether or not to have kids. I mean, you do pretty well with what I should have for lunch, so I figured you could handle it. But then, as often happens, the act of typing it up made it clear to me what I had already decided. Which was not to have kids.

When I was a kid myself, I thought all I wanted to do was to get married and have lots of kids, but really what I wanted was to have lots of sex, as soon as possible. Once I was actually married, quite young, it was clear to me that I didn't actually like kids, and didn't have any desire to have any of my own. Pretty much everyone assumed I was having a shotgun wedding when I eloped, so they were somewhat bemused when no progeny ever showed up. I suppose they thought I aborted.

Then when we went into the field, the nature of our work and living conditions precluded children. People would say, other missionaries have kids, but other missionaries weren't on the road three weeks out of four and sleeping on pool tables and living in places without reliable water, much less power or heat. It's a choice we were happy to make for ourselves, but not one we felt we could ask a child to endure.

People told us my biological clock would start to tick, and I suppose it did in the form of increasing sex drive, but it never did in terms of seeing pink baby faces and needing to raise them. I thought maybe once we got into the house and felt more stable I would change my mind. But it turns out, I am really content with our choice not to have kids. I like being able to gallivant wherever whenever. My schedule is still crazy, although not as bad as before, and I'm glad not to be carting around an infant during it.

If we did get pregnant accidentally, we would make it work. But our work would look significantly different. I would not be able to drop everything and go hang out in the ER with a kid who just broke her ankle. We still suspect our child-rearing may come in the form of fostering a student or two. Every other missions couple I know is doing so. But I don't want to go that direction for the same reason I don't want to have kids of my own. I think it's unfair to have that child, knowing I would have to split my attentions in a way that shorts someone.

For a while there were lots of questions, but those have faded. And nowadays it's just a good entry point to talk about injustice on the reservation. In our part of the rez in New Mexico, there is a large percentage of female infertility due to uranium leaching into the water supply. I drank from those wells for five years, so I was likely exposed as well, although I don't and probably won't know for sure. (This is also why I don't believe in such a thing as "safe" nuclear power.) So I love to use that to defer questions from well meaning but misguided populate the earth types.

For all I know, I may be infertile. At one point I concluded that if I was, I would just let it be and be content without kids. Which is still true, but I never have pursued it to find out.

Congratulations, Rick!

"Does not want kids. Does not believe in higher powers. Pro-abortion-rights, anti-idiocy. Has sick, sarcastic sense of humor. Handle with care - kid gloves not necessary, pigskin leather gloves advisable." Would save me a lot of time.

Maybe that should be the OKCupid profile I've been trying to write.

Why not? It would get straight to the point.

The "best years of my life" as far as my body is concerned were my late teens and twenties before I became disabled and while my memory was like a steel trap. However, the best years of my life as far as my emotions and the rest are concerned are now and later. I get better at handling life with each passing year. Better at appreciating it.

Spidra, what a great way of putting that. I think that's probably true for a lot of us, in our own ways.

Re: the question of kids, I've been thinking about this a lot since Mark's brother died. Both Mark and I want kids; we haven't settled on any particular number, and obviously we can't really even think about what it would mean to have more than one until, well, we have the first one. But I have found myself lately really drawn to the idea of having several kids. I've always loved being part of my dad's big family (he was one of six kids), and my mom has always resented the fact that she was an only child, so there's a strong correlation in my mind between a bigger family and more happiness/security. And now, on top of that, losing Joey means that Mark is now his parents' only child, and that's a really lonely feeling for him. I can't help thinking that if he had another sibling, that would be a huge help to him, not just now but in the future. So I want our own kids to have what he doesn't.

I am aware, of course, that until we get started on trying to have kids, all of this is based on lots of thinking and zero experience. I also hope it doesn't sound like I'm trying to argue that everyone should have big families; I'm just talking about my own feelings. Or, in other words:

As for more than one? I think it's the same as having one in the first place. You either feel like it's right for you or not right for you.

Want them very much. Always have, always will. But unless I fall in love pretty dramatically or win the lottery in the next year or so its increasingly unlikely they will be biological children.

This is pretty much agonizing.