Wow. It's been a while, guys. I can only apologise for the intrusion of real life, and depression edging its wicked way back and everything else etc etc.
This won't be a long post, alas. I'm pretty tired and I don't have much to give to you guys in ways of thought processes. I just want to give you these images; you may have seen them, I don't know. I just appreciate the signs.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/the-best-walk-for-choice-signs-from-around-the-cou

On another note, I just want to appreciate all of you contributers. Some I know personally, some I don't, but all of you have shown love, appreciation, support and intelligence over the last 8 or so months I've been a contributer to this blog. So thank you. <3 Women like you make me very very happy indeed. :)

Links & Larks

Yep, good news. I'm not going to break my new rule the same week I make it. Go me! (Links list might be slightly longer than usual -- I've been saving them up for a while.)

Caudoviral gave us a great shout-out last week, because he is awesome. Go read his blog about biology and sciences, which is full of cool and interestingly explained articles and things you didn't know about medicine. (Full disclosure: yeah, we're friends; no, I wouldn't say his blog is awesome if it weren't.) (Caudoviral)

In less-awesome news, the U.S. House of Representatives recently voted to cut all funding to Planned Parenthood. I’m sorry; did I miss the memo? Do we want everyone to drop out of college all full of babies because the pill costs $70/month at Wal-Mart and no one can get it for $20/month at PP anymore? Is that how we’re going to fix the economy? Really, John Boehner? This page has a link to a petition where you can tell the Senate to cut this crap out immediately, plus a bunch of fun ideas for protest signs. (Bitch Magazine)

Keeping up with the Prop 8 debate? A review has been set. On the one hand I am absolutely opposed to Prop 8 in every respect and I wish they would get this matter of basic human rights settled already; on the other hand I’m kind of finding the legal ins and outs really interesting. (Yeah, I read Supreme Court decisions for fun when I was in high school.) (There’s a more recent update – about the Court’s unwillingness to speed up the schedule – here.) (SCOTUSblog)

Speaking of marriage, feminists caused your divorce! Did you know? Bitch has something to say about that. (Bitch Magazine)

It’s preaching to the choir, I know, but this post is an insightful and eloquent report of the way the conscience clause can be horribly misued and in fact lead to the deaths of women with no benefit to the fetus. I have a lot I want to say about that when I can find the time to put it into words (I am actually much more conflicted about it than I thought I was); meantime read Thomas’s clear and straightforward view. (Yes Means Yes)

On a similar topic, two reporters (or a reporter and an intern, rather) at Slog did some interesting investigative journalism, going to crisis pregnancy centers in the area. Their findings were interesting -- much of the information given about abortion was (surprise!) inaccurate. (Slog)

Elsewhere on Slog: whether you saw the Oscars or not, I think you should read Lindy West’s recap of the ceremony. (Actually I think you should read everything Lindy West writes, because she is awesome. And besides being funny and feminist and interesting, she gets a million bonus points for this.) (Slog)

Speaking of movie stars giving each other awards, someone made a word map analyzing word frequency in the Oscar acceptance speeches. Did it seem to anyone else as if the ladies were all “Oh, I can’t believe you’re giving this to ME” and the dudes were all “Yep, I’m awesome and I own it”? Maybe it’s my feminism, ruining everything and wrecking your marriage. (OverthinkingIt)

While we’re Overthinking things, I kinda wish I’d written this awesome post comparing Clueless and Mean Girls to each other... and to  political revolutions and their effects. (OverthinkingIt)

This article on the sexiness of ladies who read is about 80% charming, but I think it says a lot about me that my reaction to the first half was “Don’t buy her a coffee and hit on her, she’s trying to read. She’s busy!” (The Monica Bird, and thanks, caudoviral!)

And just for fun, go read this Married to the Sea comic. I should analyze why I like it, I suppose, lest I like it for the wrong reasons, but that would kill the frog.

Old Rule Out. New Rule.

For two weeks I haven't been posting, and I have an entire browser window with a dozen tabs to links I think are interesting and feminist and relevant.

I haven't been posting because I've fallen prey to that evil beast that stalks bloggers: real life. Seriously, folks, I am never effing home anymore basically ever. I sleep here, and sometimes grab a bite, but as often as not I'm gone for ten or twelve or fourteen hour stretches, and it's getting worse. And what I should do is bring my laptop and blog on the public transportation system that seems to be my second home (I spend so much time on it because it takes FLIPPING FOREVER to get anywhere) but my laptop is heavy and I have enough crap to carry around. And part of taking flipping forever to get anywhere on this particular public transportation system is that you spend most of that time switching over (train to train, bus to train, train to bus, etc.) and typing while doing that is a bitch.

So, this is my never-mind-post, right? No. This is where the stubbornness that saw me through my junior year of college comes out and makes itself felt. I promised myself I'd write on this blog when I started it, and damn it, I am going to pursue that goal even as its inherent stupidity is made plain to me by my own insane schedule. I am inspired by this post at OverthinkingIt. I am going to write MORE OFTEN.

What that actually means for me is that I'll be writing less. What I've been trying to do is write one big Essay-Full-of-Thought every Monday. To do that I really have to find time to write something Sunday, and right now Sunday is the only day of the week that I even ever occasionally get off. Sometimes I only get it half-off. (It's okay; I get Friday kind of half-off too, or I can at least sometimes work from home on Friday.) (My schedule sounds like some sort of high powered lawyer's. In actuality I work a bunch of days, but still spend most of my time getting from job to job, and thus manage to work a ton and yet be a woman of very little money.) (Moving on, because no one cares about my financial problems.)

The point being, even when I have Sunday off, I don't have time to put all the crap I'm thinking about into words. I am thinking about a ton of crap -- stuff I'm reading (Son of the Shadows sucked me much more in this time than when I tried to read it in college and I may actually make it through the whole series this go-round, but I have a new detective series too, and switching back and forth is giving me whiplash); stuff I'm watching (The Good Wife is rocking my world -- how much do I love feminist TV? Rizzoli and Isles rocked my world too -- but this week's Castle did not live up to last week's potential); stuff I'm doing in real life (my hang-up right now is the academic achievement gap; it's getting my focus professionally and creatively and in my non-fiction reading); stuff I'm finding online (Rachel Maddow is doing some absolutely amazing coverage of what's going on in Wisconsin, and if you haven't seen it yet I cannot recommend it highly enough). In short, it's the old Patricia C. Wrede quote -- "Getting the ideas is easy. The hard part is writing them down."

Now, for me, what I really see coming into play is my perfectionism tendencies. I must write a BRILLIANT POST THAT CHANGES THE FACE OF BLOGGING FOREVER. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I do not have time to hold myself to that standard. I am sorry. I am next scheduled to have some free time in early June, and I will go back to changing the Internetz forever then.

Until then, what I have time for is this. At some point near the beginning of the week, I will put up a short post -- not one of my epic tangents where I ramble on for fucking years about all the implications of everything, but just -- I thought this, and it was cool. I am going to stop waiting and letting things percolate until I have LOTS to say about them; I am going to stop feeling that some things are Beneath Me and Not Worth Blogging About (get ready for a slew of Castle posts, everyone; I've only been holding off because I have mixed feelings about how much I adore that show); I am going to stop feeling like an English teacher may come and grade me at any moment (I practically am  a goddamn English teacher; it is time to get over my fear of them). Then, at some point near the end of the week, I will put up a list of links that I think are cool and say interesting stuff, written by people who have more time and/or intelligence and/or commitment and/or eight million other positive adjectives than I do right now.

After three months, I will evaluate this method of posting. If it works, it stays. If not, I'll go back to being epic or come up with a third option.