I usually like to post the Virtual Lushary at least a day or two before a scheduled-like post (like the Friday Blog Roundup which always goes up on…Fridays) so we can kibitz over our schnapps and have a nosh. And then I get all verklempt when you tell me something sad or I shep nachas when you tell me something happy. I know, I know, you need a lushary post like a lokh in kop right now. But, feh, what can I do? It goes up once a month. So, nu–no Barren Advice this week.

Plus, we’re smack in the middle of commenting for the August IComLeavWe. Here is your chance to knock out on of your comments of the day.

As your friendly bartender, I’m wearing the knee-high boots, so you can probably guess what I have on under the jeans and t-shirt… Actually, y’all saw the knee-high boots (yes, Hilde’s knee-high boots!) at BlogHer. I played Nintendo Wii in them. The merry widow? That hasn’t been on again since that first IUI.

It has been about a month since we met, bitched, cried, comforted, and caught up each other on our cycles and lives. Pull up a seat and I’ll pour you a drink. Let everyone know what is happening in your life. The good, the bad, the ugly. My only request is that if a story catches your eye, you follow it back to the person’s blog and start reading their posts. Give some love, give some support, or laugh with someone until your drink comes out of your nose.

I have a ton of assvice in my back pocket and as a virtual bartender, I will give it to you unless you specifically tell me that this is simply a vent and you do not want to receive anything more than a hug.

So if you have been a lurker for a while (or if this is your first open bar as someone who found this space through IComLeavWe), sit down and tell us about yourself. Remember to provide a link or a way for people to continue reading your story (or if you don’t have a blog–gasp!–you can always leave an email address if you’re looking for advice or support. If not, people can leave messages for that person here in the comments section too). If you’re a regular at the bar, I’ll get out your engraved martini glass while you make yourself comfortable. And anyone new, welcome. I’m glad you found this virtual bar.

For those who have no clue what I’m talking about when I say that the bar is open, click here to catch up and then jump into the conversation back on this current post.

So have an imaginary cocktail and a knish or two and tell us what is up with your life.

Welcome back to Show and Tell. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. In fact, we hope you do go back to your blog and post your own Show and Tell item and then return with the link to your post. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

I showed these pictures last week, but I couldn’t tell the story until today when my sister got the japa mala beads. This is the story of what you’re seeing.

A few weeks ago, we were in New Jersey in the town where Elizabeth and Felipe live (from Eat, Pray, Love). This town, is the epicenter of my location casualty. If the entirety of Bucks County is a location casualty, their town is quite literally the heart of darkness. One night, my MIL asks me if I want to go to their store and meet them and I tell her “no” because I literally don’t think I can bring myself to enter this town.

But the next day, it is nagging on me. It’s nagging and nagging on me because I have this amazingly strong feeling that I get every once in a while–most notably of winning-front-seats-to-Rent fame. And this feeling told me that there was something in that store that my sister needed for her upcoming trip to Bali.

What can I do? I agreed to go.

When we got to their store, Felipe was outside and he immediately greeted us, offered the twins lollipops and Josh a glass of wine and offered to give me a ride on one of their becaks (an Indonesian tricycle-like taxi). I got aboard with the twins and off we rode down the road. And I started crying, mostly because the feeling that I had was beating me internally at a deafening level and this was mixed with the idea that I had willingly traveled into this town I had never wanted to step foot in again. Isn’t it crazy what we’ll do to silence our own internal monologue?

Elizabeth wasn’t in that day. Felipe entertained the twins and gave the ChickieNob and I matching flower rings and the Wolvog a few foreign coins. He asked me what I was looking for and I told him I was there to satiate a feeling. There was something in the store meant for my sister and I would know it when I saw it. He told me to look.

The ChickieNob took my hand and helped me hunt. She pointed out statues and jewelry, but none of it felt right. I looked at clothing and ornaments and a few things felt close, but none were clicking as the thing I was looking for. It was getting late and we needed to get the twins fed. I was going to give up and buy her a ring that was beautiful, though it didn’t feel like the right item at all.

And for no reason whatsoever, I lifted the tablecloth where I was standing and underneath the table was a basket of japa mala beads. The internal thumping ceased when I picked up one of the strands and I said, “this is what I came for.” And Felipe said, “then you should go ahead and buy it.” And suddenly, I knew I had to own the same japa mala beads in the same size and I took a second strand from the basket.

And if you want to get even stranger than that, I had the strongest feeling as I walked to the cash register that I should change the mantra I have used for meditation for almost twenty years when I start using this new strand of beads and change it to a different phrase that just popped into my mind at that moment. And that is when everything settled.

I asked Felipe if he would write a note to my sister to slip into the bag, something about good wishes for her trip to Bali. So he did, and I placed it inside the bag with the beads. And that is the story of the pictures, my new mantra, and the coincidental tie-in to Eat, Pray, Love during the week that we read it for Barren Bitches.

Heather J got the closest guess, therefore, I am declaring her the winner. Luckily, she lives nearby so I get to give her the prize at the next TOOTPU gathering (The Order of the Plastic Uterus for those who live outside the DC area). Which is another way of saying that I get to grab an extra week or two to come up with something fabulous.

What are you showing today?

Want to bring something to Show and Tell?

• If you would like to join circle time and show something to the class, simply post each Sunday (or earlier in the weekend or on Monday if you can’t do Sunday), hopefully including a picture if possible, and telling us about your item. It can be anything–a photo from a trip, a picture of the dress you bought this week, a random image from an old yearbook showing a person you miss. It doesn’t need to contain a picture if you can’t get a picture–you can simply tell a story about a single item.
• Label your post “Show and Tell” each week and then come back here and add the permalink in the comments section below (make sure you don’t just comment that you participated: add a link to your blog in your comment so people can click over). I post a new Show and Tell post every Saturday night or Sunday. I usually move people up into the body of the post every few hours.
• Oh, and then the point is that you click through all of your classmates and see what they are showing this week.
• If you want it…
  I’ve now placed a Show and Tell archive on the sidebar that will be updated each week in case you miss it. And click here for the icon code if you wish to have it for your blog. It links to the archives.

My sophomore year of college was an exquisitely terrible time in my life. I had a break-up that lasted for almost an entire year. An entire year of being in a state of breaking up with someone I loved and had thought would be in my life forever. Because I was tortured by this (in that way that only a Scandinavian studies major who is 19-years-old and studying Par Lagerkvist and August Strindberg day in and day out can be tortured), my friends were invited along for the ride and equally tortured by the break-up-that-took-an-entire-year.

Which is why we started Bad Movie Night.

Once a month, a group of us went to the video store in the afternoon and rented three or four movies–the worst we could find. This is why I have seen every movie in the Children of the Corn franchise. The rule was that everyone got one time to call “pause” during the evening and a short pee-break was given between each film. We sat through some of the worst films of all time and in the wee hours of the morning (because movie night did not even begin usually until we were good and drunk at 10 p.m.), we put it to a vote as to who chose the worst film (since everyone brought one to the table) and the winner received a prize, which was usually alcohol related.

One afternoon, the day of movie night, we were wandering through the store, debating whether a slasher film or cheap porn was the worse option (since, you know, choosing the worst film was the point) when we passed through the foreign film section and I took Toto Le Hero off the shelf.

I remember standing in the store while Mike tossed the video around in hands saying, “you are neeeeeeeeever going to win with that one.”

I threw the match. I wanted to watch it because the person-of-the-year-long-break-up had watched it with me back in high school and we always sang the Charles Trenet song from it together. Somehow I knew that it was better not to tell everyone that I had seen it before. Why I wanted to see it again. I pretended that I thought it would suck. It was like putting on a sweatshirt from the back of the closet that I had forgotten I owned.

This afternoon, the ChickieNob and I were watching Littlest Pet Shop movies on YouTube (what, you didn’t know there is an entire genre of LPS films, as they are called? Grown-ups, making odes to wide-eyed plastic toys) and I typed in Charles Trenet’s name, not really expecting to find anything. But here he is, singing my favourite song from the film.

Can you imagine anything more tortuous than a pining 19-year-old Scandinavian studies major listening to a song about love in the middle of a year-long-break-up?

Added: As Jess points out, if you don’t speak or read French, this isn’t perhaps as amusing (maybe it’s not that funny to find Charles Trenet on YouTube even if you do know French) BUT imagine a 19-year-old Melissa, in angst…actually, in ANGST. In all black. Watching this film to torture herself during the year-long-break-up. The misery of all of it. But if you want a translation in English of the song, I found one online. With guitar chords!

This is where I prove yet again that I am dumber than a napkin. I sometimes feel like that befuddled farmer in the riddle with the fox, chicken, and bag of feed, endlessly trying out different combinations even though a seven-year-old can usually solve that problem within two minutes.

I am constantly behind on things. Or, at least, I feel as if I am behind on things. Here is a case in point: I was behind on returning emails specifically about Bridges. I had been placing everything that required a long response and opening multiple spreadsheets in a folder and then I was falling farther and farther behind. But if I sent out an email to everyone saying, “hey, I’m sucking hardcore at email”–especially people who don’t know me and are writing me for the first time–I was worried that I would be met with the obvious question: why are you sending out an email saying that you’re sucking at email instead of just answering the email.

So that wasn’t a solution.

And then I realized that I could add a status report in that permanent post at the top of my blog and I could call it “my status” making it quite clearly a status report. And I could write things like “I am sucking it hardcore at email this week” and people would know to check there if they were waiting on something from me. It would sort of be like the equivalent to Twitter except that it would only be about what was happening vs. witty observations about the Wonder Pets.

So…um…if I ever seem dormant or unresponsive or behind on things or plotting…you can check that top post that is always on my blog and if nothing is written there…well…perhaps I have been consumed by tigers.

IComLeavWe started yesterday. I feel like I should give you something good to comment on in this post. I mean, it would suck to get through this entire post and then linger at the bottom thinking, “I want to leave a comment; not just because it’s part of IComLeavWe but because I want her to know that I read her words. But there is just nothing to comment on here. I mean, yes, she’s dumber than a napkin and I can write that I agree with that assessment, but is that rude? And I know that I’ll find out the story behind those pictures tomorrow (oh, you don’t actually know that yet, but you’ll know it in a few more lines). And she picked some pretty cool posts this week. But damn. I just don’t know what to say.”

So here is a question:

How are you with endings? What is the worst part for you–the time beforehand, the end, or the time after? I am not talking about the saddest of goodbyes, the ones that are terrible in every single moment, but more along the lines of the end of camp or the end of a trip or a visitor leaving. How were you on the last day of college or saying goodbye to neighbours before a move or finishing up a job?

The story of last week’s Show and Tell will need to wait one more day because the person who needs to receive something before she sees the story will not get it until Saturday. So…um…the very same pictures (but now with story!) will become this weekend’s Show and Tell. And now you probably understand that sentence in that long-winded sample internal monologue above.

But in the meantime, why don’t you click over to Bridges and participate in the True View Friday Open Thread?

Cross-posted with BlogHer…

It’s amazing what people will do to get out of work. I heard tale that there are laaaaaaaaaazy women out there who love having their cervix manipulated in order to have a catheter shoved through to their uterus so an embryo that was created out of an egg that they had surgically removed from their body can be transferred back. All just to get out of that 8 a.m. staff meeting. You know that kind of woman also is the type who looooooooooooooooves to waste time with things like having mammograms or colo-rectal exams. Slackers.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week on a federal appeals court ruling protecting women who need to miss work in order to pursue fertility treatments. The case involved a secretary who missed work during an IVF cycle that was ultimately unsuccessful and asked for additional time to try again.

Here’s the thing: women are going to be the ones who miss work even when it’s male factor infertility because pregnancy occurs inside the woman’s body. Which means that if a male employee has azoospermia, he will not need massive amounts of time away from work (at the most, he will need to provide the sperm on the day of retrieval) though his fertile wife will need to take off from work in order to conceive with him. This is why infertility is not only a condition of the person, but also a condition of the couple (when a person has a partner) since both people will be affected by the others’ infertility.

Of course, there has to be a fine balance. Personal life cannot trump productivity–they need to work in a give-and-take with one another. Work places cannot function if employees are taking off continuously, leaving work unfinished. Fertility treatments can interfere with travel and meetings as well as physical labour. But where is the give when medical issues or situational conditions necessitate the utilization of reproductive assistance?

The comments on the article tell the larger story of both people who have undergone IVF and are grateful for understanding bosses as well as the anonymous commentors who say, “I don’t get this. You’re making a choice, and you expect your co-workers to simply accept it because it leads to having a child?”

At the heart of this lawsuit is the fact that personal life always negatively affects work life. Therefore, those opposing this ruling such as the anonymous poster who commented on the Wall Street Journal article, “Why should anyone from your company give you slack? Because you are infertile. This and the lawsuit that brought up this topic are a joke. Your personal defects should not allow you to screw over a private business just because you want to have kids” would also probably agree that we should simply stop having children. C-sections take around six weeks to heal and there is simply too high a risk of c-sections when you factor in about 40% of pregnancies necessitate them. Therefore, we need to do away with children. Also, fights with spouses disrupt sleep and are too big a risk when you consider the divorce rate is about 50% in the United States. Therefore, no marriage.

Or, the heart inside the heart of this is that, as this commentor points out, the problem is simply in employing women:

I can tell you this is another reason to hire less women & limit their access to promotions. It is fine if you can actually handle your job & proceed through the treatments, the possible pregnancy & then the time off you will need to take care of your sick child & all childhood emergencies. But you have to look at this realistically at all the time involved & time when you will not be able to focus on work.

Which is precisely why this court ruled to utilize the Pregnancy Discrimination Act and call out this inequality towards women. Because women should not be penalized in the workplace simply because the future of the world is directly tied to our uteruses. We can, of course, dismiss each individual woman as not important to the perpetuation of the system, but we cannot as a whole dismiss women and their necessity in bringing forth the next generation.

We’ve given women the right to employment but placed such heavy glass ceiling above her that she’ll never be able to push through without laws in place protecting her.

The infertility blogosphere is all over the board on the decision whether or not to tell employers about treatments. Egg Drop Post had a post this week about whether or not to tell a new employer about an upcoming IVF procedure. She will need three days off total to recover from surgery and to rest after transfer. She writes:

Now I just started my new job on July 1. Should I tell my boss that I’m having a procedure done and that I’ll need to take some days off, even though I can’t predict when those will be? or should i just call in sick? I definitely don’t feel comfortable telling her that I want to get pregnant and that I am going to do in-vitro. What would you do?

Egged On had a dilemma at work but came down firmly on the side of not telling: “I’m not opposed to anyone knowing about it, per se, but I really don’t want to tell anyone else. If I tell someone, it’s like an open invitation for them to give me their opinion. And I don’t need that. But I do believe it’s in my best interest for my bosses to not know about this.”

Fussbucket returns directly to this ruling, and muses about the farther reaching reprecussions of this ruling: “I wonder whether this would have implications for health insurance coverage of these procedures. Does health insurance typically cover this now? I seem to remember about five years ago there was push back from the insurance companies over whether or not infertility was a medical condition.”

I’m not even hoping for more mandated coverage. I’m just hoping that the backlash of this ruling isn’t to stop employing women, especially the baby-hungry ones who are secretly checking Celebrity Baby Blog during the workday (um…ladies like me). To implement some sort of profiling system at the workplace to judge the ripeness of a woman’s ovaries or her desire to adopt prior to offering her the position. Truly, I hope this ruling has simply raised that glass ceiling a bit so women can take a breath if they want to pursue family building rather than smashing it down on their head in simply a different but equal way.

What are your thoughts on this ruling or being honest in the workplace about medical conditions and your personal needs, especially as it pertains to family building through treatments or adoption (both which necessitate time off with little notice)?