dexlives
dexlives
dexlives

There’s a well-known phenomenon of how preteen girls get interested in the supernatural. I was like many of my peers, except for the caveat that I was raised by scientists, so I was always looking for the likely explanation. One time at Girl Scout camp, I saw a bunch of girls doing a trick where they would (with

I witnessed a vehicle flip about 300 feet in front of me on a freeway once. Hit my emergency lights, slowed down and stopped, and observed a whole lot of other people do the same. I had my kids in the car, so after noting the number of people out to help, I pulled out my phone and the EMTs were there within five

One thing I’ve been told to be aware of in an emergency situation is that you should not become the next victim. In the case of a roadway-based accident, that means staying out of the slide path if at all possible. (Things to know for the future! You can’t change the past with 20/20 hindsight.)

The CDC used the sixty years of data from the measles vaccination to determine that a serious adverse reaction risk is one in one million for the vaccine. (That would be a true “vaccine injury” including actual damage.)

There’s a comment on a friend’s FB page that sums it up perfectly. Regan MacStravic: “Spokane — where even the black people are white.”

Funny, my dad taught me to drive a manual transmission... but my mom is the one who taught HIM. (Actually, she taught him to drive, period. Everything was manual at that point.)

I’m very pleased lately that two of the announcers in rotation for my college basketball league are female—and that nobody is commenting on that, only that they’re good at their job. I saw one on the TV the other day and she was wearing dangly earrings and everything and nobody gave a damn.

A “how do you drive” story counterpoint—my boss asked for driving reports from the DMV so that we would be allowed to drive company vehicles. I am allowed to drive company vehicles because my report was spotless. His (male) cousin is not, because he has a tendency to rack up the points.

Um... this looks pretty typical. Does this mean my cats are batshit crazy? (The one that squeaks likes to attack corners...)

Back in 2005, we got a crossover called the Ford Freestyle. which basically looked like the unholy cross between a Ford Explorer and a station wagon. Seats six, gets 22mpg in-city (after 130,000 miles), has a turning radius smaller than the sedan we were replacing, a CVT (no-gear transmission) and... the nice part...

I think it's the difference between "could be" and "will be soon." It really felt as though we were just a few steps away from MAD. It does make me less worried now, because I have a very good memory and feeling that we're going downhill in some ways is still better than being 75% certain that you're not going to get

I'm friends with some folk who are far too young to have been aware during the Cold War (one was even born when I graduated from high school), and they had a hard time understanding what it was like, being a kid knowing that the entire world might be destroyed one day. They didn't disbelieve it, but it's a hard

It's usually easier to do a global replace of "period space space" with "period space" than it is to learn new typing techniques, FWIW. I've done copyediting for folk who learned on typewriters and I'd rather they not confuse their fingers.

We had a car that died at just over 140,000 miles. Mind you, it was extraordinary in that most of its make and model had topped out at 90,000 miles, so its horrible smoky death was still much later than one might have supposed. (This was also the car that we took in to get the brake pads replaced and they told us it

This is one reason why I dislike the War on Drugs, especially the seizure of property if a crime is suspected and "no-knock" raids on houses that might have drugs... particularly when they get the wrong address. Getting rid of the WoD wouldn't stop racism, but defunding police militarization sounds like a better idea

There are quite a few women of my acquaintance who would never consider giving their child their surname for the simple reason that their original surnames were teasing magnets of the highest degree (such as Morehead and Megahead). I kept my surname and added my husband's without a hyphen—I only use one at a time,

Heh. In some cases, ignorance really is bliss—my first kid was over two hours of pushing, and I actually had no idea it wasn't supposed to be that way, so I was in marathon mode and was surprised when they said they wanted to try suction (which worked.) Second kid, I knew better, but SHE didn't get stuck, so it was

I think it also depends on the skill level of your anesthesiologist. The hospital I use has a high-volume birth center, so they have *lots* of experience, but if it's someplace with a low-level birth center, I'd consider doing without.

When I was in high school, my chemistry teacher had a baby and explained exactly what an epidural was. I figured that if a chemistry expert had no problem with it, I shouldn't—and the first one went perfectly. (The second one was basically too late due to insanely fast labor once it really got going, so I felt