M. (hristine

Oh, and I meant to say

I guess the euphemism for woman or mother is "the womb". Language is an interesting key to concept. I wonder what Orwell might have called that?

Yes of course! Because you and your wife wanted those babies more than anything. An unwanted pregnancy rarely feels like that. See, I wish for another option besides abortion. I wish for young girls to be empowered enough to refuse sex. I wish for them to be intuitive enough about their bodies to know when they are fertile. I wish for the power of the uterus to make a fertilized egg slide off of the uterine wall when a baby would be unwanted. I wish for contraception that is safe and fail safe. I wish for all of these things, because it is the non violent solution when pregnancy is not des

"An organism that grows, feeds, and lives on or in another organism to whose survival it contributes nothing." The mother's immune system is actually subdued so as not to reject the pregnancy as alien and miscarry.

I remember the first time I got a migraine. I was 9 and my class was walking the 4 blocks back from the public library. I was sent home sick. No one knew what ailed me, and as I recall I was OK the next day. During my 20s it seemed like they became way worse. At that time I became interested in altered mind states; meditation and the like (blame a steady diet of Carlos Castenada). It was during a period of frequent migraines that I taught myself some peculiar form of biofeedback. I didn't call it that (this was in the early 80s. I had never heard the term), but what I did would fit that defi

I wasn't making a call about how individuals feel about these issues. Most individuals would probably say that abortion and war are 'neccesary evils' but morally questionable at best. I was pointing out that the legal and cultural leniancy supports war making far more than it does abortion. The legal right to terminate a pregnacy feels tenuous. Legal war making seems deeply entrenched. We might debate the morality of 'This War', but what about WWII? Do we debate the general morality of war in the same way we do abortion? The other thing that fails to get mentioned is that pregnancy is, at le

"Thou shalt not kill" is apparently the most ambiguous of the commandments. Tell you what, when war is outlawed let me know. Then there might be level playing field for the abortion discussion.

Hmmm. Saturday birthday in Marin? I'd climb Mt. Tam, that's what I would do. Happy birthday! I hope you have a stellar day (ha. get it? sorry).

rags hasn't reposted in this thread. He posted elsewhere that he was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder. There are many non pharmeceutical ways to treat this. What he did post was that he felt a great deal of trepidation about using pharmeceutical therapy to get healthy: Most everyone that has posted after him has been speaking hypothetically and speculating. I have seen first hand the danger and destruction that the irresponsible prescription of mood altering drugs can do. I suffered severe social anxiety in my 20s which I worked my way out of without medication. All th

My complaint with what is happening in the psychiatric community with mood altering drugs is the same complaint I have with the medical community and antibiotics. When their use is called for, they are miraculous. But both of these miracle therapies are grossly overprescribed. If the overuse of these drugs weren't so potentially dangerous I wouldn't care. Since I don't know rags, I am going to make a fictional leap. He wasn't specific about the issues he was struggling with, but he didn't sound as if he was on the verge of plowing his car into a tree. Here's the fictional leap: I think his s

Terrific story, Jimmy! I love all of these. Cars play a huge part in my teenage memories.

Oh, do tell!

Evidently George Jones has never been to Stockholm.

I third the meditation recommendations.

Whether or not to take SSRIs is your decision. Part of the maturation process is learning healthy coping mechanisms for the challages of life. We live in a culture that encourages exterior solutions to normal interior struggle and growth. I think it is reprehensible for the psychiatric community to have so fully embraced this philosophy. Especially for those patients without an actual diagnosis (bi-polar or schizophrenia etc.). That said, you have begun using a drug which alters your brain chemistry. You need to talk with your psychiatrist about discontinuing it's use. Call your doctor and e

Yes but that tree was clearly in the way.

Crazy fooking weather this week!

My brother and I used to steal 'the Mav' (white with a brown vinyl roof) when our parents were gone, and take it up to the the putt putt/par 3 parking lot and do high speed donuts in the snow. Well he did donuts. I was just joy riding. When I think about these things now, I wonder why no one told our parents or called the cops on us. We were doing these things in plain sight and everyone knew who we were. Mrs. Peel, your story was brilliant as well! Yours was a legitimate mistake, but I'm just a knucklehead.

These are great stories! Unlike my younger brother who started taking the family compact for spins around the neighborhood as soon as he was 15, I had no interest in driving. My dad had a different idea, and decided one Saturday morning that it was high time I learned to drive. We may have taken the Maverick. We also had a Suburban at the time, though I can't imagine he would have allowed me to drive that. Anyway our house was in a spacious suburban neighborhood, the layout of the houses around a big circular road about a mile in length. The idea was for me to drive around the circle and

Sorry.

You're talking about a man who could crush your skull with his thighs.

It's hard to imagine that Kansas City might ever be 'chilly' again. But yeah, mid October could be anything. Excessive heat. Torrential rain. Snow. Indian summer. Hard to say, really. Crossroads is an outdoor venue.

Ah...I was looking at the googlemap for "Crossroads", which puts the location arrow, well, about 6 blocks away.

So the accoustic 'sweet spot' is 6 blocks away?

Yup. That's the place. The booking guy has been negotiating this all summer.