The State of Everything

Last week, sadly, we had yet another school shooting. I have reached the point, honestly, where I can't even mentally participate in what then ensues. The sadness, the thoughts and prayers, the excuses, the breast-beating, the anti-gun side, the pro-gun side, the shouting, virtual and otherwise--and the funerals, the sadness, the mourning. I know all about Australia, and honestly, you'd have to be living under a rock not to, and I know about England, and Switzerland, and I know about the other places that do have guns and how awful and lawless they are. I've thought about it all, I've been down those roads a million times. Newtown happened in my home state. The teachers who were killed went to the same state schools as my own daughters, so I even have a fair idea of what their college days were like. My heart broke for the little ones. My heart even broke for the killer's family, because they lost two family members as well, no matter how culpable his moth...

So, in the news lately, to put it mildly, there's been a lot of talk about rape and coercion and where is the line between the two. Also talk about when women just give in so the persuasion ("persuasion") stops. This morning I had a real life example that had nothing to do with sex, and made me see how pervasive persuasion can be. My husband works from home. I could write ten blogs about this, and I may, but that's not the point today. Today the point is this: we are in the very slow process of renovating our house (very slow, again, another blog) and not all things are in the places they will end up. Also, my father built a lot, really a lot, of furniture in his life, and really a lot of it ended up at my house. (He did as well, but again--another blog for another day). So, in my dining room is what is in fact a TV stand, from the days of not flat-screen TVs. It's very nice, black walnut, with a space for a VCR, and storage underneath. It has fetched ...