I don't usually write about politics, but I can't help myself. I just have to speak about what feels to me like a double standard when it comes to Sarah Palin. I'm surprised by the people who want equal rights for women so that they can do all the same things as men, yet now that Sarah Palin is the potential VP are all asking whether she can be a good mom and VP at the same time.

I never imagined myself with children. I was never one of those girls to which the younger children flocked. Yet, I never escape being pegged as a mother. Yes, I have children, but we all know of women who've borne children and have not a mothering bone in their bodies. And we know women who've never had biological children but nurture neighborhoods and perhaps nations. When I say I'm pegged as a mother, I mean I seem to be that person to whom other people come for answers to their problems, the one to whom they'll tell their troubles, or the person in front of whom they decide to break down.

I was supposed to be at the BlogHer conference in Chicago this week. Had I been able to attend it would have been the first vacation I've had in three and a half years, but I'm not at BlogHer, and I can't even help promote it, and I've turned off the guilt machine in my head because if I listened to its dogma, you all would have to order a straight jacket for me.