It's been a hard couple of weeks.  Darker mornings, earlier evenings, an 11 day migraine, 3 patient deaths in one week (2 expected, but one of those a patient I've known a decade and loved, and 1 totally horribly unexpected), and the elephant in the room ( Read more... )

If you had the chance to rewrite the past so that a child did not grow up isolated and alone, a family did not become selfish and bitter and ugly, would you?  What if that dysfunction MIGHT be part of what saved the world ( Read more... )

This topic is boring for many and triggery for some, hence the cut.

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When I was little, my Dad told my little sister and me that someday there would be no white people and no black people, but that everybody would be shades of brown, and no one would care.  Laurie and I thought this was going to happen in our lifetime.  When Laurie brought home a friend who was both black and male when she was about ten, Dad had to ( Read more... )

Why I am Pro-Choice

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Belle (Beauty and the Beast) versus Bella (Twilight)

Belle:
Mother is dead.

Bella:
Mother is a ditz.

Belle:
Moved with father to small, provincial town.

Bella:
Moved in with father in small provincial town.

Belle:
Doesn’t fit in because she reads.

Bella:
Doesn’t fit in because she’s self-absorbed and a klutz.

Belle:
Immediately catches the eye of a good ( Read more... )

When I was in Medical school, the local planned parenthood went under seige from a group of bussed in flatlander anti-abortion protesters.  (They couldn't find enough Vermonters willing to picket.)

Planned Parenthood started a fund raiser: Pledge a Protester.  People pledged anywhere from a penny to $20 per protester, and when the radio interviewed ( Read more... )

I like stuff.  Who doesn't?  And I am the product of two survivors of the Great Depression.  My Mom, whose parents aspired to be lower middle class, was caught between a need for stuff and an intuition that elegance demanded open space.  She got things and gave them away in an endless cycle.  My Dad didn't much care, beyond books--the one thing ( Read more... )

Last week I read _Ender's Shadow_. Yeah, I know, it came out over a decade ago. It was worth the wait ( Read more... )

Twenty New Questions ( Read more... )