Yes.

Hee. So succinct. I had written this giant post about it, but of course smonster greens it up.

Anyway, I don't know why people keep calling me on my mp3 player/portable internet box. It's very annoying and interrupts me. Oh, it's a phone? Huh.

So! I was saying I thought it depended on the stream for your plastics, but it looks like it's okay. Mine it definitely is, because it's downcycling and gets combined with the local wastewater treatment and ends up as saleable compost. The digester can handle bits of plastic like those and packing tape and styrofoam. Although I try to keep stuff out of that since it's downcycling, and boxes & most styrofoam, packing peanuts and stuff goes to my local mail center where it's reused. Magazines and catalogs go to the VA where they end up in the local paper mill. But unusable cardboard or most generic paper does end up in the paper bins, because downcycling is better than the landfill.

I need to hit shredder hell today too. If I am successful, I will get a swim in too. But the last time I tried, this morning, I ended up spending a half an hour troubleshooting my speaker system. Yeah, I know, but how can I shred without Sweet Emma Barrett singing Bill Bailey?

Yeah, Daisy, I think it's just to tie the birth certificate to your current name.

That can't be done with the birth dates and middle names? I just don't get how a passport is not *the* document needed. It's got everything but proof of address.

hivemind - I have a printed alumni directory from my college. I no longer want. Should I shred it? That is a lot of addresses.

Feel-better~ma to Kathy. ID~ma to DJ. I went through something similar recently. I'd been coasting with my maiden name on SS while everything else had the married name. With the move and different state recs for DL and things, time to clear it up. Took about two months, but that was due to staff error.

Matt mentioned in another thread that Todd Holland and Scotch Ellis Loring were the featured couple in a story about surrogacy on Nightline last night, and linked to an article about it.

I know that tommyrot donated sperm so his sister and her wife could have kids. Does anyone know about a sister donating eggs to her gay brother and his husband or partner? I'm aware it's a more complicated procedure, but if gay couples are turning to a bank of anonymous egg donors, sibling egg donation seems as compassionate a thing to do as donating sperm to a lesbian couple.

Apologies if it's an indelicate question.

Eh, msbelle, addys are easy to find. Just toss it in recycling.

This picture is making me dizzy:

[link]

Today I went to one of the several cemeteries near where I work (in Mid-City), the Jewish cemetery. I was interested that there were some folks laid to rest there that originally hailed from Kingston, Jamaica. I cannot remember the surname now though. (too much work using up brain cells this afternoon I guess.)

I also went to the Katrina memorial and ate my lunch there. Is that sacrilegious? I wanted to eat it in one of the cemeteries but I didn't see any benches and I KNEW it wasn't cool to eat my lunch atop someone's coffin.

Beverly, there was a NYT Modern Love column a few months ago by a woman who had donated an egg for her brother and his partner -- or possibly she even carried the baby herself? I can't recall, and the NYT site isn't letting me into stuff I can usually access today, so I can't doublecheck. But if you can get to it, I'm fairly sure this story is the one I'm thinking of.

I KNEW it wasn't cool to eat my lunch atop someone's coffin

My New Orleans relatives were totally chill about stuff like that.

The live ones, I mean.