Everyone's ragging on Cary because he was honest. That seems mean and spiteful. The letter affected him personally, and he admitted it, admitted to something not particularly flattering to him. He could have given a light, flippant, Ann Landers-style answer ("Your parents are obvious control freaks. Please seek counseling"), but instead he spoke from his heart.

"Two percent out of every 1000 babies" is a silly thing to say. Do you mean "two out of every thousand babies" or do you mean "two percent of babies"? (Two percent strikes me as high.)

Rebecca Clarren writes, "Already at least three other families have approached doctors at the Seattle hospital, asking them to create their own Pillow Angels..."

No.

Ashley became a "pillow angel" when her brain stopped developing. She was a "pillow angel" before the surgery and remained one afterwards. Her parents coined the term to describe her life with a brain that did not grow, not her life with or without a uterus and breasts.

This sentence seems to me evidence of deep bias against the parents.

In my mind, choosing "I can't stand someone who is not clean" over "can't stands" involving someone's basic character means one thing: "I can't stand performing oral sex on a woman."

I don't think that follows. If I were a guy writing up my eHarmony profile, and I wanted to covertly express the idea that I hate cunnilingus, I don't think the "I can't stand someone who is not clean" check box would be definitive enough for me. As if these men were thinking, "Wow, the perfect solution! I'll just check this box and every eHarmony woman I meet will know never to expect me to go down on her! Whew! Glad I got that taken care of!"

You'll probably get a lot of letters from special-needs parents, like me, who will haughtily tell you that you chose to miss out on the biggest adventure of your life. But if I had had a choice -- if I had known what was ahead of us before my son was born -- I can't say whether I would have chosen him or let him go. I don't know.

I think we all believe our lives are supposed to be as easy as we perceive others' lives to be.

It seems to me the study might actually show that what people are averse to is documenting that they've changed their minds. Especially after they've said they are confident in their answers.

...real men.

Whoever suggested narcissistic personality disorder is dead-on. He can't have normal relationships. He has to be The Star all the time.

I believe that, if you want to be happy, you'll have to get out of this marriage. I don't think you can fix it.

It's a big-budget Indian movie from 2001, nominted for the foreign film Oscar that year, and it's got everything: a love triangle, a villain with menacing eyebrows, a scruffily hansdome hero who can do no wrong, an edge-of-your-seat sports competition, along with the requisite song and dance numbers that Bollywood is so good at. My 6-year-old used to watch it every afternoon dressed in a towel with a scarf on her head (her version of a sari), singing along in Hindi. We don't speak Hindi, she had just watched it so often that she had memorized it.

Great music, too.

After they bite you, you change from human to vampire, just like after you have sex with someone you change from virgin to, well, take your pick: mother or whore or just plain woman.

I read the first book and what struck me most was that the story is obsessed with that initiation even as it postpones it: Bella and Edward have a hot-and-heavy romance, but Bella is still a human virgin at the end. What that tells me is that the author (and the people who love these books) want to remain adolescent, remain in childhood, revert to an earlier, easier time when you didn't have to make hard decisions.

LW, you know and I know that if you bring this up with your friend, she will react badly. She might even throw some stuff back at you: "Oh, so this is your diagnosis, Miss Perfect, with your perfect little family and your perfect, hit-all-the-milestones little precious tot?"

My son suffered birth trauma and in his early weeks showed obvious signs of what was later diagnosed as cerebral palsy. During that time I felt an inordinate amount of anger and scorn towards anyone whose baby was developing normally. Not my best moment, but it was so wrong in every way that we were going to have to become one of those families. That we had no choice in the matter.

So yes, her reaction might be harsh, and you might not want to stick around for it. But if you do, if you let all that wash over you and go get her another cup of coffee and not take it personally, you might be able to become one of the members of the tribe that helps Sam have a great life. You might get an even stronger friendship out of it. It will be tricky for you to play it right, but I think it will be worth it.

Keith, I love you.