"Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"

I have a confession to make: well, maybe less a confession and more a statement, depends who's reading. I considered myself pro-choice until I had a baby.

I don't know what changed, really. My politics (moderate to liberal, depending on the issue) didn't especially. Although I believe in the separation of church and state, I also believe that as citizens, our religious beliefs or lack thereof have a fundamental influence on our personal and societal values, and these values have a lot to do with the Constitution, particularly with amending it. Being religious, I have always believed that "the worth of souls is great in the sight of God" (D&C 18:10) while I have also believed that men and women "are free to choose" and accept the consequences of all of their choices (2 Nephi 2:27). Who am I as a perfect stranger to make the choice for another woman just because I vote and pay taxes? Then again, by not speaking out against abortion, am I indirectly supporting it as a practice?

Even conception, pregnancy, and birth did not give me any kind of epiphany. It took actually a few months of taking care of my baby before I started thinking more seriously about what "pro-choice" and "pro-life" really mean and which flag, if either, I wanted to wave over my head. What kind of choices are we talking about? Lots of choices are involved in pregnancy and birth, the very first (and arguably most important) of which is the choice to have sex. Then again, if I decide to be "pro-choice," it doesn't make me "pro-abortion." It also doesn't make me "anti-life," just as "pro-life" doesn't especially make me "anti-choice." But isn't that splitting hairs? Do I need to take a moral stance, as a religious woman, a mother, and a feminist about the sanctity of life versus the sanctity of human rights? Am I weak if I don't? I believe in both, so how can they be reconciled? How did raising a baby raise all these doubts and questions too?

Let's make this a list of questions.

• What does (or should) experiencing pregnancy or motherhood have to do with whether a woman is pro-choice or pro-life?
• Does someone who has not experienced pregnancy or motherhood have the right to insist on legality or illegality of abortion for others? What if they most likely will either experience motherhood or choose to abstain from it?
• What about prospective adoptive parents?
  
• What about men, who never will have that opportunity?
• Does fatherhood count?
• Does experience with, love for, or belief in the importance of families (to society and fundamentally) count?
• How are "pro-choice" and "pro-life" diametrically opposed? How are they similar?
• Can you be pro-choice and pro-life at the same time?
• As a political stance, is either choosing choice over life or remaining neutral tantamount to supporting abortion as a practice?
  
• When does life begin: when the baby breathes on his own? When you can feel the baby move inside you? When you can hear his heartbeat through a stethoscope? When you can see his heartbeat on an ultrasound? When sperm and egg join together? When you decide you want a baby? When, regardless of desire for a baby, a woman is about to ovulate and, being at her most fertile, is physically helped along in the choice to have sex (still, obviously, very much her very own choice)?
• Might education on fertility, menstrual cycles, abstinence, birth control, adoption help prevent abortion, whether indirectly by preventing unwanted pregnancies or directly by preventing abortions? How, specifically? What about availability of hormonal contraceptives? What about access to prenatal care and education for women and girls facing 9 months of an abusive or otherwise unsupportive environment?
  
• Might tighter restrictions on abortion help prevent abortion? What about illegality of abortion?
• What effect do either of these approaches have on constitutional rights?
• How important is the abortion issue to you as a voter, compared to other issues such as the economy, the war, immigration?

As a final note, I don't think many people will read this but if you do, please, refrain from name-calling or finger-pointing (or at least be subtle about it) and try to think about your own answers to the questions, regardless of your overall stance, if you decide to comment! Thank you! I am very interested in hearing from both sides as well as from fence-sitters.

Strike

My favorite chant heard on writers' strike picket lines:

"What do we want?" "Residuals!" "When do we want them?" "Later!"

I have to admit I am sad to see this strike end. This has been a delightful few months for me, free from the temptation of media gluttony, wherein I have turned on the TV maybe two or three times total. I am not trying to be self-righteous--it's just that we only have 3 channels anyway and even when TV writers are working there is very little to watch that leaves me feeling like a more interesting person. Now I have to work a little harder to avoid melting my brain cells.

Grandma's advice

My mom tells a story about coming home from school when she was a teenager and seeing her mom (a mother of 12--yeah, you read it right) lying on the couch reading a book, with a pile of laundry next to her on the floor.

"Never do anything while your kids are asleep that you can do while they are awake," is my grandmother's advice.

Just so no one gets all "I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep" on me, I would like to clarify that I am 100% all for rocking babies and playing with babies for hours on end. But at this point in my life, disorder in my house results in disorder in my brain, and there are plenty of windows of time in my day for doing household chores with the baby underfoot, nearby, or participating. Most days--unless the place is a complete disaster by naptime--I prefer this method of housekeeping over sustaining my energy all day long without a single break.

Granted pretty much every household chore takes about 5 times longer with a small child involved.

So every time my son goes down for a nap and the place is quiet, I get the urge to do something like unload the dishwasher or sweep the patio or organize the linen closet.

However, I try to remind myself of Grandma's advice and proceed to read a book or blog instead...usually with some sort of chocolatey treat within arm's reach. Better yet, lie down and take a nap myself. Ahhhhhh. The dishes can definitely wait.

Redemption song

I have always thought of myself as a Costco type of person. Whenever Costco comes up in conversation I am one to interject, "I love Costco!" and proceed to discuss all manner of Costco goods, even the ones I don't buy. I'll talk about pleated-front khakis, garden statues, and gold necklaces as well as toddler pajamas, gigantic boxes of Cheerios, and caramel apple pie.

Today, however, we went to Costco as a family and the old thrill was gone. It wasn't crowded or anything, and it was a 2:1 ratio adults:babies (always good) but I just wanted to be somewhere else--anywhere, really. All I could think about was how the baby kept screeching and they're trying to sell me "Vitamin Water" and the new box of Tide is twice as high as it used to be so how am I supposed to reach in there every time I do a load?

That said, I not only recommend the caramel apple pie, but you also must try the organic ravioli--in the refrigerated section, not frozen. It is amazing. The chicken kind, not so good, but definitely try the spinach kind. Today I noticed there are two new varieties: eggplant parmesan and tomato-basil-mozzarella. I bought them all. I think the brand name is Monterey something-or-other. Give it a try and you won't look back. At any rate the three containers of ravioli sitting in my fridge are my redemption from the less-than-stellar shopping trip this morning.

Third post

My 1-year-old is exceedingly afraid of the vacuum cleaner. The only way he will tolerate it is if I carry him while I vacuum, and the whole time he stares down at the thing, probably willing with all the telepathy in his tiny toddler brain for it to stop. Fortunately, since we have 4 carpeted rooms, this does in fact fulfill my exercise quota for the day.

I may or may not be able to trace this fear to the fact that once when he was about 6 months old and I really wanted to vacuum his room, I put him in his crib and vacuumed. He was super-traumatized. You should know that he sleeps in a Pack'n'Play so he was face-to-face with the lighted-up, roaring base of the machine going back and forth, back and forth inches from his nose. No wonder he's frightened. I don't know what I was thinking.

Seriously though, if I leave the hall closet open and he sees the vacuum hiding there, unplugged, he starts wailing. He knows. I have tried playing "Hello, Mr. Vacuum Cleaner" (a game I made up which you can probably envision), which so far has not worked. I will let you know.

Or maybe you can let me know if you have any advice. I mean I'm kind of a clean freak and I vacuum often.

If you leave garlic croutons sitting on top of pineapple chunks for a few hours, the pineapple chunks will taste weird.

Not especially a surprise, but a fact worth noting.

Imagined communities

After 6 years of blogging my ridiculousness for all the world to see, I have been considering making my personal blog private.

I have been thinking about Benedict Anderson's idea of Imagined Communities in terms of blogging. I love meeting new people ("meeting" new "people"?) through blogging. It's an aspect of my social life I don't want to give up. But the blogging world is huge now; I still feel somewhat safe in it but I will feel safer if I am less personal. Well, not less personal, but less personal, if you get my drift.

So if I do make it private then I will still write a public one. On my old blog I used to change the title a lot. "Love So Sweet" was an early blog title, from the James Taylor-Carly Simon song which my husband thinks is cheesy but I love..."You brighten up for me all of my days, with a love so sweet in so many ways."

Then I decided that Love So Sweet is a little too Sanrio Surprise. So I went back to the original original. I love me a good dose of Cat, and also peace.

Anyway, welcome to my new blog.