• On Life and Love

    I Don’t Always Care About Your Animal

    I was talking with a co-worker of mine, and she mentioned how she makes a point not to fawn over her young children around people. She assumes–fairly so–that people may not care to hear stories of every little step and poopie and wall-drawing. If people want to talk about her kids, they’ll bring them up, and she’s happy to oblige with stories. But she’s a person, distinct and individual of her kids, and she recognizes the separation. I’d love for animal people to heed that example. I try not to fawn over my cats when I have company over. (Greg, alas, is regrettably guilty of this.) I love them, and…

  • On Life and Love

    Weekly linkage

    This week’s internet cruising: Lymejello – Wow. Speaking of telling difficult stories. Lyme disease is apparently no joke. I remember seeing the photos in middle school health class–a ringed rash, warnings that it could kill untreated, but not that it was so damned debilitating. My Hopebuilders 5k page – Yeah, I'm a punk. Go donate and push me to run. If I meet my fund-raising goal, I'll run it hard. Tim Gunn Is A National Treasure – "[W]hen I visit department stores and I go to the shop that’s called “woman,” I am horrified! Horrified by the awful, degrading, disrespectful choices that women have." 10 Usability Tips Based on Research…

  • Uncategorized

    Keep Telling the Difficult Stories

    I had dinner with some friends about a week ago, and I retold (part of) a story that I’d been told of a painful in vitro experience that included the selective culling of some of the fertilized eggs. I hadn’t thought twice about it–if you go shopping for one kid and end up with four (!!) fertilized eggs and the doctor offers to cull the herd in a standard (albeit risky) procedure, there’s little issue with taking said option. My nurse friend didn’t say anything, but she got a look on her face. Oops? The word “abortion” never even crossed my mind as a label for that until I saw…

  • On Life and Love

    Wedding Planning: How About I Just Get Married?

    Dresses, shoes, location, wedding party, save-the-dates, invitations, food, guests, music, favors, party events, cake. For all that I love project management, I’ll admit I’ve been avoidant about planning my wedding. Not out of any lack of love of the Weir(d) One, but out of… sigh. Exactly that: sigh. I now have amazing help in the form of Ma Dre, which is helping me get off my ass. Which is good because, you know, I’d like to get married. In about seven months. I haven’t found a good tool for organizing all of this, which makes me a little sad. The Knot has a sweet guest list setup, but the budget…

  • On Life and Love

    Belly dance vs. Hip-hop: Inviting Failure

    Hip-hop started again on Monday! The thing that struck me (again and again) for the entire sweaty hour was how great it was to fail again. As some folks may remember, I started both hip-hop and belly dance back at the beginning of January. Hip-hop stopped in May with the end of the school year, but belly dance kept a comin’. I took about 2-3 hours of belly dance a week this summer, but since we’re working up to a recital in December, we’ve been repeating the same couple of songs over and over again. That’s kind of becoming a problem. This month of belly dance has been a tough…