Ben. Not my Ben. Or my original Ben, anyway. My work Ben. Not really a Ben of mine at all, but I a Ben I know. And a Ben none of those of you who are reading this will know. So, for all intents and purposes, my Ben.

Ben comes to mind because he's the only one left to come to mind. Everyone else is gone for the summer or was gone for the schoolyear and now seems somehow unapproachabole for the summer. Or they're busy as fuck, or I don't want to spend time with them anymore, or I want to desperately, but can't. (None of these categories include Zack, who's spending more and more time with his unbearably selfish family. Maybe they'd let me just adopt him.)

So I look forward to Ben working, because we talk and play games when it's not busy, and write stories on the sandwich wrappers before giving them out, and try to carve religious images into the meat so that people will believe they've found a miracle in their value meal. I'd be a litte hesitant to have anymore friendships with males at all, knowing how they tend to get processed with me, but I have to see him at work, anyway, and it's safe enough...you know, unless we get put on an overnight together.

Casey's online-- he so rarely is anymore-- and I am reminded, again, of how much I miss him. I've been having dreams about him lately. Missing him ranges to and from every aspect of our relationship, but it's mostly...I don't know. Attacking him with a puppet in a Freeport bookstore. Making fun of the Ninety-Nine's decorations. Lounging on my porch in the sun. The good stuff.

Uh, it's bothering me even to get into this. Fuck it all. On with it.

So, here's my pet peeve of the day week arbitrary amount of time: People who, when asked about their stance on abortion say, "Well, I don't condone it as a regular method of birth control."

Who fucking does? Isn't that kind of a given? How many people, that you are likely to be having an intelligent conversation with, say "You know, I could go through the painless and relatively cheap acts of wearing a condom or taking the pill, but instead, I think I'll just get knocked up every time I have unprotected sex, and waste more time and money than I have available to me having an instrusive and painful procedure done that will leave me emotionally scarred." I'm not saying there aren't people that abuse the "convenience" of abortions, but I'm willing to bet you won't find a buttload of people who condone that abuse.

Being pro-choice doesn't mean you're wild about abortions. It means you want to leave the decision up to the people in the situation and not to the politicians who's chief concerns are probably to keep the number of taxpayers healthy while coming up with a great guilt-trip for elections 18 years from now. ("Your whore of a mother wanted to kill you, but I fought for your rights even as a fetus. Vote for me!") It's not like abortion clinics are trying to recruit people. They don't have advertising campaigns- "The risk of pregnancy got you down? Are you sick and tired of those clumsy condoms? Come on down to Dr. Death's Abortion Barn! If you're a preggo, we'll fix you up in a jiffy, and you can go write back to your life of perversion and debauchery! But, heck you don't have to wait till you get knocked up: Buy an abortion in advance and save up 15%! A great gift for the holidays. And now, for a limited time, get two abortions and get your third half off! Dr. Death's Abortion Barn: We're even cheaper than you are!"

And, while I'm on the subject, it seems to me that a huge argument for illegalizing abortion, the Bible's, if I remember correctly, is that the child may have the potential to do anything, something that may even benefit you one day! I think this argument comes from fear and greed: people are so afraid to lose anything, they don't even care if they have it. "Little Susie down the block wants to have an abortion...but what if her future son would have cured my disease, or made me lots of money? I must STOP HER!" People are packrats when it comes to human life, especially babies. They figure the more time something has left, the more potential it has to improve the world. But my argument is this, and I wish I could copyright this next statement: Potential goes both ways.

And that means two things, at least so far: A, not only does little Bobby Fetus have the chance to live a long, prosperous life in which he'd volunteer, save lives, and make an air freshener that would completely eliminate that "old lady" smell, but he's also go the potential to die early, or kill hundreds, or rape women, or seriously contribute to old lady smell problem. And B, just as there's no way of knowing what Bobby might have accomplished if he wasn't aborted, there's no way of knowing what the mother or father- or anyone else involved, for that matter- might of accomplished if he was. She could be the one who finds a cure for cancer, to give into the classic hypothetical situation cliché.

I feel the need to create posters making these points...well, not the first one, since that's just me blowing off steam (but, SERIOUSLY, who the hell condones that??), but I think I could make some compelling designs with the second idea in mind. I wonder if there's a local pro-choice organization I could volunteer for. Though I'd probably be surrounded by people who felt the need to point out what uses they do and do not condone. Ugh.

On with it.