Thanks for the thoughts, folks. I'm working half-days the rest of the week to allow maximum use of visiting hours, (which are limited to the evenings) and still get a decent amouont of sleep.

I talked to Hubs this morning, and he's doing better. No word on when he can come home, but we're playing it by ear.

I totally read that as beer instead of bear. My brain was providing commentary like "Oh, beer behind the building. That's not so bad. But why do they want people to park elsewhere? Are they afraid people will stop and get drunk on the way into work? If that's the case, perhaps they shouldn't chill beer behind the building. Allyson works at a very odd place."

Not just you.

Ugh, a good friend of mine posted a rant on Facebook about how she should get a tax credit for not having children, because she is not contributing to overpopulation and environmental degradation, and how having children is a "lifestyle choice."

Someone should explain to her that those "lifestyle choices" are going to be the ones paying for her social security.

Sometimes I feel laughed at by Big Bang Theory, though I'm the wrong kind of geek entirely and bad enough at math to make the whole posse drink gin out of the cat dish. But I'm more like them than casual hot girl Penny--we share the same tendencies toward intensity and whatnot.Like my mom won't watch L&O with me anymore cause I keep "correcting it" with wisdom from David simon. Cash, they do sort of remind me of savants I used to know. I think I still like Community better. (I hate to admit it cause I really love "Baby Mama" and "mean Girls" but I don't think 30 Rock is that funny.)Maybe it's cause I'm a writer who routinely dresses like shit, or maybe it's hard for me to be *truly* atypical and deal with how the show presents Liz Lemon's Hollywood Ugly. If she's gross, I should be in a cage someplace, right?)

They are human beings!

I suspect it's an instance of her complete disassociating the policy issue she's talking about from the immediate, personal, context.

IOW, she really doesn't think about your kids being human beings when she's writing that post. She's just (probably) copypasting from some other "childfree" forum.

The personal is political, but I think we often forget about the personal in our politics.

You could tell her that you found her use of "lifestyle choice" an affront, as your children are, in fact, human beings. And if she thinks it's so unfair that you get tax credits for them, she doesn't have to spend any time with them.

I talked to Hubs this morning, and he's doing better.

I'm glad for that, at least.

of course, I do think the jokes in "Homicide" are funny, so maybe it's more that my sensibility isn't mainstream enough for 30 Rock. Or that I hate Tracy Morgan.

Hugs and ~ma to you Maria.

IOW, she really doesn't think about your kids being human beings when she's writing that post. She's just (probably) copypasting from some other "childfree" forum.

I'm guessing this, yes.

My issue would be less with the "hey, human beings over here!" and more with the idea that it's the same kind of logic that drives people who say things like "why should my taxes support public schools when I don't have any kids in them?" Or "...since I send my kids to private school?"

There's a kind of fundamental disconnect there that doesn't see how children--not just my children but all children--are the future, and that the whole society benefits when those children are well fed, well educated, and healthy.

t /rant

This. Even though I find it unlikely that I'll have children.

My only quibble with the tax break for kids is when people treat their kids like a crop they're raising for tax benefits instead of as human beings. IE, the families with a dozen kids that are herded around like a battalion, not a family.