We are such...I don't know why anyone marries into our family and invites us to the events.

You all are entertaining?

Noromo = No Romance.

Ahaha. Gotcha. I wouldn't wish that on you, no way.

Yay! You get your drugs and I get to go drink. A story with a happy ending, buffista-style.

Truly.

WHAT. THE. SHIT. I'm leaving the asscaps in this time. T. just called, and the second half of his consulting gig got canceled, so we're not going to Orange County after all. We're flying back to Portland Tuesday evening.

I'm laughing. Expect this to change eight more times.

You all are entertaining?

We are not a group of people to be left unsupervised around strict religion of any stripe. I just hope that it doesn't end in the tears of anyone actually getting married. Everyone else is collateral damage.

HA. Oh ita, I'd love to go to the wedding with you.

Okay, Amyth, it will all work out.

Sparky notes that condoms encourage men to just use women with no repercussions...I don't think Sparky's worldview can conceive (excuse the pun)of a woman wanting to have sex with condom-having guy or being condom-having gal.

It shouldn't be surprising, but it does kind of amaze me that the wingnut anti-contraception people are so completely against women having any kind of agency. You can't control your body with contraception, and it's not even fathomable that you might be the person who wants to use men with no repercussions. (Or, possibly, instead of "use men," how about just have sex with no repercussions that aren't desired by both partners? And the same goes for men -- WTF is wrong with men wanting to have sex without repercussions that weren't wanted and/or pre-planned? Man!)

Basically, their attitude seems to be that sex is dirty and bad, and anyone having it should be punished. It's interesting, though, that "punishment" = "having a child." I mean, is that *really* the message they want to send about their view of children? They don't want women to not have access to contraception because having a child is a beautiful glorious thing; "punishment" /= "beautiful glorious thing."

WTF is wrong with men wanting to have sex without repercussions that weren't wanted and/or pre-planned? Man!

Reprecussions for men? What do men have to do with raising children?

I remembered I needed to pay some bills tonight and that reminded of of something that really got me upset. We got the bill for taking Leif to the children's hospital clinic (note that's clinic, not ER) for a deep cut his sister gave him (less than a centimeter long) on his knee.

The doctor saw him for about 10 minutes top, a nurse treated his injury, washed it out, applied antibiotic cream, bandaged it, and put on a knee immobilizer. Maybe 15 minutes. Another nurse took his vitals, a couple of minutes. They also took 3 x-ray images since the cut was deep.

The bill was a little over a thousand dollars, the X-ray part was about $300 of that. In other words, 10 minutes with the doctor, cleaning out the little cut, and bandaging it cost $700 in the clinic. Insurance is paying that (and I'm sure they are paying less than that bill), but c'mon. I felt guilty having that bill sent to the insurance company.

Aren't hospital expenses just the craziest? I got my itemized list from the hospital after my surgery, and just the surgery and hospital stay alone cost over $58,000. Crazy!

The worst part is that if it's late at night, even here in a decent sized city, there really isn't any other place to go aside from one of the ERs.

It must be fucked up to live in a world where you can convince yourself every child is born into a two-parent het family with the money to raise her.

I don't usually let my students write on abortion, but in one case I let a student write because she wasn't interested in writing the usual pro or con paper, she wanted to better understand what abortion was, what the procedures were, legal and medical issues, etc.

When she started writing the paper, she was firmly pro-life. She came away from the paper with a much more nuanced view. I remember her saying to me that the most important thing she learned from writing the paper was that you could try to protect EVERY life, or you could try to ensure that every child born could be given the best chance of being born healthy and loved, but you couldn't do both.