Live Q&As

You may have varying pressure within your eyeball, changing its shape.   You need to see a good opthalmologist.   I sleep with a pillow over my eyes, and sometimes I wake up with blurry vision; the pillow has squashed my eyeballs, changing the focal point.  Sometimes it takes an hour to correct. 

Nope, not at all. 

Anyone who volunteers for combat duty in wartime and dies in active combat.   I'd call that heroic.    Sure.    The odds of your death are hugly greater than if you were a cop, or a fireman, or a soldier at a stateside desk job. 

I'm publishing this because I kept coming back to it and thinking, okay, this is interesting. 

Indeed!

Here is how dictionaries have become complicit in our national disgrace:  Feb-u-erry is now listed. 

I call it the Lincoln phenomenon. 

In his day, it was pretty well understood -- Linc made jokes about it -- that he was a hugely ugly man.

I consider myself, physically, a coward.    I have intellectual bravery by physical cowardice.   I deeply respect those who will wade into something important, in which they could get hurt or worse.   

Well, the debate on this issue was whether it is okay to call the war DEAD heroes.   

But I'd go so far as to say putting on a uniform, and wading into combat is grounds enough. 

I agree with you, but there is a corollary.  It's an interesting one.   I'm not sure that heroism need always involve a choice, but the exceptions are few.  

I'm willing, for example, to extend "hero" to Chesley Sullenberger, even though he was mostly involved in saving his own life.     It's a close call but he is a man who found himself under extraordinary pressure -- a situation in which others might have panicked, or made bad choices -- and  came through, saving many lives.  I'll go there. 

On Flight 93?  Brave, desperate people doing what they had to do to survive.   I respect them.   Wouldn't call em heroes. 

Well put.    I love your last line. 

I think he is a one-trick pony, and his trick involves crapping on people.   I have lost patience with him. 

I didn't say I'd be HAPPY if The Rib had a lesbian affair; I said I'd be less unhappy than if it were with a man.   The difference is a level of competition -- a declaration of preference.   

And yes, I know that a sexual relationship could lead to -- or coexist with -- an emotional relationship and love.     If that happened, it would happen.   You can't chain your spouse's heart.   

I have an observation after reading several hundred unpublished posts from the last chat.   It makes me sad, and feeling guilty for the general state of society. 

Dozens and dozens of women wrote in on the issue of appearance in posts like yours, describing their appearance in detail, apologizing for those areas in which they fail to measure up to some perceived ideal.   Some were bothered by it, some were not, some had a very positive attitude, some had the opposite, but clearly appearance is uppermost in their minds. 

No male described himself.  

I'm so sorry, ladies.   This is very unfair. 

See you all next week in the updates.