Todd Stadler's blog

and scooby-doo on channel two

Today I celebrate twenty-seven years of living outside the uterus. While for some this might be reason to celebrate, for me, it is a time of self-reckoning.

What have I done in these past twenty-seven years? Did I make the right choices?

In particular, what about this whole move out of the uterus? Was that the best decision, given the information I had then? Given the information I have now?

In order to answer these questions, I will resort to one of the lower forms of humor, the bulleted list.

Let's compare my digs now with my living situation twenty-seven years and a few months ago.

• Uterus: dark, full of liquid.
• Portland: rather rainy, and the skies are often overcast.
• Uterus: lease stipulates automatic eviction after nine months.
• Portland: meritocratic lease ensures housing as long as bills are paid.
• Uterus: steady thump-thump of mother's heart is comforting.
• Portland: steady thump-thump from Beeman's stereo is sometimes annoying.
• Uterus: communication with other humans largely limited to kicking, passing waste through umbilical cord.
• Portland: Samsung cell phone allows me to call anyone on the planet from most major US cities.
• Uterus: not a whole lot to do for fun.
• Portland: plenty of potentially fun activities, but as I am poor, web pages it is.
• Uterus: no alcohol allowed.
• Portland: plenty of beer, but still not so much money. Yet more web pages.
• Uterus: lots of uninterrupted time to plan for the future, make diabolical schemes.
• Portland: diabolical scheming is limited by need to find job, write pithy web humor.

Hmm. I can't say I see a real winner here.

Except, of course, you, the reader of this fine web site. With humor like this, there's no way you could lose.