For a moment I thought this was about fleas having abortions and was very confused.
Are they called "flea markets" or "swap meets" in Texas?
But they vary. I was quite surprised to discover that there exist flea markets where virtually every booth sells new exceedingly cheap crap, like silk flowers, stuffed animals, car accessories, etc. Pictures of waterfalls which light up so that the water looks like it's moving (which I secretly desperately want to own.) Etc. But which are definitely called flea markets. (These tend to have roasted corn on the cob and margaritas and mariachi bands and memorably, one had signs saying 'no dancing on the picnic tables'.)
Midwives and grandmothers? What about unlicensed / unemployed doctors, nurses, EMTs?
No, according to Oprah's book club they were always midwives or grandmothers. Check yourself, Min.
Right. I think of things like 4, with elote vendors, cheap electronics for sale, cheap new clothes on sale, etc., as swap meets, and flea markets as places where people go to sell used bird cages or whatever. But "swap meet" may be a SoCal only term -- Google hits for the phrase all show up in California.
I think of swap meets as being the thing I went to where I was a Brownie, where ahead of time we spent like a month gluing little feet and googly eyes onto pinecones. Then we took our pinecones to a big room with a bunch of other troops, and traded around for other stuff involving clothespins, yarn, straws, etc, which I then kept for decades thinking I was obligated to, since some seven year old took the time to craft the clothespin Rudolph the Reindeer with the red nose pom-pom ball.
The Slauson Swap Meet is probably the most famous, locally.
From the link in 9:
I came here a few years back to buy a thong, because one of the guys who I was in love with was going to come back to LA to visit me. I was thrilled as I walked with my friends inside. Boy. this is like an Asian fest mixed with the tackiest clothing ever. I mean, there were FUG boots, and ED CHARDY, and all these bootleg brands that when I came out, my stomach was vibrating because of the laughter. Generally the people are nice, though. Except some of the vendors who are like behind your ass because they think that you are going to steal something.
There were a lot of doodoo mamas in there too. With their pink converse and pink shirts. (Nothing against that, but must they chew gum like cows all the time?) Anyways, I bough a churro there cause I was hungry, and I asked if it was warm cuz I'm a fatass! LOL
All you doodoo mamas, you should know she's watching you.
In California, we're passing laws to extend access to abortion, by allowing nurse practioners to do abortions.
I think if the woman from that comment wrote a novel, I would read it.
I was wondering about doodoo mamas also.
Less controversially than 15, I always wonder why it's not a common PSA that four birth control pills = one morning after pill. (I'm sure it depends on which kind of pill, but I had a doctor tell me that, upon prescribing the morning after pill to me, years ago.)
I think it's probably a less useful bit of information than you'd think, given that anyone with birth control pills in their own medicine chest probably won't need the morning after pill (because they took a bc pill already), and pills are a hassle to buy because they're prescription, so mooching a friend's is kind of a big deal. The amount of trouble to obtain 4 bc pills is probably more than the trouble to get a morning after pill.
Wouldn't that fall under the heading of an "off label" use, which is something that triggers various restrictions on marketing.
I think 17 is way off, no offense. There are lots of women and girls who take the pill inconsistently, because humans are often terribly irresponsible about things like that. So it would be easy to have four spare pills and have a pregnancy scare.
Or you have an old prescription that you didn't like, because of side effects, but you didn't throw it out. Or you have an old prescription from when you were in a relationship, but you started using condoms when you broke up, and then figured why bother taking the pill, and you have it lying around. Etc. People accumulate these things for many reasons.
This is the sort of thing I could easily be wrong about.
People accumulate these things for many reasons.
We had bunches of vicodin around the house for years. I think we finally got rid of it.
One thing about the news coverage of the morning after pill -- it seems to be awfully salient in people's heads as a form of birth control. I recently had a birth control conversation with my thirteen-year-old daughter, which I opened with asking what she knew already. I believed she'd have a reasonably full concept of birth control: she's generally aware and well read, and I'd previously bought her a middle-school-level sex-ed book and pointed her at Scarleteen. Nope: when asked, she came up with the morning-after pill and nothing else as possible bc methods.
I gave her the condoms condoms condoms speech, as well as the ideally use two methods speech, and told her that the morning after pill is better than nothing, but it's not nearly as effective as before-the-fact bc and (this is anecdotal and maybe it's obsolete, but it seemed to be the case in the early '90s) it's likely to involve spending the next day vomiting.
While I'm sure I'm early enough with the birthcontrol speech, I was slightly horrified that I hadn't been earlier and that she was still ill informed at an age at which she's probably got at least some classmates starting to fool around.
21: Oh, narcotics I've always held onto because it seems like you might need painkillers in an emergency. BC pills, OTOH, if you weren't specifically thinking of the morning-after pill usage, seemed like they'd be useless other than in a context where you were taking them regularly; while I'm generally untidy, all the situations in 19 are situations where I'd throw pills out once they weren't part of that month's pack that I was actively taking.
I might have held on to them, on the premise that when I wanted to restart, I could use that pack until I got to a doctor. Or if I restarted, I could use them to stave off a co-pay, or tide me over between refills.
(In grad school, my awesome insurance wouldn't let you fill more than one month per month. That never goes wrong.)
25: That makes sense. I don't think I ever went off pills and back on; never went on the pill until I got back from the Peace Corps and met Buck, and stayed on continuously until I started trying to get pregnant, and then never went back on. I switched health care providers and prescriptions, but never a gap in coverage that would have allowed for that sort of thing. (And yeah, I certainly had that one-month-at-a-time bullshit -- that was sort of why I was thinking "Who has spare bc pills to give away?")
22, I got pretty good in-school education most years from age nine or ten and up, and I bet I wouldn't have been able to name bc methods on the spot at thirteen. Maybe condoms, but it was the early 90s. I definitely would have been able to name at least four common STIs, though. Strange priorities in those classes.
If you assume that the goal is to put kids off sex, rather than facilitate their having it safely, emphasizing STIs makes perfect sense.
For all the videos of masturbation and sperm-tasting, and posters of the hundred different forms of erect penises, and all the rest of it, the Unitarian AYS course certainly got me well-schooled on the basics.
When I was on the pill they dispensed three months at a time, so it wouldn't have been hard to use them as a morning-after pill had it come up.
28: Ours was pretty bad. All about every disease under the sun, but so little about sex that parents could easily opt to have their kids removed from the classroom on the 'sex ed' day in health class.
At 13 I would have had no idea how to answer a bc question. I guess I sort of knew about condoms, but only in a very vague way.
The only thing I remember from sex ed is Mr Donohue palming two basketballs and holding them out to each side of his body to represent the female reproductive system (basketballs=ovaries, arms=fallopian tubes, and so on.)
28 and 30: Ours too. Especially since they never really discussed the actual stats*, which lead to teenage/early 20s me thinking that me getting AIDS was really really likely (likely enough that I didn't want to get STD tested).
There are definitely outbreaks like say in a university which is when I didn't want to get tested because I thought I'd have an incurable disease.
My sex ed class was taught by the wife of a character actor from the P/olice A/cademy movies, which made the very occasional references to her own life extremely awesome.
27, 31: Oh, I meant the conversation to be early enough that I'd be well before any actual need to know, and I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised by her level of ignorance. (Actually, the conversation was sparked by talking about a friend of hers who's doing some risky non-sexual stuff, which reminded me to catch up on TALKS I needed to get to. When it occurred to me, though, I was a little freaked that thirteen really is a plausible age for the more precocious teens to be starting some kind of sexual activity, and I hadn't had that talk yet.)
29 posters of the hundred different forms of erect penises
The definite article here is cracking me up.
One does imagine AYS graduates being tempted to categorize in later life: Ah, this appears to be an F3 erection. Smaller than the G class, and less bent than anything in category 4 and up.
"This isn't even my final form... laydeez."
There could be wallet cards with silhouettes, like WW II planespotting.
I have a friend who's maybe 10 years younger than me, grew up in a fairly small, conservative town, who at the age of 22 or so had never heard of Plan B/morning after pill -- I told him about it when he was telling me about a recent pregnancy scare his girlfriend had just been through. Of course, his girlfriend also seemed unaware of the pill, and she grew up in some wealthy East Coast suburb.
28, my high school had a daycare for attending students (serving also as work experience for vocational track students who wanted to work with kids). I don't think their plan was working.
I had a friend who was in pharmacy school, and part of his requirement was to work as a pharmacy tech at Student Health. He got a call from a girl asking for Plan B. The condom had broken during anal, but she was super worried she'd get pregnant. She wouldn't be deterred and kept insisting until he said he thought it'd be OK just this once. I hope she learned about the birds and the bees at some point.
Right. I think of things like 4, with elote vendors, cheap electronics for sale, cheap new clothes on sale, etc., as swap meets, and flea markets as places where people go to sell used bird cages or whatever.
This is correct about flea markets. However, most flea markets now have half the stalls occupied by people who drove in from 100 miles away selling cheap new and/or stolen crap, unless the people who run the place make a concerted effort to keep them out.
Also correct that swap meets are not an East Coast thing, with "East Coast" meaning "me", since I don't know what one is after realizing it is not a place where you swap things.
I thought doodoo mamas was related to the fact that she was looking for a thong.
thirteen really is a plausible age for the more precocious teens to be starting some kind of sexual activity
posters of the hundred different forms of erect penises
Penis Hyakkei.
I used to think "swap meet" could also be called "swap moot," but given the paucity of search results I think it might be from Pogo or something.
You're thinking of a swoop mutt.
I feel like a swap meet abortion is some charming, imposing Latina nurse with really long finger nails takes you into a little cubicle style booth with a private room. The private room is wedged between another little cubicle selling discounted underwear and a little aluminum shack with a revolving al pastor wheel of pork. Another nurse comes out. When you're all done you get a taco, one of which has lengua in it.
A flea market abortion is some weird guy with patches of facial hair and way too much ear hair takes you behind a tent. Behind the tent, other weird guys in their 60s are working on restoring a bunch of non-functional pieces of wicker furniture. Creepy things happen. When you go home after the abortion, you have an unstable small wooden coffee table you don't quite know what to do with.
you get a taco, one of which has lengua in it.
Either you or the taco?
thirteen really is a plausible age for the more precocious teens to be starting some kind of sexual activity
The lesson of 52 is also to talk to your kids about smoking heroin rather than shooting it.
Tell me about outlet mall abortions.
At those prices, you can't afford NOT to get one!
54: Brand name abortions at house label prices.
It's just like, it's just like, a mini-abortion.
I just ordered tacos and they only want ninety cents each.
Did they tell you that with their lenguas?
At Crazy Gideon's, you make me offer for abortions!
Traffic signs in the vaginal canal! A uterus with sunglasses! Now I've seen everything.
62: That they were 90 cents each.
They only had meat, cheese, lettuce, and tomato.
And I'm now turning them into poop.
At the outlet mall, you walk past row upon row of slightly attractive, slightly offputting sweaters. The sweaters remind you vaguely of a mistake you made last year. But not that mistake. You find a beige door with a cheap brass handle. You knock. A cheerful former RN, who left the local hospital to spend more time with her three children, opens the door. You have an abortion. You stare at a poster of Monet's "Bouquet of Sunflowers," remembering that the girl two doors down junior year had this same poster. The poster is tacked into the drywall, somewhat clumsily. When it's done, you eat at Panera Bread.
Hopefully not too quickly because the bathroom here is dirty.
Unspecified meat and hamburger toppings sounds like a dubious taco, but I'm sure it needs pooped just like the rest.
Plus, who runs a taco special on Monday and ruins the chance for Taco Tuesday?
In Century City you can get abortions that will work with European voltages.
I think I've quit running after the poop discussion last week.
Then I guess you'll never catch it.
The music went from the Smiths to that Def whatever with the "I'm up all night to get lucky" refrain.
I had to go to a couple of things called "swap meets" at national competitions when I was a kid. Things where teams from each state were supposed to bring some item representative of their state and then everyone would walk around and trade things. This was supposed to encourage social interaction, or something, but didn't really.
The MIT Flea gets called a swap meet sometimes. Also, I really need to go back to the MIT Flea soon. So amazing. Also, essear should go to it.
They only had meat, cheese, lettuce, and tomato.
It's not a real taco place if they don't have cheek and eye.
Now it's The Cure. I wonder if the jukebox isn't being used for some kind of sublimated conflict.
83: It could have also been tacos in addition to burritos or something.
I'm at Abortion Hut. I'm at the Taco Bell. I'm at the combination 'Bortion Hut and Taco Bell.
Didn't they make KFC/Taco Bell places already? Same difference.
Except "double down" means something different.
Well, *I* appreciated 67, Halford, even if nobody else seems to have, even the person who requested it.
I agree with 89. 67 was very evocative. Well done Halford.
Yes, yes, they were appreciated. Then I couldn't think of another appropriate request. I discarded "Mall of America" and "Old Navy" and "the Mall in front of the Capitol" before it was storytime. Then bedtime was a clusterfuck and I went outside to shut out the screams for awhile, and because drizzling rain at sunset is nice.
I went outside to shut out the screams for awhile
And there's the evocative picture for the story that doesn't end with an abortion.
I'm old, drunk, even more full of tacos than before because when they get older, slipping away is easier.
Speaking of shutting out the screams, if any Bay Area folks want to do a in-person book club on "The Making of Global Capitalism", let me know. Nosflow and Grumbles are tentatively in. I'm not saying I'll email you an unlicensed copy of the ebook if you want one, but I'm not not saying it, either.
British eighties guy won on the jukebox, for those following.
95:Finished it last week. Warning it is much more data intensive than analytical, IOW, making a factual case.
For example, chosen randomly:
However hard this was to credit, what was true was that, in terms of the making of global capitalism--the main objective that structural adjustment was actually designed to foster--there had been real success. Not only had inflation been reduced to 5 percent globally, but over 6,000 privatizations had been carried out in 120 developing countries since the beginning of the decade. Moreover, no less than seventeen countries in Eastern Europe and the former USSR, thirteen in Western Europe, eleven in Latin America, nine in Africa, and four in Asia had made statutory changes towards greater central bank independence, while the number of bilateral investment treaties in force, which had stood at 165 at the end of the 1970s and 385 at the end of the 1980s, had surged to over 1,850 by 1997; 153 were signed that year alone--one every two-and-a-half days. Above all, success could be measured by the 700 changes states had made to foreign direct investment regulations since the beginning of the decade; of the 151 changes made by seventy-six states in 1997, 89 percent of them were favorable to FDI.
The share of FDI in the GDP of developing countries and the sales of MNCs' foreign affiliates abroad exploded: with cross-border mergers and acquisi- tions leading the way, inflows of FDI by the mid 1990s reached an annual average of 4.4 percent of global gross fi xed capital formation, almost double the 1980 level. The sales of foreign affiliates accounted for a rapidly increasing share of world exports; trading in foreign securities became commonplace in stock and bond markets around the world; the amount of foreign currency in bank deposits globally, which had stood at $1 billion in 1961, reached etc
What the various forums discuss is a pretty small part of the book. I liked it, but I read such stuff all the time. But I am not sure what there is there to discuss...
89, 90 -- thanks. I was trying to work on a "what does the car you drive say about your abortion" feature but real life intervened.
What's a doodoo in American? In Swahili it means a bug (arthropod, not listening device), whih gave me some weird images.
98: Somewhere there's a "fine Corinthian leather" commercial to be made.
Have not read the thread, but in late '60s/early '70s NE Ohio, the flea market was understood to be somewhere in western NY. (Map of pre Roe abortion laws.)
While I'm sure I'm early enough with the birthcontrol speech, I was slightly horrified that I hadn't been earlier and that she was still ill informed at an age at which she's probably got at least some classmates starting to fool around.
I talked with my son early and often about these issues, but a lot of it still doesn't sink in. I really appreciated the scarleteen referral here.
I have prob mentioned that I learned about the fallopian tubes when I was in second grade.
Knecht is absolutely correct that reducing access to legal, professional abortions services is going to result in injury to women. Many anti's simply do not care. If you are going to be a filthy slut who gives into your base desires, then you desire what you get. The injuries to women will reduce abortions, in their minds.
