Living In the World, Not on It

People tell me this all the time - I am selfish for not wanting children. Here is something I found and I like it - it is easy to see just who the selfish people really are... And ironically, it is mostly those who had gotten pregnant by accident and shrugged it off and now they are mired in lives that would not have been of my choosing. " Selfish? The misconception about remaining childfree that bothers many of us the most is that people who decide not to have children are SELFISH. Some data/facts on this issue: In 1992, Rathus and Nevid (both psychologists) interviewed hundreds of couples on their reasons for having or not having children. They found couples with children had 9 common answers for their decision, and that couples without children had 13 common answers for their decision. To summarize, they are: NINE COMMON REASONS GIVEN FOR HAVING CHILDREN: 1. Personal experience - to have the experience of being a parent 2. Personal pleasure - the fun and joy of r...

Actually, that depends on how much more I do with the music... I have been burning CDs like a madwoman for quite some time. I guess I started somewhere around 15:00... and it is now 23:27. This has not been ALL I have done, but it has been going on steadily for this time. Of course, now I need to start some laundry! Here is the last questionnaire I filled out about a month ago (before the one just posted prior to this): Fifteen years ago I: - I was 22 years old - was just moving in with Luis - Did not ever want children - Was happy- still didn't know what I was doing and wanted to do and hated it Ten years ago, I: - 27 years old - Lived with Luis for 5 years and we bought our first house - did not ever want children - Was happy - learned a lot but still didn't know what I wanted to do - still didn't know what I was doing and hated it Five years ago, I: - Finally figured out what I wanted to be - Learned to live with Luis' flaws and he with mine - did not ever want child...

Very often these days I receive an e-mail with "deep" personal questions, I suppose designed to make one think... I think entirely too much and am distressingly honest about myself. However, I like probing questions like those asked in these e-mails... however, I am militantly anti-chain mails of any kind so I always take out the verbiage about mailing the answers back to the originator and passing it on to the requisite number of friends. Then I send it out to those who really are close friends. No need to pass it on. So here is the latest series... 1. When you look at yourself in the mirror, what's the first thing you look at? Me. The whole thing, not any one part. 2. How much cash do you have on you? Two dollars. 3. What's a word that rhymes with "TEST"? Rest. 4. Favorite plant? Christmas tree - the pine scent is delightful. 5. Who is the 4th person on your missed call list on your cell phone? I have no idea. I never look at that. 6. What is your main rin...

Sometimes just knowing that something is coming is all it takes. Winter in New Jersey is not the worst thing in the world. There are plenty of other locations where I would not move to for the length of winter and the shortness of the days. Northern Canada is out, Alaska is out, as well as Siberia, Cape of Good Hope, Cape Horn, any of the Aleutian Islands... I am not a lover of winter. Still, it is not all sunshine and roses here, either. It is lovely in the summer - the days are long, about 15 hours long, and the sun sets with great slowness and there are the long twilights. In that way, being a little more north might be nice... say, a 17 hour day... I could go to Maine or southern Canada and have that. But conversely the winters are only 9 hours of daylight - here - and so 18:00 feels much the same as midnight. I find it harder to stay awake to bedtime, let alone any later hour. And getting up is a misery when it is so deeply dark outside. But it is what it is. At least they make fu...

(Unless They are Close Friends') OK, I realise that my feelings about kids are fairly plain. I have never made a secret of it and never pulled my punches about how much other people's kids bother me. It is NOT a flaw thing or a blame thing (although the gods' know that there are plenty of poorly behaved kids thanks to lousy parents!). It is simply a matter of kids - normal kids - just getting on my nerves. I was a kid, too, and undoubtedly got on people's nerves and would absolutely have made me the adult just as crazy as any kid would! I just have zero ability to put up with perfectly normal, well-behaved kids. We'll touch on bad kids or poorly behaved kids later. When my friends have children, as they are doing now, it is a wholly different thing. Sure, they still might annoy me but not nearly as much as just any kid that I don't know would. I enjoyed my pen friend’s son and daughter in New Hampshire and I love Matthew. Stephanos is special, too. I feel that ...

It is really, really, completely wonderful to be working again. This is a totally different experience from all other places I have worked. I won't get into the total nitty gritty as usual - I have made it very clear from the get-go that there will be no details of the job that I am currently on, no discussion of anything that is confidential. No opinions, either. As stated previously, people have been terminated from jobs for less and I am not about to push that luck. But generalised things are perfectly acceptable and this is mostly about how I feel about working, not about work or the people there. I will say that I am very happy - I really do enjoy the company of my coworkers a lot and find them to be intelligent, worthwhile people to know. Most of my experience is in manufacturing. I love manufacturing - there is a lot to learn, not just the HR side (not that I don't know HR but how any given company likes to do things) but the technical side. I make it a high priority to ...

I love music. After that, anything I say is really just gravy, me yakking away and filling up space. So if you are totally satisfied with the very core statement of "I love music" then this is where you can stop reading and ignore my ceaseless prattling... But it is never that simple, and no half-decent author of any kind will stop there... books would never get beyond a few pages! I don't love ALL music. Let me be perfectly clear about this! Certain genres are almost exempt in toto from my tastes - not totally - someone will always sneak in one or two good tunes in almost any genre, but for the most part, the genres I have zero interest in are as follows: Rap Gansta Rap Country Western Country & Western Top 40/Pop Bubblegum Pop Acid Metal If I think of more I will add them. In the meantime, that does cover most of it. Top 12 artists for me (not in order, as they all compete equally): U2 Depeche Mode Barenaked Ladies Coldplay Led Zeppelin Rush Dead Can Dance Siouxsi...