Most of the work for a conference is ahead of time. If you are not the on-site organizer (and it should rotate so that doesn't happen all of the time) you volunteer to read papers and create panels, create the webpage, call for papers, or do other scut work. If you can't come to the conference, it's OK. People will not see that as "flaking".

On the other hand, if you bypass the wedding, you will catch hell for decades. Trust me. I missed a cousin's due to a miscarriage, and I am still hearing about it.

Go to the wedding. Listen to Cary. He's right. He's on a roll here. This is great advice.

1. Try Pilates and Reiki. As a dancer, pilates will make sense. It is a rehabilitation system used for exercise here. Make sure the person is well qualified. It brought me back from to bad car accidents. I can dance, run, and walk- and the possibility was that I would not. Try it for a month.

2. Reiki helped my friend in need of a kidney transplant. I don't know how, but it lifted her rumination.

3. Try to stop ruminating on the shitstorm. When this stuff happens, the hormones in the brain can be affected, and we focus obsessively on the face that specific events are proving that we can not control life at all. Put a rubber band on your wrist and snap it when you think of your parents.

4. Find a way to stop thinking long enough each day to heal. It could be yoga, it could be mindless television, it could be masturbation. You just need to stop thinking and focus only on the minute and the good. You need to re-balance.

5. Make a list of bad, and a list of good. Sometimes we get so focused on the bad that we forget how many people love us.

6. Tell your parents that their acrimony is affecting you and to leave you out of it. After they stop, and some time, the sense that everything was a lie will begin to be mediated.

7. The end of the engagement was a blessing. Trust me. Marrying him would have been much, much worse.

8. Realizing that you are not in control, that no matter how good you are screwed up things will happen, that most of it makes no sense, is one of the hardest things you will do. Humans want order. Most humans hate change (there's a few exceptions). You are in the midst of hard emotional work. You deserve your rest. But don't rest too much or you will get even more depressed.

9. Is there anything you have always wanted to try? Do it now.

Good luck LW.

Thank you. I appreciate your thoughtfulness and your defense.

I agree with Parson Jim. And your absolute refusal to see racism when it is standing before you slapping you in the face is just amazing.

This is objectification. When it happens to a white woman (Clinton) you lose it, you get so mad. I saw that a lot over the past summer. But black people don't get objectified to remove authority? No. Please.

Some women think that having sex with powerful men gives them power over that man and other people. THAT is objectification, too.

The choice to stay at home is a triumph of feminism for black middle class women. It is a choice most black women can not even dream about. You can not even get past your priviledged perspective to see that doing one job, instead of two (in and out of the home), would seem like a blessing to a good number of women. They also simply value different things than you do, and that's ok. You seem to have no conception that some jobs do not mix well with motherhood, and some situations make staying at home absolutely necessary.

I work outside the home, but I have a fairly large number of stay at home friends. They are marginalized by women like you. They get defensive. Their contributions are not seen as valuable. They get condescended to, especially if they have a prestigious degree. It's not feminist. It's a clue to the condescender's insecurity.

How traditionally male chauvinist to claim that the only way Michelle Obama can be a role model is to work outside of the home like a guy. Her husband makes enough money that she can afford this choice.

As for the reinvention, you are making stuff up. Sorry, no. She didn't smile more, she didn't change her choice of clothes (much to the hatred of a number of fashionistas), she didn't neuter herself. She is making choices you don't like, but that doesn't mean she is a Stepford Wife. She didn't retract her statement of "proud of the country" even after it was pulled out of context all over the place.

This kind of stuff is why so many women refuse to claim that they are feminist while arguing for equality. It just makes feminism look petty and navel gazing.

Sexualizing poweerful women is still a common way to undermine them. We saw it with Hilary Clinton and Palin. I would not celebrate this.