As a lifetime member, one might say that I stand more to lose from the closure of Xanga than the average person, but even that isn't the biggest issue.

The biggest issue is how we react to the changes in our lives. We can accept reality, or we can lash out in denial of it. For changes that will come no matter what, lashing out is only hurting ourselves.

How will you handle this challenge?

Why is it that people, in the process of trying to be polite, say some of the most ass-backwards things? In the past couple of months I've heard:

"So you just call people. That's not really work." (Right; all those people at call centers must be volunteers then!)

"Oh, cool. Real estate. So are you like a slumlord?" (Said to a real estate businessman. A bit like asking a chemist if he's cooking meth like the guy on Breaking Bad.)

"You've really restored my faith in your kind of people." (Said with complete sincerity by a nice 79-year-old white lady to a minority. What, humans?)

"Oh, you own a business? So, you're lucky." (Said to an entrepreneur. And yes, successful business involves some element of luck, but it also involves smarts and hard work! This makes about as much sense as saying "Oh, you lift weights and are therefore strong? So, you're lucky.")

Most people manage to be gracious when they try. Some of the others should really just keep to, "Thank you."

I was sitting at my computer and overheard someone say, "Did you know that his father had just crossed the finish line?"

I think this is a sick tendency of our society. A lot of people died or had their lives forever altered in Boston. That is a tragedy. There is no need to wring "greater tragedy" from it, as if the more we outdo ourselves in expressing sympathy or grief, the better somehow the world is. I know our media make their money reporting the news, and in cases like these, that news can consist of gory or heart-wrenching details.

But let's be clear. Our outpouring of support - which should happen - is for the living. The dead are dead and no matter what we do to avenge or mourn them, it will not bring them back. That is the very reason it is a tragedy. Outdoing each other with sad stories is theatre, and farce. It is not sympathy.

My thoughts and prayers are with those who lost loved ones.

According to this study, women's judgement is impaired when they are most fertile. This clouding of judgement literally makes them incapable of seeing the potentially disastrous results of a relationship with a 'bad boy,' leaving only the positive aspects - being adventurous, exciting, etc.

I've been thinking about this for a while now, but people don't tend to make the most rational decisions about relationships. Not that it should be 100% cold logic, but don't we all know of some people who got into or out of a relationship based on their emotions in the moment, which later proved to be wildly inaccurate? Perhaps people should learn to make decisions beforehand, when we are not having irrational moments, and stick to them in the heat of high emotion. The catharsis of doing what we really want may not be worth the aftermath.

If the research is accurate, it will prove especially important for women to learn this skill.

There is an interesting comment I saw on a blog recently. I know that people bred on Hollywood romance utterly despise the idea that love and marriage is work; instead they want to see it as their right to find someone awesome and into them for zero effort. I'm not convinced that this is a realistic expectation. At any rate, here's one from the other side of the aisle:

Hope wrote:

The fact is, commitment-minded men are A LOT more sensitive to cues of promiscuity than other women are. They can’t afford to make a mistake, especially in today’s climate (written about extensively in the manosphere). They certainly don’t want a woman who is going to have any association with the words “loose” or “slut.” The expression “fun-loving” sounds fine to us girls, but to guys it raises huge red flags. It’s not really anything new under the sun either. Men have always valued chaste and pure women with morals and self-discipline.

I was no saint myself in my past, and I’m not a virgin. How I proved my long-term worth to my husband is by being good just about every step of the way. From the beginning I told him I don”t party, go out to clubs or bars, drink, smoke, or use drugs. We were in the same social circle, and I never flirted with or even really talked to any of the other guys in that circle. I changed my style of dress as soon as he said skirt length above the knee is not good. I stopped frequent contact with former male friends, and began associating with only other women in stable LTRs at work. Men see me and know just from my dress and body language that I’m taken. It was not worth the risk of being seen as a less than faithful and loyal girl to do these things, and it was worth the effort to be with an amazing man.

. . . Incidentally, dominant men can afford to be the most choosy about the virtues and faithfulness of their women. My husband was very choosy, and he is definitely a fairly dominant man. He never told me what I should or should not do, never forced me to do anything against my will, and always told me it was my choice. But I knew that if I had been a more flirty girl who showed less loyalty and wanted to “date around a bit” instead of showing him my devotion and love, he would have just let me go. He wouldn’t have tried to change me or control me, but he wouldn’t have gone through with asking me to move in with him and later marry him.

So what do you ladies think - is she trying too hard? Did she give too much away? Did she change herself for him? Would you take those sorts of actions if you KNEW it would lead to a successful marriage?

Would it gall you to have to prove yourself to a man, even though a man has to prove himself to you?

The juxtaposition of knives, maids, and power over time.

Shavanna has a long post about what she terms "butthurt." I submit that the fundamental issue she wrestles with is, "Does everyone have to make such a big deal out of everything?"

I think especially in American culture, we are bred to acquire pity when we are a 'victim' of anything.

Well yes, if soliciting pity is the easiest way to demand agency and change, and everyone else has a thing they get pity for, and you don't, you are the new second class citizen. You can't play the game everyone else is playing. Doubly so if the majority is hated and reviled. So everyone scrambles to find a pity-shaped shield to not be hated.

Even in honest discourse, the main problem is that people can't agree on what does or doesn't deserve righteous fury. The only way to settle it is to let everyone who is a victim decide for themselves, but then (as she pointed out) some victims are way more affected than others, and make the other victims/survivors feel guilty for not being 100% affected the way they were.

People are looking for justice in an unjust situation.

"Trying to pull 5 bucks from me is like trying to pull 5 molars."

That's just genius.

Everyone knows of the idiom, "It's like pulling teeth," but Eminem takes it to a whole new level when rapping about his trust issues and fear of women, which combine to make him an utter cheapskate.

I find that negativity is everywhere. Despite all I've done to cull it from my mind and eliminate it from my friends, it seeps in through the media, through our turns of phrasing, through the thousand small anxieties and fears for the future that each of us has.

"Life isn't a sprint," a mentor told me. "It's a marathon." How true. 100 days of small but constant effort are sure to beat two days of intense productivity - unless those two days were the only two that really mattered. But life isn't usually like that. New doors, new horizons open constantly, even as old ones close.

Just keep your chin up, and your head above water.

So apparently the Insecurities made a music video for 'Me and Mona Lisa.'