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Pro-lifers don't like complexity. At 17 weeks my placenta detached and he was much too small. I thought I felt my baby's frantic attempts to breathe. My OBGYN advised me to terminate the pregnancy, there wasn't much time. But I couldn't.

Every doctor told me it would only get worse. And it did get. But I already loved him. I'd waited 8 years for him. They saw on the Ultrasound that his umbilical cord was yards long.

An umbilical cord spinning out a lifeline helplessly. He'd stopped growing. But his heart continued to beat even as his movements - frantic at first when the oxygen cut off, slowed, and he became horribly still. I hated the doctors who couldn't save him.

An infection spread from the placenta to him. I began to understand, to believe them - that I would die too. I felt that we were dying. But selfishly I waited for more tests, and more tests, dozens of them.

In a natural world without medical science, fluid tests, ultrasounds, in a world like the one God may have intended we would have died without the nightmare of knowing beforehand. But we are in this world. When my fever rose my family insisted. I was a mother already.

My child needed me. My family arranged with New York Presbyterian Hospital for us to fly to Kansas because I was now in my 24th week and he would not have filled my palm.

I dreamt of being filled with ice, and death. His organs were shutting down so there was no amniotic fluid. He was in a dry and poison uterus, suffocating. I was panicked by the thought of his suffering.

We arrived in Kansas - an arid place I had only imagined through "The Wizard of Oz". I was delirious, things were getting worse.

The doctor in Kansas was kind, but sad. He carried a shotgun because he'd once been shot in both arms. Our taxi driver slowed to a crawl and rolled all the windows down as we arrived at the clinic. I didn't know why. My son was in the car with us.

I hadn't realized we were coming to one of those places from TV with angry people outside. They brandished signs cruelly displaying the bodies of tiny fetuses. Pumping the signs up and down and shouting.

They saw my son in the car and began shouting at him, "Your mother is killing her baby!". A nurse pushed through to shield us and guide us into the clinic. A psychologist spoke to my son. The process took a week. There is no such thing as "partial birth".

I held his tiny body. We had a private service with a minister. He was like a bird in my hands. My son. I had never felt so empty. A trickle of blood ran out of his nose and I wiped it. Back in NYC some too observant people in my building knew. My milk had come in.

The mail carrier who delivered his ashes to me knew, and I could see she wanted me to know that she disapproved. I saw she also felt sorry, but like she was supposed to despise me. We'd always gotten along. I closed the door and held the box under my robe and sobbed on the floor

"Don't worry, he just forgot something. He has to go back to get it, then he'll come back." my son was wise. I felt so much sadness. 15 months later I had a baby.

I was nursing him in the glider, and the song "Frankie and Johnnie", was playing. I picked up the NYTimes. On the front page I saw that the doctor from Kansas had been killed while ushering in church.

Murdered by a man who traveled miles to kill the baby killer, hunting him down on a Sunday morning. People think of abortion as ending life, but it saves women's lives, mothers' lives. There is life today because of Dr Tiller. Where there would have been only emptiness and death.

#RoeVWade #AbortionRightsAreHumanRights #WomensRights #SCOTUS There is a complexity in the decisions a woman makes when the situation is impossible to fix. Women should be treated like humans.

Other tips: if you are going to buy things that aren’t pre-taxed, you need to make a habit of always doing the prep AS SOON AS YOU GET HOME. it will NEVER HAPPEN if you don’t.

Get the bulk pack of steaks! But you are never gonna eat them before they go bad. If you freeze them in individual ziplocks as soon as you unpack you probably will?

Get the celery, but you need to cut it ALL UP and store it in the fridge in water or it will rot.

These are valid points for the busy parent, the overstressed college student, and the person working the “wrong” shift. 

Real story - I have thrown away SO MUCH meat and produce in my time. Frozen veggies can even be better than fresh, since they are picked when ripe and frozen rather than picked early and expected to ripen in shipping. My local grocer will sometimes pre-chop less-than-desirable veggies and sell them in the discount cooler - a chopped onion is more useful than a whole one! Meat in bulk packs is WAY cheaper, but you have to make breaking up that huge pack part of putting away the groceries. Also, having a place to put the groceries away helps make the process easier. It’s taken me more than one decade of life to figure these things out. 

A screenshot of a post on r/ADHD labeled as "Tips and Suggestions" by Phaesporic. It reads:

I 've seen a lot of post about the ADHD tax-- the late fees, the groceries that go bad, lost items, the impulse items we never touch... you get the picture. It's real, and it sucks.

One thing I've noticed lately, though, is how sometimes you can get away with paying a smaller ADHD tax if you plan ahead when you buy things. Here me out.

1. I could buy a whole crown of fresh broccoli for like, $1.50, but I won't get around to washing, cutting, and preparing it. A $2.50 bag of pre-cut, pre-washed broccoli will get eaten. Instead of a $1.50 ADHD tax for broccoli I won't eat, it's a $1.00 tax on broccoli I will eat.

2. A cute planner or notebook with a great layout is worth $30 if I will actually use it. An awkward-to-use planner that I'm not motivated to ever touch is useless, and not even worth spending $5 on.

3. With vitamins, if they're not gummies, I wont maintain the habit of taking them. I'll pay extra for the gummy vites that I will use versus the regular ones I will waste.

Other things include: Paying extra for Spotify Premium because I know that ads (or going to find music elsewhere) will distract me. Only buying clothes from stores with really long return windows, even if it's pricier (REI let's you return things for a whole year bro). Paying more for a phone with a really long battery life so it's not dead half the time.

As someone who was raised to be frugal, a lot of this stuff feels kinda shameful almost? But when I stop and think about it, I stand by my assessment that it's actually cheaper this way.

Edit: Thank you! But please don't spend money on awards. Spend it on pre-washed, fresh cut broccoli, pals.

Edit 2: Y'all make some great points. The encouragement and understanding going on in the comments is making my whole week.

After some further reflection, some things really stand out to me:

1. Viewing willpower and energy as limited resources is critical. Purchases are cost + willpower + energy. Whole, unwashed broccoli is lower on cost but higher on willpower and energy demands.

-> I feel like we can punish ourselves for wasting time. Like I convinced myself "don't buy pre-prepped veggies if you're gonna waste 8 hours on video games, you can spare the time." But that's basically punishing myself for having ADHD by depriving myself of vegetables that I would actually eat.

-> Besides, maybe the 20 minutes I save by having the pre-prepped broccoli means I have enough mental energy to wash some dishes after I eat, which means washing dishes on Saturday will take 40 minutes instead of an hour, which means I have enough energy to clean my room, and so on.

2. Frozen vegetables and fruit, meal kits, and bulk purchases help. I will also add: Did you know you could freeze bread? Then toast it and it's good!

3. Point of caution: spending more on something doesn't necessarily mean it's more than likely to be used. We have all been there. But if something will genuinely be more useful or more functional at a higher cost, it might be really worth it.

A screendhot of a Tweet by user @Maximillian_Alv that reads:

"Seems as good a time as any to remind people that loggers, roofers, construction workers, truckers, miners, agricultural workers, etc. all have statistically more dangerous jobs than cops - and if they refuse to do those jobs they get fired, not more money."

Twitter user @/sameoldstory said “One disorienting thing about getting older that nobody tells you about is how weird it feels to get a really passionate, extremely wrong lecture from a much younger person about verifiable historical events you can personally remember pretty well”

A Twitter thread comprised of two Tweets.

The first one is by Priv (@privilegelog) and it reads:

"Tip for younger workers in the workforce - when you take Paid Time Off, anticipate how it will impact the team and try as hard as possible to minimize any disruption. And realize that there are times that you just... shouldn't take Paid Time Off."

Uncle Mikey is All Full of Science Goo (@belMikey) replies:

"1. Take your Paid Time Off.

2. Without any guilt

3. Turn off e-mail, Slack, everything.

4. No, really.

5. If it turns out your manager doesn't know how to keep your team running smoothly without you, start job hunting."

A screenshot of a tweet by Chief Rabbi Mirvis (@chiefrabbi) that reads: “Wishing #RamadanMubarak too all of our Muslim friends, as you embark upon a month of prayer and reflection this evening. Though you cannot gather together in prayer as you normally would, may this year provide you with much needed spiritual sustenance in these challenging times.”

This speech-language pathologist taught her dog 29 words, and he can even form full sentences.

They do understand our words. This is not true of all domesticated animals (horses, for example, can only manage to distinguish a relatively small number of spoken commands…but boy do they know what you’re really saying).

They don’t understand “just your tone of voice” as a lot of people think.

As of 2016 the record vocabulary for a dog demonstrating understanding of words is over 1,000.

So if you give them a way to talk back, they’re going to use it.

The development of language skills is probably a side effect of domestication and of being kept in close contact with humans. A dog that was a better hunting partner would be kept and bred and over time they developed a better understanding of language.

In other words, dogs are pretty dang smart because we need them to understand us.

A video of a dog in a kitchen, standing next to a series of buttons on the floor. He presses four of them (happy, ball, want, outside), and his owner recording the video understands he wants to go outside to play with his ball.

The attached image is a picture of Dug from “Up”, his head cocked as he wags his tail.

The first image is a picture of someone holding a sign amongst a crowd. The sign reads:

"If your sign begins with 'God Hates' please rethink the church you're attending."

Underneath that is a quote from the Bible: "Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. - John 4:8".

The second image is the Gordon Ramsay meme that's been edited to say "Delicious, finally some good fucking Christianity."

URGENT! If you're in Colorado, please, please be careful! If you know any trans men or transmasc people who might be in Colorado soon, please let them know about this. If you know any trans or LGBTQ+ groups, community centers, etc. in Colorado, make sure they're aware!

A screenshot of a Facebook Post (Made on September 25) by the Transgender Center of the Rockies. It reads:

Attention Community Members:

The Transgender Center of the Rockies has been informed by credible sources that there is a cisgender male in the Denver area that is targeting trans-masculine adults on social media with intent of sexually transmitting HIV and Herpes.

This individual is using various social media accounts and is approaching transmen, asking them to meet up and/or offering them money for sex. He has expressed that his primary intention is to infect transmen with HIV and Herpes. His last known Instagram account is deactivated and was hellsing_ultimate700. He appears to be a middle-aged white male. Please be wary of anyone you don't know reaching out on social media.

This threat has been reported to the Denver Depatrment of Health and is currently being investigated. If you have been contacted by this man or have any information, please contact the Denver Department of Health."

My tablet’s still busted, but I wanted to do somethin cute for Halloween

[ID]

The image is a transparent image, two black faces are shown in a plain white background.

Herd immunity is the idea that if enough people get immunized against a disease, they’ll create protection for even those who aren’t vaccinated. This is important to protect those who can’t get vaccinated, like immunocompromised children. 

You can see in the image how low levels of vaccination lead to everyone getting infected. Medium levels slow down the progression of the illness, but they don’t offer robust protection to the unvaccinated. But once you reach a high enough level of vaccination, the disease gets effectively road-blocked. It can’t spread fast enough because it encounters too many vaccinated individuals, and so the majority of the population (even the unvaccinated people) are protected.

The image is a gif titled Herd Immunity: How it Works that has six images showing exactly that. Unvaccinated people are shown by blue dots, while yellow ones represent vaccinated people.

In the 0, 25, and 50 percentages of people who are vaccinated, the red virus spreads quickly between all the blue dots.

In the 75% box the spread is slower, but still spreads between every blue dot.

In the 90 and 95 percentages, the virus tries to spread but is only limited to a couple of people.

Screenshots of two Tweets by Millenial Review (@MillReview). They read:

Mental health is already deeply stigmatized in this country to the extent of harming millions of lives. Republicans make it infinitely worse when they tie it to mass shootings. Mental health issues DO NOT cause mass murder.

To be clear, the El Paso shooter did not have a mental disorder. It simply isn't true that you have to be mentally ill to kill people. The Nazis weren't all collectively mentally ill. Stop playing into right wing propaganda.

See that picture above? That’s a close up of my great grandmother’s immigration papers when she first came to the US back in the early 20th century. But my great grandma’s information isn’t the important part here. The important part is that line in the middle there about how they arrived in the country.

And how ‘stowaway’ is a legitimate, valid option to select.

First image is a screenshot of a Tweet by Jose Antonio Vargas (@joseiswriting) that reads:

"Dear US history teachers: Your job is crucial. More than ever. When people say "Ellis Island took in LEGAL immigrants", please remind students that immigrants did not need visas and green cards during the Ellis Island era. They just showed up."

The second image is a small picture of a part of a picture. It's a piece of an immigration visa, and the arrival options listed that are visible are passenger, stowaway, scaman, and member of the crew.

A screenshot of a Tweet by Lorraine HANDSberry (@NylaTheMusical). It reads "New York Friends, ICE is checking IDs at the 1,2,3 train West 72 Street station as of 10 AM this morning. They lied about the start date. Warn friends and loved ones. Tey to help if you're nearby. Fuck these pigs."

The Tweet is dated July 12th 2019.

The first image is a picture of a wolf in a pen carrying a brown wicker basket carrying a blue egg in his mouth. The text above the image reads “The really badass kids gey visited by the Easter wolf.”

The second image is a digital sketch of the wolf carrying several colorful eggs in the basket as his tail wags.

Three gifs of Seseme Street episodes.

The first image is a gif of Segi, a brown puppet with a black afro, a pink dress, and earrings standing in front of a purple background. She is happily singing “I really, really, really love my hair.”

The second image is a black and white gif of Segi standing as two POC dance behind her. She’s proudly proclaiming “So, brown’s beautiful. And I’m beautiful.”

The last image is of Lupita Nyong'o, a young dark-skinned girl with short hair smiling as she wraps an arm around Elmo. She’s saying “I love my skin.”

A transparent image of a small Trans flag on a white background that reads “Click on me if you’re trans.”

Clicking on the image turns the background black with white stars and has text that reads “I love you so much! You’re not alone! I support you, and I don’t want you to give up! Reblog for your trans family.”