One of my Biggest Fans

I spent the better part of two hours cleaning a fan today. It's one of our larger metal fans and it lives in the kitchen. Living in the kitchen means it is always subject to cooking oils and cat hair. So yeah, it was filthy nasty messy.

As I've mentioned before, we try to give the fans a good cleaning at the beginning of Needs a Fan season and then again at the end of it. For many of the fans in the house, this is enough. For others . . . well, let's just say it's fortunate I enjoy doing this kind of thing.  Some of the fans, like the one I handled today, need a lot more than just two cleanings during the season.

Since I became someone who actively and willingly participates in the cleaning of things, I've learned the value of layers.  Some things can be cleaned once and they are fine. These things are kind of rare if you've not been working on them. Almost everything else requires you to clean a layer at a time. One level of grime, then the next, then the next, then more if it is needed. When you work like this, there are some basic rules that make it easier.

I think the most important rule is that you do not scrub the bejesus out of things. I know this seems like the most logical way to go about it, but it isn't. My stove has a screwed up paint job because someone overscrubbed it before we lived here. Instead of just working down one layer at a time, someone scrubbed and scrubbed until the paint is so screwed up, it's almost difficult to clean at all now.

Instead, remember that this doesn't all have to come off at once. Clean a layer off.  Wait a bit and then clean another. This will take more time, but it is also easier on you and on whatever you are cleaning. And yes, it is easier on you as well. When you just work a layer at a time, you don't exhaust yourself from all the intense, constant motion. This means you can clean longer and more effectively.

By the time I handed the fan back to my roommate, it wasn't 100% clean.  Then again, it wasn't scary either. I accepted the fact that I wouldn't make it look perfect. I knew there was no way I could do that given the time I had. I did know it could look better than it did though, so I focused on achieving that. And I did.

Cleaning machines such as your fans is very helpful to you.  For one thing, it gets a lot of dust and crap out of the air you're breathing. For another thing, it helps to prolong the life of the machine.  Let's face it, most of us can't afford to just go out and buy a bunch of new fans.

In this heat, you certainly can't go without them.

Exclusions

My 20th high school reunion is this weekend and I am not going.  I'm not sure if I was going to go before what happened, but I certainly wasn't going to attend afterward.  High school reunions are supposed to be open to everyone. If you graduated with the class, you should be allowed to show up. End of story. It seems that is not quite the case with my class.

There is a person I graduated with who is famous for doing something of which others do not approve. This person did nothing illegal in the state where she was doing it. She did nothing that caused harm to anyone.  If you know this person, then you know she is a sweet, talented, and richly wonderful human being.  She's also very funny, very open, and not ashamed of herself.

She was asked not to attend our reunion. She was told it was because of some drama involving her and her exhusband and that neither of them would be allowed to attend.  And yet . . . I saw on the message board from our class that he went tonight and had a very good time. This leads me to believe that the reason she was asked not to attend had nothing to do with him and everything to do with why she is famous.

And you know what? The facts about her life, while there for the public to view if they please, were not really openly discussed on Facebook by HER.  Her exhusband was the one who announced what she used to do for a living to everyone.  He is the one who condemned her and called her all kinds of horrible names. He made sure she was slut shamed for everyone mutual friend they had.

So no, I couldn't go to this reunion. I couldn't show up and smile at people and enjoy an event where people were being excluded because they didn't live up to the assumed moral standards of others.  I don't believe people should be left out of the room just because they don't fit the image of how you want to define yourself and the people you with whom you went to school. That is just bullshit.

I think it's very funny that our little class from the middle of no where actually has someone famous and everyone has their panties in such a twist about it that they just can't deal.  People, just fucking grow up.  Our class has a lot of people in it that you probably can't stand. There are homosexuals and atheists and pagans and cat ladies and people who had kids out of wedlock and drunks and felons and probably just about everything else you can think of. Not everyone will meet your approval but fuck you.

Anyway, I guess I shouldn't be so surprised by this. People can be very narrow minded. In the end though, I hope whatever people were responsible for making the decision to exclude my friend understand that they really truly hurt someone else's feelings. I hope they also understand that they annoyed the hell out of me.

A Plead for Unity

Today, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the health care bill commonly known as Obamacare is constitutional. For those who support the health care bill, this was a good day. For those who do not support it . . . not so much of a good day. People are fighting and arguing about the issue and will be from now on until . . . well, until we all get used to it and forget about it.

However, in the wake of all the reports and news flashes and everything else, I think there is a more important issue where we, as Americans can find unity. This is an issue that has recently become more and more prevalent in our society and culture, one that threatens the very foundation of how we define who we are and how others see us.

I'm talking about the ugly ass acronyms for various branches of our government.

Because space is a premium and many sources have only so many characters available to them, abbreviations are frequently used these days. And I will admit, 'Supreme Court of the United States' and 'President of the United States' take up a lot of space and characters.  In theory, I understand the wish for making this shorter.  However, SCOTUS and POTUS are just about the most horrible words ever.

Let us begin with POTUS. When I first saw this, I had no idea what it meant. Just looking at the word, and being from the area I am from, I assumed "Potus" was someone's hillbilly cousin. In my mind, I saw this guy with snaggly teeth,  many of which were missing, a mullet, dirty undershirt, and the kind of skinny jeans that only those with a deep dedication to their meth addiction and slip into. "That's my cousin Potus.  He had to leave the county because he fathered 17 children." "Potus got a job today . . . he was fired because be insisted on bringing his jug of moonshine with him." "No, I think Potus was driving the boat when it sank."

I assumed it was in all caps because Potus himself was in some kind of phase where he was new to the internet and to typing and viewed all caps as some kind of form or power.  Everyone just went along with it because otherwise he would sic his dogs on you.

Now, I ask you . . . is this the kind of mental image you want people to have when they think about the President of the United States? I didn't think so. STOP saying POTUS.

My mind refuses to even say SCOTUS correctly.  My mind translates this acronym, always, to "scrotum." Always. I have to reread whatever it just was to make sure I read it properly.  Almost every time, I haven't. I know I can't be the only person who is doing this. For those like me, this was what our evening was like:

"The scrotum rules 5 to 4."
"People shocked by the decision of the scrotum."
"Conservatives believe the scrotum has betrayed them."

As with POTUS, I tend to view the all caps as someone being really proud of their scrotum, praising its existence with a display of "big letters." I always assume this person is about 12 and deeply into the idea of genitalia. That's usually when that happens.

Again . . . is this the kind of thoughts you want people to have when they are thinking about the Supreme Court of the United States? We need some dignity here, people. We should be thinking about old people in black robes who argue with each other. No someone's dangling, lowhanging ballsack.

Like I said, I don't see this as a liberal issue, no a conservative one. I see it as an issue that caused confusion and embarrassment for all Americans. Let's put aside our differences for a while and fight against this plague of funtastic acronyms. Please.

For the sake of the childrens.

Summer Update

So it's been officially summer for a week now. We've had to have the AC on, but it's not been too bad.  In the worry of summer showing up, I always forget it has some perks. The grass dies so no mowing has to happen. It gets too hot for fleas to be active, so all the drama between the cats and us over flea prevention ends. These two things alone make it almost worth the heat.

We're in a house that doesn't have central air, so we function off of a window unit. When I was a kid, my grandparents would shut the doors to all of the house besides the living room and kitchen while the AC was on. Back then, this worked fine, especially considering we tended to sleep in the living room at night anyway. The AC would stay on low all night and only be turned off in the morning. It would rest for a few hours and then be turned back on when it started to get too hot.

My roommate and I can't really afford that.  We keep it on during the day, but only after the temp has reached 95 outside.  Until that point, we're usually okay. Not happy, but okay. When we moved in, we did follow the tradition of only cooling certain rooms. The first year we lived here, that wasn't so bad.

Last year though, it just got way too hot in the rest of the house. it was 115 outside and sometimes almost 100 inside in the rooms we weren't cooling. This was causing a lot of problems, like, you know, machines starting to malfunction.

This year, we decided we wouldn't shut any of the inside doors. There are some drawbacks to this. It never gets that cool in any of the rooms and the living room only gets about 70% as cool as it would if it was the only area we were cooling.   However, even if it doesn't get cold in my bedroom, at least when I go in there, it's bearable.  I'm not gasping for breath because I feel like I'm in an oven. It's also keeping everything from screwing up and melting.  So far, the system is working pretty well.

Then again, as I said, so far summer isn't being that bad. When I walked this afternoon, there was even a little bit of a breeze on me. When I came inside, I checked the temp. It was 103, but the heat index was actually making it feel like 98. Yes, folks, it's that time of year when I view 98 as a good thing.

A Sad Day and a Kind Act

When I got home from therapy today, I saw a little bird on the ground. It was fluttering its wings and looking confused. It's very hot outside and we have many cats. When I went back indoors, I told my roommate about it. He's very good with animals and I knew if anything could be done for the bird, he would do it.

He went to the bird and realized it was a baby who had fallen out of the nest from the tree above. The nest was up far too high for him to return the bird, so he gave it some water to cool it down and got an old Easter basket from the cellar.   He put some grass and other stuff in the basket to serve as a nest for the bird, then placed stuff over his hands to keep from actually touching it when he put it in its new home.  We hoped the mother bird would see it and still feed it.

Later this evening, he went to check on the baby bird and it had died. He told me about this and I knew it had been the most likely outcome all along. It still saddened me though. The bird had such a brief little life and it ended in pain and confusion. And now I'm crying. Damn.

My roommate is one of my best friends in the world. He's also one of those people I feel very lucky to know because he has a depth of caring to him that I've rarely seen in other people. Even though he knew the bird probably wouldn't live, he did every thing he could to help it. It's the kind of action I've seen in him over and over again in helping stray cats or little dogs.  He has a truly beautiful compassion in him.

One of my favorite things to do is to sit in the living room with only the screen door closed and listen to him talking to Tinkerbell outside. Tink is a stray we kind of adopted . . . as much as anyone could adopt her because she's very skittish. In fact, I think my roommate is the only person who can hold her. Anyway,  I'll listen to him as he's talking to her and just smile to myself. I can't really hear what he's saying, but his tone is always so gentle and loving.  He speaks to that cat like she is the only person in the world who matters to him in that moment. And even if she doesn't understand what he is saying, I think she picks up on the emotion of it. It's why she always comes back to us.

You know, there is a lot of negative stuff in the world and a lot of callousness.  Sometimes it seems like the only way humans feel they can exist is by being as mean as possible. So really, I have to say I feel very blessed to get to live with someone who has a truly sweet soul.  I think it's one of the most remarkable things I've been allowed to experience in my life.

The Wisdom of Arrested Development

Does anyone else notice I talk about pop culture stuff that isn't pop anymore? I just kind of let it filter in when I see fit, despite the fact whatever I'm talking about may have been off the air for years? Oh well, at least the Madoka stuff was current. Then again, I probably ran that into the ground.

A friend and I were discussing crazy people and the world today.  You know, kind of how the world is FULL of crazy people and even the people who weren't crazy end up that way because they have to deal with all the crazy people. This reminded me of Michael Bluth from Arrested Development and one of my theories about life.

See, I believe what is wrong with the world, is that most people believe they are Michael Bluth. They are a sensible, goodhearted, responsible person who is having to deal with a bunch of selfish horrible idiots. They believe they are successful by their own effort and merits and when they are not successful, it's because all of the idiots around them screwed things up.

However, I think the truth is closer to the idea that most of the people in the world are NOT Michael Bluth.  They're one of or a combination of, everyone ELSE in the Bluth family. They're pathetic and delusional like Tobias or controlling and narcissistic like Lucille or . . . whatever it is that Buster is . . .

This isn't to say we're all horrible people all the time. I think it's more like we're horrible people some of the time. We're sometimes selfish and shitty and just completely unwilling to make life easier for anyone.  We want things we can't have, things we shouldn't have, and thing we couldn't have even if someone handed them to us because we lack the skills to handle them.

Honestly, I think it's fine to be a screwed up horrible person sometimes. We need moments of illogic and vaingloriousness. It's part of what makes us human. The danger comes when we don't realize we have these flaws. When we go through our lives believing that we're The Good Michael Bluth.

The problem is, when we do this . . . okay, part of the problem is that we're just kidding ourselves. The bigger problem is that we deny our own agency is creating our life situations. If we just go around saying, "OH, my life sucks because of all these assholes," then we give the power to those assholes. It's harder to admit "my life sucks because I allowed these assholes to be part of it when I knew they would cause problems," but once we do admit to that, we have a chance to decide if we want to continue these things to happen.

Even if we do allow it, at least we gain some of our power back.

Death, Reasons, and Truths

I was exposed to a very enlightening graph today. You can find it here. It compares the number of deaths per every 100,000 people in 1900 and 2010. If you listen to any news at all, especially any reports about people dying, it would seem like we live in the worst time ever for death. That is far from the case.

In 1900, the leading cause of death was the flu and pneumonia.This seems crazy now, as we know this can be handled. Though, it's not all that crazy, as flu/pneumonia are still in the top ten of things that cause death these days. In 2010, about 16 people per 100,000 died this way. Still, the significance of death by flu has gone way down.

In 2010, the leading cause of death was heart disease, causing about 193 deaths per 100,000. Not surprised, you say? People are so fat, you say? Well, in 1900, heart disease still killed about 137 per 100,000. It was only the fourth leading cause of death back thing. The flu, TB, and gastrointestinal infections caused way more deaths.  We've done a lot to handle these issues though, so the heart disease is more common now. Still though, the numbers aren't that different.

The big difference is cancer. In 1900, cancer was only believed to be responsible for about 64 deaths per 100,000.  Now, this number may be off some, because it's not like the tests for cancer were all that great back then. We could have had a lot more cancer going on, but no one understood it. Though, considering that people had a higher chance of dying from so much other stuff before even getting a chance to get cancer, maybe the 64 is close. These days, cancer kills about 186 people per 100,000.

Accidental death accounts for about 38.2 deaths per 100,000 these days.  Accidents are the fifth leading cause of death.  In 1900, accidents were the seventh leading cause of death, but more people died from them. About 72 per 100,000 in fact. So while we have less people dying of accidents these days, because we've dealt with some of the other ways people die, its ranking has gone up.

The most interesting change in the ranking between 1900 and 2010 is suicide. In 1900, it didn't even make the top ten.  These days, it's about the tenth leading cause of why people die. For every 100,000 people, about 12 will take their own lives.   I'm not sure if this is because more people find reason to kill themselves than those in the past did or if it just shows us that people had so many other things trying to kill them that suicide didn't even rank. I'm thinking that maybe it's somewhere in between.

In the end, I find this chart pretty hopeful.  Yes, people are still dying. We, as mortal creatures, have a tendency to do that. However, the reasons we are dying have changed significantly.  Heart disease and cancer kill a lot of people, but we also know a lot about them. We can be tested and monitored if we are at risk for them.  Steps can usually be taken to keep them from killing us. This doesn't always work, but it's working better than it used to.

Most importantly, you'll notice that for every 100,000 people, less of died in 2010 than did in 1900. Our life expectancy may have declined slightly in recent years, but it's far better than it was in 1900. We have to be doing something right.

And, really, I wish that would be the part people focus on.  Instead of worrying about the fact that a lot of us still die, let's take a moment to be happy that less people are dying. Our ability to keep ourselves around is increasing. That's an impressive thing.

Le Sigh . . .

I'm quite sure this article will be talked about a lot.  The Right will sneer and say this is why Feminists are evil. The Left will say this is why traditional roles are still causing women problems. All of those people who hate anything and everything a woman says will find their own reasons for disliking it.

Basically, the article is written by a woman who spent two years in a very high level job that she had worked her whole career to get.  The problem was, she had two teenagers at home that she worried about all the time. Her husband was very supportive, but it still didn't stop her from being miserable. In the end, she quit the high level government job to go back to teaching college (and doing a bunch of other professional level things) so she could spend more time with her kids.

She says we need to stop telling women they can "have it all" because that just isn't possible. She discusses the myths surrounding it and breaks down the social factors that cause it.  She even offers some interesting solutions, such as women who want children finding other time to reach the higher levels of their careers.

I guess I never thought I had to "have it all." Of course, due to some physical issues, children were never an option for me anyway, so I dismissed that early on. I also knew I would never be trusting enough to deal with a husband, so that idea left pretty early as well.

For me though, I think she kind of misses what I believe to be the most valid and important point about what we should be teaching people when it comes to their life goals. We never seem to emphasize that people learn what makes them happy and focus on that. For some people, that will be a high powered and high pressure career. For other people, it will be family.  And for some people, it will be just enjoying time with their friends or in their own heads.

I always get frustrated when I hear about how women feel guilty when they can't balance an 80 hour work week with children, a husband, and social involvement. I always think, "Why the fuck would you even WANT to do that? When do you hear you own thoughts?" I know women who are busy all the time and never even finish  sentences. They will look at me and swear they are happy. Maybe they are, but I know I certainly would not be.

Of course, I always felt like this "totally committed parent" thing was kind of a rip off anyway.  I know most people don't see it that way, but if you think about it, it kind of is. You spend all this time and money on someone who is going to, at best, provide maybe an hour or two of amusement per day. And that's only until they leave . . . assuming they do.

And yes, I realize there are a lot of people out there who have no choice but to deal with huge workloads and still try to raise their kids. There are people who have absolutely no choice in the matter as to how much time they can spend at home.

To me, the simple and logical solution is just to not have kids. Yes, I realize that creates some problematic issues with how the human race would continue . . . but that really isn't my problem. We're not obligated to produce another generation. Not really. I get that a lot of people don't see it this way, though I have to admit I don't understand why they don't. Children add so much unnecessary complication to our lives. Just think of all the stuff you could be doing if they weren't around.

I Just Saw WHAT Now?

Last night, I got this FB message from a friend of a friend inviting me to be part of a private sex chat group. My first instinct, as is always the case with these things, was to assume his account had been hacked and said hackers/robots/whathaveyou were trying to get people to respond so they could have access to my account. I didn't respond, ran my anti-virus whatnots, and was about to tell him on his FB page that he had been hacked when I find out that I was wrong. He really had started a private sex chat group.

FB does this weird thing now where when someone invites you to the group, you are automatically a member of the group until you actively opt out of it. Imagine my surprise when suddenly my feed is full of pictures of big penises, dildos, and some woman's vajayjay. I blinked a couple of times and realized what had happened. I got myself out of the group and sent the person who invited me a message telling him that I wouldn't be participating.

Dildos, aside, I wouldn't have participated anyway. I don't DO well with groups. Even if I feel inclined to post in a group at first, I very quickly stop posting. I'm just too fickle for groups. I lose interest in whatever it is and get bored. Beyond that, aside from this blog and the occasional message to someone, I try to be careful what I write on the internet.  The last thing I want is to get into some big stupid fight with people. I certainly don't want to be in a group that is going to piss me off and make me hate the world more.

I do lurk on quite a few forums. I lurk on the GRRM forums and read all the discussions.  Sometimes I even get annoyed with what people write, but I see no point in writing back to them because, again, I kind of dislike arguing with people on the internet. If others wish to do that, it's cool. Just not my thing though.

Of all the things in the world for me NOT to join, a sexy type group would be one of them. I know people think things like this will be stimulating on both a physical and intellectual level, but they rarely are. People think THEIR sex chat discussion group is going to be cutting edge and amazing. For a while, it even might be. Eventually though, groups like that devolve into degrading images that half the people are offended by and the other half want to defend. It becomes a big mess. After a while, this kind of thing just fills me with hate and I really don't need that. 

There is this misconception that the more you know about someone's wants, desires, and fantasies, the more depth and humanity you will find in them. There are a very, very few charming people who I have found this to be true of. For everyone else, it's been just the opposite. Usually the more I'm exposed to what turns people on, the creepier and less intelligent I find them. And I'm not saying my fantasies are the stuff of divine inspiration . . . then again, I'm not sharing them with the world either. 

Lacking in Frills and I Love It

When I was younger, I loved all things ornate. I dreamed of having a house full of multi-layered moldings and bric-a-brac and detail detail detail. I wanted a kitchen full of color and complexities.

But now I'm older and I actually clean things. What I desire now is the most flat, streamlined, nonfussy house ever. I want straight lines. I want flat surfaces. I want a kitchen that is white on white so it gleams when it's clean. I want flat cabinets with finger handles build into the door so there is no handle to catch grime and dust bunnies. I want everything to be easily moved so I can get under and around it.

And all of this . . . kind of shocks me.  No, it really shocks me. It's such a huge change from what I always thought I would like as a kid.  Then again, as I said, I didn't clean much of anything as a child. I didn't know how annoying it can be to have to use Cthulthan geometry just to get all the dirt off the refrigerator handle.  Seriously. One of the demands I have for a new fridge is that it has no handle. That thing is never clean.

One of my favorite things about our kitchen involves a solution we came up with to handle our pantry storage. Well, you know, our LACK of pantry storage. We needed shelving for the cans and stuff and really had none. We were also limited on space. However, we realized that next to the fridge, we had a couple of small areas that would hold shelves used for closet organization. We found some cheap particle board ones and they work perfectly.

The shelves are painted white and have very simplistic, straight lines. Normally,  each unit has three shelves.  We decided to make the lower units have two shelves each, and use the extra board to make the upper units have four shelves each.  This way, our smaller cans have nice places to live that work for their size.

Of course, it isn't just a nice area for storage. It's also great for organization. Each shelf holds certain items and does not hold things outside of its designated category. This not only helps to keep us from having to look for "where we put that can of beans," but it allows for easy inventory.  It's helped us to keep from buying multiples of things of running out of them.

Books on a bookshelf create color and variety, just by the very nature of being books. In the same way, the cans bring color and variety to the white shelves. In kitchens, I like to have form and function be one in the same. The items of utility become the decor. They just used for practical purposes as well.

When the need rises, we take everything off the shelves and clean them.  We don't have to do this very often, because the design of units keeps them from collecting much dust or other unwanted things. When we do have to clean them, the longest part of the process is getting the cans off the shelves. The actual cleaning of them is quite easy.

And for all of these reasons, I love those storage shelves. We repurposed  closet organization because it had the shape and simplicity to fill our needs. The shelves are easy to handle and easy to keep clean. They allow for a lot of easily accessed storage and keep us organized. Practical, frugal, simple, clean, functional, and organized. All of the things that I adore in my house and life . . . oddly enough.

Topic Control: Super Powers

It is topic control day and as you know, this means what I will be talking about was not something of my choosing.  I was asked, "If you had any super power, what would it be and why?"

This is actually I've thought about a lot. I mean, of course I have. This is me, after all. Over the years, I've had different theories about what I would want the most. Being able to move objects with my mind is always a contender. There are a lot of great things you can do with that. Teleportation is excellent too. No more worrying about auto insurance. I wouldn't want to read people's minds, because I would either be offended or bored most of the time. Though, with that bit of pessimism in mind, I have decided what power I would like to have, over all the rest.

If I had the super power of my choosing, it would be the ability to make people not see other people. If I'm going to have a power, I would want it to be a grand power. One that I can use on everyone in the world at once if I need to. And that power would give me the ability to keep certain people from just not seeing those they would harm.

If someone is a slaver, they would never see anyone they could make into slaves.  They would never see other people, really.  Other people would be around them, but they would only be marginally aware of them. Just enough to keep themselves alive. They would never see anyone clearly enough to be able to capture them.  Pedophiles would never see children. Children would just seem like other adults. If it was a situation where it could only BE a child, they would just glance in that direction, but not pay that much attention.

Any crazyfuck who wanted to kill people because they believe/act/look different, would never see those people. They would assume everyone around them really was just like them....completely acceptable.  They could work along side each other and not realize how different they were.

On a more personal basis, I would be able to make one person not see the other. If someone was stalking you, I could make it to where they never noticed you again. If someone was threatening you, I could make it to where they could be speaking right to you and never realize it was you. People could begin to live their lives in peace.

It would also help in less drastic situations. Say, for instance, there was someone you work with who liked to talk to you all the time, but you did not wish to speak to them ever again. You know, that person who isn't rude and isn't threatening you, but you certainly find boring and would rather eat glass than listen to for another second.  I would make it to where this person never noticed you again. They'd just go on their merry way and bother someone else . . . until that person asked to become unnoticed by them as well.

I realize there might be some problems that arise from it. Admittedly, I don't have all the kinks worked out.  Still, wouldn't it be nice if you could live in a world where you never felt threatened or targeted, a world where you would never have to listen to people witness to you or ask you to take their stupid survey? Honestly, I think it would be kind of nice.

The Next Steps

So two months ago, I started walking.  It was a small venture forth out of the house and down the driveway and back again. A month ago, I added another trip back and forth in the morning. Yesterday, I began the next phase of this. My afternoon walk now consists of two trips down the driveway and back again.

Right now, it's kind of hell. I'm completely out of breath by the end of it and my body is in protest mode. I hurt. My heart rate is crazy.  It all settles though, quicker than I expected. It helps that I remember what those first days of walking at all were like for me. I moved past it though and got stronger in the process. I know that will be the case this time as well.

I'm going to confess this next part because I want people who are in a similar situation in their lives to understand they are not alone. Adding this second trip scared the hell out of me.  I've been dreading this for a couple of weeks now. I was so scared to add this step. I don't know why. Maybe cause I didn't think I could do it.  Maybe it was because it's happening at a time when it's hot outside and I didn't think I could deal with the heat.

I suspect though, it's because adding another lap feels like a lot more progress than just adding another time to walk. I'm committing to walking the driveway twice with no stopping. That is a lot more legwork than I'm used to. It's a lot more than I've done at one time in years.

I know I'm going to face this fear every day for a while now. Conquering the fear is just part of the process. Honestly, it's okay to be afraid. Don't be ashamed of it but at the same time, don't let it win. View the fear as a challenge. It's a little battle you get to fight.  One that you can win.

How do you win it?

Well, this is how I do it. When I'm trying to talk myself out of walking, I remind myself of all the reasons I started walking in the first place. There are many. I also remind myself that I've been doing this for two months now.  That is astounding for me. Amazing. I'm far past the point when this is a habit. I think about all the small victories I'm having. I think about how it's easier to carry groceries from the car now. I think about how it's easier to sweep the floors. I think about how it's easier to walk through the house in general. A few minutes of my life spent walking a driveway and the whole of my life benefits from it.

Most importantly, I think about the kind of strange, unexpected side benefit to all of this. I actually enjoy walking. It's tiring and often painful, but I do enjoy it. I like having that time every day where I'm outside. For someone who spent many years as basically a shut-in, this is a huge improvement. I like looking at the trees and the flowers. I like smelling them. It makes me feel more connected to the world outside of this house. I also like the feeling that I have accomplished a goal. Every day when I walk back into the house, I know I have achieved my daily goal of walking. And that is one of the grandest feelings in the world.

We say a lot of stuff to fat people in this country.  I've always been told I was lazy and weak and lacked in any kind of ability to commit. I'm thinking people say these things to condemn us and make us feel bad, but quite often, the real result is that we just begin to believe it. When you think you're lazy, weak, and unable to commit to anything, the idea of losing weight and becoming healthy seems impossible. If you are all of these other things, it's just not going to happen.

The truth is though, you don't lack in commitment. Let's face it, you've committed quite a lot of time to gaining this weight. You made sacrifices to let it happen. You braved the ridicule and resentment of the world around you.  You planned and plotted and did everything you could to get what you wanted into your mouth. You can be very damned dedicated when you want to be. It's just maybe been to things that are now hurting you.

You're not weak. You carry around a lot of weight every day. You manage to get out of bed and function, despite all this extra bulk. It takes a strong person to do that. It takes a strong person to face the world when the world just wants to tell you that you're ugly and morally reprehensible.

As far as 'lazy' goes, I think most people are lazy when they can't find good motivation to do something. Find your motivation. All you need is a little one to begin with. Find something that will motivate you to brave walking a set distance. Once you have that, build on it.  You'll find you have more and more motivation as you continue to strive for your goals.

And if you're reading this and rolling your eyes as you think, 'yeah, you make it sound so easy,' trust me in that I know it's not. I'm 38 years old and I weigh in excess of 500 lbs. I know this isn't easy.

It is, however, very worth it.

Happy Birthday, Grandpa

I would like to point out that it is June 17th and we've only had the AC on once this year. That makes me very happy. Today is also my grandfather's birthday . . . or, I suppose, it would have been, had he lived.  He died when I was 19. Wow. It's actually a little strange to think it's been that long. Almost twenty years now. I wonder what it will be like when I'm 20 years past my mother and grandmother's deaths.

My grandfather wasn't perfect. He did a lot of things that caused many problems and he made a lot of mistakes.  It seems like the people I'm around want to express this kind of constant vicious litany of all of his negative qualities. It gets really disheartening because, while I know what they are saying is true, I don't want to just agree and keep the discussion going.  He was my grandfather and I would like to show respect for the dead.

Like I said, I know he wasn't perfect. He was still someone I loved though, someone I still love.  As difficult as living with him and my grandmother could be at times, it is still the safest and most secure my life has ever been. We fought, but I was allowed to be myself and go about life as I wished. I knew I was loved.

The main reason I know I was loved has to do with my grandfather's favorite story.    He would sit by me and smile and tell me how he drove my grandmother to the hospital the night my mom was having me.  He said it was the hardest wait he's ever gone through.  And he would say, "When I finally got to see you, you were red and this long." He would hold out his hands, measuring the length of my newborn self.

He would have this look in his eyes, that kind of look someone has when they are remembering something wonderful. My grandfather didn't just love me because I was his kid's kid. He loved me because he truly saw my existence as something amazing.  He was in awe of the idea that his daughter could have this new baby. I think part of him always stayed in awe of that.

He watched me grow up. He watched me suffer and ache. He watched me have some pretty awesome moments of greatness . . . he dealt with me when I was being a bitch. Sometimes I disappointed him. Sometimes I infuriated him. Sometimes I really hurt his feelings. Despite all of this, he still loved me.  And I suspect that when he looked at me, part of him saw the ME that was standing there.  Another part of him saw the the baby . . his little, red baby who changed everything for him.

The Return of the Sadnesses

Most of the time, I think I edge towards the positive side of things. Okay, maybe the ironic and snide side version of positive, but still glass half full.  It's not always been the case that I felt like this, but for the last several years, more often than not, I've been happy.  I've had times of hurt and some pretty serious bouts of depression, but even in those moments, I knew they were temporary and would pass.

 As I've mentioned before, one of the most valuable things I've learned as an adult is that emotional states are temporary. We can't always be happy and usually we're not always sad.  Fear comes and goes. Anger is different with everyone, but in a healthy person, it subsides as well. It's been really important for me to begin to believe this because otherwise, moods like I'm in right now would really scare me.

See, I'm really sad right now.  There has been a lot of death around me of late.  It hasn't been directly connected to me, but connected to my connections, if you will. It hurts to see the people I love hurting.  There has also been a lot of bad stuff happening. I feel like our government is trying to go backwards and hurt us all in the process. I know people care about this and I know they try to fight it. I'm not sure it really helps.

I don't see a lot of hope out there. I see a lot of distractions. I hear a lot of vague promises.  But I don't see hope. I don't feel hopeful. To me, 'hope' leads you forward. Lately it's felt like everything is trying really hard to go backwards. I just don't see any hope in that direction.

So yes, as I sit here on a Friday night, half an hour away from midnight, I'm very sad. I assume I'll get out of it. Maybe even by the morning I'll feel better. Right now though, I just feel like crying and hiding in my room for a while. I'm pretty sure that will be for the best.

Summer Car Blues . . . or is it Reds?

When I was a kid, all car seats were made out of dinosaur skin.

No, just kidding.

When I was a kid, all the car seats I had to deal with were made out of wicked ass vinyl. During the summer, this vinyl would heat up to about the temperature of the third ring of Hell.  When you, as a child, slid your beshortwearing legs onto these seats, it would cause almost unspeakable pain.  Some parents would keep towels down for their hapless little kinder.  It honestly didn't help a lot.  It just meant you sat on a hot towel. Sitting on dinosaur seats probably would have been easier.

These days, the seats are no longer made of pain-inducing vinyl hell, but we still have a lot of summer automobile issues. Like with most things in adult life, any solution seems to have its own consequences and annoyances.

We have a carport but it's used to house Rabbit Killer, the Mazda 323.  RK has a problem with leaks . . . actually, it's quite successful with leaks. The trunk gets its own swimming pool. However, because duct tape could not stop the leaking, the Mazda has to live in the carport.

This means the van has live exposed to and subject to the elements.  It sucks.  During the winter, the van is usually covered in ice or snow (assuming there is ice or snow).  During the summer, it gets hot as hell. No one wants to get into a hot car, so we've had to come up with some strategies for handling this.

The first one and the most obvious is that we keep the windows rolled down about an inch. This works as well as it can. It cuts the heat from being unfathomable to just slightly under unfathomable. The problem is, half the time we start getting rain possibilities and we have to go out and shut the whole thing down.

We also have one of those things that covers the front windshield to block out the heat and sun. I won't say it doesn't work. It does. However, it flakes everywhere and it's difficult to put in place. My roommate says one of his favorite amusements is watching me try and put it in by myself.  Bastard thing won't stay in place.

Probably the best way for us to keep the temp in the van down is to park it in the shade. We have some trees that provide very nice coverage for it and do an excellent job in keeping the car from frying. Parking under the trees has two drawbacks. One, it means walking farther to the house. As I'm walking more these days, this isn't such a big deal . . . except when my knee is killing me. The other problem with the trees is that it is messy.  Birds crap on the van. Sap gets on the windows. We're getting every other time we drive, the windows are going to have to be washed.

Still, on days when we get keep the windows down an inch or so, have the sunblocker in the front of the van and have it parked in the shade, we certainly have a more pleasant driving experience. I just wish all of these things didn't have their own special sets of bitchery along with them.

Even still, it's better than flesh on hot vinyl.

Alice Cat vs. The World

Recently, my roommate and I made the decision to bring Alice Cat into the house on a permanent basis.  She's been an indoor/outdoor cat for about three years now.  When we met her, she was a stray and didn't want to be touched. Over time, we've earned her trust and she started to see this as her home. She just didn't want to be inside all the time.

However, a lot of stuff has changed. For one thing, we have a lot more children roaming the neighborhood. I don't trust them, especially not with a vulnerable and unusual looking cat like Alice. She also has a bad case of 'gimp eye' and it's easier to treat it when she's indoors. Over all, this is a much safer arrangement for her.

It is not, however, an arrangement Alice agreed to. Alice liked her independence and loved going outside where she could rule the world, fight with Black Tail, and     hunt down small animals. She enjoyed her status as a badass and finds being a kept kitty beneath her.  Understandably, she has decided to make her displeasure known.

One of the ways she does this is by pissing all over the laundry room. We have a litterbox that gets cleaned every day. She knows how to use it and does. However, as a way of protesting her confinement, she now takes a least one giant piss all over the floor.  This honestly wouldn't be so bad but the floor in the laundry room is wonky and tilts. . . somehow in every direction . . . so the urine goes everywhere.

So today when I was back there, I thought I cleaned up all of it. I missed some though and slipped, twisting the knee that was twisted last year when I slid on the scratching pad we have for the cats. It seems part of my being a crazy cat lady involves knee injury. I'm not really happy about that part.

However, I'm trying to be Zen about this, because, honestly, I probably had it coming. See, almost every day when I walk, Alice is in the window. I always smirk at her and wave. Now that I have a little more stamina, I usually tell her hi as well. The other day, I mockingly told her that I got to go outside and she didn't.

My guess is that she watched this, glowered at me, and prayed to Bast that something happen that would put me back in my place. And what do you know? It worked.

The Simplicity of Trust

Like many women, I have a purse that I lug around with me. I never spend much money on purses, so it changes from time to time. Almost always, it's black, big, and full of stuff. I need to clean my purse out as we speak. Probably won't happen for a while.

My roommate won't get into my purse. Even if I ask him to get something out of it, he will bring the purse to me and hand it to me instead of opening it himself. He sees purses as a forbidden ground where the owner has complete privacy. I like this about him. It's one of the many things.

I bring this up as a way to talk about trust. People think trust is a really complicated thing, but it's not. The topic came up on FB and I wrote the following.
"You should never have to prove to someone that you are trustworthy. Either they trust you or they don't. If they trust you, then they truly trust you. You can have friends, a job, a phone, a Facebook account, secrets . . . and they still trust you. If they don't trust you, then nothing you do will ever change that. They will always be suspicious. It will always cause problems."

It's really as simple as that.  Either you are trusted . . . or you're not.  If someone trusts you, they will continue to trust you until you actively do something to end that. "Actively" doing something doesn't mean "having friends" or "having my own email account." No, actively means "I took all the money out of the account and didn't tell you" or "I broke the agreement we had concerning the state of our relationship." That is actively doing something. The first two are just things some people might be suspicious about.

If you don't trust someone, don't have a relationship with them.  Because if you don't trust them, you never will. Even if they jump through every hoop ever, you will always harbor some doubt.  Relationships can't be built on doubt.  And if someone doesn't trust you, again, don't try to have a relationship with them. They will never trust you and if you've not done anything to warrant that mistrust, eventually, you're going to get tired of it.

There are usually some warning signs too. If you date someone and they say, "I don't trust people of your gender," finish out the date, but realize this should be the last one.  They don't trust your gender. You are NOT going to be the special snowflake that changes this.

I know I'm speaking in a lot of finalities here, but for a good reason.  Being around people you trust is SO important. The only thing that equals the comfort of knowing you can trust the people around you is knowing they trust you as well. Knowing you will be believed when you say things. Knowing if someone works on your computer, they're not going to violate your privacy. Knowing that if you have a problem, your problem will be believed.

This doesn't mean no lies will ever pass between you. Everyone lies. But trusting someone isn't about thinking they will be honest every second of the day. It's knowing they will be honest about the big things.  It's knowing they'll trust YOU about the big things.

Topic Control: Favorite Things about Summer

"Miss Blackhaired Barbie, you sure do bitch an awful lot about this time of year.  Is there anything you like about summer?"

That's right, folks. It's Topic Control and today, someone wanted me to look at the glass as half full and talk about the stuff I love about the ghastly heatfuckmonster known as a the season of summer. This is a great topic. It's also quite a few hours since it was given to me and I'm still trying to come up with some good answers.

I used to love summer, basically because I was a child and summer meant no school.   There was more to it than that though. When I was a kid, I got to enjoy the various aspects of summer more. I loved VBS.  In fact, I loved it so much that back when I was still participating in organized religion, I would run the crafts portion of the VBS activities at church. Now that I'm  thinking about it, I loved VBS a lot as a kid. It was probably my favorite part about summer.

I also used to love summer with Mom. Mom was at her glorious crazy best during summer. She would roam around in flipflops, cutoffs, and sunglasses.  She would drink all morning and then drive us to the lake. We'd swim until she was pretty sure she was getting close to being too drunk to drive home.  The evening would be spent outside with big stars in the skies and the sounds of crickets and whippoorwills. By the way, I had no idea whippoorwill was spelled that way. I always thought it was "whipperwill." Whip poor Will sounds more like the title of a bondage story.

As a kid, I loved basking in summer daytime television. I loved The Price is Right. I did not like watching the lame local news, but afterwards, Gran's hours of soap operas would begin, and that was fun to do with her. Soap operas move so slowly that you can miss nine months of them and still know what's going on.  Once you figure out which 2 yr olds were sent off to boarding school and came back as 20 yr olds, you're caught up. Other than the aging thing, almost nothing else will be different.

But that was all from my childhood and the question was about what I like about summer now. What do I like about the bug infested/child infested/grass growing/sweaty/hot as fuck/car parked in the shade so I have to walk farther/people setting off fireworks hellfest that is summer?

I have better access to fresh fruits and veggies. People around here have gardens and where there is gardens, there is fresh, wonderful things that taste far better than the stuff they pass off on us in the store.

Because I can turn the cold water all the way up, I have really great water pressure for my showers. The water pressure in this house leaves a lot to be desired.  During the winter, I use only enough cold water to keep the hot from burning me. But in the summer, I can turn the cold all the way on, which means I have this awesome level of water pressure.

You know though, I have to say what I like best about summer is my memories of it. So much of our childhood is spent in school, and those days tend to bleed into each other. It's difficult to sort them out. Because summer was such a special time (no school does equate to special, ya know), the memories are more vivid. Besides the one I listed above, I have some favorites, even if they are kind of ordinary.

I loved sitting in the back yard with my grandmother and snapping peas.

I loved leaning against her as she would read to me.

Some years my cousins would come down during the summer and we'd spend the whole time in one adventure after another.

I loved the feeling of riding in a car with the windows down while I was in clothes wet from the lake.

I loved being outside and hearing my mother's radio playing from inside.

On nights when it was too hot to sleep without the AC, we'd all pile into the living room. Usually we would tell stories and laugh for longer than we should have before finally sleeping.

Wow. Now I really miss my grandparents and my mom.  Hmm. I guess that is what I love the most about summer, more than anything else. Summer was about a little girl getting to spend more time with the people who wouldn't be there forever. Summer gave me the most hours I would get to be with them.

Typos Revisited

Today my roommate asked me what word I was trying to bastardize in my last post.  It seems I put some letters in where I wasn't supposed to put them.  I'm sure if you read this blog on a regular basis, you know I play fast and loose with spelling . . . sometimes on purpose, the rest of the time, just because.|

The crazy thing is, I'm pretty self-conscious about this.  Well, in a lazy kind of way. I rarely actually go through and fix stuff unless I'm really paying attention.  Most of my editing comes on a word-by-word basis.  As screwed up as things are, if I didn't do that, it would be so much worse.

There are some words my fingers just will not type correctly. I never type 'from' on the first try. I always, always, ALWAYS type 'form.' Always.  It never fails. I have no idea why my fingers will not follow my brain on this, but they will not. I switch 'this' as well. I type 'thsi.' The thing is, spell-check catches that, because it's clearly not a word. FORM is a word. It's not the word I need, but it is a word. Dammit.

I think the truly frustrating thing about all of this is that I didn't actually have a formal typing class. I took one at the college, but it was only a summer thing and not for a grace. It was just something I did because I wanted to be a a writer and writers know how to type. They offered typing at school, but the woman who taught it was this supreme bitch who would kick people out of her class if she didn't think they were doing well enough. What bullshit is that? This is a fucking life skill!  You don't kick people out for not learning the life skill. If I would have been in charge, I would have fired her ass for being like that. She was there to teach typing, not the sacred order of time travel. Not everyone has to know that. Everyone needs to know how to type. Bitch.

You know what? I typed that last paragraph with my eyes closed.  I'm shocked at how well it turned out. I think I may actually type better without looking that I do looking. Maybe that is something I should work on.

Summer Updations

Ten days into June and no AC yet! I'm so happy about this. I don't think we'll be able to make it until the end of the month, but this is awesome.  The longer we can go without AC, the lower the overall electric bill stays.  Right now, we need that. Trust.

I'm slowly getting past my sickness, but it's not been easy. I managed to write some today and sweep some stuff. The sweeping caused a lot of sneezery and snot, but oh well. At least I was able to do it. Makes me happy.

My major problem with summer right now is the damned bugs. We have, more or less, a handle on the fleas. It's all the other bugs that are being annoying now.  At least once a day, we have to chase some wasp out of the house. One fan had a Huntsman spider in it.  Oh, and there are the billion little bugs that keep trying to dance on my monitor.

I have yet to deal with any of my stalkers. Yes, I have stalker bugs.  June bugs have this problem with somehow getting into my room and dying near me. Or not dying.  When we lived in the trailer, I didn't have a screen on my window. Sometimes, I would have to open it anyway, because it was just so damned hot. The June bugs would fly into my hair, careful not to get to close to my scalp so I could feel them, and just latch on.  Once, I saw them, I would freak out . . . because I hate me some bugs almost as much as I hate mice.

My roommate thinks this is really funny and calls me Queen of the June bugs. He claims that if the house is ever torn down, all of the area under my room will be one big  June bug cemetery. It's better than a million mice skeletons, but it's still a pretty horrifying thought.

Suffering

I have this absolutely insufferable headcold.   My eyes ache. My ears keep stopping up. My nose is starting to go raw from the constant drainage. Agghh, I hate it so much. It's bad enough it's starting to get hot. I really don't need to be sick on top of that.

This cold has kept me dragging for days now.  For a while, I was dealing with a lot of nausea too. That's died down, though it's still there if I think about it too hard. It's screwing with my sleep as well. I'm exhausted but if I go to bed too early, I just toss and turn and suffer in that headcold kind of way.

So yeah, another short post. I know that's been the way of things for a few days now. It's been a weird week though. Lots of things are just a little off and I'm not sure why. Maybe cause I'm somewhat off. Who knows?

I've Seen Fire and I've Seen Rain

This won't be a very long post. Today I found out that someone I was close to once upon a time has passed away.  It was sudden and shocking.  I'm very saddened by this.  He was a great guy and really funny.  He has a young daughter and another child on the way.  I always liked him a lot.

We hadn't seen each other in years.  We'd shoot the shit on Facebook and make funny comments one each other's posts.  It was nice that he was around again.  It's good to have someone to match wits with. He seemed so excited about the new baby and very happy in his marriage.  They'd only been married for a while. There were even FB pictures of the wedding.

It hurts that he is dead.  I'm going to miss him.

The Truth, Just so You Know

All of my life, I have been told of the benefits of physical activity.  The benefits are very true.  I'm not going to deny them at all. Working out is good for you. As our country gets heavier and more and more people are reaching high levels of obesity, we will hear more reports about the benefits of exercise. Again, I agree. There are many benefits.

But here is the other truth, just so you know . . .

If you are a heavy person, say, 200+ lbs overweight, and you haven't been doing anything much in the way of physical for a long time, there is something else you need to understand.

Exercise is going to cause you pain. A lot of pain.

I'm not just talking about how it will hurt while you are doing your activities. It will hurt then as well, but that is more of an exhausted kind of pain. This will come later, and the irony will be that it comes because the exercise is successful.

When you are several hundred pounds or more overweight, your body has made adjustments for this. Your bones are used to certain pressure, possibly splayed out in places to accommodate your bulk.  Your back is set at a certain sway, your feet altered to keep you from stumbling all the time. Our bodies are amazingly adaptable. Your body has adapted to your size.  It's usually had a long time to make these adjustments, so, for the most part, you probably didn't notice them.

When you begin to work out, you start changing your body.  Fat leaves. Muscles become stronger. The power it takes to move you from place to place alters. All of these are good things, but they come at a price.  These changes necessitate other changes, in your shape, in how you stand, in how your muscles react.  And these changes? They hurt like a bitch.

One day, my outer right thigh was in so much pain I couldn't drive.  One day, my back was so stiff I couldn't find a comfortable sitting position.  Two days ago, my calves were cramping and hurting so much, walking was torture. Every step caused me so much pain I could have cried.

The reason I am telling you about this is because, if you are very obese,  you need to understand that this is PART of the process. This pain will happen and it is hellish. It will make you want to cry and give up.  Seriously, it's that bad.

Don't stop though. As much as it hurts, the adjustments do happen and the pain does stop. In the moment, it is horrible.  In the moment, there is nothing you will want more than to just bury your head in a pillow and never try to walk again. The moment passes though, and it does get better.  You can get stronger and remember, you already are strong.

So yes, there are benefits to exercising. There is also a lot of pain. Horrible, horrible pain.  The pain goes away though. The benefits stay with you.

The Conflicts of Change

You know, I like change. I do.  I enjoy the experience of life not being the fuckery it is now and becoming something nicer.  However, what I really mean when I say this is that I like change . . . when I am in charge of it. I don't like change when it happens to me and I had no say. That sucks.

I found out today I would be losing the woman who does the "life skills" part of my therapy.  I like her. She's kind and gentle and very encouraging. The job she's getting will be really good for her and hopefully help a lot of people in the process.  However, it sucks for me. I mean, it really really sucks for me. I don't want to lose her. I like having her around. I like working with her.

I'm trying to be rational about this.  I know it isn't something being done TO me. It's not like some committee of high ranking therapists sat down in some secluded war room and came up with some way to specifically fuck with me.  They're not laughing diabolically at my current unhappiness.  They're not doing some wicked, twisted victory dance as the picture of my face at the moment I was told I was going to lose her is projected over them. It feels like this is the case, but I know it's not.

This decision is just what the people in charge of the company think is best for the company.  They feel this change will be helpful.  Perhaps it even will be.

I think this kind of conflict is at the core of the frustration that many people feel these days. So much of what touches our daily lives is controlled by big things (large companies, the government, some combination of both), but when those big institutions make decisions, they usually aren't considering all the individuals who will be affected. We are affected though, sometimes in devastating ways. We feel like we're being attacked. The thing is, we're not being attacked. The agency of the Big isn't to harm us, just to do what it believes is best for the Big.

We still have to deal with the consequences though. If I own a diner that serves mainly people when they get off shift at a nearby factory and that factory closes down, it wasn't an attack on me personally, but my business is still going to suffer . .  .and possibly fail. I can try and scramble to save my business, but no amount of hard work on my part will alter the fact that the majority of the people who used to be my customers now have no money to spend.  Does the make the people who owned the factory evil? No. They weren't doing this to harm me. Yet, it still harms me.

And so, while I know the Powers that Be who run the therapy center didn't set out to cause me any type of agita, they still have. They didn't specifically target me and decide to cut someone out of my life . . . but it still happened. And I am still bitter about it.  I know they're not evil . . .but they certainly feel that way.

Bastards.

Blue Monday

No post last night and no topic control tonight. I just wanted to do a quick update about things. It seems that Alice the Cat has a scar on her eye.  It's going to take a long time to get it treated, lots of eye drops and whatnot, which won't be enjoyable for anyone involved. Still, it's better than her going blind.  The sad thing is, this is happening in her GOOD eye.

I didn't sleep well last night and haven't been sleeping well since it started getting hot again. I'm not to the point of having to move all sleeping into the living room, but it's getting closer. Hopefully we can avoid that until July.  Not being able to sleep is so goddamned frustrating though. I lay there, exhausted and hot, knowing that by the time I finally do sleep, I'll only get a few hours before I have to wake up again.  It didn't help that this morning I had all kinds of hellish leg cramps. Stupid legs.

My arm is hurting too. Actually, I've been aching here or there ever since I started this damned working out stuff.  When does the pain stop? I'm really getting sick of it.

I've also been really emotional all day, just deeply sad and depressed.  It was pointed out to me that I didn't close a package of graham cracker bits and I almost wept over it. Yeah, that kind of fucked up depressed day.  I saw an article talking about if it was ethical for depressed people to have child. Hah. NO. It's not.  Let's keep our depression to ourselves and not fuck other people up in  the process, k?  I can just barely handle being around cats and other people, I don't need to bring children into the mix.

Anyway, that was my day. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. Hell, hopefully tonight will be better. I need me some sleeps.

The Relationship Cycle of Facebook Games

I hear the teenagery ones are starting to view Facebook as uncool. Interesting. Soon it may be sitting in the unemployment line next to Myspace. In the meantime, there is always lots to bitch about. I was thinking about this earlier when I was clicking on a game request for a friend.  I feel a certain loyalty to this person and want to help them out . . . even though I don't play the game anymore and find I view it with a certain level of, no, not a certain level, a TRUE deep passionate level of loathing.  But that is the nature of Facebook games.  There is, after all, a cycle.

Phase One: The Introduction

So you see a posting of what someone is doing on a FB game and, curious, you click on it. Or maybe a friend sends you an invitation. Perhaps they ask you to join.  Maybe they just beg you because no one else is playing it. Whatever the case, you decide to take the plunge.  You click on the game, allow it to molest your information, and start looking at how to play it. At this point, you level up quickly and you have basically nothing. If the game seems fun, you keep playing. If not, you walk away right then.  You're probably better off if you do.

Phase Two: Advancements

Now that you're playing the game, it's time to start getting better at it.  You do your little quests.  You find out patterns on how to make it all better for you. You send out game requests to others.  And while you may make some mistakes at first, very soon, you find you can handle the game pretty well.  In fact, you starts seeing the path to mastery.

Phase Three: Obsession

When you wake up in the morning, the game is the first thing you do.  Before you go to bed, it is the last thing you do. You memorize hold long it takes you to recover your energy. You put up sticky notes to remind yourself when your crops will be ready. You spend hours and hours decorating, rearranging, plotting. Obsession phase is the most dangers part of a FB game. This is where you can really begin to lose real life things . . and I don't just mean hours.  No, when you are in Obsession phase, you will be tempted to buy things for the game with real money.  You will be temped to find ways to cheat if you can.  You may stop your job so you can spend more time with the game. You may lose your family because the game was more important.  And you do not care, because the game is EVERYTHING.

Phase Four: Disenchantment

This phase is where things can get dangerous for the GAME. After all, the game is dependent on how many people it has playing and how much they are willing to spend. FB games walk a fine line, trying to balance "keep the game interesting" on one side and "don't change too much shit" on the other. Most of them fail. Usually on both counts. One day, you wake up and the stuff you were obsessing about is suddenly boring.  You don't WANT to keep clicking on that. You don't give a FUCK if the crops wither. You don't CARE if you didn't make any money today. Or maybe you do still care about all of this. . . but the game is making it harder and harder to play. They want you to send out MORE game requests or they add parts that require OTHER game requests or maybe they keep adding stuff that looks interesting . . . but you have to pay real money for all of it.  The most tragic and stupid disenchantment happens when the game is fun and you still love it, but they don't put enough into making it stable, so it keeps freezing on you or otherwise messing up.  This really screws with your obsession, and it gives you time to think . . .

Phase Five: Loathing

Finally, you wake up one day and you just cannot force yourself to give a shit about this game.  You are so frustrated or so annoyed or so BORED with it that you just can't. The idea of playing the game makes your head hurt. It makes you hate the world. You tell yourself you just need a break. You stop playing for a few days, letting your game request numbers grow and grow.  Maybe you log back into the game a few weeks later to see if you can stomach it again. Maybe you can . . . for a few days.  Then you stop again, and the stops grow longer and longer until finally you just block that motherfucker and never play it again.

Interestingly enough, the same phases that govern the cycle of FB games basically apply to FB itselt.  Most of the time, this is the pattern I see in people when they join Facebook. Some of them stay in phases longer than others.  Eventually though, most end up in loathing.  They don't leave though. Facebook is like Hotel California in that way.

GoT Geekery

Game of Thrones Season Two ends tomorrow night.  I must say I shall miss it.  I'll miss the show, I'll miss the articles about the show, and I'll miss the long and involved discussions people have about the show. I love participatory fandom so much. Wait, I think that is the basic meaning of fandom . . . but anyway  . . . I've not talked much about the season, but I thought I would do a list of the things I liked best and least about it.  The last nine weeks have brought so much of both. Oh, and yes, spoilers.

GoT2: The Things I Least Enjoyed

1. The Gratuitous Nakedry.  Look, I have nothing against a well done, important sexytime scene.  If they advance the story or truly give insight into a character or their motivations, they by all means, keep them in.  However, just throwing in bouncy boobies and various sex acts for the hell of it is annoying.  Normally, I wouldn't care, because I know this is HBO and they feel kind of obligated to show stuff like this, but, dammit, we only have ten episodes.  Cut the bonking and give me more story.
2. Margaery Tyrell's Clothing. I understand the motivation to show that women from different parts of Westeros dress in different ways. I also get that Margaery is supposed to be presented as very rich. However, her clothing was so damned weird, it was distracting.  I honestly had to watch her scenes three times, because the first two times, I was so distracted by the whatthefuck she had on, I couldn't concentrate on what she was saying.
3. The Stannis Baratheon Casting.  Stephen Dillane is a fine enough actor. He did well with how he interpreted the character . . . it's just not how I interpret him. Stannis is so singularly humorless and unlikable. He's not evil, just stern and intensely uncharming.  Dillane played Stannis as proper and dutybound, but not as, well, as bitchy as Stannis can be. Stannis bitches almost constantly about everything. He takes the smallest insult as a major slight.  I never got Stannis's obsession with how cheated he is from Dillane, mostly because Dillage just naturally has more charisma than Stannis. Then again, everything does.
4. The Pacing of Theon's Story. Oddly enough, one of the best moments in the series was a Theon moment, but overall, I think they fucked a lot of it up.  They didn't make Asha as sexy and badass as she is.  I like the actress, but she needs to put more charm in the character. They left out Damphair, which was a big mistake because he is so excellently crazy and fun to watch.  They broadcast too much about the death of the boys and how it wasn't them. And finally, they left out Ramsay's first foray into headfucking Theon.  I missed that.
5. Worst of all, more than worst of all, actually, worst thing ever? THEY LET STANNIS HAVE A SEX SCENE.  I think part of my soul died when I had to see this.

GoT2: Things I liked the Best

1. The Casting of Brienne and Davos. I have to give them props for both. Brienne was a difficult cast due to her size, look, and personality. Davos was a difficult cast because he is subtly amazing . .  . actually one of my favorite characters in the books. Both choices were excellent. Brienne is played with heroic awkwardness and her scenes with Jaime at the end are the promise of perfection. Davos is just damned perfect. I loved every scene he was in. 
2. Theon's Decision. Even though I don't think the rest of the Theon plotline was as good as it could have been, the scene where he decides to betray Robb is perfection.  It shows him alone in a room, almost everything blacked out except for him burning the letter he was going to send. It is the moment of no return for him, and very well done.
3. Arya's story. In the second book, Arya's story was my favorite. They had to cut a lot of it out and changed tons of it, but I found myself enjoying the changes. Her scenes with Tywin Lannister were riveting and the way her three death wishes played out made quite a lot of sense. It seemed things together well. It helps a lot that the actress who plays her has such good chemistry with her counterparts. 
4. Tyrion. Every scene that Tyrion does with everyone is perfection. I love him with Bronn. I love him fighting with his sister. I love him matching wits with the Small Council. I love his tenderness towards Sansa, Shae, and his younger nephew and niece. Oh, and I love him slapping Joffery. I love that the most. 
5. Blackwater.  The ninth episode of the season, Blackwater, is probably the hour of television I enjoyed the most this year.  I hope it wins every award ever.  The battle scenes are great. The wildfire scene is great.  Best of all, the character development and acting are great.  Tyrion and drunk Cersei steal the show for me. And the ending is perfection. I've watched this episode like a dozen times already.  Loved it.
   

But alas, tomorrow, the season will end. Another year before we get to see a lot of people making really bad decisions that screw up a whole realm. Until then, I'll enjoy what I got to see . . . cept for that Stannis sex scene. No one enjoyed that.

Hotness on Hold

When you consider that this time last year we were already revving up for the Summer from Hell, it makes the weather of the last couple of days all the more sweet.  I know that entering June with cool temperatures used to be common, but that just isn't the case anymore. This is probably just a respite from what is to come, but I'll take it and be grateful.  After all, there is so much to miss during the hot months.

For instance, I have a cat sitting right next to me. She's purring and demanding attention.  She's also receiving this attention because I know when it gets hot again, she'll want nothing to do with me. I'm not sure how other people's cats are about this, but during the summer, when mine are hiding out and ignoring us, they go kind of crazy.

Seriously. They'll run strangely and walk through the house making random, unrecognizable noises. They give everyone odd looks. They jump at nothing. They even jump OVER nothing. All of this is entertaining, but they also stop eating as much.  My cats never gain much weight and during the summer they start to look kind of scary, all hipbones and stuff.

Okay, I have to amend that. When the brown cat first started living with us, she took full advantage of regular meals. That winter, she looked like a sausage on legs. Once it warmed up again, she slimmed down. Since then, she's maintained a more healthy looking winter weight.

With this cooler weather though, I'm getting to look at my cuddly, cute kitties for longer. Maybe a few more days of chill in the air can help to stabilize some cat brain cells and keep them away from becoming the Town Council of Crazytown for a few more weeks.