I'm not getting how those photos of strangers is supposed to be unsettling. They just look like people posing for a photograph.

Burrell, it's almost time for lunch! OK, not quite.

These NuvaRing commercials drive me bonkers. I'm not sure who their target demographic is, but clearly I'm not it. I guess it's repressed women who only can talk about their lady parts with euphemisms and vague hand waves down there? Perhaps I've been warped by fandom, but we're not afraid to have frank conversations about anything and the only things that get shushed and whispered about are spoilers.

This probably explains why we frequently traumatize all the tables around us when we're at restaurants.

At the baby shower the other day, my table-section of four spent pretty much the whole time talking about periods and birth control. If not there, then where?? But it was probably just as well that the acoustics in the room were terrible.

These NuvaRing commercials drive me bonkers. I'm not sure who their target demographic is, but clearly I'm not it. I guess it's repressed women who only can talk about their lady parts with euphemisms and vague hand waves down there? Perhaps I've been warped by fandom, but we're not afraid to have frank conversations about anything and the only things that get shushed and whispered about are spoilers.

The one that drives me nuts is the one for the Pandora charm bracelet. There are two women sitting and talk about the bracelet that one of them is wearing. The non-bracelet woman asks about each bead, and the bracelet woman explains that the surfboard is from a trip to Hawaii, the soccer ball is because she's a soccer mom, and so on. Then non-bracelet woman points to another and says, "What about this one?" and bracelet woman says, "It's called the Red Hot Love Bead." And then there's an awkward silence, and she says, "I said too much, didn't I?"

We had that health screening thing implemented here a couple of years ago. So many people complained about the intrusiveness that it was canceled. We still have a $50/month surcharge for smokers.

I'm surprised that Hil's school implemented it the way they did. The two universities belong to a consortium that is supposed to share resources and knowledge, and I had heard that at least one other school in the consortium dropped the idea after hearing about our experience.

This probably explains why we frequently traumatize all the tables around us when we're at restaurants.

Go us!

It sometimes amazes me what people what talk about. Especially women. And especially if you've had children, how you can cling to delicacy about anything vaguely reproductive is a real effort.

It also drives home to me again and again how something as natural as the human body is made taboo, but gory violence is A-okay.

Edited because it's good to actually finish sentences.

I had leftover Ethiopian food for lunch. I have been so good this week, spending no money for lunches. BOOYAH!

We had dinner with one of our faux-sons last night, and he was bemoaning how all the girls in Utah wanted to be pre-engaged within two months of meeting and that a couple of dates meant you were steady boy/girlfriends. He'd made the mistake of thinking a couple of moderate dates and some snuggles didn't mean he wasn't able to check out the possibilities with other girls. The proto-girlfriend said she'd been referring to him as her boyfriend, he wanted to know when he was going to be told he was someone's boyfriend, she assumed he's realized it since they were still together after a couple of months.

So we had to explain that in the Mormon Utah world, a young woman's first goal is to get a man and to not dawdle about it. A man our faux-son's age, nearly 25, is considered suspect if he's not married yet, and the targeting systems of girls and their mothers are being trained on him to get him properly corralled. There is a Mormon Church principle that says you don't need to spend a lot of time gauging compatibility, any marriage based on sound scripture principles will be successful, ie, any two faithful Mormon kids will do just fine together, spending too long on getting to know each other is just a path to temptation. Well, a young man and woman, that is (or boy and girl, considering the average age of first marriages around here).

Our friend doesn't like being hunted. All the girls he's interested in are playing a long-term game, and then there's the cougars who see a young, quite fit, handsome man and want to play. Hell, I confess to inappropriate thoughts about this young man, he's quite decorative. We need to get him out of Utah.

Oh Connie. The poor man.