I knit a hat, because I needed a hat, but I got the gauge wrong. So now I have a child’s hat, or maybe a cat’s hat.

Oh well. I decided to buy a cheap sewing machine from Craigslist, and get back into sewing.

The first thing I sewed was a needle case

Next, I wanted to take in these pants I had just got on sale. They are 32 waist by 34 legs. (I am a 31W 32L) “Easy” I though, “I’ll just take two inches off the bottom on the legs!” Well, it turns out denim is incredibly difficult to sew through, and it took me 4 hours to get the tension adjusted correctly on the sewing machine. But, I guess I now understand the machine better… (although, I’m still not sure what exactly I did to fix it)

Finally, if you’re curious, you can’t just buy any old length of pants and cut the bottoms off and hem them. It turns out that a lot of that extra length is in the waist area, not the legs.)

So it dawned on me: Had I spent that 4+ hours freelancing, I could have made enough money to buy 4 pairs of CORRECTLY SIZED pants. Instead, I have one pair of droopy-crotched pants. Cruddy.

I have at times perceived that a woman can become pregnant, and then choose to have the child or not, regardless of the man’s preference in the matter, not to mention his financial status. To put it another way, I have seen many babies that don’t have any fathers, because the woman chose to have the child while the man would have preferred not to have a child at that time in their life. I saw this as unfair to the man, in that by sleeping with a woman he was placing his future, economic and otherwise, in her hands. The man and woman could attempt to come to an agreement about what to do about the pregnancy of course, but at the end of the day, the choice was the woman’s alone, and the man simply had to accept what the woman chose, for better or worse. It seemed that there was an unfair balance of power going on, that the man had less say in the matter. I always knew there was something fishy about this thought process, but I couldn’t quite figure out how to approach it sensibly. It is difficult to come to an egalitarian solution to the problem of responsibility in pregnancy, but I intend to present an approach in which both sides have equal say in whether or not to keep a pregnancy.

First, a few basic tenets that we will agree to:

Pregnancy can be physically dangerous to a woman’s body. Miscarriage, postpartum depression, as well as birthing difficulties can all be harmful or fatal to the woman.

Pregnancy is not similarly dangerous for the man. Though he may be mentally and emotionally involved in the process of the pregnancy, there is never a direct physical threat to him from it.

Because of the increased risk for the woman, her choice on whether or not to keep the pregnancy is of greater importance than the choice of the man.

With these tenets in mind, I’d like to describe a way by which both parties have the same say in whether or not to have the child. And here it is:

Find out whether the woman would want to keep or abort the pregnancy, before you have vaginal intercourse with her.

Simply put, if you have vaginal intercourse with a woman, protected or not, and you have not yet agreed as to a course of action that would be followed in the event of a pregnancy, you are giving your implied consent to accept her choice in the matter. That means, if you sleep with someone before talking about what would happen in the case of her getting pregnant, you’d better be ready to stop messing around, to get a 9 to 5, and to dedicate the next 18 years of your life to making sure the kid has a decent chance at life.

If, however, you have both stated what you would want in the case that she became pregnant before you have vaginal intercourse, it is a simple matter of finding pairs. Would you both want to do the same thing in the event of a pregnancy? Have as much vaginal intercourse as you like! Would you both want to do different things in the event of a pregnancy? Don’t have vaginal intercourse. Simple.

In this way, both parties are on equal ground for coming to a sensible agreement about whether or not to keep the pregnancy.

I have left the comments open for once, becuase I’d like to get some feedback. What do you think? Does this seem like a fair and logical way to approach the issue of responsibility and pregnancy? Did I totally miss the point? Do you think I said vaginal intercourse enough times?

Just wanted you to know.

See that scarf? It’s the one from a few days ago, finished. Today, I am working on two color knitting, as well as purling, as well maybe working on round needles!

Look! Someone actually came through and dug up some of my old “Adventure”s! (Old comic zines I used to make) Pictured are Adventure 2 and 3, as well as the Death collection of daily comics (a fictional narrative about destroying the parts of oneself that love another person. Starring robots, a young boy, the idealized versions of myself and some girl, and a guy with a weird mask)

Now it remains to be seen if he will actually mail me the Adventures. Here’s hoping!

That up there is the first thing I’ve ever knit. It took 6 hours to get to that skill level. Below is me working on the second thing I’ve ever knit, and going kind of stir crazy.

I drew this beautiful young lady on a can of artichoke hearts and then danced with her, much to the delight and confusion of my customers.

Song of Myself is back up. Soft Sculpture is back up. Adventure #5 is gone forever though

“He discovered the cruel paradox by which we always decieve ourselves twice about the people we love-first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage”
— Albert Camus (A Happy Death)