See, There's Yer Problem

I've only been to Denver twice.  The first time I was a kid.  Well, an older kid, pushing 18  and checking out colleges, but still, a kid.  My dad and I checked out CU Boulder, and it was quite the little adventure.  We went to a restaurant that served shrimp cocktail like some Mexican places serve chips and salsa (naturally I'd remember the food, yeah, I know).  And there was a pillow fight on the airplane.  Remember when there were pillows on airplanes?  Oh, and we checked out the college,  too.  And I ended up not going there, which was fine.  If I'd gone there I'd have graduated with a huge amount of debt, like everybody else, and one of the few things I did right, financially speaking, was to get out of college scot-free.  (I wonder what the Scots think about that expression.)

Anyway, in Boulder, you're right in the Rockies.  I mean you're right on the side  of them.  But to get to Boulder, you have to go to Denver.  And I remember landing in Denver and looking out the window at the Rockies, which are some distance away and covered with haze, and thinking they looked like something out of the Lord of   the Rings and wondering when Frodo would show up, holding a ring and looking seriously tired.  Then there's my more recent trip to Denver, which took place, uh, today.  And I landed at the airport (different airport) and looked out the window (same old round window) and I could hardly see the Rockies.  I mean, forget being covered with mist.  They were just like not even there.  And I realized it wasn't  "mist I saw the first time, but smog (Smaug?), and if Frodo was going to show up with a ring, it was going to say "Standard Oil Co." on the inside instead of "Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Put This On."  (That's what it said, right? Only in Elvish?)

Which brings us to the subject of peak oil, global warming, hydrocarbons in the atmosphere and, oh, the end of life on Earth.

See, hydrocarbons in the air, besides being ugly and bad for us, are also bad for lots of other living things.  They trap heat, which makes the overall temperature of the planet go up. It's already gone up about .6 of a degree Celsius since the mid-1800s when we started burning oil.  This is important, because most scientists think that we can only afford to let the planet get 2.0 degrees Celsius warmer than it was then without risking major weather changes, coastal flooding, desertification of farmland (which is exactly what it sounds like) and plenty of other things that wouldn't be any too pleasant.  And all of which would damage crop futures, cause the commodities market to crash, drag the stock market down with it and create financial chaos and mayhem on a global scale.

So, again, we're already up .6 of a degree. Also, all the hydrocarbons we've put into the atmosphere to date, even if we stopped today, will raise it another .6 of a degree. So we have .4 of a degree left, and that means we have to stop burning oil, coal, natural gas and every other fossil fuel you can think of by...2028.

Yep. About 15 years. And here's yer problem with THAT.  Oil companies don't have value because of the oil that's in the tanker ships, on its way here, or the oil that's in the pipeline and is on its way to the port of Riyadh. (Does Riyadh have a port? Somebody get me a map.)  No, that stuff's already paid for. Oil companies have value because of the oil they'll be pulling out of the ground next  year, and the year after that.  It's called "mineral rights."  Mineral rights go with the land they're attached to, and they're sometimes much more valuable than the land itself.  Tell oil companies that they can't pull any more oil out of the ground after 2028 and not only do they  go after you with every lawyer they can find, they lose value so fast that they race the stock market to the bottom.  And there's financial chaos and mayhem on a global scale.

But: If we let the oil companies pull the rest of that oil out of the ground, and burn it all, we'll raise the temperature of the planet about 10-12 degrees Celsius.  And that would be an extinction level event--for us, anyway.

I've more or less got the whole global-warming denial thing figured out.  It's really pretty simple.  For one thing, it looks like an unsolvable problem. So if you don't believe that temperatures are rising all over Earth, or if you believe that they're rising but it's not the fault of humans, just a natural process, then you don't need to change anything.  We can go blithely on, doing exactly what we're doing, and everybody can continue to make money and there won't be any financial chaos or mayhem. Er, until  the desertification and the global flooding and so on.  Which will happen after we're  gone, so that's okay, and anyway, technology will solve all of our problems.

Uh huh.

But: We have until 2028. Wind power, solar, nuclear and so on aren't practical right now because oil is still so cheap, but if we took that 15 years and developed  those technologies, we could bring all of them online when we need them.  Individually none of them will be enough, but together they might be.

Course, we might need to lower our standards a little. Have one car instead of three. Commute by train instead of driving. Change our cities so that we live close to our jobs, so we can walk to the supermarket.  In short, live more like they do in Europe and Japan. We could throw in socialized medicine, too, while we're at it.

We have time.  We just need to do it.  So we don't have to look back at our kids and grandkids when we're 75 and answer the Big Question, "Why did you do this to us?" with something like, "To make a quick buck."  Because, honestly, that's a lousy reason to destroy a nice habitable planet.  They're kinda rare, ya know.

Out of the Closet. (And Into the Freak Box.)

Well, this was bound to happen sooner or later.  It's hard to keep a secret from people you work with every day.  Besides, four can only keep a secret if three of them are dead. And I made it through three and a half years, which is considerable.  But the cat's out of the bag, the classified file is open on the desk, the skeleton  just came bumbling out of the closet. And so did I.  It's been a long strange trip, but I'm Out At Work now.

No, I didn't tell them I'm gay.   They know that. I told them I'm bipolar.   THAT they had no idea.

I might add I did this Against Medical Advice.  Well, against some medical advice.  Not every bipolar person/mental health professional subscribes to the same magazine, but the General Agreement among my gang of friends is that One Does Not Tell One's Place of Employ anything they don't absolutely need to know.  And honestly, I wasn't planning to tell anybody anything, until either my symptoms became obvious or I needed a Reasonable Accommodation of some sort or other. [Reasonable Accommodation.  Remember that phrase, kids.  Your workplace doesn't  have to do everything it can to make your life easier if you're disabled, but they do have to be Reasonable.]

See, last year at Christmas I got a glowing employee review.  Seriously.  Glowing.  I think it was mentioned that I needed to work on my prioritizing and try not to get sidetracked quite as much as I was, but other than that, Employee of the frick'n Year.  Practically.  And I got a nice raise and a bonus.  Well, I just got another employee review and it wasn't nearly as glowing.  Not nearly. My boss said he was basically having to micromanage me, that I seemed to have no idea how to prioritize my work, that I'd lost track of all my cases and lots of other stuff you don't want to have written about you when your job is to be conscientious, accurate, thorough and, well, manage lots of stuff. Not so much people but stuff.  Information.  Items.  It's hard to do that when you're not prioritizing, being micromanaged and you've lost track of all your cases.  Tends not to be good for your clients, either, and since the clients are the only reason  you exist, well...

Now, I could go through this review point by point and argue with a lot of it, but there's really no reason to.  And I can't complain that it was a news flash because it wasn't. For the most part it's true, and for the most part, it all stems from the same source.  That part of my brain that's just a little bit more interesting than most.  Practically every single darn thing on all three meticulously typewritten pages is a symptom.

Which leads me to wonder, why now, and why didn't I see this coming?

Well, I'm not sure about the why now, but I did see it coming.  Have seen it coming for a couple of months, in point of fact.  Look, I've been ridiculously lucky. And I had this idea that as long  as I took my meds when I was supposed to and did everything my doc (s) told me to do, I'd be Perfectly Normal.  Alas, I am not and never will be normal. I wasn't even normal when I was normal.  And, yeah, things happened that could have alerted me that all was not well.  But I guess I didn't know they were this bad.  Or were getting this bad.  But fundamentally, it doesn't matter why this happened. What matters is how to fix it.

(That's always my first instinct.  Fix it. I heard an appropriately September 11-themed story about a mom who, on that day in 2001, was watching TV and crying, like many of us were.  Her four-year-old daughter came in and asked her what was wrong.  Not wanting to lie to this child, but not really able to convey what had happened to a child that young, she said, "A lot of people have died.  It's a very sad day."  The four-year-old said, "I'm a big girl, Mommy. I'll fix it."  Yeah. That sounds like me.)

 Anyway. I saw Doc#2 yesterday. He can certainly help Fix It.  Changing behaviors is kind of his specialty.  I see Doc #1 tomorrow, to see if something medicational needs to happen.  And in the meantime, I experiment with alternate strategies. I make lists.  I ask a bunch of what seem to be stupid questions.  I  try very hard to get more sleep. And I try not to let down the side at home, because according to Joan, the symptoms of whatever-this-is are showing up there, too.  What she said was, "It's like you're more and more willing to just let things slide."  And in the name of clean cat boxes, that can't be good.

The hope, here, is that things will improve enough by December that I can get back into the Good Employee box, even if I also have to reside in the Freak Box.  And that the news of my Delicate Condition doesn't spread beyond the manager and my immediate boss.  I know, I know.  Four can keep a secret if three are dead.  Hopefully I won't deck the first well-meaning fool who asks me, "It's not like you're Napoleon, is it?"

The Postmodern Traveler's Almond Gelato Diet

You guys, I'm sorry I'm not doing a better job with this blogging thing. My Thursday nights keep getting absconded with (with which get absconded?) and it's darn hard to get away from my desk some days. Still, I do show up, which is something, and I have fond hopes of getting back on a regular Thursday night posting schedule. I just have to figure out which  day is Thursday. Not the easiest thing in the world in a short week when you're also jet-lagged.

(Yes, I know the time difference between here and Utah is all of one hour. It doesn't matter.  I'm jet-lagged, I tell you. I didn't get to sleep on the flight home because of the screaming child behind me and I'm an hour and a half behind now. I'm not sure how I will ever catch up, though sleeping all day Saturday sounds like a good start.)

So, yes, I spent the long weekend in Utah with my folks and my sister. Which was actually pretty cool.  Like we used to do when we were kids, everyone was on their best behavior and we all played nice together.  Only one thing went catastrophically wrong: The baseball game.  I forgot I hurt my back recently and that stuffing myself into one of those little plastic chairs for 3 1/2 hours was probably not the world's greatest idea.  I'm very sore now, despite my  massage therapist meeting me at my house practically the second I got home from the airport. (No, you can't have him, but his Web site is here.)

So I get back to the office and everything promptly explodes. Well, not literally, but ever since I started taking  one of those wonder drugs that work wonders, my short term memory has been Having Issues. I've tried to build in all these fail-safes to remind me about this and that, but for some reason they took this week to all crash and  burn at the same time.  So I've been yelled at a couple of times (and one of them, at least, was not my fault, either) and I got into a tiff with the assistant manager that actually led to my complaining to the manager.  (Yes, you read that right.  I complained about something. And yes, that was the earth you heard cracking asunder.)  So I have not had the world's greatest week.

To top it off, the other fat person in the office announced that she was Going On A Diet. I managed not to say, "What? You want a medal?" or something equally sarcastic, but really, do I need to know this? Does anybody, besides the person and his/her doctor? Why do people announce this stuff?  To me, it's only a little less obnoxious than announcing, "I've just been diagnosed with syphilis and boy am I hungry." What you eat, or don't eat, really isn't anyone else's business.

Yep, I am not big on Dieting as a National Sport.  I realize women use this sort of chatter to bond (James Bond) with each other, but I won't do it.  Can't do it, in point of fact. I keep thinking how it's all some sinister plot, to keep us distracted with calorie counts and food plans while they busily take away our rights to safe abortions and birth control.  Besides, if we all lost weight and disappeared, there would be no more women and then they could take away all our rights with no outcry whatsoever.  Don't tell me Governor Goodhair hasn't at least thought about it.

By the way, I posit that Governor Goodhair is a psychopath. The only symptom he doesn't have is the criminal record, and all that means is that he hasn't been caught.

Anyway.  I know things will improve. I'll get everything caught up at work and get all the fail-safes back in place (just in time to be gone two days for my cousin's wedding).  I'll get the blogging back to a regular schedule for my legion of screaming fans (both of you).  And I'll snarf down a cup of almond-flavored gelato at Afrah when nobody's lookin' and give the dieting industry a sloppy El Birdo.

Oh hey, here's a little cup of almond flavored gelato.  Bloody marvelous.

First-World Marriage and Untitled Cars

Alert: This is the first blog post composed wholly on my Nook.  Yep, its a keeper.  I bet you didnt know that Nooks could compose blog posts. The typing is slow going because I am still getting used to the itty bitty keyboard but other than that, it is working fine. Which may spell the end of hauling my laptop around and, not coincidentally, my ceaseless quest fora new laptop case.   Hey, can somebody show me where the apostrophe is on this thing? Otherwise Im going to sound like Data. (Why no, sir. I cannot.) If you dont know who Data is, ask someone. I am given to understand that he is fully functional.

Last Thursday, Ramadan officially ended. This is significant, because yours truly is prone to hang out in a certain Muslim-owned restaurant. This is my first Thursday back in the booth, so to speak, and between my tiny keyboard and trying to remember how to wrangle pita bread, Im having an interesting time of it.  That, and the space bar on this thing seems to be stuck. I really have to whack it to get it to move. Ah, first-world problems.  In real life, Im here, the pita bread is here, someone a few booths back is speaking in fluid, almost lilting Farsi and I just found the damned apostrophe. I feel better than I have in days.

Sometime between the North Texas Tour and the hauling of a big branch off my lawn after a rainstorm, I managed to hurt my back. So the last couple of weeks have not been fun.  It's an annoying 4 gusting up to the occasional 6 on the pain scale, and while Advil helps, it does not solve the problem.  Luckily, I have a really good massage therapist, because otherwise I'd, like, have to seek actual medical help or something.  Don't ask me to go to a chiropractor.  I won't do it.  I've been to three chiropractors and had three miserable experiences, culminating in the last genius, who left me for 45 minutes, with my pants off, hooked up to a machine in a room with three burly  Mexican laborers (who all had very good manners and didn't look).

I thought I was on the mend, but apparently this is a trick with back injuries--make you think you're all better when in fact they're just getting warmed up. I have, however, made it through this entire work day with no Advil.  That doesn't mean I enjoyed it at all, though. When I get back on the stuff I will try to do 600 mg instead of 800. Just for variety.

So how am I, anyway, you ask.  Well, I guess I'm okay. Apart from the back, that is. I just Made the Big Mistake - that is, bought a ticket from Delta Airlines - and am going  to see my parents and   my sister over Labor Day. My folks don't know  how  lucky they are to  live  in a Southwest Airlines part of the world, where you can fly around for next to nothing on an airline that is not inherently evil.  Oh, I can do the same here in Texas, and the contiguous states, but not outside. Utah and Arizona are outside. So the trip to Salt Lake that would cost $400 on Delta or American costs $677 on Southwest. That's a hefty premium  for flying bags free.

Then I have a cousin getting married in September. I've already RSVPd Yes, so I better show up or  Shelley will probably kill me.  There are two options. I can fly to Fargo and stay in a hotel, like a normal person, or I can fly to Bismarck and hang with my parents and my aunt and uncle, who are driving to Fargo and back. If there's room for me, that is, which I don't know, and if they want me to show up, which I also don't know. It's cheaper to fly to Bismarck than Fargo.  I thought about flying into Bismarck and out of Fargo but that was even more expensive  than, say, a Southwest Airlines ticket. Almost twice as much as merely flying to Fargo.  It's the little dilemmas, by far, that are the most annoying.

Take retitling our car, for example.  We paid off Sloth, our red Saturn, three years ago, approximately. We should have applied for a new title then. Every now and then I remember that we never applied for a new title and print out the form from the Texas DMV Web site. And then I remember why I never filled it out and signed it. Because at the bottom is this little section where you  have to state whether or not you're married. Under penalty of perjury, no less.

Uh, hello? State of Texas? I have enough moral dilemmas already, okay?

It's not just an academic question, either.  If you're married, you don't have to pay this extra tax to get a new title if something God forbid happens to your spouse.  You get a new title free, or almost.  If you're not married, you have to pay the tax, plus swear up and down that you're not married to anyone else (even though this is Texas and not Utah). So it behooves you to be married in this particular transaction. And, of course, we are married.  In California.  And the Supreme Court never really settled the question of whether or not we're  married anywhere else.  The Feds consider us married, but one doesn't register a car with the Feds.  Unless one lives in D.C., and we
will move to D.C. when I can pry the Texas house key from Joan's cold dead fingers.

So how do I sign this stupid form? I either lie about being married, or I lie about being married in Texas.  Or I toss the form in the trash and forget about it for another year, which is the pattern so far.  It won't really become an issue until we either sell the thing or God forbid one of us gets in an accident and the insurance company totals it out.  But it's a lot of paperwork and hassle at a not-very-good time.

(Sighs, rubs forehead) First world problems.  Okay, to close out this blog entry we have two options.  A terrifying article on global warming or George Carlin's spot-on lament about modern manhood.  You kids enjoy one or the other while I try to figure out my state of matrimony.  Oh, and what to get my cousin for a wedding present. Is Waterford crystal too overstated?

The Trans-Texas Tour

Hands up, who thinks that it's way past time Jen blogged about the Trans-Texas Tour.  Yeah, that's what I thought.  I barely got back to Dallas before everything slipped into fast forward, so sorry about the delayitude there.  But hey, I'm here. You're here.  Joan's here (hi, Joan).  Let's do this thing. 

I love this light effect.  That's Mike Peters with the halo.

To begin with, I'd never been to Austin. Or Houston. Or anywhere south of Conroe, for that matter. And I  don't know why Conroe, in particular, it's just as far south as I remember going.  So driving down to Houston was the first and most significant part of the adventure.  Did y'all know there's this giant, ridiculous statue of Sam Houston on the side of the freeway near Huntsville?  For, like, no apparent reason.  I'm sure it's historical and a big tourist draw and all that but it reminds me of carving Mount Rushmore next to Interstate 101 and just like leaving it there, without bothering to tell anybody who the faces are (not everybody recognizes those guys, you know) or why you carved them there.  

Yeah, the blazing sun there kind of ruins this photo, but it pretty well
captures what the Austin show was like. 

Let me put this another, less polite sort of way.  I hated Houston.  Hated it.  It's a great big megalopolis that sprawls all over the place, with octopus arms reaching out to Galveston and Clear Lake and South Padre Island and a bunch of other places I don't know the names of.  It's about 99% humidity 99% of the time.  The people we encountered were shockingly rude, for Texans.  We got there just before rush hour, which was an obvious mistake, and our route took us right through downtown, which was another obvious mistake.  I never thought I'd say this, but the drivers in Houston are crazier than the drivers in Dallas, who in turn are crazier than the drivers in L.A.  Not kidding.  I may never look at the 75 North Central Expressway the same way again.  

Luckily, we weren't going to be there for very long.  I hooked up with Tammy and Tracy, and the three of us headed for the club while Joan went for a well deserved nap.  As venues go, I guess it could have been worse, but the very Houston-ness of Houston was seeping through the walls.  There were three opening bands, each one more irritating than the last, and by 11:15 I was getting heartily tired of everything.  The rumor was going around that Big Country wasn't even there; something had happened to their bus or their equipment van or both, and they were somewhere in Kansas, looking for Toto. Just before 11:30, somebody started playing Flower of Scotland on a Gibson Les Paul and suddenly there they were.  Two old guys, two new guys, and Mike Peters, who's been around forever, but since he's new to the band he doesn't really count as an old guy or a new guy. 

The story, as we found out later, was that the bus had survived the trip from Aurora, Colorado that day. (What idiot tour manager would think Aurora, Colorado to Houston, Texas in one day was even remotely reasonable?! Boys, fire your tour manager. I'm just sayin'.)  But the air conditioning on the bus had not.  Fourteen hours on a bus with no air conditioning.  I just can't even.  And the equipment van hadn't made it to Houston yet, so the band ended up borrowing equipment from the other bands.  (Prompting one hilarious moment when Mark Brzezicki, who's 6'7", sat down behind the drum set and his knees came up around his ears.  Oops.) 

Big Country avoiding the eau de Houston.

In spite of it all, they put on a fantastic show.  And I'm not just speakin' as a die-hard fan here; Tammy and Tracy both agreed that they were worth the wait and even, wonder of wonders, worth enduring the three bands that came before.  And yours truly ran into Bruce Watson (the lead guitarist) on her way back to the car.  (They'd parked the bus right next to us.) I ran over and tapped on his shoulder.  "May I kick the tires in your honor, sir?"  "You can blow it up for all of me," he replied.  Fangirl moment! And me without a grenade.  

The next morning we hauled off to Austin.  Night, meet day.  Day, meet night.  Austin--wow.  What can I say about Austin?  Well, Austin was everything as cool and funky as Houston was sprawly and el barfo.  For one thing, there was a huge demonstration going on at the Capitol. (See two blog posts ago.)  Joan suggested that we maybe skip the Capitol tour, seeing as if I was in jail I'd miss the concert. (She knows me too well.)  Fifth Street is a long series of increasingly weird businesses, from head shops to curanderas to garden shops to ordinary 7-11s.  In between, small apartments, funky condos, rundown crack houses and an occasional unprepossessing concrete block.  Oh, and a concert hall.  Well, lots of concert halls.  This one was a couple of streets down from the Capitol building, which loomed over the whole scene like a pro-lifer with a big canvas--okay, never mind.  

Let's move on.  There was only one opening band in Austin, and thank all the stars and little fishes, they were actually good.  It was 103 in the shade and the concert was outside. Yours truly managed to give herself heat exhaustion bouncing up and down on the patio.  I drank three bottles of water but plainly that wasn't anywhere near enough.  I almost fell asleep at the wheel on the way back to the hotel, and several times the following day on the drive back to Dallas.  Yep, ol' Jen isn't 20 anymore.  

Best part about the whole thing:  It's obvious that the band was having the time of their lives.  Which is a good thing, because I've been in a band and I can honestly tell you that if you don't love it, it will kill you.  Look, I was on the road for all of two days and I almost dropped dead; the band had been out there for five weeks.  Yes, they had guys to carry their stuff, but still.  Besides, I (along with lots of other people) thought that Big Country was dead and buried in 2001.  To see the band come back to life, with such an explosion of sound and energy, is just--just--I ain't got words.  I got pretty emotional. And Mike Peters might be just as good a singer as Stuart Adamson.  No disrespect intended to Stuart, of course.  

Midafternoon Sunday, we finally made it back to Dallas.  I staggered through the doorway and tried to decide if I should collapse on the couch or walk another ten feet to my bedroom.  I was that tired.  There was another show in Dallas that evening, but I didn't make it.  As I was saying, I'm not 20 anymore.  And Big Country has moved on--but they promised they'd be back.  I'm holding them to it.  Stuart would have expected nothing less.

Mini-Post: The Way of the Long Distance Fishy

Those of you who glanced at your calendars and noticed that it's July, and remembered that July is Swim For Distance Month over at Dallas Aquatic Masters, and who further remembered that I, Jen, raise money for charity during Swim for Distance Month every year, thank you.  Both of you.  You rock.

Everybody else: July is Swim for Distance Month over at Dallas Aquatic Masters and I raise money for charity during Swim For Distance Month.  Okay, now that we're all caught up:  Regret to inform that I'm not going to do it this year.  Raise money for charity, that is.  I got a late start and it hasn't been going well, so I'm going to just concentrate on surviving the month.  I swam five days in a row last week and boy was I sore. I usually break up swim days with gym visits.  But between a case that's ramping up for trial at work, and the Trans-Texas Groupie Tour after the World's Greatest Rock Band, I've missed almost an entire week.  That's almost six miles I can't get back.  That, and the only charity I wanna raise money for right now is Pro Choice Texas and that's, well, a little polarizing.  (Evidence:  Not a single response to the last blog post.  Either I scared some people, or nobody wants to offend me by disagreeing with me.  Oh, wait, one response from my uncle Bob, who agreed with me.  Thanks, Uncle Bob.  Not for agreeing with me but for responding.)  

So here's what I suggest.  Decide on a favorite charity and send them ten bucks.  You can tell them it's in honor of Swim for Distance Month or you can leave that part out.  I'm sure they won't care.  If you're the gambling sort, bet the ten bucks on whether or not I make two thousand meters in the Big Swim, which I enter every year and I'm still gonna enter because I'm crazy like that.  If I do it, the charity gets the ten bucks.  If I don't do it, then you send the ten bucks to Tea Party America or the John Birch Society in my name and put me on their mailing list for life.  A guy I used to work with at the TJ Library threatened me with that once and it was quite effective at keeping me in line.  I never stuck a piece of book tape on his back again. (He set the alarm off thirty-seven times.  It was effing hilarious.)

And just cause I missed his cute li'l face, I'm bringing back the Long Distance Fishy.  There he is at 1200 meters.  I'll post a total count soon.  Probably after I get back from the Trans-Texas Groupie Tour after the--yeah.

Yeah, It's About Abortion. Because I Live In Texas, Y'All.

Yeah, yeah, okay, I'm behind on the blog posts.  So sorry.  Between the Buddhist Bin Laden and the real estate agents I wasn't sure I could top myself.  Besides, there's only one topic allowed in Texas right now.  Ask anybody in journalism.  Sure, it's all about jobs and the economy and bringing manufacturing home to the States, but right now it's all about abortion.

My favorite subject.  Right up there with intestinal flu and things that come out of a litter box if you shake it too hard.

Okay, let's just do this thing.

If you've been hanging around here long enough, you probably know my position on the subject, which is complicated but I stand by it anyway.  If not, the Reader's Digest version goes as follows:  I hate it.  I wish no one would ever have one.  But it needs to be legal because women are going to have them regardless and sometimes it's the kindest choice. When? I don't know. That's not up to me. It's completely impossible to visualize every circumstance that would make someone want to have one and equally impossible to then say, "Well, that's a valid reason but this one isn't."  Again, not up to me. I trust women.  They'll make the hard choices without my help.  Or anyone else's.

So let's just skip all that and talk about what Senate Bill 1 would do, anyway.   Here's the text.  Do go read it, because it took me ages to find it.  Not that there's a conspiracy to hide the bill or anything.  I can't imagine that would ever happen.  But anyway.  The media is getting this bill all kinds of wrong.

What we keep hearing over and over again is that this bill would ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy.  Which it would, right around the time that the most severe fetal deformities, like anencephaly (developing without a brain) can be seen on ultrasound for the first time.  What it doesn't say is that of all the abortions in the United States, exactly one and a half percent of them take place at this time.  One and a half percent still translates to about 18,000 in 2008, which is way too many, but that's one and a half percent of 1.2 million.  (In case you're wondering, 88%, or 1,064,000, take place in the first 12 weeks.  Odd how you never hear about those.)  Here are the stats.  Take a look.

What I'm saying is, an abortion after 20 weeks doesn't happen very often.  Most women know they're pregnant and have decided what to do by twelve weeks.  There aren't any statistics that tell us why abortions happen when they happen, but anecdotally, after 20 weeks severe fetal deformities or maternal complications are the main culprit.  An anencephalic fetus, for example, will not survive birth, no matter what your senator said to the subcommittee.  An anecephalic fetus is alive because it's attached to the mother and for no other reason.  Asking a woman to carry a doomed fetus to term isn't just ridiculous, it's cruel.  Some women develop severe diabetes, pre-eclampsia, hypertension, anemia or hyperemesis gravidarum to the point where continuing the pregnancy can literally kill them. Don't know what any of that means?  Maybe you should shut up and let the people who do, make the decisions, then.

So while the whole 20 weeks thing is getting all the press, we're missing all of this:

• Raising abortion clinic building standards to "ambulatory surgical centers" will close all but five clinics in the state.  Note, birth centers - places where live babies are born every day - do not have to meet these standards.  If these clinics close, abortion will become impossible for most Texas women.  Can you drive 10 hours for a medical procedure?  Three times?  Get off work? Arrange for child care? Because that's what the law will require.
• Require doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a local hospital.  Most doctors who perform abortions are not "local"; they travel to the different clinics because living in the area is too dangerous (abortion doctors are often stalked, and sometimes shot and killed, by anti-abortion activists).  What's more, hospitals don't grant admission privileges to just anybody. They want doctors who are going to admit a minimum number of patients a year. Abortion doctors won't admit that many because, well, abortion's pretty darn safe. A lot safer than giving birth.  Yeah.  Sorry, it's true.
• Require women who take the "abortion pill" to do it in front of a doctor, who must meet all of the standards I just listed.  (Hint: Order it off the Internet, ladies. And don't tell anybody.  A woman in Idaho was arrested, though charges were dropped, for doing this.) 

I could, and probably should, go on, but you get the idea.  This bill is not about 20 weeks.  This bill is about legislating abortion out of existence, at least in Texas.  And here's the thing: It won't work.  Other states have tried regulations like this, and the courts have blocked the laws, but Texas, which will not release funds to upgrade infrastructure, improve education or deal with the increasingly severe water problem (won't even restrict new housing permits, which would help A LOT) has set aside millions of dollars to defend this blatantly unconstitutional law in court. Sometimes I think I never left Utah, which took more bills to the Supreme Court than a Senator with a personal--wait, I promised not to tell that joke anymore.  Sorry.  

Besides all that, though, abortion being illegal or unavailable will do jackshit nothing to stop it from happening.  Nada.  Nyet.  Ixnay.  Countries where abortion is illegal have just as many abortions as countries where it is legal, and sometimes more.  Things are a little safer than they were in the 60s, where we had maniacs with dirty knives and folding tables, but a lot of women are going to take matters into their own hands and a lot of them are going to die.  We used to have whole hospital wards set aside for women who had botched abortions.  The babies died, the women died, and the women who didn't die usually lost their ability to have children.  

Ironically, Texas lawmakers keep saying that this law will "protect women."

Uh-huh.