The Atlantic had an interesting article on using the Internet to fundraise for medical costs, including IVF, and I guess I clicked over to read it because of the question in the title: “Is It Fair to Ask the Internet to Pay Your Hospital Bill?”

Fair?

I can’t see how making a request is or isn’t fair.  I’m using the standard definition for the word: “in accordance with the rules or standards; legitimate.”  The Internet is the wild west.  You can post dick pics and you can post requests for someone to pay for your IVF cycle: anything goes until the Internet uprises and says, “nope” by turning your efforts into a meme.

In a day and age where every project is Kickstarted, I’m not sure why medical bills are held to a different standard than, let’s say, movies or the ingredients to make potato salad.

To prove my point, I Googled “is Kickstarter unfair” and not one article appeared on the front page lambasting the people who ask for money to pursue their passion projects.  Whereas, I Googled “is IVF fundraising unfair” and there were 5 posts about it on the front page alone.

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I don’t mind being asked, but I’m not in a financial position to help.  I feel badly, but I also think people understand.  On any given day, I am asked to donate money to various causes that people are running or biking or walking to support.  I am asked to attend fundraisers at food establishments to help pay for X, Y, and Z.  I am asked to run or bike or walk myself to help raise money.  And I am asked to fund projects on Kickstarter and family building efforts on GoFundMe.  Even if I contributed only a $1 to each cause, when I am asked on average 8 times per day, that comes to almost $3000 per year.

And let’s face it, only kids at lemonade stands jump up and down in excitement over a $1 donation.

So I feel badly, but that’s on me.  It’s still fair of the person to ask, just as it is fair for a person to stand on a median in the street holding a cardboard sign.  Does it hurt when seeing them standing there with their sign punches me in the conscience?  Yes.  But again, that’s on me.  And being punched in the conscience isn’t a bad thing, even when you know that you don’t have the means to make everyone happy, to make everyone feel as if their efforts are rewarded, their requests granted.

We all need punches in the conscience to not become complacent.

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The one part I did agree with in the article is a quote that came towards the bottom:

“If we use crowdsourcing for healthcare costs as a way to replace what a good healthcare system might do, then we’re really creating a new health disparity.”

Meaning, if we set up a health care system that is so prohibitively expensive that only people who have the means to access a computer can do the appropriate fundraising to pay off the cost of treatment, then we are deepening the health care divide where the rich get saved and the poor die.

Fair, in this case, is an accurate descriptive term, but the fairness should be addressed at the medical system itself and not the people who ask for donations.  It is totally fair to ask people to help with hospital bills, but it is totally unfair that we have a system where a person can have steady work and good insurance and still can’t afford medical treatments.

It speaks to the lack of value our individual lives hold.

Which is pretty depressing.

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I’m curious how people who have used the Internet to crowdfund for medical reasons read that article or approach this question.  Or how people on the other side of the equation — the ones being asked — feel about the request?

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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Dolce & Gabbana (who last I checked were two separate people but apparently speak in unison) want you to know that they think your IVF baby is synthetic… like that cheap polyester that unfashionable people wear.  Can we pause a moment to allow them to throw up in their collective mouths?

Will I support Elton John’s boycott and not wear Dolce & Gabbana?  Yes.  I will now wear my Superman t-shirts and jeans in protest.

It is hard for me to become irate because two inconsequential people offered up their ridiculous opinion. (“The only family is the traditional one. No chemical offsprings and rented uterus: life has a natural flow, there are things that should not be changed.”)  It is easier for me to become irate when sentiments like that are expressed by people I need to interact with on a daily basis, or people with a strong platform who have the ability to reach and influence a large group of people.  I guess my lack of anger comes from the fact that I don’t really see Dolce & Gabbana falling into that last category even though Elton John clearly does.

We all have a responsibility for what we put out in the world, and everyone who has a social media account or a blog technically has a platform.  But where is the line between rolling your eyes and clicking away AND addressing something hurtful put into words?  How do you determine what idiotic things you ignore and which ones you comment on?

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored posts.

For the last year, we’ve been doing family dinners.  Josh used to get home very late, so either I would eat dinner with the kids, or I would sit with them while they ate and then wait to eat dinner with Josh.  It was a rare occurrence to have a weeknight dinner together as a family.

But now he works much closer to home, and it has flipped: non-family dinners are now the rare exception.  We sit down and have a proper-ish meal with a proper-ish conversation.  It’s practically 1950 in our house, except that I don’t serve highballs before dinner or have Josh’s pipe packed with his favourite tobacco.

I don’t wear a frilly apron.

Everyone has a role to play.  I am the cook.  Josh is the cleaner.  The ChickieNob is the reporter.  The Wolvog is the police.  I prepare a wholesome, nutritious meal (cough).  Josh clears the table and washes the dishes.  The ChickieNob not only tells us everything that happened in her day, but everything that happened in the lives of every other child in school.  (Ever curious what happened in your child’s life?  Come to dinner!)  The Wolvog reminds us often that a topic is not “dinner table conversation.”  I am the person who gets in trouble most often with the policeman.

We’ve been trying to use the family dinners to teach a little etiquette.  For instance, when someone has made you a meal, it’s good form not to whine that you hate what they made.  It’s also polite to not openly gag or to throw your body across the table before the meal is set in place and exclaim that you are going to just die if you have to eat something revolting (that you loved as recently as last week).  It’s not polite to reach into the salad bowl and remove a crouton or a cucumber with your fingers.  And yes, it still counts even if that crouton or cucumber was sticking up at an odd angle, practically begging you to snatch it.  Of course, no phones or screens at the table.

We’ve also been trying to teach them to wait until everyone is seated before beginning the meal.

You know, baby steps.

It’s been interesting to flip our life like this and have one year of family meals under our belts.  I’d like to keep it up from this point forward until they leave for college, though I have a feeling that we’ll be fighting a battle of schedules in the future.  But for now… it works.

What is dinner like at your house?  Most importantly, are their highballs and do you wear an apron?

Sidenote: go work on tomorrow’s #MicroblogMonday post.

HuffingtonPost had an article about the personality of your state, or the most common character traits that exist in your state, or… something like that.

Marylanders are good at abstract thinking (we are?) and are “hardworking, no-nonsense folks who enjoy the company of others.”  That makes us sound like Ole Golly with Mr. Waldenstein.

And then I thought… I mean… I am sort of pretty good with abstract thinking.  And I think I would describe myself as hardworking, and I don’t have a lot of patience for other people’s nonsense or drama even if I lurve actual nonsense in the playful sense of the word.  But enjoy the company of others?  Unless they’re talking about the people within a very small, designated circle…

How does your personality fare against the personality of your state?

(Hint: Look at both sections.  I found stuff about Maryland at the top, but I also had to look at the maps at the bottom to see which category it was under.)

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It’s Friday the 13th!

Why do I always feel the need to comment on that?

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Life from Scratch was chosen by Amazon to be one of the monthly deals for March. It will be on sale the whole month. I would love your help in getting word out via social media. Pretty please?

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Stop procrastinating.  Go make your backups.  Don’t have regrets.

Seriously.  Stop what you’re doing for a moment.  It will take you fifteen minutes, tops.  But you will have peace of mind for days and days.  It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments in order to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Words Cannot Help” (Unpregnant Chicken)
• “Happiness vs. Contentment” (Lavender Luz)
• “It’s Not Me.  It’s You.” (Jen Rutner)
• “The Dragon Lady Wants Me to Burn Myself” (Screw You, Stork)
• “In a Flash” (MissConception)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Life Begins has a post about waiting; just a glimpse into the everyday life of someone doing IVF.  I think these sorts of posts are important — not just for the insider who needs to hear “me too” but for the outsider who wants to understand IVF.  Once the first week is over, a different sort of waiting begins as you round that home stretch towards the beta.  As she says, “This week will be harder. It always is. Always.” Sending her good thoughts, especially for her birthday.

Four Years Later has a post about helping her friend through the loss of her child.  While she has met other people through her support group who have experienced having a baby born still, this is the first time that a friend — someone who knew her when her own child was born still — has experienced the same thing.  They both lean on each other for support though she admits that she thought this moment — the connection with another person — would come much further down the road.

Pages, Stages, and Rages has a beautiful post; an open letter to her daughter’s birthmother.  She had me bawling with: “I think of you as I rock her to sleep, her head cuddled on my breast. It is my heart that she hears now-and you will always be in our hearts. So, in her own way, she is listening to the heartbeats of her mothers.”  Go read the whole post.

Lastly, Popcorn Ceiling Life weaves house and blogging analogies, especially as she enters house repairs.  There is a line in the post that I’ve been turning over in my mind: “I have a doorbell now, not an open door.”  It made me consider, do I have a doorbell or an open door when it comes to my blog?  It’s about owning your space when it comes to homes and blogs.

The roundup to the Roundup: Does your personality match the personality of your state?  It’s Friday the 13th.  Please help me get word out about Life from Scratch.  Your weekly backup nudge.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between March 6th and 13th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

While the title calling it “happy memories” may be overstating things, i09 had an article yesterday discussing a study published in Nature where scientists were able to create a positive association with a place by stimulating two parts of the mouse’s brain while it slept.  They started feeling positively about a certain location, even though that location had never contained a reward.  In other words, they acted as if they frequently got treats when they went to that location, even though they had never gotten treats there; only zaps to the brain.

It’s like the inverse of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  It’s planting happy, fake memories instead of erasing painful, real memories.

If at some point in the future, happy memories were being doled out — you know, as a pick-me-up to get you through your day — would you take them?  Happy memories of vacations never taken or wonderful relationships that never existed or adoration and accolades that never really came at work?

Would you want them for someone else?  If, let’s say, you had an elderly relative, always depressed that no one came to visit because they lived too far away for visits to be feasible, would you want to plant happy memories of recent visits in her brain so she could smile through her remaining time on earth rather than experiencing grief from loneliness?

Maybe this article just hit me while in a certain mood, but suddenly having happy associations sounded pretty damn good.  If they were real associations, that would obviously be great, but if they were false, well, I wouldn’t know that they weren’t real, would I?  I would just get to enjoy the warm buzz from the thoughts.  Which, I know, doesn’t sound like me.  Usually I’m not one to embrace ersatz anything.  But… I don’t know.

I’d like different thoughts tied to a peestick.  I’d like to have warm, happy feelings when I think about family building.

Because really, how are planted, false memories any different from the false beliefs we encounter naturally in life?  How is it any different from the happy memories you may have of a relationship before you discovered the person was cheating on you or the happy memories of a friendship before it went south?  The beliefs that feel real and happy in the moment that upon reflection we realize were built on something false that we didn’t know about at the time.  Is it really so far off from that?

Maybe it is.