Hey Salon, seriously, give people with actual writing ability the opportunity to get published on your website. I am flabbergasted by the tenacity with which your editors keep printing AW's stuff.

Will one of you (editors) at least write something to stand up for this neverending devotion, or could you please address your (PAYING) readers' comments? Does Scott McClellan give you guys consultations on response-avoidance?

Save me, Jeebus!

I had a best friend who got involved with someone I really thought was not good for her, did not encourage her to grow, was rather negative and paranoid about the world, and oddly jealous about various things she did. I finally got the nerve up to tell her (in an email) how I felt about him THE SAME DAY they got engaged (which I found out after I hit the "send" button) and we didn't talk again for a year.

After a long engagement, they got married by running off to a tropical island (and her saying, even the night before they left, she really didn't think she'd go through with it) and now have been married 4+ years. I decided to be a supportive friend and we would socialize regularly, but I started seeing the strain on their relationship, the house falling into disrepair, the cars getting run down, a certain amount of ambiguity for life and goals developing, then the best friend decided to run off to another country, to take a language course and search for a new house - they'd decided together they were tired of being here and were willing to make a new start elsewhere. But I saw this as avoidance/boredom syndrome.

I finally extricated myself from the mix when, after she returned from the program, and intense drama ensued between the two of them. I listened to her speaking harshly of him and his shortcomings, but then cop to the fact he pays the bills, etc, the kind of relationship I completely disagree with. I am sad I wasn't able to better tell her what I thought of their relationship and what has become of her values, not because I think she would have done things differently necessarily, but because I have felt complicit for too long in not stating my case. And now I have seen my friend who was so vibrant and energetic and creative become dark, too sardonic for words, an alcoholic, who has numerous online affairs (many, many, many anonymous IM buddies participating in sex talk, etc, unbeknowst to her husband) and is generally spends her time drinking and smoking 24/7. I feel sad about losing her, and sadder still I was too uncomfortable to properly "break-up" with her. I keep waiting for news of the divorce - or that of her running away.

I hope the LW can stick to her guns and tell her friend how she really feels. If I could have done a better job of saying what I meant, I wouldn't feel as guilty as I do today.

I have to agree with Freddie on this one. I don't get the argument that plants are ok to eat but animals/animal products are not. Who's to say a soybean doesn't have some sort of consciousness? Some theories indicate that vibration is the beginning of all things living, vibration is also what compells things to grow, on a microscopic level. Maybe this is like the argument of when life begins, yet that argument states (for some) that life begins when the child is born, others when it could sustain itself to some extent. Plants sustain themselves, they reproduce, they populate, they die.

I feel uncomfortable with the whole vegan concept - when are you ever vegan enough? Currently, my boss, who is involved with many causes as a grantwriter, is vegan. He is vegan because of his respect for animals. His family is vegetarian. He is tolerant of us eating meat and dairy in the office, as he should be (by law) and I have more respect for him in his understanding that not all people can exist in this idealistic plane with him.

In my case, I have several food intolerances - almost all of which are vegetable in nature (Celiac disease - no gluten grains for me, nightshade intolerance, allergic to corn and the mold used in fermented soy products and black tea, etc) so being vegan on top of all that, however I could comfortably define it, would be beyond challenging as my diet already is. So the way I try to make the world a better place, because I think that is really what the heart of being vegan is, not militant activism, is by making sure what I buy is organic, treated with respect, and is nutrient-dense, so as not to be wasting resources.

I understand I would not, even with these reasons, be respected or possibly even tolerated by the LW, but I would hope more people could take on this sort of response to being alive, rather than anger and monoactivism. We need ways to make the world better, not more polarized.

Stephanie

This article cracked me up. I took Ambien for a couple of years for my bad insomnia and shortly afterward discovered the weird amnesiac effect. Also noticed that if I took an ambien and was drawing something at the time, the next morning I would wake up with some crazy masterpiece complete with paint. But would have no memory of creating it.

It's funny when you find out what a pharmacological drug can do beyond it's stated effects.

But I did do some things that I wasn't too comfortable with (that is, after I woke up and found out) so I was happy to stop taking it. I have never had this problem since using medical marijuana for sleep.

And yes, I work an upstanding white collar job, have never wrapped my vehicle around anything, and pay my taxes like a responsible ciziten.