Today is my grandmother's birthday. She would have been 94. We lost her in 1989, and I miss her every day. My mom and I call each other pretty often--at least once a week--but one of us always calls the other on Nov. 2 and Jan. 29 (the latter was the day my grandmother passed away).

She made no secret of the fact that I was her favorite grandchild, something I was grateful for during the times in my life when I didn't feel like I was anybody's favorite anything. We shared a sweet tooth and frequently gave each other chocolate-covered cherries for Christmas gifts. She would take us to Wyatt's Cafeteria to eat lunch after church on Sunday mornings, and she and I would always get the strawberry shortcake. She knew how to make the best chocolate cake I've ever tasted. When we cleaned out her house after she died, she had five different kinds of barbecue sauce in her fridge (and not much else).

She lived alone for 12 years after my grandfather died of cancer, two miles outside the city limits, a fact that would come back to haunt her on more than one occasion: when a snake got into her house, and later on when she was robbed while she was at church, and still later when her guard dog attacked her. She was a tough lady, a survivor of the Depression who saved rubber bands and scraps of foil, and had a jar of wheat pennies and another jar of Bicentennial quarters. She always made sure I had a slip on when I got dressed for church. My mom says she can still hear my grandmother asking, "Do you have a slip on?" I have a picture, taken around 1959, of my grandparents attending the rodeo in Fort Worth. My grandfather has on a suit and tie and cowboy hat, and my grandmother is properly dressed, complete with hat, gloves, and a pocketbook that matches her shoes.

She had her flaws. She was certain that anyone who didn't go to the Church of Christ was hellbound. When we'd go out on Sunday afternoons or shopping on Saturdays, if we saw black people in a nice car, she'd embarrass us by saying "They must have stolen it." She never completely trusted electricity and wouldn't let me use the vacuum cleaner unless I put shoes on first, sure that I was going to electrocute myself. She refused to use the microwave oven, although she'd get my brother or me to heat up water for her.

My little brother and I would go to her house after school when we were kids, waiting for my schoolteacher mom to get done with her paperwork. We'd go into the "den" and watch cartoons. Both my grandmothers had houses with separate living rooms and dens; the living room was where you entertained company; the den was where the television was. She'd bring us sandwiches and Dr Pepper and Little Debbie oatmeal creme pies.

I remember her house very well, although I haven't been in it in 16 years. I walk it in my dreams: from the kitchen with its pear-printed curtains and decorative plates on the wall from all the states she'd visited; to the overwhelmingly green-and-gold living room (one of the two rooms in the house with air conditioning); to the dark, cool den with his-and-hers rocking Naugahyde recliners. I remember her red rose bushes and pine trees.

She was a little woman: 5'2" or so and maybe 135 lbs at her heaviest. I always wondered why she drove her little Ford Maverick the way she did, until I got my license and drove it. It had no power steering whatsoever and I always admired the way she muscled it around.

When my dad got a camcorder in 1985, she hated that thing. She refused to talk to it and would turn her face away if he tried to engage her. Eventually, she mellowed somewhat and said that if she were stronger, she'd break the camera. 17 years after her death, I still can't bring myself to watch the videotapes with her in them for long; looking at a photo is one thing, but seeing her, hearing her, is all too real.

My other grandmother, no less sweet for her Alzheimer's fog, turned 95 this year, and I expect that I've got this extended mourning to look forward to with her as well, although in many ways the real "her" has been gone for some time. My late grandmother had a massive stroke in late 1988 and passed away three months later, and even then it was a relief to let her go, because what made her who she was had been blasted away.

Love the dear ones in your life. You never know when they will leave you. I miss my darling grandmother every day, and wish I could talk to her just one more time.

[Cross-posted in the comments to the "Why feminists support school shootings" column]

Please understand before I ask any of these questions that I mean no disrespect to anyone on either side of the issue. I'm just offering food for thought.

By the logic that a blastocyst or embryo or fetus is a human being, can the acorn then be said to be the tree? The egg the chicken? I realize that one of these examples is vegetable and the other animal, and therefore not human, but if you take the logic of "human DNA=human" to its conclusion, that's what you get.

I saw a preview for next week's "Nip/Tuck" last night in which they're growing a human ear on a mouse's back (technology I'd heard of before), eventually to be transplanted to a human. Whose DNA is it? Is it part of the mouse? Part of the human? Who does it belong to?

There's an uncommon medical phenomenon known as a teratoma, in which tumors are found to contain hair, teeth, fingernails, eyes, etc. It's thought that the human who hosts this "monster tumor" once was a twin, but the stronger twin absorbed the weaker in the womb (this is explored in the book and movie "The Dark Half"), and the weaker may never resurface at all, but instead existing inside the stronger for years. That was once a human being. Does the stronger twin have the right to have it removed? Regardless of its current potential to become, it once had the same chances as its twin.

I had a bone spur removed from my foot six years ago. I had injured my foot and chipped a bone, and when it healed it formed a spur. That was causing me much pain and inconvenience, and even though it was a "part" of me and I'd grown it inside me, I had it removed with no further thought. I've also had kidney stones, something my body grew without my permission.

But that's different, you say. I didn't choose to have those things happen. But it's still my DNA. In the future, I might be cloned from these things (scary thought!).

Now I'm thinking of a "Heavy Metal" story in which a neurotic artist saved EVERYTHING that her body cast off--skin cells, hair, fingernail clippings, even going so far as to extract her own teeth--and unveiled a hideous life-sized statue made of her own cast-off DNA.

Maybe I'm participating in a little reductio ad absurtium here, but I'm trying to figure out the magic combination. Is it human DNA alone that makes it worthy of protection? Or is it the notion that the woman obviously chose to get pregnant by engaging in sex without protection and she should thus be willing to pay the piper?

If a woman who chooses to abort is "playing God" by imposing her own will over that of God's by choosing whether the fetus is to live or die, don't we do that all the time? By that logic, something as simple as CPR or the Heimlich maneuver is imposing one's will over God's in the matter of life and death. One is taking a life and the other saving a life, but it's still the same concept: saying No, I know what's best in this case.

It seems so hard to have a reasoned discussion about this very heated topic without one side shrieking "baby killers" and the other side screaming "fascists." I'm just curious about some of the shades of grey that exist between black and white.

...not to introduce myself!

I'm Noelegy, and in no particular order, I am:

Libertarian, Southern, Texan, type 2 diabetic, married (second marriage), a stepmom, an adoptee, a Capricorn, and an English major. My bachelor's is from Texas Woman's University, with a minor in fine arts and computer arts. I'm currently selling my soul to the medical billing industry.

I enjoy: reading, writing, crocheting, drawing, computer artwork, computer gaming, and four-wheeling. I share my home with my husband, my 16-year-old stepson (I have two older stepsons who are grown and moved out), a dog, four cats, three ferrets, and some fish. My favorite television shows are "CSI," "Mythbusters," "Dirty Jobs," and "The Simpsons." My favorite music is progressive classic rock: Jethro Tull, Kansas, The Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, Rush, etc. My favorite cuisine is Indian and Middle Eastern, and I was a vegetarian for eight years before reintroducing meat into my diet after I learned I was diabetic.

I am pro-choice, pro-Second Amendment (although I don't own any guns), anti-illegal immigration (legal is just fine), in favor of GLBT rights and equality, and I vote. I'm fairly well divided along the liberal/conservative schism, although I feel more comfortable among conservatives because they just don't tend to get as shrill and nasty as liberals. I don't think of myself as being from a "red" or "blue" state: see Purplethink.org to see what I mean. I believe in the power of the third party to change the political landscape.

I have freckles, tattoos, piercings, and scars. I have no children of my own and probably will never be able to have them, but I am a dedicated stepmom (even my husband's ex says I'm "the perfect stepmom") and my husband and I hope to adopt a little girl someday. I'm in touch with my biological family--a huge blessing that came into my life when they found me in 2001. I have two adoptive brothers, three half-brothers, one half-sister, four nephews, five nieces, and one grand-nephew. I have two moms and one dad, one mother-in-law and two fathers-in-law!

It's a wonderful life.

I've been having a spirited discussion with "Skullcrusher" over on the columnists' blog section over same-sex marriage, contraception, abortion, and other hot topics, and Skullcrusher's comments got me to thinking about the nature of the beast.

I said that preventing unwanted pregnancies was hardly only a 20th century issue and that as long as humans have known what caused pregnancies, we've been looking for ways to prevent them (See: "A History of Sex"). The arguments of the anti-abortion crowd on the right echo those of the anti-gun crowd on the left: "If we make them illegal, they'll just go away!" No, but black markets will thrive and women will die.

I've read "The Handmaid's Tale," and I wonder how many anti-abortion (or pro-life, if you prefer) advocates have read it. To pro-choicers, it reads like a dystopian nightmare, and I wonder if that's where our country is headed. In such a world, I'd be an "Unwoman," sent with the other infertile women to labor in the nuclear waste dumps. A woman's only value in this world would be her ability to get pregnant and have babies. Not surprisingly, some would rather die, and that's the issue that always seems to escape the anti-abortion advocates. Just because a woman can't go anywhere to get a legal abortion, doesn't mean she won't find a way. Underground networks exist, herbal knowledge can't be taken away, and a woman will go the rusty-coathanger route if she must. I don't believe these people have ever known the uncertainty and outright dread of fearing that one may be pregnant and the timing and circumstances are all wrong.

"Well, keep your legs closed!" they say. "Don't have sex!" It's not always that easy, no matter how good your intentions or godly your upbringing. They have a name for teenagers who are given abstinence-only sex education: parents. If we teach our children that the ONLY sexual release for them is to come after they are married, and that masturbation is wrong, and contraception is wrong, and abortion is wrong, but we don't give them any facts on teen pregnancy or STDs, I think we are doing them a horrible disservice, because kids will have sex, regardless of the consequences. The only thing that has changed over time is our attitude toward it.

Even just a quarter of a century ago, a teen pregnancy was regarded as something shameful and scandalous, to be kept secret, the ruination of a young girl's life. Nowadays it seems that girls aren't encouraged to give their babies up for adoption, just told that welfare will take care of everything. I don't care how many anecdotal examples you give me to the contrary, nothing will ever convince me that a teenaged girl or boy is mentally or emotionally (not to mention financially) ready to become a parent or raise a child. And I say that even knowing that my husband was a teenaged father with his first wife. He even admits that yeah, he should have waited.

Two teenagers in private Christian schools, taught abstinence-only sex education, doing all the right things...but the girl doesn't get along with her parents and she picks the first lonely sucker who comes along and says that if she can get pregnant, she can get married and therefore get out of her parents' house. Nightmare, right? What do you think the teenaged boy hears and thinks? "Oobie doobie, I get to have sex!"

That's what happened to my husband, and although he beat the odds and was and has been a good and steady provider and father for his three sons, how many stories do you think turn out like that? There's something very wrong with our culture if we have women becoming grandmothers at 30.

But now I've gotten off the subject of contraception and gone off on an anti-teen-pregnancy rant. A mind once expanded can never contract, and you can't put the genie back in the bottle. I do NOT think that it is a good idea to ban contraception or abortion, and I've yet to talk to the person who can convince me otherwise.

My background on the pro-life/pro-choice issue: I'm adopted. I was once a member of my county's Right to Life organization. I used to wear the "Precious Feet" pin. And at the age of 14, I had a letter to the editor published in the local "big" paper, denouncing abortion.

What changed? At 19, I had a boyfriend who was a sailor and who wanted to marry me. I wasn't so sure about whether I wanted to marry him, but my parents thought he was a good match and somehow overlooked the fact that we didn't get along so great when he came to visit me on leave. He talked me into having sex, and he didn't use protection, because he knew where he'd been, in his own words.

When I turned 23 and got married (not to the sailor), I was first told by a gynecologist that I would probably never be able to get pregnant without fertility drugs. I didn't know that at 19. All I knew was that I was late, and I was terrified that my parents would make me marry the sailor and I would have to move away and become a wife and mommy, two roles I definitely wasn't ready to play. And I was about as far from the stereotypical roundheels party girl as you can get. I lived through about two weeks of complete terror, and only my best friend knew.

Well, I wasn't pregnant after all, just irregular, but it definitely put the fear of God in me. And it changed how I felt about abortion. I still didn't think I could ever make that decision, but I realized that I didn't have the right to make the decision for anyone else, or remove their right to do so.

And I guess that makes me something of an oddball in a place like TownHall. That's OK; I'm used to playing the oddball. I'm a Libertarian who's pro-Second Amendment, pro-choice, thinks welfare needs HUGE reform, anti-illegal immigration...I could go on, but I've probably babbled enough by now.