Hey TGGP, I know just the feeling you're talking about, where you cringe over and over at the memory of something IMPOSSIBLY retarded you said or wrote or did?  
 
This too shall pass.  
 
Eventually I realized that most people are so wrapped up in their own business that they hardly even notice what other people are doing or saying, and that even if they do talk smack about you, it's merely for their own status-posturing benefit, not actually because they spend a lot of time pondering your idiocy. ;)  
 
In other words, when people gossip about other people, they are mostly trying to tell you something important about themselves, not about the person they're tearing into.

I am haunted by a low-time-preference romantic regret which is nearly ten years old now!  
 
In another thirty years, will I STILL be secretly pining for what might have been, in spite of a full and satisfying life? God-and-Darwin above, I hope not.  
 
Note to self: GET OVER IT ALREADY!!!! 
 
Am only mildly regretful about the occasional high time-preference decisions that turned out poorly. More on the order of "well, that was stupid; but I guess I learned something there."  
 
But those regrets don't haunt me for a decade!  
 
That being said, I've lead quite a low time preference sort of life overall, and can afford to look back with affectionate indulgence at my "wild" younger self:  
 
Woot! You crazy girl, spending fifty dollars on ugly jeans! lol.

That was a wicked good episode. They managed to tie together, like three themes, seamlessly.  
 
The ending made me yelp!

Yes, Mark, my mom had the baby lust in a bad, bad way, and had three kids in less than four years. Then Dad pulled the plug and got a vasectomy. I'm not sure she ever completely forgave him. LOL 
 
But the poor crazy woman would have happily had a dozen otherwise, even if she'd have had to live in a shack and eat beans to do it.  
 
I've really never met a guy with baby-lust, though. Sometimes they "want kids" but one doesn't get the impression that it's a visceral, all-consuming longing.  
 
Wonder if it connects in some way to your being gay? Especially given the correlation between large families and male homosexuality.  
 
"Baby Lust Gene Makes Dudes Gay." How's that for a fun headline? j/k.  
 
Really, really hope you aren't offended.

Too bad I missed the survey; I have three kids currently, and am 27. 
 
Don't you imagine we're starting to select for "baby-lust" and not just sexual lust? I've experienced "baby lust." Got married at 21 and quit university over it! 
 
It is not a rational state, and some women (ahem) will do a lot of crazy things to satisfy the desire, which is almost entirely separate from sex itself.  
 
Lord help us if there is a heritable component involved.

A woman has got to love data that suggest that picking a reasonably smart husband is more important to her kids' futures than obsessing about the minutiae of their lives once they arrive. 
 
It front-ends the hassle involved, you know?  
 
Anyway, majority-minority schools aren't always dreadful, even when they are.  
 
As long as there is some place for high-achieving kids to hide in safety, (science lab, band hall, theater department, whatever) they can still be successful and happy in their own little niches. 
 
The rest of the school will largely ignore their existence, but that's not so bad, really; it's good training for the Real World, in a way. 
 
Just stay out of the cafeteria, OK?

gee, imagine that. Women bright enough to defer the gratification of childbearing and succeed professionally tend both to be older when they do have kids, *and* to have bright kids.  
 
Wish there were more options for women to return to the academic/professional world later in life, with some dignity. We have to make them if we want them, though. 
 
Somehow it is hard for a lot of middle-aged women to be treated "equally" with a horde of pimply teenagers at college, or to eat humble pie and take the entry-level jobs they didn't have while birthing and raising their broods.  
 
(and, anyway, it can be nice to reap the rewards of one's labor after doing hard labor with a houseful of babies. Cooking, cleaning, squeezing all the household bills out of the young husband's meager income... who needs an 18-hour courseload full of irrelevance after fifteen years of all THAT? 
 
Joining the town gardening club sounds more rewarding.)

heh, your addendum summed up my initial reaction nicely.  
 
You'd have to be madder'n a march hare, I suppose.

You're a strong feller.  
 
Personally, I'd rather donate a kidney for mixed grill at Michelle Obama's next dinner party than publicly re-read certain of my posts from five years ago.