Interwebs

I don't have a smart phone not because I'm a Luddite but because I know myself: I am easily distracted, I have a hard time prioritizing things, and I have too many interests. I know that smart phones help when you're lost, or when you must have information at your fingertips immediately or when all of the sudden you're next to Willie Nelson in the checkout line at Whole Foods and you need a quick picture, but I am willing to sacrifice all of those things for my personal sanity.

I'm starting to think that I should swear off the internet, too. There is just SO MUCH information out there, and I want to know and understand a big chunk of it. The internet makes me want to write down every little thing (check out this artist, look up that new policy, find those pictures, discover this scholar). I don't know where to direct my energy, much like being unable to decide whether to throw out an old bill or not. Keep it? File it? Scan it? Burn it? What? Basically, it's extremely overwhelming, reduces my short term memory substantially, curbs my ability to focus for long periods of time, and frustrates me. I can't wrap my head around all that's out there, and I can't seem to prioritize between URGENT and PRIORITY and just INTERESTING. 

It's similar to when I was about 10 and realized while standing smack dab in the middle of a beautiful library that I would not only never be able to read all the books in that library, but that every library is different, which meant that I would never be able to read all the books in the world, which just seemed like a horrible fate: how can I learn everything if I can't actually learn everything? I had to swear off libraries for a whole summer because I got strange panic attacks every time I entered one. Sounds ridiculous, I know, but that's how wacky my mind is. I don't know if I'm alone in these situations, but I feel like the internet is just an extension of that library: an endless cavern of information and knowledge that I can't possibly process. 

Clearly, I have chosen a career path where I need to use the internet. Not only do I need to use it, but I am actually charged, to an extent, with populating it with more information to overwhelm others. Do most people get this overwhelmed at the prospect of facing the interwebs? Am I the only nutcase who can't seem to navigate them without heart palpitations and brain overload? 

My answer? GACK. (And yes, I note the irony that I have chosen to discuss this in a digital diary format that no one but me reads. I'm basically typing to myself.)

My body

(So it's been a while...oops.)

I am just stunningly appalled with this nation and its reaction to women as child-bearers. Yes, it is incumbent upon us, the hardier sex, to keep the world turning by having progeny. Because of this burden, and biological fact, having sexual intercourse with a man requires some care in order to not become a Duggar. This responsibility should be shared between consensual, adult partners, whether it is splitting the cost of birth control pills, condoms, IUDs, or being abstinent. Unfortunately, sometimes things go awry: birth control fails, women are raped, poverty befalls a family or parent unable to care for one more. Whatever the reason, an abortion is a viable option. Terminating a pregnancy within the first trimester is a right that was brutally fought for in this nation in the 1970s, culminating in a win in 1973 that we call Roe vs. Wade. Your opinions about a fetus as a viable life are fine as long as you keep them to yourself and your body. A woman's body, and the fetus inside it, which is unable to survive in the outside world until it has reached at least 5 months gestation, is hers alone. No one gets to stick anything in a woman's anywhere without her explicit permission. Many conservatives seem to think that women who entertain abortion just stroll into a clinic and have a procedure as easy as taking a bath. This is absolutely ridiculous. Nearly every woman who decides to abort a fetus has thought long and hard about the repercussions of having a child in her life, or in someone else's. It is not an easy decision to come to, and I am thankful that I haven't had to make that decision. Shoving a probe up a woman's vagina is repulsive, medically unnecessary and could cause far more trauma to a woman than looking at an ultrasound of her fetus. This legislation of morality is precisely the gateway to lead to backalley abortions, a growing poverty rate among women and children, and other consequences not felt by conservative male lawmakers who have a penis. I suggest that we shove a probe into the anuses of all men who would like Viagra. Medically unnecessary? You betcha.