As an adult woman obviously in the grips of an unmet need for ORAL GRATIFICATION, I drink a lot of water, myself. I never buy disposable water bottles. If you have not found a bottle that cannot be refilled many times, you may not have found the right bottle, or you may not be washing it well enough. Because you absolutely can keep a reusable bottle clean and odor-free, or refill "disposable" water bottles for months, as long as you wash the bottle-neck occasionally. I think the reports that doing the latter is harmful, are overstated and hysterical. It's your choice not to continue to seek alternatives, but perhaps you'll reconsider one day.

Your Republican is showing.

This came up on another thread, but I read the Fallows article on Roe v. Wade in the Atlantic when it came out--it was comforting. The Atlantic is really good at making horrible possibilities seem less horrible, though, so I don't always believe myself when I am comforted. I'm more concerned about decent sex ed and access to birth control, anyway. I think that will take another large-scale cultural shift.

None of this is to say that you should be doing anything other than what you're doing (you know, maintaining control of your own goddamn vote). I think you're a fantastic contributor here and I always pay attention to what you say.

Let's just not. REPUBLICAN.

AKA, I think another tree person (that's what my name means) might have asked for the Fallows article online, because I have been a subscriber foreva, and read it way back when. The Atlantic is my guilty pleasure--not guilt because of the content, which is joy-inducing, but at the trees...the trees! required to produce it.

How could anyone call you, of all people, a scumbag? You may even have the "magical peace rays" shooting out of your, well, you know, that some of the broadsheet trolls are always yammering about. And Hutman? Tedious he may occasionally be, but I would never have figured him for a personal attack artist. There must have been some misunderstanding?

That's actually kind of patronizing. Does it come with a virtual pat on the head and a voice saying, "Good girl"?

Hutman, at the next staff meeting, will you tell the campaign that their website is an Orwellian monstrosity, and that I should be able to view positions or other matters without giving up who I am? I am against junk mail of all kinds, particularly paper, and whether it goes to my actual address or a fake address, I don't want to be responsible for creating more of it.

(Kind of joking, re: campaign staff meeting, but hey, if anyone else has the campaign's ear...)

I think MaddieP is right, by the way. I have been saying for some time that most, though not all, of the hit and run dissenters are Republicans. At any rate, it's nicer to think so. If anyone finds him/herself getting upset, just assume the poster is a Republican. You're bound to be right at least some of the time. It's working pretty well for me!

Or just someone reaaaal young who hasn't found her voice. Between referring to your "more militant sisters" and their "rabid feminism" and your call for us to "rise above" rather than whine, you lost me. And no serious poster here has suggested that Obama is actually a Muslim. "You" are right, such behavior would not "befit a true feminist." So take your republican self on home.

(It's not paranoid when they're really out to get you.)

Do you live in an area with like, two therapists who've had two years of school combined? Sorry, LW, you are having a pretty normal reaction to trauma. A halfway competent therapist should be able to handle it.

Is it possible that you interpreted their recognition of the challenge in front of you as evidence that they wouldn't be able to help you at all? Were you not able to communicate that, and so just stopped going?

There ARE really bad therapists out there, of course. But I would keep trying until you find one to whom you can say, "I feel like you're looking at me like you have no idea what to do." That would be a start.

Parson Jim wasn't really talking to you. He was just delivering his usual monologue. Probably others were doing the same. Just so you know.

"As the father of two teenage daughters, I am scared. Very scared."

Don't be! They've got you for a dad.

Just to weigh in on the "Family: Fuck 'Em or Not?" debate, I say, find a middle ground. My dream wedding is a backyard potluck, no gifts except to one or two charities. That won't happen because of family. I am determined to avoid the wedding industry quicksand, so my current solution is to never get married. But should the time come, I will have to battle with family to reach at least some kind of compromise. I'll do it, but I won't like it. Families can be great in all things except for peculiar blind spots. "Elegant weddings" is unfortunately one of them.

Approach with caution all pro-HRC posts saying that unless Clinton is Obama's pick, they won't even consider voting for him. I make them as Republican plants hoping to a) stir up shit, or b) drum up support for what would undoubtedly be a fragile and vulnerable partnership.

You can be a feminist without only being a feminist. You can be a feminist by virtue of the beliefs YOU outlined to AKA Smith, and also think that other things (which, by the way, are not entirely disconnected from feminism) are more important to you right now. Feminism is not a tent that locks you in.

Click on my screen name if you want a link to a good piece about "identifying" as a feminist. (I'm not the author.)