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[bitterfig]

I’ve been reading Tolkien’s The Silmarillion, which is essentially a biblical style mythology/history of Middle Earth.   It’s proving slow going on account of all the unfamiliar words-names of characters, races, and places.  Because of my learning disability I’ve never been able to “sound things out.”  Since I can’t do this my method of reading is

Comments

[ozma914]

I found your take on the abortion issue very interesting, and logical. I consider myself anti-abortion AND pro-choice. It ultimately must be the mother's choice, but in this day and age, with so much information and so many forms of birth control, it's something that should very, very rarely have to happen. To quote Hawkeye Pierce from M.A.S.H: "They know what causes that these days."

[bitterfig]

I just hope that birth control is kept available. There's been some controversy lately about pharmacists who don't want to give customers birth control pills and efforts to keep young people from knowing what's available by trying to limit sex education to "abstinence only". Things like that really scare me.

[ozma914]

On that subject I feel the same way I do about abortion. I'm all for teaching abstinence for kids, but I'm also for teaching sex education and birth control. Let's be realistic, here -- they could have drilled abstinence into my ten hours a day, until I finally pretended I had to go to the bathroom so I could go have sex. Here's what the dried up prunes who think "just say no" always work don't understand: some people don't have sex because of self esteem issues, or alcohol, or the desire to be loved -- some people have sex because it feels good. Telling me to just say no to sex would have been like telling me to just say no to breathing, so you might as well hand people like me some birth control and education.

[bitterfig]

I always thought that the best way to get people to practice abstinence would be to teach really good masturbation techniques. However I seriously doubt that seems like a viable option to most members of the Christian Right.

[sabethea]

He was always telling me I was neurotic and that he’d never known any women who were as uptight about using birth control as I was. He may have been partially right

Um, no. He was NOT right. Very easy for him to say, when he wouldn't be the one to get pregnant and clearly didn't give a toss about other women being left with his children (I presume, perhaps unfairly, that the two children he had with the unmarried woman lived mainly with her).

I am very very very paranoid about birth control. I have absolutely no wish to be pregnant by accident. Also, having had a miscarriage of an intended pregnancy, which was absolutely devastating, I just don't think that I could have an abortion because it would feel so similar. Basically, I am very very careful, but if I were to get pregnant I would keep the child and then probably get myself sterilised to make DAMN sure it never happened again

[bitterfig]

My ex-boyfriend was generally an idiot, but a lot of the stupid things he said to me have really stayed with me because they play into my own fears about myself-- I've always worried that there's something wrong with my attitude towards sex, that I'm somehow afraid of it. It does seem very abnormal to me that I was 30 before I lost my virginity and that I haven't had sex in five years. I feel like sex is a much bigger deal for me than it is for most people, that I see it in terms of giving up or giving away a part of myself, of making myself open and vulnerable in ways that I'm genuinely afraid of. I feel like it wouldn't have such strong significance to me if I had a stronger sense of self.

Still, it's good to know that I'm not the only one who is careful about birth control and really aware of possible consequences.

[lookfar]

Actually, I think it's really cool that you know yourself so well. I had a lot of stupid casual sex that I didn't even enjoy when I was too young to be doing it, and there's something to be said for knowing that you should handle it with care.

[etrangere]

I feel the same way you do about aborption, however one shouldn't forget either that no birthcontrol works with 100% efficiency. Accidents do happen, even from people who do know better.

[bitterfig]

Too true, there's a margin for error in every sort of birth control. I hope I don't sound self-righteous on this issue. I know I've had it much easier than most women when it comes to fertility control on account that I've only ever been hetero-sexually active for about four months in the course of 35 years.

[sabethea]

And frankly, that's occasionally to the good, IMO, as I'm glad to be alive and wouldn't be otherwise :)

(Hey, both my parents taught biology and I was STILL an accident!)

[nekobot01]

Ooo! You made Ruby in the Smoke sound pretty good! I read about a chapter in a few years ago and wasn't impressed, but maybe I'll give it another try.

Re: Indie Rock - There are so many bands I never listened to while exploring my own weird areas of music interest. I like it that way. :) So many bands only write and play for an audience of men, anyway.

Re: Birth Control - Not all women get a solid education in birth control. I know that I didn't. When you are young, poor, and uneducated about your bc options, mistakes are very likely to happen. I'm glad I had a choice. I think the abortion discussion in the public sphere should be focused on how to PREVENT unwanted pregnancies and not trying to micromange women's lives.

[bitterfig]

I'm way too interested in opium so that aspect of The Ruby in the Smoke really appealed to me. The Sally Lockhart books can't be compared to His Dark Materials, but I thought they were fun to read. I agree with you that it would be good to see attention focused on preventing unwanted pregnancy. I'm very disturbed by things like the effort to limit sex education to "abstinence only" that try to keep important information from young people.

[lookfar]

Actually, I think using bc with great precision is just responsible, not neurotic. Obviously, the ex had his own issues. Your icon is beautiful, especially against the fig-green background I've given you.

[bitterfig]

My ex did indeed have issues. I wish I could stop using him as a reference point given that it's been about 5 years that things fell apart between us but I haven't had a relationship since then so I still find myself going back to his attitudes towards me.

I've been looking for a nice reader icon for a long time and a couple weeks ago I found a bunch of beautiful icons from children's books through a community I belong to called storybookland. Here's the link if you want to see them all, they're all beautiful--
http://community.livejournal.com/lecollage/19608.html