Sort of a self fulfilling prophecy. Good news is I'm way past that; bad news is the discovery of self esteem has made me far less inclined to tolerate crap from others. I almost certainly still need to strike a balance.

Saving my dogs' lives took priority over saving my teeth, yes. Didn't do much good, but such is life. Or death, as the case may be. Just one of many examples of how I tend to prioritize my friends and family above myself; what can I say? I'm a jerk like that. Danu and my other friend have been AMAZING friends to me, despite never having MET me until last Saturday. Since I don't know when I'll be in the country again after 4 November, and since Labor Day weekend was the first (and possibly last) chance to see them before I leave, I took it. I'm still hoping to see Tash, too, but now... I dunno; if I'm gonna do this I need to do it soon, and it looks like I'll be flat broke when it's done. If it's done. We just had a tropical storm pass through; you come stay a couple un-air conditioned days in TX after a tropical storm and THEN tell me it's "non-essential. " I have DSL for one reason and one reason only: Because I probably wouldn't be getting married if not for Skype.

I work, and do, enough that I've been (barely) functioning on about 3-4 hours of sleep per night for about two years now. Which is part of why a lot of money has been spent on luxury items like having an ulcer diagnosed and replacing the car I totalled when I passed out coming home from work about a year ago. And the buyers check. And the defective instrument cluster it found. And the two defective wheel hubs and defective ABS system and electrical cage it didn't. Oh, and resetting the arm I dislocated in January (or, I should say, FULLY dislocated after partially dislocating it in '95, and that was TOTALLY defensive pass interference! ) Like I said, and believe it or not, I really have tried to get out of the habit of running to the CMB every time I have a problem. nossy's right; I should've made this a JP so I could vent without cluttering up the CMB.

Meh. You're not my mother and even if you were I'm not 12. The mere fact that you're making the comparison between "non-essentials" and "dental care" tells me that YOU consider the latter an essential, so I'm not sure what there is to debate. Perhaps whether "the ownership society" means anything more or less than "you're on your own.... " But that's the difference, isn't it? If people who can't provide all their own essentials in the face of any adversity they're obviously not trying hard enough and should be left to die in the street; anything else would be undemocratic and an imposition on those not in that situation.

Those who can leave, will; those who can't will die, and as the country continues falling apart at the seams you can take comfort in the fact that no one unfairly took any of your hard earned and now worthless dollars to prevent it. When we did things FDRs way gold was worth $35/oz. and American commercial, military and diplomatic prowess was the envy of the world; thanks for "fixing" that.