Insurance "errors"

It seems like every time I log on to our health insurance website to review our recent claims, there's some kind of problem. And considering that we are generally healthy people, we see the doctor a lot. Callum's well-visits are frequent (though thankfully now that we're past 18 months he's down to the regular once a year schedule, starting at age two). He usually has a couple sick visits per year, too. Torsten and I get annual physicals. Torsten had his gallbladder out and all the accompanying doctor visits and follow-ups. He is also mole-prone and goes to the dermatologist annually. I have my annual gyno exam and my regular endocrinologist visits and my occasional lap-band fills and bariatric surgeon check-ins. And we all get flu shots each year, which we do through our PCPs so our insurance will be billed directly.

So yeah. Relatively healthy, no major illnesses, but a fair amount of visits to the doctor in our lives. Thank goodness for good health insurance. But when I say "good" I mean that they pay for things... when we force them to.

It's not as bad as some. We've never had our insurance company outright deny coverage (other than for my lap-band, which was truly excluded, and of course the insurance plan we're on now that I've changed jobs DOES cover it but whatever, it's water under the bridge and anyway, I wouldn't have changed the timing of that surgery because it impacted pregnancy timing, so). But, we do constantly seem to get bills for medical things that are supposed to be covered. And whenever we look into it, it turns out it was the insurance company's fault. And they fix it! They do! And they're nice and helpful on the phone! But, if I didn't call? We'd be paying quite a bit of unnecessary money.

For example: when Torsten went to the ER with his gallbladder attack, we made sure to pick an in-network ER, for which we have a copay but no deductible or coinsurance. In other words, we paid a flat one-time fee ($125) and nothing else. But then, weeks later, we got a bill from a radiology imaging company, saying that we owed them $42. I checked the insurance explanation of benefits and saw that they were saying the ultrasound had been performed out of network, even though it was done at an in-network hospital. A bit of research showed that this is technically possible (which is also disgusting, but that's a separate discussion), but when I called the radiology company, they told me that they ARE in-network for our insurance. So then I called the insurance company and they looked into it and oh! Surprise! Our mistake! We entered the wrong code! They are in-network! No worries, we'll just pay that $42 for you. Thanks!

Another example: Torsten just went to the dermatologist for a routine visit and had a mole removed and biopsied. The dermatologist was in-network and all we had to pay was a co-pay. Until, in addition to the bill for the dermatologist he actually saw, we also got a bill for $106 for some other random dermatologist in the practice, whom the insurance said was out-of-network because Torsten didn't have a referral to see him (which he didn't, that was true--because he didn't see that doctor! He DID have a referral for the doctor he ACTUALLY saw). I called up to ask why we were being billed for a visit to a doctor neither of us had ever heard of, and they looked into it, and oh whoops! That was pathology, not an office visit! Our mistake! We entered the wrong code! They are in-network! No worries, we'll just pay that $106 for you. Thanks!

Example the third: Callum has had all the usual well-visits. We switched insurance between his 6-month and 9-month visits, because I changed jobs. There is no copay for those visits so we pay nothing out of pocket. Until we got the bill for his 18-month visit, for $357. The insurance EOB said that we had "exceeded the maximum coverage for this benefit." When I called to inquire, I was told that he had gone to more than the covered number of well-visits for his age. I asked how that could be, since he only went to the standard set. They told me they covered seven visits the first year (that would cover 3 days, 2 weeks, and 2, 4, 6, 9, and 12 months) and two visits the second year (that would cover 15 and 18 months). That's exactly what Callum had. When I pointed this out, the woman was silent for a long time as she did god knows what in their impenetrable system, and oh whoops! We assigned his 12-month visit to the second year instead of the first! Our mistake! No worries, we'll just pay that $357 for you. Thanks!

And these are only the first three examples that come to mind! They do this ALL THE TIME. These three instances all happened within the past few months. There are also a million other examples, though sometimes smaller like when they say we owe a few dollars for bloodwork when we really don't, or that a test isn't covered when it really is.

And you know what? I think they do it on purpose. Not everyone bothers to call up when they get a bill, especially if it's just a few dollars. Most people probably would have called for that $357 pediatrician bill. Probably also for the $106 dermatologist bill. Maybe not quite as many for the $42 ultrasound bill. And I'm guessing almost none for those $5-$10 charges for labwork and whatnot. It's just not worth your time to haggle with an insurance company over a few dollars, right? When they're so bureaucratic and impenetrable and immensely frustrating?

But they're COUNTING on that, aren't they? If an insurance company has a million members and they make "errors" that charge those members an average of $5 extra per year, that's a cool $5 million they've made for doing absolutely nothing. And just think how many members probably pay even more than that because of a coding error, or an interpretation error, or a date confusion, or some other insane technicality. Just think how many people probably pay the bills when they receive them and assume it's their own ignorance about the inner workings of the insurance company that's the problem, rather than an actual insurance error.

In fact, thinking back to when Torsten had his hematoma surgery a few years ago? I was much less informed about insurance companies than I am now, and we weren't married yet so we had separate insurance and I was unfamiliar with the details of his coverage. But his insurance was supposedly great, and yet we kept getting these BILLS after it all ended. A few hundred to the anesthesiologist. A few hundred more to the hospital. A few hundred more to the surgeon. And on and on. Overall we paid over a thousand dollars out of pocket for that surgery, in addition to the original copay, despite the supposedly excellent insurance. And we paid those bills without questioning whether they were accurate. We didn't even look into it. I don't think we explored the EOBs to see what the reasons were for less than complete coverage. We certainly didn't call up the insurance company or the medical providers to ask. We just... paid.

And maybe that was right. Maybe he really did just have fairly crappy insurance that was oversold as excellent and that didn't provide full coverage. But maybe not. We should have called to be sure. And it never crossed our minds. And I'm sure it never crosses the minds of lots of other people who receive unexpected medical bills despite their expensive health insurance.

So, lesson learned: whenever we get a bill we don't think we should have gotten, we always, always call. Our insurance company has been shockingly helpful and efficient over the phone. I have yet to ever have a charge I've questioned upheld. They have ALWAYS been reversed. And so I will keep calling. Because they should not get away with this. Even if they're true unintentional errors, they need a system that prevents people from being erroneously billed. It should not be our job to sort through impenetrable language and complex insurance structures to figure out if we really owe what they're telling us we owe.

But frankly, I just don't believe that these errors are unintentional. I think it's a nasty racket. Even if it's only $3 in question, just on principle, I will ALWAYS call.

Why eating contests bother me

I like summer. It stays light really late. We grill on the patio for dinner several times per week. Everything is lush and green and blooming, and everyone has a relaxed vibe. It's like even though most of us are working full-time just like the rest of the year, we still have somewhat of a summer break attitude. Plus it's the time for beach vacations, hikes in the mountains, and BBQ parties.

But it seems like it's also always summertime when I hear about something that really grosses me out--eating contests. Pie-eating and hot dog-eating seem to be the two most prevalent kinds. Maybe it's because these things often happen at county fairs, which tend to be a summertime event? Or maybe it's because of that relaxed, "hey, we're on vacation!" summer attitude I was describing. Either way, eating contests seem to happen in the summer. And I think they're gross.

I partly think they're gross because the physical act of stuffing as much food as possible down your throat in the shortest possible amount of time seems inherently icky. I have never observed an eating contest, and I have no desire to change that, but from what I hear from people who have seen them, it's gag-inducing to watch. And I'm not surprised. It sounds sickening, and not just for the participants.

But that's not actually what bothers me about eating contests, really. I mean, lots of people do things that I find boring or unappealing, so I don't partake, they do, and we all move on with our lives, you know? But I guess what bothers me most is the wastefulness involved.

Let me be clear: I'm not a member of the clean plate club. I'll never tell Callum that he has to finish his dinner because children in Ethiopia are starving. Him being more full than he wants to be, or choking down something he's not interested in, won't change the plight of starving children anywhere. To me, they're separate things.

But I draw the line between someone not finishing the food on their plate, food which presumably was a reasonable portion to begin with, and people making a game out of wasting food on a massive scale. Eating more than 60 hot dogs within 10 minutes? That's excessive. It's not healthy. It's not nutritious. It's not even an enjoyable indulgence. It's a miserable, gross, vomit-inducing experience done only for bragging rights. And I think it's horrifying.

I know we waste food on a massive scale in a million other ways. And those bother me too. Food supply issues are fascinating and complex, and I know very little about them, really. But something about eating contests in particular really highlights this issue for me. Leaving aside the fact that competitive eating can actually be dangerous for participants, I guess it's the way it's a pure media spectacle. It almost feels like mockery--that we have such an abundance of food that people can jam 62 hot dogs down their throat for sport--while other people, right in this country and all around the world, don't even have one hot dog, or anything else, to eat for dinner. And we're showing that off for news outlets to share with the entire country as though this were just a silly, harmless little tradition.

It just feels disrespectful. And I don't think it's harmless at all.

Listening

I need to blog more. I do. I miss it. And I don't want this blog to just be monthly letters to my baby. It would be nice if we also had some record of the stuff going on between the 24th of one month and the 24th of the next month, you know?

And there is stuff going on, but a lot of it is stuff that I can't really talk about here, and that pisses me off, and also I hate it when people go on about Unbloggable Things, and really, everything is fine, Callum is great and Torsten and I are great and things are good. But some of the non-baby details of our lives are things I don't really want to get into at the moment, but those are the same things that are on my mind a lot of the time, and therefore... silence.

Plus there are things going on in the world, and I don't really want to discuss my reaction to the Osama bin Laden thing in part because everyone's reactions seem to have turned into finger-pointing about everyone else's reactions, and I feel like we have now reached a point where if I say that my reaction was X, it will feel to people whose reactions were more like Y or Z like I am saying that X is the right reaction and Y and Z are the wrong reactions. And I don't feel that way. And I also don't fully know what my own reaction is. Suffice it to say that I have mixed feelings on a lot of counts. And I imagine that most other people do too.

You know, on September 11 I was in France. I had just moved there two weeks prior, I didn't really speak French yet, and because of the time difference the events of that day unfolded at three o'clock in the afternoon for me instead of first thing in the morning the way they did for most Americans, and really, the time of day isn't important but in my mind it seems important because that afternoon, the amount of the day that had already gone by, the classes I'd already gone through at school, the amount of sunlight that was shining when one of my French classmates came up to me in the school courtyard and tried to explain to me what had happened, with limited success because I didn't really speak French yet... all of those things are very intertwined with my memories of that day. Afternoon. Sun. Late in the daytime. A whole day of not knowing, already gone by, while in the US the day had barely started.

Anyway, that was a bit of a tangent but my point is, it happened when I was in France and I didn't get home after that for another nine months and when I got home things had changed drastically and I was startled at what felt like a very sudden change to me. And I sort of missed the more laid-back attitude of the French people I'd been surrounded with during the initial aftermath. I guess it felt, somehow, like there was more listening happening in France, and more talking happening in the US, and it was weird to go from one to the other. I liked the listening. I was there, listening. We were all listening, in France. Talking too, of course. But also listening.

And now, it's almost 10 years later and the President of the United States addresses the nation, the world really, to say that Osama bin Laden has been killed, and the reactions everywhere are varied in style but all quite intense. Torsten and I watched the news for awhile on Sunday night, I read some reactions on Twitter, and then we went to bed. Then yesterday morning I logged onto Facebook and at the top of my news feed was a comment from my French host brother which, loosely translated, read, "Obama says justice has been done. But is death really justice?"

A valid question, not too far off from some of my own thoughts on the topic... but the comments on the question, oh my. Nobody actually answered the question, or tried to. Instead, it turned into a discussion about whether bin Laden has actually been killed. The consensus was that he has not, that he continues to elude everyone's grasp, that this was a stunt for Obama's reelection campaign, that the burial at sea was nothing more than tossing the body into the ocean before anyone has a chance to notice that it isn't actually bin Laden's body, that Americans are a bunch of liars and always have been.

I know, I know, everyone posts ridiculous things on Facebook, we're all exposed to it, we should just block the wackos from our news feed and move on with our lives. But these weren't the wackos. These were the listeners from 10 years ago, now making absurd and cruel statements without any real awareness of what they're talking about.

I guess right now they aren't listeners anymore. They've morphed into talkers. But I'm still here, I'm still listening. I might be their lone American Facebook friend, but I am still there, reading what they have to say and cringing over it. The words aren't falling on a void. At least... not completely.

I'm here. I'm listening. And I don't love everything I'm hearing. But I don't necessarily want to respond to it, either. Sometimes it's easier to just choose not to engage. And therefore... silence.

That whole "just adopt" thing

Here is a pet peeve of mine: people who judge others for going through infertility treatment. And ESPECIALLY when those judgey people say or imply that those who experience challenges in getting or staying pregnant should "just adopt."

I almost feel ridiculous writing a blog post about this, because it seems SO OBVIOUS to me. And YET, from the stories that friends of mine who have struggled with infertility have told me, it is apparently NOT obvious to some people, AT ALL.

First of all, let's discuss adoption. I have no experience with adoption whatsoever. But it is an option that we find interesting, and have done some research into. And just the RESEARCH, just the mildly curious "hey I wonder what it would entail for us to do this someday" Googling, is ALREADY exhausting. ALL forms of adoption are difficult. International and domestic private adoption are incredibly expensive. Even adopting publicly in the U.S., through the foster system, while it is not as prohibitively priced as other types of adoption, is a slow, painful, sometimes emotionally devastating process.

Here are some of the things that can happen when you try to adopt:

• You go into serious debt, and/or spend all of your savings.
• You spend years going through bureaucracy and paperwork.
• You think you're going to get to adopt a certain child, and then it falls through, leading to heartbreak.
• You don't end up with a child until years and years have passed, if ever.
• You end up with a child with special needs that require a very specific parenting skill set, one that you may or may not be equipped to handle.
• A child comes to your home well past infancy, often with emotional or psychological issues related to past trauma or difficult early life experiences.
• As you raise the child, you have to work with them to carefully address questions of where they came from, why they aren't there anymore, and what this means for them in the future.
• So many, many, many other complicated situations that I cannot even begin to envision.

I'm not saying that adoption is bad, or that these obstacles are insurmountable, or that they should deter people who are interested in adopting from pursuing it. Not at all. But what I AM saying is that adopting can be a very slow, difficult, challenging, expensive thing to do, and it is NEVER so simple as telling someone to "just do it." Because it can't "just" be done. There is NO "just" about it.

So if people WANT to adopt, that's great. But if they DON'T want to adopt? There is NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT. There are all different ways to form a family, and some of them are right for some people, and others are right for other people, but EVERY FAMILY has to figure out what would work for THEM. And adoption is not right for everyone.

PLUS, and this is the part that I feel should be EVEN MORE OBVIOUS, and yet apparently IS NOT, why should people who have trouble with infertility be the ones who are told to adopt? Why is there this line in the sand? So often, I see or hear people say that they think it's selfish for a couple to pursue fertility treatments when there are already so many children out there who need a home. Which, first of all, I've already discussed why "children who need a home" does not equate to "just adopt!" So it's not as simple as, "Oh, I have a home, and they need a home, let's just put the two together, and we're done!"

But second of all, if it's selfish to pursue pregnancy when there are already kids out there who need parents, why is it only selfish for people who have to work harder for their pregnancies? Why is it not selfish for me to have gotten pregnant? Just because we happened to be lucky enough to have it occur quickly and without assistance? That has nothing to do with us, or with our ability to parent. It doesn't change the fact that we decided to create a person instead of bringing an already-existing person who needs a home into our family.

The point is, whether or not it's selfish to create people instead of adopting people is COMPLETELY UNRELATED to how much work it takes any given person to create another person. There is not some magic threshold, like, "Oh, she got pregnant right away, so that's OK then," whereas, "Oh, he had a medical issue that made it impossible for them to get pregnant without assistance, so they sought medical treatment that allowed them to become pregnant, HOW DARE THEY DO THAT INSTEAD OF ADOPT." There is NO DIFFERENCE. In both cases, the couple decided they wanted to be pregnant, and took the necessary steps to achieve that goal. And it is TOTALLY IRRELEVANT that there were MORE steps involved for one couple than the other.

And that is before we even consider that there is NOTHING WRONG with wanting to be pregnant. It is utterly indescribable to me how cool it is to be pregnant. To GROW a person. To create a person who will share my genes and Torsten's. To KNOW everything that has happened to this little person in the entire course of his existence, to know what his prenatal experience was like. To get to anticipate giving birth to him and raising him from the minute he comes into the world. To get to bond with him and have skin-to-skin contact with him from the day he is born. To not have to worry that someone else will exercise their last-minute right to take him away from me. To know that I MADE this person, that he is the product of the love that my husband and I share, that we get to experience him together. That he is part of both of us and also his own self, all at once.

So PLEASE. Let us all recognize that everyone has the right to seek the family they wish to have, in whatever form that may take, using whatever steps are necessary to get there. Adoption is a wonderful thing. So are pregnancy and childbirth. Neither one is for everyone. Everybody needs to make their own decision about what is right for their family. And "how hard it is to get pregnant" is not an acceptable factor for anyone to use when judging how others put their families together.

Oily

Did you read that BP's Gulf-specific disaster response plan, submitted to and approved by the government last year, was flawed and full of serious errors? Like listing experts and advisors who are dead or whose numbers are disconnected, vastly underestimating the impact of a spill, even one ten times the size of the one we're currently dealing with, and including contingency plans for wildlife that don't live in the Gulf, implying that it was lifted from an Alaska-based response plan?

It is just one more horrifying thing in a list of horrifying things that are not even adequately described by the word "horrifying," because in fact they are incomprehensible. And yes, I do believe that BP should shoulder the blame for, and the cost of, this mess, but that doesn't mean we didn't all play a part in setting up a situation where something like this could happen.

We are all responsible. But some more than others.

And don't even get me started on Sarah Palin's disgusting, twisted, perverted, insane comments about how if we drilled in the Alaska Natural Wildlife Refuge like she suggested, this never would have happened. Which, of course, conveniently ignores the fact that the whole "drill, baby, drill" chant was also about offshore drilling.

Why won't this woman just go away? Though, of course, I'd take having to listen to her and her inane comments any day if the oil spill would go away instead.

On watching the Olympics

I love the Winter Olympics. I may love them even more than the Summer Olympics, since I don't care much about most running events. What I have noticed about the Winter sports, though, is that they are WAY more dangerous than the summer events. I mean, obviously we all know that the luge is not safe. But also, what about speed skating? Those blades? And even just regular figure skating can lead to injury, especially when skiing in pairs. And ski jumping? I don't know how much that helmet can help if you mistime a jump and land on your head, you know?

Of course, this makes sense. Summer weather lends itself to basically doing whatever you want, mostly on your own two feet. Winter weather and the attendant snow and ice require all sorts of funky contraptions and strange adaptations. Plus, snow and ice are slippery. So of course Winter events are more dangerous. Still, I love the Winter Olympics and have really been looking forward to watching them.

As those of you who follow me on Twitter (and haven't un-followed me after my 20-30 tweets of rage on Friday night) probably know during the opening ceremonies, I was a little upset at NBC's decision to air the ceremonies on a delay for those of us not on EST. I feel worse for West Coasters, though--they had a much longer delay than we did.

Coverage seems to have aligned since then, at least a bit--I'm not sure if we're still on a delay or not. I am really enjoying NBC's commentators, all of whom seem to really care about and have experience in the sport in question. (For example: during the biathlon, someone asked if the course was too easy, and one of the commentators had actually just skied it himself the other day, and was able to respond with great knowledge and insight that someone like, say, Tom Brokaw could never have attained.)

HOWEVER. NBC's coverage, as a network? Blows. I don't know how many of you have had the opportunity to experience other countries' televised Olympic coverage, but it blows ours out of the water. I was living in France during the 2002 Olympics, and the way it worked was fabulous. Channels had selectable thumbnails of all the events going on simultaneously, and you could pick which sport you wanted to watch in full screen. Events were re-aired later in case you wanted to see something you missed the first time. There are very few, if any, commercials. You see all the competitors and watch the competition unfold in a logical manner. Torsten says German coverage is similar.

Let's compare this to NBC, shall we? They show a few things on their other networks, but we don't get USA, CNBC, or MSNBC in HD, so that's very frustrating for us. In any case, the program you watch gives you no choice about which events you'll see and in what order. They deliberately hold the good events until prime time, and the most popular events are used as leverage. The figure skating (which I assume is the most popular) gets interspersed throughout the entire evening's telecast, basically forcing people who want to see it to watch the full program to make sure they don't miss anything.

They show only a handful of the athletes, and a disproportionate number of American competitors, including those who have no shot at a medal. With the men's mogul qualifying round, they didn't even show the top-scoring guy's run. And they showed a figure skating pair's performance but not their scores.

Plus, they seem to have a new set of commercials every three minutes.

Basically, NBC is driving me crazy. A delay plus insane jumping back and forth plus very limited coverage plus American-heavy coverage plus tons of commercials? Basically, what it comes down to is that their coverage of the Olympic Games isn't about an optimal viewing experience for those of us who actually want to watch... it's about maximizing ratings and cashing in as much as possible. And that's really sad for those of us who would really like to be able to just watch the Games as they happen.

Not valid

Here is what frustrates me about American politics: everyone feels the need to respect every point of view and every belief that is presented. Even if the points of view are bigoted and discriminatory, and the beliefs are scientifically proven to be inaccurate.

This is where I feel that we've taken the whole "freedom of speech" thing too far.

The media gets accused of bias all the time, from all different sources. And the result of that is a skewed idea of what is "balanced coverage." Balanced coverage now seems to mean taking everybody seriously, no matter how ludicrous the things that they are saying.

And if you DON'T take someone seriously when they, for example, compare marrying someone of the same sex to marrying a horse, or say that they don't believe in interracial relationships, or announce that poor people deserve to be poor--well, then you get reamed for being intolerant and narrow-minded. For not being open to all opinions.

Well, here's what: Some things just aren't open to opinion. It is not a valid opinion to believe that other people aren't deserving of equal rights because they have some characteristic, or set of characteristics, that you don't like. It is not a valid opinion to believe that poor people who are dying of treatable diseases don't deserve to be treated because it is somehow their own fault that they are sick or poor.

I wish that we could all move beyond this incredible need to be politically correct, and this insane definition of political correctness that seems to say that we all need to be open to listening to ridiculous extremists.

It's not that I'm saying that people shouldn't have a RIGHT to say what they want, even if what they're saying is bigoted and uninformed. The fact that people are allowed to say those things is what I think is good about free speech. But I don't think that the rest of us should have to take that bigoted speech seriously. I just think that we're all so focused on free speech as a concept that we forget the difference between "people can say what they want" and "everything that everyone says has value and merit."

It is hard to get accurate information, and engage in intelligent conversation, when misinformation and personal beliefs are given the same weight and deference as actual facts and analysis.

I'm sick of it. I'm sick of everyone bending over backward to please fringe groups. I'm sick of everyone saying that we all have to be open to all sides and that if we aren't, then we aren't having a fair debate.

I'm open to debate with people who disagree with me--as long as their opinions are based in fact. I am not open to debate with people whose opinions are based in skewed belief systems that tell them that it's OK to treat certain groups of people as second-class citizens, because I do not believe that they can participate in a reasonable, productive discussion.

Period. End of story.

Our whole basis in the idea of limited government, and freedom of speech, and lots of individual rights, has been taken to an extreme where people think that it's OK to say or do whatever the hell they want, all in the name of the U.S. being a "free country." Even when that speech includes not allowing the president of the U.S. (the PRESIDENT. Of the COUNTRY.) to speak to American children about the importance of education. Even when that speech includes saying hateful, uninformed things about other people based on inaccurate beliefs.

How did we get here? Why do we have no more belief in the common good? Why are we so insistent on the rights of the individual to spew hatred and call it a valid opinion? Why do so many people think this is OK?

Because it isn't OK. Not at all.

Making credit cards work for you

OK, as promised (this seems to be turning into a whole series of financial posts), more on the whole credit card thing. This is something that I am a little hesitant to get into, because there are a lot of variables involved in picking a credit card, and it really depends on what your priorities are. The main criteria for credit cards are interest rate, annual fee, and rewards program.

For us, since we do not leave balances on our credit cards, I hardly pay attention to the interest rates, though I did obviously review all of our cards and choose the one with the lowest interest rate to charge my surgery to. If you are looking for a credit card and you are planning to leave a balance on it, then the interest rate is the most important thing, and the rewards program comes second. You can often find cards with introductory offers of 0% interest, so if you know you only need to carry a balance for a short, defined period of time, those can be very helpful.

So, basically, I won't get a card with an annual fee, because it negates the rewards, as far as I'm concerned. And there are a lot of great reward programs on cards that don't charge annual fees. The best way to find these cards is Google. Each credit card website (CitiCards, Chase, American Express, etc.) has a section where you can see the different offers, but there are also a lot of blogs and independent websites that compare the pros and cons of different cards. Most cards offer a basic 1% back on all purchases, and then a lot of them have very specific things that they offer bonus rewards for.

As a result, we have a ton of different credit cards and we have it memorized which cards we use for what. Also, sometimes the cards offer bonus rewards for a set period of time, such as six months or a year (this seems especially common with groceries), so when that period of time ends, we apply for a new card with a different reward program. Right now we are on our third, and best, grocery rewards card. The first two offered us 5% back on groceries and pharmacies, one for six months and one for a year (this was one and this was the other). The current one offers us 6% back on those things, plus 6% back on gas, plus a penny per mile you drive (you send in your car's service records), for a year. After that, we will look for a new card. The card is the Citi Driver's Edge.

We also have a card that gives us 3% back on restaurant purchases, the Citi Professional, but it seems to have changed since then, and now is only allowed for business use, and only gives 3% back for the first year? In any case, this is all I could find.

And we have a credit card that gives us 3% back on all purchases made directly from Amazon.com. And there's an American Express card that gives you 2% back on purchases from Costco. And the list goes on. My point is, you should be making the most out of your credit cards. It just doesn't make sense to have a credit card that doesn't give you any benefit, whether it's a really low interest rate, a great rewards program, or both. As long as you use your credit cards wisely and don't overspend or get into unnecessary debt, rewards programs are a great way to earn a little bit of your money back.

Another thing you want to pay attention to is what you can do with the rewards. We had another Amazon card that sent us gift cards to Amazon. The current one has more flexibility... we can get gift cards to a number of places, Amazon included, or we can get cash, or we can buy plane tickets. Our gas and groceries card rewards can be put toward the cost of car maintenance or repair or the purchase of a new (or used) car, or they can be transferred to the ThankYou network, which allows you to use points to purchase any number of things, from various giftie items to gift cards to plane tickets. The ThankYou network, though I've heard rumors that the points may become less valuable soon, is great for travel because it's hooked up to Expedia--you just search Expedia through ThankYou and it shows you the prices in points instead of dollars.

Update: A nice anonymous commenter (don't you like it when the anons are nice?) mentions something that should definitely be pointed out: applying for credit cards temporarily lowers your credit score. It can be good for you in the long term because it increases the amount of available credit you have (and are presumably not using all of), but when you have inquiries on your credit history, your credit score temporarily goes down. So if you have a reason why you need your credit score to be good in the near future (i.e., you're about to apply for a loan), then you shouldn't apply for any new credit cards.

Again, the main thing is to do your research. Make sure you're not committing to a high annual fee, make sure you're not going to wind up paying more in interest and finance charges than you get back through rewards, make sure you are the type of person who can handle and keep track of credit cards... and assuming all these things are true, do your research and find the cards that will do the most for you.

How to save money on taxes

I was working on a totally different post for today, but it's going to have to wait, because after reading some of the comments on my post yesterday, there's something that I want to advocate and what better platform for advocacy than a blog, right?

Anyway, here it is, plain and simple: Inform yourselves about your finances.

This is advice that I'm only just starting to take on my own. As I said yesterday, my financial situation has changed quite a bit over the past year. I've gone from being a single, fairly low-earning renter in a very standard position working in an office to... well, the opposite of that. I'm married. There are two incomes. There are different states to deal with. I own a house and a car. I'm paying off a very expensive surgery. I work from home. As a homeowner, I am investing in things that I never even thought about before, such as windows and washing machines.

And as I do all this, I have been lucky enough to encounter people who have offered me incredibly helpful advice. I learned a lot about finances through the mortgage application process, and now I'm in the process of learning a lot about taxes.

For me, before, taxes were a murky thing. I filled out the form, double-checked my work to make sure I had done the math right, and didn't really know what it was that I was paying for. Which was fine, because things were simple: I had a taxable income, and so I paid tax on it. All of it, other than what was deducted for health insurance costs. Now there are so many more variables.

I had no idea about the tax deduction for health costs, but the woman who manages the billing for my surgeon's office told me about it.

I had no idea about the tax credit for energy-efficient windows, but my parents just replaced a couple windows in their own house and they told me about it.

I had read something about a tax credit for first-time homebuyers, but I didn't think about it until we bought a home ourselves, and then I looked up more information.

I had no idea about the water refund for a high-efficiency washer until our realtor told us about it.

I knew, I believe, that mortgage insurance could be deducted from your taxes, but I hadn't thought about that either until my parents reminded me.

I had no idea that the costs of working from home were tax-deductible until my boss told me.

What I'm saying is, I am lucky to be surrounded by people who are more informed than I am (they are the kind of people I consider to be real adults, as opposed to the pseudo-adult that I am). But even if you don't have these kinds of resources, you can inform yourselves, thanks to this little thing called the Internet.

There are so many things that we pay for that our government encourages us to do by making them tax-deductible. That's quite a bit of money you could save. For those of you who don't pay much attention to taxes, here's a breakdown of the difference between a tax credit and a tax deduction (and my apologies if I'm just repeating information that everyone already knows).

A tax credit (such as what we'll get for buying our house and replacing our windows) is basically a cash handout from the government. For buying our first home in 2009, we get $8,000 credited toward our taxes. However, since we pay our taxes in full over the course of the year, this means that we will basically get $8,000 added toward our tax refund. So if we would normally have gotten a $200 tax refund, instead the check from the IRS will be for $8,200.

A tax deduction, on the other hand, means that money that you've spent can be subtracted from your overall taxable income, lowering the amount of tax you have to pay, the same way that health insurance and transportation costs are deducted. So say you earn $50,000 per year, and spend $2,400 per year on health insurance. This means that your taxable annual income is now only $47,600. Assuming that you give up about a quarter of your income to taxes, those deductions save you about $600.

Now, insurance is a basic deduction that most people don't really have to worry about, because your employer will calculate that for you on your W-2 so the taxable income listed there will already have taken the cost of health insurance into account. But there are so many other deductions you can take. You can deduct charitable donations, student loan interest, mortgage interest, health care costs in excess of 7.5% of your income, and the list goes on.

Update: Kristie points out, quite accurately, that commuting costs are not tax-deductible. However, employers have the option of providing a benefit to their employees wherein you can purchase transit fare directly from your paycheck, pre-tax, up to $230 per month. This is apparently especially common in big cities with good public transportation systems, and is absolutely worth checking with your employer about. If they don't offer it, and enough people ask, maybe they will start!

So let's take the health care costs as another example. You can only deduct anything you spend in excess of 7.5% of your annual adjusted income (adjusted includes any exemptions and deductions you can claim--and everyone who is not a dependent can claim at least one exemption as well as the standard deduction, if you end up not itemizing--as well as other pre-tax costs like health insurance).

Let's assume that your adjusted gross income is $50,000. If you spend more than $3,750 on health-related costs in a year, you can deduct anything beyond that amount from your taxes. So say you have a bad year and you have a surgery that costs you $5,000 out of pocket. You can deduct $1,250 from your taxable income, meaning it would now be only $48,750, saving you a little over $300.

And that's not even taking into account any other health costs you spend over the year. You've already spent that 7.5% of your income on your surgery, so any other health costs can also be deducted. So if you spend another $500 on prescriptions, office visit co-pays, etc., during the year, now you can deduct a total of $1,750 from your taxable income, meaning it would now be $48,250, saving you almost $450.

Plus, the beauty of all these deductions is that because you are paying taxes on your full salary, pre-deduction, calculating deductions in your taxes when you file means that you are likely to get a lovely refund check--and we can all use those.

There are so many websites that can help you with this, some run by the government, some not. If you Google anything about tax deductions you will find a million websites listing the different types of deductions you can take and what you have to do to qualify. Here's one that I found randomly. There are many others.

The government's Energy Star website also tells you what tax deductions you can take for energy-efficient upgrades in your home or office. I found it just by googling "tax credit windows," but it has lots of other information as well.

The IRS website also has lots of information about deductions, including a piece on whether or not you should itemize, as well as a list of the types of deductions you can take.

One other thing I want to add, one other thing that would probably be very interesting to a lot of you, and something that I didn't know, something that missris said in a comment yesterday:

"First of all, the interest you pay off on student loans is tax deductible. So is about 80% of the cost of joining an alumni association. Second of all, if you have federal loans and are planning on working for a nonprofit (501c3, and this includes universities-like even if you're a professor or something) you should restructure your loans to reduce your payment and pay the absolute minimum amount so that you do not have everything paid off in ten years. This is key because after working ten years for a nonprofit, the remainder of your federal loans is FORGIVEN. Also badass? Those ten years don't even have to be consecutive."

So yes. There is much to be learned about student loans as well. And I'm sure Google could help you find out more information about that, too. And I also want to get into the credit card thing, as some of you requested, but this post is already long and complex, so I think I'll save that til tomorrow. I think all the tax talk is enough for today.

Prop 8 Decision Day

I don't often get political on my blog (although I do venture there sometimes). But I feel very strongly that what I'm about to talk about transcends politics.

Today, the California Supreme Court will announce its decision on whether or not to uphold Proposition 8.

I try to be tolerant of people whose views differ from mine. In most cases, I succeed. But when it comes to gay marriage, I fall a bit short of that goal.

I cannot think of one single justifiable reason to prevent two consenting adults who wish to marry each other from doing so. I have heard all the arguments against gay marriage, and for me, none of them holds water. I am not going to start rehashing the entire debate, because I'm sure all of you are familiar with the arguments on both side. But to put it succinctly, same-sex couples getting married has no negative impact on anybody else in society. The only argument against gay marriage is founded in religion, homophobia, or both--and it's our government's job to separate religion and state, and to protect those who are undue targets of prejudice.

I truly hope and believe that one day our children will look back on the history of gay marriage the same way that we look back on the history of interracial marriage--with shock and disbelief that it was ever not allowed, that our government ever deliberately denied a group of people such a basic right.

And it is a basic right. Marriage offers several tangible benefits that are denied to those who are not legally wed. Parents and partners who have had to deal with an ill partner can attest to the difficulties faced when trying to make decisions or visit a sick family member in the hospital.

And there's the way that marriage has affected me most, personally--immigration. Now that Torsten and I are married, he can have a green card, which means that he is guaranteed the right to live and work in the US, with me, as long as he doesn't commit a crime of moral turpitude (murder or rape, basically). I cannot tell you how much peace of mind this brings both of us. I cannot tell you how happy we are to know that we always have the right to stay together, live together, support ourselves and our families in this country.

I cannot believe that other loving couples are denied this privilege. I cannot believe that caring, stable, productive citizens are forced out of this country in order to live their lives with those they love. I cannot believe that the people who oppose extending the right to marry to all those consenting adults who wish to partake in it--using personal reasons that have no legal bearing--are the ones who are supported by our government at this time.

I don't think this is a political issue. This is an issue that affects the lives and freedoms of an important, ostracized minority within our country. It is our government's job to protect that minority, and so far they have failed to do so. This is not a matter of opinion. Any individual's personal opinion about homosexuality should not be given any weight whatsoever when it comes to the legal decision about whether or not to extend equal rights to all citizens.

Of course, even if California does overturn Prop 8, it's only another tiny step--and the immigration benefits that I talked about won't be offered to same-sex couples until the day that the federal government starts to recognize same-sex marriage. But a series of tiny steps can turn into a big sprint, a big breakthrough. And all those couples who are married in California, or who wish to be, deserve to be allowed the same opportunity that heterosexual couples are offered.

I can sort of, tragically, understand why Prop 8 passed--because it essentially asked individual voters to offer their opinions about homosexuality, and what rights should be extended to same-sex couples, and unfortunately the majority of voters in California held prejudiced opinions.

But I see no excuse for the Supreme Court of California, the governing body, to uphold this law. I see no explanation for how it can possibly be constitutional to systematically deny rights to a group of people based on their sexuality. I don't care if 52% of California voters believe that gay people will burn in hell--it is not the government's place to judge that. It is the government's place to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority.

And I hope with all my heart that the Supreme Court announces the just decision today, and allows all California residents--all equally deserving citizens--the right to a stable marriage.

On taking up space on planes, and elsewhere

I don't know why, but I was kind of expecting the flight over here to be terrible. Probably because now that we live in Colorado, the trip to Germany is even longer, and that plus everyone talking about the whole United charging extra for fat people thing made me forget that I do fit in one seat, if not comfortably, and I was imagining myself like an especially large hippopotamus, strapped in with several seat belt extenders, beached on a seat and a half with Torsten squashed miserably next to me.

In reality, as seems to often happen with me, it was nothing like I was expecting. I did fit into the seat, I did not require a seat belt extender, and as I have never had a problem doing either of those things before I do recognize in hindsight that fears about those things were totally unfounded. I even had some modicum of leg room, at least on the 777 we took for the long flight across the ocean, if not the short flight to Dallas. Unfortunately, Torsten, being eight inches taller than me, can't say the same, but even he did not wind up with bruises on his knees.

Can I say, though, how much nicer it is to travel with a partner? I have done a lot of international traveling on my own, and while I can do it, it's so nice to have someone next to you. And I don't mean in terms of entertainment, although that too. I mean for pure physical comfort. With a partner next to you, especially if you're in your own little set of two seats, you can lift the armrest between you--so you don't, if you're on the larger side, have to feel those armrests start pressing painfully into your hips somewhere around hour 3. You don't have to exert your leg muscles to the point of trembling just to avoid possibly inconveniencing your seatmate with an inadvertent knee bump. You can lean on someone to sleep. If you do anything embarrassing while sleeping, it doesn't matter. If you have to pee and you're in the window seat, you can shove past the sleeping person next to you without guilt. You can even--dare I say it--cuddle, and perhaps even demand a short back rub, if it doesn't require your mate to twist his wrist unnaturally to reach.

Basically, it's nine bajillion times better than flying on your own, especially if you're a woman, because you know who doesn't seem to worry about half of these things? Men. They sit in their seats, immediately put them back as far as they go--preferably during a mealtime so that the person behind them ends up with their tray of nearly unidentifiable "food" all over their chest--and spread their legs as wide as possible so that their knees extend way beyond the armrests on both sides. If they have to pee and the person on the aisle is asleep, they do not seem to have qualms about waking them up so they can get out.

Now, if you're seated next to (or behind) a man like this, it is definitely frustrating. But at the same time, I admire this kind of attitude. What is it with women being more concerned about not infringing on anyone else's space than about their own comfort? Why did I spend so much time before the trip freaking out not about how uncomfortable it would be for ME not to fit in a seat, if I didn't, and more about how my seatmate, an assumed stranger whom I would never see again, would feel about the inch or two of infringement on their personal space? Why do nearly all women, regardless of how large they are, cross their legs, hunch their shoulders, and generally focus on not inconveniencing the world instead of on their own comfort?

Really, we could all take a cue from these men with their legs sprawled wide, because if we aren't looking out for our own comfort then it's pretty likely that nobody else will be either. We don't have to go so far as to shove our neighbors' legs out of the way for the sake of an extra inch of knee space, but I think I'm done with being hunched in an awkward position, muscles trembling with exertion, all to avoid bothering some stranger who most likely wouldn't be bothered anyway. It's time for me to start looking out for myself. And I hope other women will do the same.

Why Jewish holidays matter to me

OK, I think I need to elaborate a bit on the whole religious holiday thing from yesterday. A lot of people wondered why, if we're not religious, we would choose to celebrate holidays of a specific religion. Why not just create our own traditions and "holidays"? And I think that's a totally reasonable question. But here's the thing. I don't see it as an either/or. I fully intend to create traditions and family gatherings that have nothing to do with any specific holiday, religious or otherwise.

But even though I don't relate to the religious aspects of my Jewish heritage, I do relate to the cultural aspects. And one thing that I didn't make clear in the rather flippant way that I discussed this yesterday is that I do want to pass that culture on to our kids. And I do want our kids to know about different religions, and the traditions associated with them, and know that if at some point they find a particular religion, whether it's one of our ancestral religions or not, that speaks to them, that will be totally OK and we will be supportive. I don't want our kids to be in the dark about religion.

But, the flip side of not being religious but still identifying culturally as Jewish is that yeah, I do think that I can, to a certain extent, pick and choose which aspects of Judaism I want to embrace and celebrate with my kids. If there's a holiday that I know nothing about, and don't identify with, and don't feel compelled to celebrate with my kids, then I won't, and that's OK, the same way that not every Christian family celebrates the Epiphany, for example. I don't feel compelled by any religious standards to adhere to every tenet of the Jewish religion. But I do want my kids to grow up with some understanding of Jewish culture, and to participate in traditions and rituals that other Jewish people also participate in.

The other thing is that yeah, I was being flip when I referred to Passover as a special Jewish Thanksgiving. I mean, I love Thanksgiving as a holiday and I think that it encourages positive behaviors--a day of rest, a day of gathering, a day of making an effort to be with those we care about, a day to sit back and take stock in all the good things we have going on in our lives. I see no problem with celebrating Passover similarly, or with drawing the comparison.

But, when I made that comparison, I didn't mean that I was going to announce, "Hey! It's Passover! Let's all spend awhile stuffing ourselves full of food we don't eat very often!" and leave it at that. I was not raised religious but I still learned the story of Chanukah, and understood the gist of what I was singing in the blessings, even though I don't speak Hebrew. Similarly, I think it's entirely possible to share the background behind the holidays, discuss the stories and the reasons why we're observing the holiday together, talk about the different ways that different people celebrate those holidays, explain what a seder is and where it came from--but not necessarily spend a day analyzing religious texts. We can have a Sabbath dinner and talk about its origins and the meaning of the day of rest--without incorporating the Torah.

I don't mean for this to be offensive for people who are religious and who do feel that there is a certain way that holidays should be celebrated. I personally do not feel that way. But I do feel that being Jewish has to do with a lot more than just your religion. And I like that culture, that solidarity. I think the shared history, good and bad, is something that you can't escape and something that I don't want to escape. It's something that I want to share with my own kids in a way that I feel comfortable with, in a way that feels right for us, even if it isn't the way that other people choose to share that same background with their own kids.

So yeah. Non-religious family traditions like game night and celebrating milestones and all the rest? Absolutely. But I do want to raise my kids knowing a bit about what it means to be Jewish in a non-religious sense, and knowing about many religions as faiths that exist and options that may call to them. And I don't see a problem with observing those holidays, both Christian and Jewish, in a way that fits our family.

20-somethings growing older

The other day, Nicole posted about how being in your 20s is all about change, especially for her. And I think she's right, but it also got me to thinking about the way that our culture fetishizes 20-somethings. Not that there's anything wrong with being in your 20s (obviously), or with being youthful and carefree and in flux at that age. But I think it sets up a false dichotomy, like your 20s are your youth and that's when you can change and do whatever you want, and then you hit 30 and bam, your life should be all set and you should be settled into a routine and popping out babies left, right, and center.

Most stereotypes have a grain of truth, because they stem from perceived norms, and that's totally fine. But it makes me sad that we have it all set up like oh, to be in your 20s again, how wonderful life was, how easy decisions were and how fun was it to pick up your whole life and start again somewhere else if you wanted?

Of course it's funny that I say that now, given that that's exactly what I'm about to do and I'm in my 20s at the moment. But still, I think it's sad that we have this idea that once you're not in your 20s anymore, you're not living the same type of life, you're not constantly evolving and changing, that you've basically become who you will be, your journey has ended and now you're just sitting around at the destination.

Obviously, people in their 30s, 40s, and beyond know better. But I wish that our society as a whole knew better. I think goals and milestones are great, but it's frustrating when people beat themselves up because they haven't done X or Y by the time they were 30, and now it's too late or now they're already old or whatever.

My college had a program for non-traditional-aged students, mostly older, and what I was always struck by in class was how those students were so engaged. Unlike a lot of their 20-year-old classmates, they really WANTED to be there. They'd had all sorts of life experiences that colored the way they viewed the things we were learning. They always did the readings. They always had things to say. But they weren't just stagnating in their lives just because they weren't in their 20s anymore. They were doing new things and applying new things to their lives and going new places, just like our society assumes 20-somethings are doing. And in a lot of ways, I think they were getting a lot more out of the college experience than a lot of their younger classmates.

And it works the other way too. People assume that you at a certain age are exactly like they were at that age. You're 24, why are you getting married? You're too young to know what you want. You're too immature to make that kind of lasting commitment to another person. Why aren't you ENJOYING your youth instead of tying yourself down? And so on.

I AM enjoying my youth, but I also don't have to stop enjoying life once I leave my 20s behind. Yeah, we as 20-somethings are in flux now and our life circumstances lend themselves to enabling lots of change, but it doesn’t start or end here. People are made of their experiences, and that never ends.

We build up so many expectations for youth, like that’s the only time in our lives that we can be carefree, or do whatever we want, or change at random, or grow or experience our lives, that we act like everyone secretly wants to be in their 20s. But that’s not the case, and I’m glad it’s not the case, and it’s why I don’t fear growing older.

In which I complain about complaining.

My standard policy on rude and/or anonymous comments is not to address them, but I got a comment yesterday that wasn't anonymous exactly, and that made me think about a topic more broadly, so I do want to post about it. The person in question told me that I complain too much, when in fact I am quite lucky. It's true that I'm very lucky, and I think my blog and the way I write about my life reflects that. If a reader finds that I complain too much, and doesn't see all the happiness and optimism mixed in with whatever negative stuff I might be talking about, that's unfortunate, but so it goes.

Obviously nobody wants to read a blog that is just nonstop whining and negativity, especially if it's not coming from someone whose life is terrible and miserable in every way. And I don't think my blog is that. I think the best we can all do is acknowledge the greatness that we have in our lives. And I have that, and do that. I have an incredible, amazing relationship. I have a fantastic job and was even given the choice between two great jobs in a time when a lot of people are struggling to find even one job. I'm financially secure and not in debt. I have a wonderful, supportive family and lots of friends. I'm about to move to the city that I've been dying to live in for months. I have a ton to look forward to, including a dog and hopefully at some point a baby. My life is fantastic and I can hardly think of way in which it could be improved.

But that doesn't mean that I'm not allowed to sweat the small stuff. Moving is stressful, so even though it's a wonderful thing and I'm happy about it, it's OK for me to vent about the negative side effects. And yes, it's great that I have a lot of friends but that doesn't mean I can't talk about how difficult it will be to leave them all behind. And yes, it was lovely for Torsten to send me flowers on Valentine's Day last year and he himself is the best husband I could ever imagine, but that doesn't mean I should pretend that I didn't have an irrational, hormonal breakdown about the flowers for no good reason--because I KNOW it was unreasonable, but it WAS how I felt at the time.

My blog is a space for honesty, interaction, thoughtfulness, fluff, discussion, happiness, and complaining. It's a space for whatever I want it to be, and I like finding similar spaces in other people's blogs.

Because it's not just me. Just because someone struggled with infertility before becoming pregnant doesn't mean that they have to enjoy every second of their pregnancy and can't complain about the awful morning sickness and debilitating symptoms that accompany it. Just because somebody was unemployed before finding a job doesn't mean that they can't complain about their rude boss and the tedious work they have do. Just because someone has a fantastic marriage doesn't mean they can't complain about how frustrated they are when their spouse never does any housework. Complaining is an outlet, a way to keep from bottling up negativity, and I think that's a good thing.

I see blogs as a space for venting and for gaining perspective. This blog is many things to me, and one of them is an outlet where I can write about whatever is on my mind, remind myself of its importance or lack thereof in the overall scheme of things, and then move on. It's also a space where I can read about other people's lives and what's going on in their minds, and see that we all have this little stuff that bugs us, but maybe the fact of writing it down and commiserating with others about it and seeing how similar we all really are helps us not be bugged by that stuff anymore, and to be better-adjusted and happier people.

So no, I don't think I complain too much, because while I do talk about stuff that's bothering me, I also temper that with how happy and lucky I am overall. I wouldn't want a blog that went on and on about how great everything was all the time, and glossed over the bad stuff, no matter how small, because that's not real life and that's not relatable. And as long as I haven't lost sight of the big picture, I don't think there's any need for me to limit what I talk about just because hey, it could be worse--I could be paralyzed. Not being paralyzed doesn't mean we're all required to be happy and bubbly 100% of the time. And I don't see any need to feel guilty for having a normal range of emotions about my life.

On bridezillas as a concept

I'm sure that most of you has heard of the movie that's coming out soon, Bride Wars. It's pretty much impossible not to, considering that Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson are promoting the shit out of it. Seriously, they are everywhere, but as much as I love seeing Anne Hathaway's red carpet choices, I will not be seeing this movie. Even if I weren't already married and pretty much over weddings, I wouldn't be seeing this movie. Because, to be frank, it looks like a sexist, cliché piece of shit. The portrayal of the wedding as the most important thing in these women's lives, the way they turn on each other so easily over a minor conflict... it's just disgusting. But really, this review says everything that I could say, and very succinctly, so I highly suggest that you read it.

But the whole thing got me thinking about weddings and bridezillas. I hate the term bridezillas, and I hate the fact that this movie is such a cheap way to capitalize on that social idea of women as bridezillas. This movie buys into all those stereotypes that give weddings such a bad name and makes regular women feel that if they don't want to turn into a bridezilla and everything that represents, they can't have a traditional wedding at all.

I just find the entire concept of the bridezilla to be sexist and disempowering. There are very few women who act like this, and yet it's become such an easy, popular term to use that all those brides who fall into normal parameters--spending money and effort to make their wedding what they want, and having reasonable expectations that others will do what they say they will to make that happen, without treating everyone around them as disposable--hypersensitive to being labeled a bridezilla.

This happened to me the day before my wedding--I found out that my dress had been put back into its garment bag after being steamed and pressed, which meant that the satin would wrinkle again. Hyper-conscious of not wanting to be a bridezilla, I responded in what I felt was a mild, polite, and appropriate manner and found a solution to the issue (calling my father, who was at the hotel with the dress, to ask him to take it out of the bag before it wrinkled). And yet I got called a bridezilla, and it felt both hurtful and incredibly unfair. I still don't think I was being unreasonable at all, and I didn't get mad or yell or scream, and yet the second that word was used, I felt that I couldn't say any more about the situation or even respond to the allegation without making things worse.

Basically, "bridezilla" has become a term that makes regular people feel that they can't assert themselves in ways that would normally be well within their rights. It's become a way of fighting back, a way of, essentially, silencing someone. Brides are so worried about not being bridezillas that a lot of them are going too far in the opposite direction and not standing up for themselves when they should.

I'm not saying there aren't women (and men--yes, it happens) who go crazy over their weddings, who make it their number one priority at all costs and hurt people in the process, who act exactly like the characters in this movie. And that's inappropriate and unacceptable behavior on their part. But instead of turning it into a stereotype of how every bride will be and creating this term and this standard, can't we just treat these people as the anomalies they are? And certainly, can't we avoid making movies that spoon-feed this disempowering concept to the masses?

Monitoring kids' activity online

I keep seeing these commercials for Mojave, some kind of computer software that claims to allow parents to monitor everything their kids do online. It's made me think a lot about this, because the concept bothers me but I also know that it's very murky because it's such new ground. Parents at the moment did not grow up with the Internet; their kids are the first generation who will not be able to remember a time before it. So of course everyone is kind of muddling through without even the example of what their parents did to guide them.

Still, I find things like this to be distasteful. In the same way that I wouldn't read my kids' diaries, or eavesdrop on their phone conversations, or spy on them in any other way, I find it inappropriate and invasive to be so intrusive on your kids' activity online.

But it's a bit deeper than that. I know it's scary because kids can encounter anyone online, people they would likely not encounter in the course of their daily lives, and can give away information that they really should not be giving away. I can understand that instinctive reaction. But I think that by watching everything your kids do online, instead of teaching them to make smart choices for themselves, you're just eroding the trusting relationship between the two of you, and setting them up not to be able to make reasonable choices for themselves later on. Unless you're going to follow your kids around college and beyond, at some point they're going to be out in the world, where they could encounter scary and malicious people, and they're going to have to be able to protect themselves.

Plus, I think that the online community provides a lot of value to people of all ages. You as blog readers already know how much we can all get out of being online. As well, as the internet grows and becomes more sophisticated, there are more targeted sites and communities for people of different ages and with different interests. It's not just a big mass of people on ICQ and Bolt anymore. This means that kids are less likely to stumble onto inappropriate sites out of boredom and will be more likely to stick with age-appropriate stuff that interests them and is easily accessible.

I remember how my mother told me, once we got the internet at our house when I was in middle school, that I wasn't allowed to talk to people I hadn't met online because she felt that it was a waste of time. Obviously, having met my husband online, I can say that I disagree with that statement. But I also feel that meeting people online at a younger age can be beneficial as well. It's a way for your child to expand her horizons, to encounter people with different perspectives, and also a way for her to connect with people that she may not know in her own small town or small school. If she's learning a language, maybe she can connect with a native speaker of that language online.

In general, my feeling on kids and the internet is that it's something that needs to be talked about openly, in an age-appropriate manner. If your kid is old enough to be doing things online on their own, they should be old enough to understand the potential ramifications of what they're doing. I don't see why you can't explain to your child what online actions are risky, lay some ground rules, offer some suggestions, and make her aware that if she ever has a question or a concern, she can always talk to you about it. And then trust her from there, as you would in any other area of her life.

If your child does exhibit dangerous behaviors or poor judgment, online or off, or if they seem to have an internet addiction, that's another story. But as long as you don't have reason to mistrust your kids, I don't see why you should be checking out their every keystroke.

What do you think? If you do have kids, how do you approach this issue? If you don't, how do you think you would?

Affordable housing doesn't exist.

This economy thing is obviously big on everyone's minds. And I have to say that I don't know everything about it, and I certainly don't know how to fix it. I don't know all the causes of it. I know that banks were getting artificially high ratings that caused misplaced faith in them, and that there was too much lending to people who couldn't afford to pay back the loans, and that there was corruption and greed and high-level executives who knew they were living on the edge but didn't care because they personally were making money hand over fist, enough to live a life of luxury well after their house of cards blew up in their faces and they got fired.

But there is one side effect of all this mess that is a good thing. Of course, I am in the position of not currently owning a home, which means that I have the luxury of saying this. But house prices NEED to go down. Affordable housing doesn't exist anymore, and that needs to change. It is unacceptable that unless you want to live in the middle of nowhere, two hours from the nearest city and likely much further than that from the nearest ocean, you are going to wind up paying way more than you can afford for your house. A nice home shouldn't be a luxury reserved for the wealthy. It should be something that we all have access to.

I don't mean that the deflation of house prices is a pleasurable or even endurable process for many people. It's terrible for homeowners who suddenly owe more on their loans than their houses are even worth. It's also terrible for first-time buyers who suddenly can't get a mortgage even with a decent credit rating and a reasonable down payment. It's terrible for all of us, nobody more so than the people who can't afford to stay in their homes and also can't afford to move.

And it sucks that the economy is going down with the house prices. It sucks that there has been corruption and greed and that wealth is so unevenly distributed. It sucks that there's nothing fair about what's happening. It sucks that so many of us can't even afford to heat our homes right now.

But houses just plain cost too much. It's unreasonable to expect somebody to pay $400,000 for a nice house in a mid-sized city. It's unreasonable to expect somebody to pay seven figures for a nice house in a big city. It's unreasonable that $100,000 can buy you little more than a shack on the outskirts of town or a tiny condo that can't hold your family and is run by a slumlord. These are insane sums of money we're talking about. They are sums of money that almost nobody in this country can afford. And then we wonder why our national debt is equal to our annual GDP, and why people aren't able to make their mortgage payments.

A system that puts up such barriers to reasonable housing costs had to die eventually. Of course people are taking on loans that they couldn't afford to pay back. With a crappy job market, moving to a place where real estate is affordable means moving to a place where there are very few employment opportunities. This gives people who need a job the choice between living very far outside the city where they work, creating prohibitively high transportation costs and drastically reducing their quality of life and the amount of time they get to spend with their families, or paying through the nose for a livable house in a safe neighborhood that is somewhat close to work. Neither of these options is appealing. But lenders were willing to take the risk of giving large loans to people who couldn't afford it, so people made the choice to take the more expensive houses, and thus prices kept going up and up, and the whole thing was a vicious cycle.

And now that cycle is starting to break, which means our economy sucks, and it's looking like it may not get better for awhile. I'm not looking forward to that any more than the rest of you. But I do look forward to coming out the other side--and we WILL come out the other side, and even sooner if people can avoid having panicky reactions to the current situation and withdrawing their money from banks and stocks.

Because on the other side I see housing that people can afford. Maybe not giant mansions in the middle of downtown. But something reasonable, where everyone in a family can live comfortably. Everyone deserves a decent home, and we need to get back to a situation where that is a possibility for most people. It just sucks that our economy has to be dragged down along the way.

Women in the home

I've been thinking recently about sexism and all of its many subtle forms. My feeling about this is that if you aren't a woman, you just don't understand what it's like. And yes, I understand that women don't fully understand what it's like to be a man either (and please excuse my use of the gender binary here, while we're at it, but it illustrates my point). But it's different if you're a woman.

I think this is mostly an issue with the good guys, the ones who don't believe in "father knows best" and who generally respect women, or at least most women. But those same guys are blind to what it's like to be a woman in certain situations. Maybe it's because they themselves aren't overtly sexist and so they don't think about sexism that still exists, not just in the attitudes of individuals but in societal constructs and systems.

For example, most decent guys don't really understand what it's like to be a woman in a male-dominated office where guys complain about their wives and make the occasional joke at women's expense. They don't understand the hypersensitivity about salary and career advancement because they weren't raised knowing that their sex makes 77 cents to every dollar that the other sex earns. They don't walk that fine line of being assertive at work without coming across as a bitch, and they don't have to worry about hemlines and necklines being appropriate at all times. And because they never had those things in their consciousnesses, I just don't think they can really relate.

But maybe the biggest area that I don't think guys can fully understand is the threat of sexual harassment and sexual violence that women are always aware of somewhere, even if it's just in the backs of their minds. They don't see why a woman would be so upset at a casual joke from a male higher-up at work about how she might sleep her way to the top. They don't understand the nervousness about walking home alone at night. They don't understand that constant vigilance.

They might be able to understand it on an intellectual level, but I don't think they can understand it on a real, visceral level, really see how it permeates into a woman's consciousness and awareness at all times. The same way that I can imagine how I would feel if I were required to wear a burqa at all times, but I can't truly know what it's like. Your experience colors who you are as a person and the outlook that you bring to everything in your life. And men, growing up removed from these issues of which women are so aware, just can't enter into it and really wrap their heads around it the way women can.

But so many men can and do respect women, not because someone taught them they have to necessarily (although that's part of it) but because it would never occur to them not to. The Washington Post ran an article recently about how women and men are becoming more and more equal when it comes to family decisions, and I think what's most telling is that most of the guys I know would be shocked to hear of families that were structured any other way.

I love that the feminist movement right now is all about choice. I know that we're still bogged down in the details, that great rhetorical wars rage on wherein women criticize one another's choices, but the fact that we can make those choices to begin with makes me so happy. We don't have to be CEOs and high-powered lawyers to be successful, happy, feminist women. But we also know that if that's what we want, we can go after it and nobody should be able to put us down for it.

I sometimes wonder if maybe feminism will come full circle and more and more women will start making the choice to stay at home and run the household instead of working in the public sector. Even if that does happen, and it may well, I don't think that would be a step backward, and that article points to why. Staying at home doesn't have to mean what it used to. You can still be an involved, equal partner in the relationship and in the family, whether or not you're working outside the home. That's where the real victory lies.

Self-fulfilling prophesies

Today is my half birthday, traditionally a bleak day for me. The worst two that I can remember were the first two that sucked, back-to-back: the year I found out that my dog had died and the year that an incredibly nasty comment that a close friend made behind my back got posted on the internet. Other half birthdays since have sucked, but not as badly.

But in the past couple years, not so much. September 23 is just another day, a random day, a day that I often don't even notice. And I don't intend for it to be a bad day this year, even though I dropped my engagement ring off to be resized (it was 1.25 sizes too big. And to think it used to be a little tight) and so I'm feeling a little naked today.

But it got me thinking. Torsten has this habit of saying that he or we won't be able to do something... and being right. We won't be able to keep the apartment neat despite our best intentions. He won't be able to lose ten pounds despite his new diet. He says these things, and then they happen that way, and then he becomes more convinced that he's right when he says those things to begin with.

But I think there's something to the notion of self-fulfilling prophesies. If you think to yourself that your diet won't work, it won't, because you're setting yourself up for failure and you'll wind up undermining yourself. If you tell yourselves that you'll never get your apartment clean, then you won't try as hard, because you have a built-in excuse not to do it: it will never work anyway, so why bother?

I'm not saying that I caused my dog to die or my ex-friend to talk shit about me, but maybe in the years after that, once I'd convinced myself that my half birthday was a day when bad things happened? Well, maybe I tricked myself into noticing the bad things, into waiting for them and almost embracing them when they did happen, into looking for them even if I wasn't going so far as to actively seek them out.

I don't believe in fate or destiny, and I do believe in directing your own course. And I believe there's something to be said for optimism, and it's not just its own inherent cheeriness. I think if you're an optimist you'll really make good things happen, because you believe that they should and will happen, so you will do everything you can to make it so. I do think we lay our paths like that. Obviously we can't determine the outcome of things beyond our control. But I do think that what we do with the cards we're dealt makes a big difference, whether or not we recognize how much of it we control ourselves.

On the other hand, maybe I'm just a lucky person leading a relatively charmed life who has the luxury of saying these things because I am optimistic and things have gone well for me. Maybe I have the chicken and the egg reversed, and pessimists are pessimists because things go badly for them and they've noticed that that's how things work. Maybe I have it all backward and lack the perspective to realize.

What do you think? Do we fulfill our own prophesies or is it beyond our control?

In which I finally get political.

I don't usually talk about politics on my blog. I've mentioned that I support Obama, but that's about the extent of it. I know that politics is personal and people are sensitive about their political beliefs, and I don't want people or readers to feel alienated. I recognize that what I'm about to say is something that not everyone will agree with, and I want everyone to feel free to express their opinions in the comments. I hope that nobody will feel so alienated by what I'm going to say that they will feel that they can't continue reading my blog because of our difference of political opinion. But if people do feel that way, that's fine. What I'm going to talk about is more important.

I don't like John McCain's politics, and I really don't like Sarah Palin's politics. This has nothing to do with McCain's POW experiences, or Palin's pregnant daughter, or the fact that McCain's choice of Palin as VP was a clear case of cynical political pandering.

No. Plain and simple, I think they are wrong about the best way to lead this country forward. And the thing that makes me the angriest is that I think they know they're wrong. They know that their policy plans won't do the most good for the most people, and they don't care. They are about making policies that serve their particular constituencies, and then coming up with a bunch of justifications and platitudes about why everyone else doesn't matter. It's not like Palin didn't know that her speech was full of lies and hyperbole. How can you believe that what you're doing is right when you have to stretch and spin the truth just to sound convincing? How can you believe that you deserve to be in office if you know that you have to lie to the public to get them to elect you?

This argument about small government is bullshit. A truly small government might not provide social services for its worst-off citizens. It might not put gun control laws into effect. But it also wouldn't tell people who could and could not get married. It wouldn't start unnecessary wars and refuse to educate people about sexual health. It wouldn't try to teach the religious philosophy of creationism in public schools. It wouldn't attempt to ban books from public libraries.

So let's get this straight. Democrats don't really believe in small government, but neither do Republicans. Nobody who runs for office really believes in small government. They want to get involved in government because they want to make a difference, and they believe that the government can make a difference.

And I don't believe in small government, either. Not the way Republicans define it. I don't support Big Brother and paternalistic leadership, but I do believe that government is necessary to the smooth functioning of society, and that there are things governments can do to help make life easier for everyone. I also believe that it's totally fine to place a slightly higher burden on the best-off people in our society in order to provide a boost to the worst-off people.

John McCain claims that Obama wants to raise taxes for middle class people, exactly the ones who are suffering from the current economic downturn. In reality, Obama's tax plan would increase the middle class's take-home income by 5%, whereas McCain's would increase their income by only 3%. Obama's plan would raise taxes--but only for the people who can afford it, namely wealthy companies.

Sarah Palin sued the Bush administration over its decision to add polar bears to the list of endangered species because she was afraid it would interfere with oil drilling. She doesn't believe that humans have caused climate change. She wants to teach creationism in public schools. She wants to prohibit abortion, even cases of rape or incest. She's a proponent of banning books from public libraries. She made fun of Obama's community organizing experience as though it's a negative thing that he was working to get ordinary people involved in politics--because to her it is.

McCain and Palin have blind faith that the market will solve for everything. I believe that they are wrong. The people who believe that the market solves for everything are exactly those who have benefited from it. And not everybody has. There are so many people who don't have insurance, who can't afford healthcare, who work crappy jobs or can't get a job at all, who can't afford housing in a safe neighborhood, who can hardly make it through the day. Those are the people who get lost in the system, the ones for whom the market doesn't solve.

I am actually, literally scared of the idea of the U.S. as run by McCain and Palin. I don't think our country can take four more years of this. Certainly those people who are at the bottom of the pyramid can't. And the question is whether those at the top will notice. If McCain and Palin win, I see no evidence that they will. The rich will keep getting richer, the poor will keep getting poorer, and the rest of the world will grow more and more disenchanted with this country.

Read this (and this). Read this. Read this. And read this.

The rest of the world can't believe that the McCain-Palin ticket could win. Maybe, for once, we should take our cue from them instead of trying to force them to do as we do. Spin, exaggeration, and charisma shouldn't be enough to win an election. The strange idea that disagreeing with someone is just evidence of your political bias, rather than evidence that you have convictions about how great our country can be for all of its residents, should not be used as an excuse not to engage on the issues and really discuss what policy stances will be best for our country as a whole.

I can believe McCain and Palin could win this election. But I'm really hoping I don't have to.