NYE at Various Points During the Day

Note: This post was written at several points while I was sitting in vehicles waiting for my roommate.

Part One: Outside the Mechanic's
Today started out fine. As a send off to the year, we were going to Fort Smith to pick up some food we usually can't get here in town. About half way over there, my roommate commented that the tires were feeling wonky. We stopped to check them and, indeed, they were looking low. These are, mind you, the same tires that had air put in them yesterday. Clearly there is a bigger problem than just air pressure.

I'm writing this as I sit in Rabbitkiller and wait for my roommate to find out what's wrong. It's almost noon and I'm hungry and stressed and so, so annoyed that whatever this is wasn't taken care of yesterday. I can't help but wonder if my concerns about the tire were dismissed because I'm a woman. Had my male roommate been behind the wheel, would Ol' Boy been more diligent in his inspection?

Part Two: Outside the Mall

About the time I typed that last sentence, my roommate drove over to tell me we could leave. We stopped by the house so I could drop off Rabbitkiller. We went inside long enough to use the bathroom and ditch our jackets. I suppose we could have just called it a day, but instead we continued on our quest to do SOMETHING on New Year's Eve. It was important to us. We did 't want the last day of the year to be just like all the other days.

The flaw in that theory is that sometimes we just can't control the fuckery that happens every damned day. There were people driving stupid slow on the highway. The place we where we wanted to eat was closed. The drive-in we we to instead . . . I guess they misplaced our order. It ended up being about 1:30 before we ate anything today.  I have no idea if the food was really good. I was starving and would have probably thought my grandmothers "Velveta with Stewed Tomatoes and Shit Sauce" was good.

Right now I'm sitting in the parking lot in front of the mall. We wanted candy and my roommate has braved the mall to get some. People are being inconsiderate. Parking spaces in front of the food court are scarce, and these assholes are just standing around talking about their plans. Seriously, get in your fucking cars and go some place else to talk.

Part Three: Outside of the Papa Murphy's

Somehow the drive from the mall to the grocery store to this place was a nightmare. We got behind the slowest humans in the world. I will never understand why people who insist on driving slow feel the need to also buy the largest most cumbersome truck they can find. Are they just trying to get people killed? Hmm. That is possible.

Speaking of trucks, I will never understand why this part of the country, populated mostly by people who drive huge trucks, SUVs, or minivans, still tries to keep these tiny, narrow little parking lots. Come on people! You know everyone be drivin something huge! At least pretend like you're not trying to get us all to wreck.

Part Four: Later That Night

We finally made it home before four.  We unloaded the van and put away some meat my roommate bought while he was in the grocery store. Then we crashed for a while until it was time for dinner. I slept like the dead because the trip was pretty trying.

Though, as I'm sitting here, happily sated on sparkling wine and candy, I'd like to say there is one thing, above all things, that I am  grateful for. I get to share my life with a wonderful, giving person who has a great sense of humor and a generous heart. There are so many things that happened today that would have been so rough, to the point of day-ruining, if I would have been alone.

Today had some shitty moments, but it also had some wonderful ones. We listened to some great rockabilly music while we were at the drive-in. We talked about candy from our childhood and laughed about a lot of stuff. Our toast for the coming year was, "To no bullshit." It was fitting, funny, and so us. I enter 2014 feeling very blessed, very safe, and very loved. I'm not sure what more I could want.

Goodbye, 2013. Thank you to the people who helped me navigate this year. I love you and I am grateful.

Resolution Discussion Part II

Tonight has been really annoying. Our internet, for some unholy reason, decided to go out at 11.  No one wants to be on the phone to the internet company at 11 PM! Anyway, clearly, we got it fixed. For that reason, you're getting to read this.   I wrote the other day about resolutions I think everyone should make. Tonight, I'm going to talk about two I plan to make.

I don't like that I have to make these resolutions. I'm not upset that I'm making them. I'm upset that I HAVE to make them, because the fact that I have to make them means that I am things I don't want to be . . . ignorant, judgmental, and petty. I don't LIKE being ignorant, judgmental, and petty. Hopefully committing to these resolutions will do something about that.

Before I get in to the resolutions, I want to point out that making changes in your life only happens if you truly believe that changes are needed. Don't lie to yourself (or other people) and waste your time trying to make changes when you don't think anything is wrong. Even if society, your doctor, your pastor, and the whole universe is telling you that smoking is wrong, until YOU, deep inside the core of everything that is YOU come to the belief that smoking is truly wrong, you're going to keep doing it. You may do it less. You may sneak around and do it . . . but you'll still do it because you don't think it's wrong.

I wish I could add more to that. I can't tell you how to change your belief about it. All I can say is not to waste your time trying to alter behavior you don't see as wrong. . . . because chances are, you won't change anything.

Anyway, on to my resolutions . . .

ONE: I RESOLVE NOT TO FORM OPINIONS ABOUT THINGS AND ACCEPT THEM AS TRUE FACTS UNTIL I KNOW THE WHOLE STORY.

This could also be called the Woman Sues McDonald's over Hot Coffee resolution. You see, for years, I, like most people, believed that some woman (who, in my head, was some yippy middle aged woman) ordered coffee from McDonald's, spilled a little bit of it on her hand while she was driving, and then sued them and won millions of dollars. I believed these to be TRUE FACTS and thought it was an example of how awful our whole court system had become.

I believed these True Facts based on just the small bit of word of mouth I'd heard about this story. I knew it was a true thing that happened and beyond that never bothered to get any more facts about it. Why did I need to, after all?

Why? Well, because the woman was in her 70s. She wasn't driving, she was the passenger in the car. Because the coffee was 180 degrees and had been poured over the safe level of the serving line on the cup. When she set it between her legs to open it up, it poured out all over her pelvis. She had third degree burns on her thighs, genitalia, and butt. Horrible, painful burns that resulted in many days in the hospital and months of recovery.

She only asked McDonald's for enough money to cover her medical expenses, something akin to $10,000. She did have a legitimate case, because company policy allowed for coffee to be served at dangerously hot levels and it was pour improperly. The jury rewarded her millions as a message to McDonald's about their recklessness. The amount was based on coffee sales for two days. She didn't receive this amount, only around $700, 000 from the judge.

For her trouble, to this day, people still talk about this woman like she was some evil con artist who probably sued everyone over everything. She's dead now, but while she was still alive, she received all kinds of hateful letters about what she had done. All because people, like me, didn't know the whole story, but accepted the blurb they'd heard about it as the True Facts.

When I heard this whole story, I was horrified. I felt shame for my own participation in the cycle of ignorance. I knew, right then and there, that I needed to change the way I thought about things. I need to begin to study, seek out information, gather details, understand the fullness of a story, before I begin to form opinions about it.

Will this be more work for me? Yes. It may even make things uncomfortable for me from time to time, because my answer to someone who asks me about a topic may very well be, "you know, I don't know enough about that yet to have a fully knowledgeable  opinion." I'll have to sound ignorant to a lot of people . . . but, I'm okay with that because sounding ignorant is better than living ignorantly. I don't want to do THAT any more.

TWO: I RESOLVE NOT TO BODY SHAME.

I'm a fat woman and I should know better. However, I am ashamed to admit that I'm just as bad about this as other people. I think what woke me up about this was when one of my skinny friends made comment about those memes that go around on Facebook that show a heavier girl and a skinny girl and the heavier girl one says, "This is what a real woman looks like."

I know that the intent was to remind people that not every woman is a size 00. The idea was to embrace women who are heavier and accept them as just as worthy as the skinny ideal.

However,  the path to acceptance can NOT be one where we say 'my stuff is better than your stuff' or 'my stuff deserves more than your stuff' or, worst of all, 'my stuff is the REAL stuff and yours isn't.' The solution to getting people to accept you as you are isn't open hostility towards people who look the way everyone thinks they should. That isn't helping you. That's just harming other people.

The fact is, people of all sizes are of equal value. Women with curves are women. Women with a mountain for an ass are real women. Women with no curves are women. Women with their breasts removed are women. Women with no more reproductive parts are women. Women who are in men's bodies who self identify as women are women. We are all real women.

Now, as I can recall, I don't think I've ever been, personally, that harsh on the skinny girls. This is probably because I have a punk/goth sensibility and have always found the waifs very beautiful. I can be, however, quite harsh on women who have had a lot of plastic surgery done. That is where my mouth and my mind can make some HARSH judgments.

I have a real issue with women who've had a lot of work done. I make a lot of snap decisions about the kind of people they are and the lives they lead. Most of these decisions are not based in True Facts, but in watching reality TV.

"They don't even look human anymore."
"The surgery never looks good, and if it does, they all look the same. Just carbon copies."
"Clearly having that much work done is a sign of an insecure personality."
"If you've had that much work done, it's really sad. I feel sorry for you. Clearly you aren't and never can be a happy person."
"I bet she was really pretty once."

I have thought these things. I have said these things. And I am angry at myself for being the person who did this. Who the fuck am I to judge what someone else does with their body? Who am I to make comment or think shitty things about how someone else looks? I've spent almost my whole life being overweight. I've faced jokes, mockery, hatred, hostility, and discrimination over this.  And yet, it seems that none of that has given me empathy towards others. That's damned sad.

So from now on, I will make it a point to not body shame. I will not do it out loud. I will try not to do it in my head. How they look shouldn't be my measure of their worth. That is petty and shallow and very ignorant.

So there you have it, in very long, verbose, and cringing detail. I don't want to be a shitty person. I'm going to do my best not to be one.

The Music of that Soundtracked my 2013

I listened to such a weird eclectic bunch of music this year. Seriously. And not all of it was even music released in 2013. In fact, most of it wasn't. It was, however, MY 2013. Here are ten examples.

1. C2C "Down the Road"  I think I first heard this song in a commercial that involved dancers, horses, and nail polish. It's a very cool mix of old school music and the new stuffs. I obsesses over it for quite a while.
   
2. Vitalic "My Friend Dario"/ "Poison Lips" Vitalic is addictive. Once I started listening to their songs, I just couldn't bring myself to stop.  I couldn't narrow it down to just one song, so I listed both of these.
   
3. Bats for Lashes "Laura" Gah. This song still devastates me. It's one of those songs that I will probably never separate song from video in the way I consider it. The video talks about the feeling we have as we're watching someone we loved with all of our hearts grow older and begin to fade. It's heartbreaking in the most beautiful way.
   
4. Bigbang "Fantastic Baby"  Ahh, the song that sparked my obsession with Kpop. I don't even know or care if anyone else likes this song. I adore it and the boys are so pretty.
   
5. Jack White "Love Interruption" / "I'm Shakin" Again, I couldn't just pick one of these two songs as THE one I was obsessed with. I think every time I would listen to one I would listen to the other. Both songs are amazing on their own, though I believe the video work is excellent on both of them.
   
6. Justin Timberlake "Only when I Walk Away" This song has been my most recent obsession. I'm not the biggest JT fan in the world, but I really fucking love the mixing and darkness in this song.
   
7. Peaches "Boys Wanna Be Her" Peaches actually did a video for this song, but I like the fanvid for the world's hottest lesbian instead. It suits the song and suited my mood when I was listening to it.
   
8. Amanda Palmer "Do It with a Rock Star" Speaking of girl on girl action, Amanda Palmer certainly found her own happy place with alt porn star Stoya. I love the power of the song and how unabashedly AFP it is.
   
9. Adam WarRock "Magneto was Right" / "The Rains of Castamere"I am so happy this man exists. He raps about fiction that I love and does it in a way that is evocative and personal. These two are my favorites and I've listened to them probably a million times this year.
   
10.  Ed Sheeran "I See Fire" I was waddling out of the theater when this song began to play at the closing credits of Desolation of Smaug. It captured everything I loved about the fear and bravery of the story and I knew I needed to listen to it until my ears bled.

These are by no means the only songs I've listened to obsessively in the last 12 months. I left off whole genres of stuff. However, these are the ones that helped pull me through some of the more difficult moments. They are the ones that altered who I was and added to the person I am becoming. I love them all so much and I'm glad they are now a part of my life. 

Resolutions for Everyone

It is the decidedly annoying time of year when people decide to make New Year's Resolutions about the things they want to change. Most people decide to lose weight, quit smoking, or handle their money better. And most of them don't really change anything past the first week or so. I think it's time we evaluate the idea of resolutions and come up with some things that might actually work. I'll talk about that more in a later post. Tonight, I want to talk about the things I wish everyone would commit to doing.

RESOLUTIONS FOR EVERYONE.

In 2014, how about we all commit to doing the following:

• I resolve not to be an asshole.  I will not be rude to other people. I will not bully other people. In fact, I will do my best to be as pleasant as possible.  It may not be in my nature to be decent, but I'm going to try. Being an asshole to everyone is getting me no where in life, other than with people who are crazy and have low self-esteem. With that in mind, I'm going to stop my assholish ways and just be easy to deal with.
• I resolve not to try and make decisions for other people. I'm going to respect everyone's autonomy. I'm not going to try and make my decisions about things EVERYONE'S decisions, whether they like it or not. If I decide to go on a cleanse, I won't make everyone in my household do it. If I decide to become a vegan, I will do so quietly and privately. I won't involve every other human I know. If I decide to get in shape, I'll do it on my own. I won't insist that my family does it with me. I'm my own person and they are their own people. I get to make decisions for me, not for them.
• I resolve to keep my hands to myself. I won't touch other people unless invited to do so. I certainly won't touch people I don't know or just met. I will respect everyone's right to private personal space. 
• I will resolve not to be negative all the damned time. I won't say things just to bring dark clouds over every situation. I won't point out flaws. I won't bring up politics just to complain about politicians or constantly dwell on social issues. I won't talk about everything wrong with the media. I won't dwell endlessly on everything that is wrong in the world. 
• I resolve to, as much as possible, keep my drama to myself. I won't post about it on Facebook. I won't talk about it, loudly, in restaurants. I ruin hanging out with my friends by endlessly discussing the crap happening in my life. I won't cause scenes in public. I won't turn seemingly innocent conversations into some makeshift therapy session where I whinge about everything wrong in my life. I will realize that sometimes this kind of thing is okay, but not always.
• I resolve not to waste time fixated on hating groups of people. I won't dwell on hating gay people or bigoted straight people or women or men or this race or that religion or this political group. Whenever I start to indulge in this hatred, I will remind myself that life is short and I shouldn't let people I dislike eat away at my time. There are better things to do.
• Finally, I resolve not to constantly assign blame. I will stop blaming others for getting me sick. I will stop blaming the government for all of my problems. I will stop blaming my parents, my spouse, my siblings, my children. I will even stop blaming myself. Assigning blame serves no purpose other than to keep one from resolving whatever ill has made you decide TO assign blame. Let it go. Fix the problem. Move on.

See? Honestly, if we would all do these things, we'd all live a far more peaceful life this year. I am certainly going to try and do this. 

A Year Later

This is the first anniversary of Alice's death.  Emotionally, it's been a really rough day. I went through the motions of it, trying to behave like a normal human, all the while just broke up inside about her passing. Losing Alice meant losing a lot of light in our home. She was a strange, fierce, and beautiful kitty. She loved my roommate a lot and completely doted on him as being 'her human.' She was very loved in this house and even now, she is very missed.

Losing Alice was the first of many rough things that have happened in the last year. We had a lot of automobile trouble. I went through the horrible and scary tax nightmare. Fluffy got sick and stayed sick  for months, which was very difficult on us. Then he passed, which was equally difficult.  His passing was a blessing too, because he died peacefully and it meant he was no longer in pain or confused.

Another mixed blessing has been the fact that the owners of Ruffian (Pumpkin) have been keeping him inside most of the time. This is sad for us because it means we don't see him any more. My roommate has only seen him twice in many, many months. However, it also means that he is better protected and safer. Kitties who live indoors have far less risky lives. I'm glad he's safe, but I do miss him.

Miss Tinkerbelle (who came from the same neglectful house as Alice) has moved in, but as I've written, Tink doesn't like us much. She's pretty standoffish and still seems unhappy about this 'living inside with the humans' thing. Despite her antisocial nature, she is interesting to have around. She sings to the toys she plays with, purrs when she's being combed for fleas, and makes really cute noises when she wants attention.

I miss Alice. I miss the joy she brought to my roommate. I miss watching their relationship. She told him off a lot. I miss how she would chase Rowan around the house and I miss how fat she would get during the winter.

Alice, where ever you are now, I hope you are happy. I would love for you to come back to me someday.

Acts of Frustrating Art

My sister-in-law wanted me to paint a tree for her. The tree is part of this project at showers (or other parties) where everyone dips their fingers into paint and makes the leaves on the limbs of the tree. It's a cute idea, but not that easy of a project. In fact, it's weighed on me for about a week now.

My roommate and I have discussed this damned tree so much. We came to the conclusion that the tree she liked was probably either some large stamp, some large stencil, or something photoshopped and printed onto canvas. All of these things have nothing to do with the loose, swiggly, and somewhat sinister painting style that I happen to possess. This caused a lot of frustration over the last few days.

I don't know. Maybe if I had owned some smaller, tighter brushes it would have been easier. Maybe if I'd just painted with more confidence. The later edits looked somewhatish better, due to me pretending to have more confidence about it and just forcing myself not to leave hesitation marks. Maybe if I'd had more time . . . no, actually, I don't think more time would have served to do anything but make me soulsick.

Due to innovation with stencils for lettering and filigree, blessed help from my roommate (he ended up stenciling the names because that part was driving me so bonkers I was about to set the canvas on fire), and magic markers, the end result looked decent.......ish. My SIL seemed happy with it when she picked it up, but she teaches little kids so I'm sure she's really good at faking enthusiasm.

The important thing is that the project is over. The canvas is out of my house, out of my hands, and past the point where I can do anything about it. YAYYYYYY!! Now we can go back to our quiet, happy lives where we only paint zombies.

Christmas

Christmas is over and I'm left with the same feeling I always have about it. My big gift events, my birthday and Christmas, happen at almost the same time. Given that, I usually just let it happen and then feel a mix of relief and sadness. I'm never even really sure what I'm so sad about.

This wasn't a bad year. I wasn't so sick I couldn't make it to the parties. I didn't get hurt or insulted. I tried my best to engage with my family and talk to them. I tried my best to participate. I'm just not really that good at it.

I always feel very exposed after parties. I feel like I allowed myself to be seen for too long, stayed away from my comfort zones for too long. Maybe this is all just introvert stuff. I'm really not sure. All I know is that I don't want to be around people for a while. I just need some days of hiding. I want to hide in the darkness, bury my head under pillows, and shut the world out for a while. I want silence and stillness.

Since I turned 40, I've suffered some strange injuries. I burned myself with a hot pocket last night and I ripped cut my arm on my cd drive tonight. Seriously, who does these things? I usually get cycles of weird injuries whenever I'm stressed. Clearly, on some level, I'm stressed.

Anyway, Christmas is over for another year. My birthday is over for another year.  Now we're on the downhill slide towards another summer. Sighs. Is too early to start talking about how much I hate summer?

The Last Day

The last day of my 30s was nothing special. I drove my roommate to the store. I worked on some stuff for my SIL. I doubted my artistic talent. I entertained some people and I offered some advice. I hung out with the cats. I was annoyed by stuff on Facebook.

I'm happy to be out of my 30s. They sucked. I lost my job. I was desperate for money. I lost the three most significant women from my childhood. I lost two cats. I was humiliated on more than one occasion. I developed some really uncomfortable physical issues. I was sicker (twice) than I have ever been in my life. There were some very, very lows.

There were also a lot of highs! I gained some small financial security. I gained some wonderful new friends. I learned new skills, made peace with a lot of stuff, corrected some health issues, and settled a lot of stuff about who I really am. Oh, and I started this blog. I love this blog.

What do I want out of my 40s?

I would like to be more financially stable. I would like to be more healthy. I want to be at a more healthy weight, but I'd also really like to eat a lot of cookies. I would like to have less stress and less bullshit. I would like to be surrounded by calm.  I would like to find a way to make a living using my talent. I would like to be more vocal in what I need and want out of life. I want my time to be spent in valuable ways. I want to have long conversations, watch great movies, listen to amazing music.  I want to make beautiful things and make a lot of memories.

Mostly though, truthfully, I just don't want to be scared, hurt, and broken. I think I've met my quota for all of that.

Sunday Sunday

Today, I painted a rather sinister looking tree and worked on a hat for my sister-in-law. Actually, the tree is for her as well, though my guess is that she wasn't interested in a sinister looking one. Oh well. My hope is that once the leaves go on it, it will look less evil. Maybe.

People seemed to have shut up about that Duck Dynasty stuff. Thank fuck. I'm really tired of watching as everyone is led around by the nose. This is a publicity stunt if ever one existed.  Let's get the unwashed masses all riled up about freedom of speech! That way they stay tuned in to the show. So annoying.

My birthday is on Tuesday. More than likely I'll spend the first part of the day finishing hats and sinister looking trees. They need to be ready by around four. That's when my brother and his family will come to pick me up. Hats are a bigger priority than the tree, as I still have a couple of days on the tree. Still, it would be nice to have it all out of my hair by then.

It's getting cold again. Hopefully it won't ice over and ruin all the plans. Or, you know, if it has to ruin some of them, let it be the plans I'm least interested in. Hah. Now there's a selfish statement for you.

Midlife Crisisagogo Part II

When I left off, I was talking about how completely devastating it is to reach this age and realize things not only suck, but probably won't get better.  It's pretty horrifying. I thought The Big Nothing that I faced in my 20s was bad, but this is so much worse. After all, in my 20s, there was still the hope that I might have the power to change things. That hope is pretty much gone by the time you reach middle age.

So why don't people just kill themselves? That's where the midlife crisis part comes in. See, I think our souls or the bacteria that lives in our gut or the microbes that live in our skin keep an eye on what we're thinking and feeling. If we suddenly hit some wave of emotional devastation, a system kicks in to help sooth our broken . . . everythings.

This crisis system knows it has to repair some damage and rebuild some stuff. It has to restore our sense of hope. It has to restore our sense of safety. It has to help us to get interested in things again, excited about life. In short, it has to help us have reasons to continue to live.

When folks see the middle aged people walking around in their gold chains, tight pants, and shiny cougar tops, they tend to laugh this off as a desperate attempt to recapture youth. I think recapturing youth is only the surface aspect of it, and really in no way the most important part. It isn't so much about feeling younger as it is trying to recapture how we felt when we were young.

Pretty much everyone has a memory of when they felt the most powerful in their own skin and the most excited about life. It was a time when everything seemed to be in  the palm of your hand. You felt strong and creative and just truly, truly excited about the world. Midlife crisis switches your focus off of whatever boring, mundane crap you were halfassed paying attention to and finds a way to shove stuff at you that will bring up those old feelings of wonder, power, and potential.

And so yes, for a lot of people, this means fast cars and tight clothes and relationships with people half their age.  It means hitting dance clubs and buying really high heels and dating people who are young enough to be your children.  Other people cope by actually having more children, trying to see if that will give them the excitement to go on.  Some people pragmatically go back to school, hungry less for knowledge than they are for how learning made them feel.

How do I know all this? Because it has happened to me. For several weeks now, my mind has been shifting and reorienting my tastes.  It's put me in situations whee, with just a couple of mouse clicks, I can get the fix I need to cope with my sad and rapidly disappearing life.

And what is this object of my midlife crisis desire?

Kpop.

KPOP. I am a 40 yr old woman who now listens to pop music from South Korea.

I mean...........really? REALLY? I get this? Kpop? I have deep, dark, and weird tastes in music. I like stuff that is heartbreaking or mysterious or maybe even kind of evil. Still, you know, most everyone wears black and eyeliner and..........KPOP?

Of course, when I really thought about it, it made sense.  The time I felt the most powerful in my own skin was when I was in 5th grade.  I walked basically everywhere in town, which kept me with a high sense of independence and freedom. I had great boobs. I was in love. I knew I was beautiful. I knew what I wanted to do with my life.

Most importantly, during fifth grade, I lived in a college town during the early 80s.  I listened to the uni's radio station, which kept me at a constant exposure to new and different things. I may not have liked all of it, but I loved the NEW of it. I loved that it was all things I hadn't heard before. This music, strange, quirky, sometimes plastic, sometimes sublime, became my best friend.  It was what helped to get me through any rough times. It comforted me, excited me, and helped me through my days.

So, in that way, yes, it makes sense that I'm loving music from a new culture, even if it is very much pop bubblegummy type music.  A lot of it may be shallower waters than what I'm used to, but it is very well crafted shallow water. I love the bright colors of the videos and the mix of Korean and English. I love how everyone is insanely beautiful and orchestrated. Even the inorganic nature of it makes me happy.

Look, I know that to the outside world, people in midlife crisis look pretty silly. I know it's easy to laugh at them. I've even done that myself. Now that I'm there, I understand that people in this situation didn't really ask to be here. I'm betting for most people in midlife crisis, they just go into automatic mode and do whatever it is they feel they should be doing. If they find some joy in that, let's all be grateful.

Now, I'm off to watch some more videos.

Midlife Crisisagogo Part I

So I think I have this midlife crisis thing figured out. It's a simple formula, really. One that, perhaps, occurs to all people when they reach middle age. They just don't talk about it because it's really sad and depressing.  Middleaged people are sad and depressing enough as it is. There is no need to double down with it. Oh wait, unless you're me. I'm totally talking about this.

The midlife crisis, somewhat like the hot flashes, hits suddenly with very little warning that it is happening. You do, however, know it for what it is when it shows up . . . again, much like the hot flashes.  I have to admit, I was not prepared for it. You can read about this kind of thing or what it in a movie and never grasp the way it can change you. It's almost like midlife crisis shows up and rewrites part of who you are, altering it just enough to where you're still recognizable as you, but just now have this ridiculous aspect happening.

I think I know why it happens. Midlife crisis is a fucking coping mechanism. You hit middle age and it's like the fact that you knew life sucked hits this wall and realize that not only does it suck but you probably don't have much change of changing that for yourself. You're on the downhill slide towards old age, illness, and death. You've squandered your youth. You've accomplished nothing. You're running out of time, energy, and money. Also, everything now sags.

Facing such overwhelming failure, despair, and impending doom is daunting, to say the least. I'm actually shocked more people don't just kill themselves when they hit the middle years. Then again, perhaps I'm not so surprised by this, due to the very nature of the midlife crisis.  How so? Well, I shall explain that tomorrow.

First Holiday Whatnot

I went to my dad's tonight for early Christmas gift exchange. I am super happy with the gifts I received. I got beads and knitting supplies and headphones. You know, for me, the basics. I also got some wonderful hair product, a cute coin purse, and doll head salt and pepper shakers. Those may be my favorite. We had chili dogs, fries, and cheese cake. It was, perhaps, not the most traditional of holiday meals, but it was nevertheless, quite nice. All in all, I had a good time.

And yet, because I'm so anti-social and unused to others, I stayed apprehensive basically the whole day. Now that I'm back, I just feel really emotionally fragile about the whole party. It's not that anything went wrong. We had fun. It was nice. I guess it's just that I . . . no, honestly, I have no clue. I just feel very vulnerable and can't put my finger on why.

I'm happy with the night, so I don't really get this disquiet I'm having. It's strange. Then again, the holidays are always strange.

Free Lunch

It's been a bad day in what is shaping up to be a bad month. I'm doing my best to not rock the boat and make things worse.  Honestly, the best way to have avoided this was to not even go on Facebook (or the internet) at all. This won't happen though. We know it won't. Even still, I'm doing my best to stay clear of articles that are going to piss me off. However, sometimes, well, things just don't go as planned.

Today, I ran across this article by this asshole. This total dicksnot hates the free lunch program for schools. He is horrified at the lesson this is teaching the children of our nation, that there IS such a thing as a free lunch. He thinks the kids should be forced to pay a dime or a nickel or, better yet, he thinks they should SWEEP THE CAFETERIA before they can eat.

Clearly this man, as a child, never had to go hungry.

He never knew what it was like to go to school with nothing on your stomach. He never spent time trying his damnedest to focus because all he could think about was how hungry he was. He never felt the pure, wonderful feeling of having the first meal of the day, some time around noon, and savoring it so much because he knew it was the only meal he would have.

If he would have experienced that, he would understand how fucking horrible he is for begrudging children a free lunch. Being angry that a kid is getting a free lunch due to their poverty is like being angry that someone poured water on someone while they were on fire........and didn't charge them for it. That free lunch is a very small drop in the bucket of the many things that are going very wrong in their lives, things that are out of their control and nothing they can be blamed for.

But he is blaming them.

In fact, be believes the best way to teach them a lesson is to poorshame them. Because, let's face it, having the poor kids sweep the school before they eat is, IN NO WAY, going to cause them to be treated worse by the rest of the kids. Nope, not at all. I'm rolling my eyes right now.

I guess what he doesn't get is that, honestly, all of us poor kids understood all too well that there was no such thing as a free lunch. From the first day that the cafeteria workers gave us that LOOK as we were stamped in differently than the other kids, we have known. When we heard the snickering from the other kids, we certainly knew that this lunch had a price.

Rest assured, we paid. We paid in the looks from the kids with money. We paid in the currency of our social standing and position within our class, a price far higher than any lunch we could have received. We paid in the dismissive tone of our teachers, in the whispers, in how we were ignored. We paid in the raised eyebrows we would receive when we brought toys to class. Any toy deemed poor was laughed at. Any toy deemed too rich for the likes of us was called in to question. Did we steal it? Did our parents pay for it instead of being more responsible with their money?

When I was a freshman, I spent part of the year in a new school. It was a horrible time for me. I was away from my friends. I was living with my mother and her latest awful husband. I was a fat, poor girl which gave me so very little social currency that I just barely functioned. Of course, I was on the free lunch program. You know what I did during my lunch hour?

I hid in the bathroom. I would walk from my class before into the bathroom and I would hide there, starving, while everyone else ate their lunch. I never had breakfast and now I didn't eat lunch. My bus ride home was a good two hours, so it was usually 5:30 to almost six before I would eat anything. This probably did horrible things to my body and how it should function. It certainly didn't help me to lose weight because I was constantly in starvation mode. Yet still, I never once went to collect that free lunch....but as you can see, I still very much paid for it.

Oh and yay! Now this evil old bastard is making these kids pay for their lunch in a whole new way. Now, whenever any of them read about him, even if it's been years after they were in school, they will dredge up all these feelings about the lunch program and what it was like for them. They'll pay all over again.

This Thing Really Works

Today my uncle needed to know the exact date something happened from over a year ago. It was pretty important that we remembered the date, but somewhat of a struggle. I knew I needed to get it right and despaired about the fact that I probably wouldn't. It's not like I write everything down.

Except, I suddenly realized, I DO write everything down. Well, not EVERYTHING, but the majority of the stuff that happens in my life does get written down . . . in this blog. I smiled to myself, knowing that, perhaps for once, my tireless need to document the trials and tribulations of BHB would pay off.

I knew some events that happened around the time of the one we needed and I began to search my archives. This took a bit. I do, after all, have quite a lot of blog entries, and somehow I kept going the wrong direction to get to the one I needed. I'm still not sure how my brain got that all twisted.  However, after a few minutes, I found the one I needed. Boom, just like that, I had the date.

For a while after I found what I had been looking for, I was mostly happy with the convenience of it being there. It was good to know I could locate things about the last three years of my life and it not be that much of a problem.  As the evening wore on, I started thinking about how profound it was to have this kind of documentation of what has been happening in my life. It helps to ground me and remind me that stuff is actually real. Everything doesn't just fluff out of my mind as if it never existed.

Sometimes I stress over my lack of a body of work. I look around and try to figure out what I've done with my talent besides just make wonky hats and wonky snowmen and be a distraction for others. Quite often my body of work feels lacking to me and this, above all things, depresses the hell out of me.

Then I remind myself that at least six nights out of the week, I do write. I am a blogger and I have been for a while now. Not a famous one or a successful one, but a prolific one. My body of work is quite extensive.

Throw a Stone

Survivor: Blood vs Water ended last night. To the surprise of no one, Tyson was the winner. I'm not upset with that. I didn't like him when he played as Coach's pawn in his first season. I was so annoyed with his second season that I didn't even watch it. This time though, he played an almost flawless game. Very impressive.

Overall, I have to say that I loved this season. I did not think I would. I am always apprehensive when returning players are involved and this time returning players made up half the cast. Because everyone came in with an ally, people had to think differently about the game. I usually hate twists to games like this (because they are almost always lame) but this time, the twist was great.

Survivor always lends itself to showing a lot about human behavior. Quite often without realizing it does. This time, maybe because I am about to turn 40, I noticed a lot of the things it was saying about the role and views of middle aged women. I am sure you can guess that little of it was good.

Older women are viewed as a liability to the tribe.  Even though many older women have demonstrated skills around camp that are very useful (building shelter, cooking, fishing) and many, in recent years, have arrived with a lot of physical strength, it is often the older women who are voted off first. The perception is that they aren't useful for the tribe and, indeed, will drag it down.  Even though many of the challenges don't necessarily just rely on physical strength, people will use the 'the old women are weaker' reason for getting rid of them.

People always assume the worst about older women. This happens in many ways, but I think the most common is the sense of betrayal. It seems that any other type of player can lie, cheat, and steal their way to the end, but when an older woman does it, she is despised. People will despise an older woman who makes it to the end by playing an underhanded game.  They will often go out of their way to call the woman out on every thing she did wrong and then not vote for her. Usually when men or even younger women play this kind of game, they're given more of a pass (though men are given a larger pass than younger women).

They will also assume things happen to the older woman due to her flaws instead of her strengths. This season, Laura was voted out of the tribe the first time because her tribemates knew she could defeat a man who they saw as a big threat on Redemption Island. She was sent there because she was strong. Her daughter, however, assumed she was sent there because no one liked her. This one misconception became the foundation for what ended up being her daughter's biggest mistakes in the game. It cost them both.

Mind you, it's not really surprising that the daughter did this, because another thing that holds true is that strength of older women is disregarded. Even though the older women dominated the physical aspects of this season, an older woman didn't win. Of course, Survivor is never based just on the physical aspects of the game, but when we have men at the end who dominated the physical portion, it's always discussed. This time, it really wasn't. Monica won three challenges, but this was never considered a reason why she should win. Three challenges is a large accomplishment, but she had no credit for it at all.

Instead, when people were talking to her about the final vote, many of them kept demanding that she show vulnerability. This pissed me off. I can't recall any time at the end of Survivor when someone asked a man to be vulnerable.  They wanted her to strip away her emotional shields so they could see things about her, things that, so they alluded to, would give them reason to vote for her . . . not that they did.  I found this to be insulting and insane. What the hell kind of qualification is that to decide if someone played a good enough game to win? Besides, who the fuck can be vulnerable on demand?

As I said, Survivor holds up a mirror to human behavior. The same things that happen on the game are more than likely happening in the lives of older women all the time. People will see us as liabilities.  People will assume the worst about us. People will dismiss our strength. More than likely, we won't be able to change that in our lifetimes. Eventually, perhaps, but these things take a long time to alter.  No, the best thing for us to do, as always, is to take the things people would use against us and find ways to make them work FOR us. That, after all, IS the best way to survive. 

8 Days

I got over my creative funk in a very big way today. I made something deeply perverse and plan on making even more perverse things as time goes on. At one point I was literally laughing out loud at what I had made. That was even before it had hair. I would show you what it is, but it's a gift for someone who reads this blog (or claims to read it) and I don't want to spoil the surprise.

My SIL brought over the painting supplies for the project I'm doing for her. I'm thinking I'll start on that either tomorrow or Tuesday. It's just going to depend on how some other factors pan out. I have til the 28th to finish, but I'd like to be done by the 19th when I next see her. If not then, at least by the 24th. I'd really rather not anyone have to make a special trip for me to get this back to her.

We have to do some repairs on the house tomorrow.  This always makes me nervous because the house is old and even the most simple of tasks tends to turn into major headache time. The repair that will be happening also involves the ladder, the drill, and putting screws in from the downward slope. That never works too well. I'm hoping we can finish everything without too much agita.

There are 8 days until my birthday. I'm thinking about taking the week before the event and really talking a lot about it. After all, how often does one turn 40?  I'm not sure about it yet. It's just going to depend on what I come up with for tomorrow. In the meantime, I have perverse projects to work on and paint to play with.

Saturday Evening Creative Funkadelic

Today was cold and wet. Everything has been darkish and gloomy. I should have been working on stuff, but I didn't. I'm in kind of a creative funk. That happens from time to time with me. I'll get out of it but it may take a day or two. Hopefully not though. I have some projects I need to finish.

I received my first birthday/Christmas gift. My bff got me an iHome speaker. I love it. It's purple and brazen. To go along with the iTouch named Icing Sugar, the iHome has been named Spice. Now I have Sugar and Spice. This may have been some set of Prince girlfriends, but I can't quite remember. It's hard to keep track of everyone that man kept around.

This is a very busy week for us. Two appointments, shopping, drug deliveries, and my family gift exchange at my dad's house. I'm kind of apprehensive about that, though I think it's because last year I was still trying to get over the evil stomach flu when we celebrated. As I've mentioned before, I still have a light level of PTSD over that damned stomach flu. It really sucked.

Ohhh. There is one thing that is getting me OUT of my creative funk. I found out that the Song of Ice and Fire RPG allows the players to create their own noble house, with everyone within the house functioning as a member of said house (in one capacity or the other). I LOVE THIS IDEA SO MUCH. It makes me wish I had a gaming group and someone who knew the work well enough to GM it for us. I don't want to do that part. I kind of hate that part. I just want to get lost in a character for a while.

Anyway, that's my night. I'm going back to watching Prometheus now. I'll talk about that later on.

Bobbles

Ever since I did the beard hat for my nephew, I've developed a fascination with crocheted bobbles. I wanted a hat with them, but that wasn't as easy to find as I thought it would be, because I wanted the bobble part to be on the band of the hat.  There are quite a few patterns with bobbles all over the hat, but it really wasn't what I was interested in. I finally found one though, and truly love the results.

Aside from the bobbles on the band, there is another pattern happening here. The hat starts out in half double crochets and then switches to singles, goes back to half doubles, and then three more lines of singles before you get to bobble/single/bobble/single at the end.

The hat was a quick creation. I started it a bit before eight PM and had it finished before two AM or so.  Crocheting hats has gotten a lot easier since I realized that increases work just like multiplication problems.  You multiply the row you are on by the number of stitches you started with and that will be your final stitch count for that row. For example, if you're still increasing by row 8 and you started out with 6 stitches, your finally stitch count on that row will be 48. You will do every increase on the stitch right before and of whatever works for that row's multiplication table. So, using our example of row eight, you will increase (crochet twice into the stitch) for stitches 7 and 8, then on 15 and 16, then on 23 and 24, then on 31 and 32, then on 39 and 40, and finally on 47 and 48.

Anyway, back to the hat. I really love it. It fits well and it's nice and warm. This is certainly a winter hat. I wore it inside and even started to find it a bit hot after a while. Whenever I was outside though, it was wonderfully cozy. I have a lot of gray knitted stuff, like my favorite arm warmers and my iTouch case, so it's good to have a gray hat to go with them.

It's even better that said hat has bobbles.

Charlie Brown Morning

This morning, when I opened Facebook, one of my friends had sent me a message asking when my birthday party was. She said that she received a FB invite to it and wanted to make sure she wasn't doublebooking for that day. I wrote back that I had no idea what she was talking about because I had no birthday events planned.

And then I smiled at the delightful irony of this and my soul began to sing.

You see, several weeks back, I spoiled my father's surprise retirement party for him. Well, I spoiled the surprise anyway. The party went fine. I just ruined the surprise part of it. Still, in some ways having a heads' up was better for him because he hates surprises.

And here it was happening to me! I was getting a surprise 40th birthday party and someone ruined the surprise and that was totally fine because now I could be happy about knowing that for once ONCE I was actually getting a party and it wasn't just going to be some boring year where nothing happened other than me seeing people for Christmas events. I do realize that was a run-on sentence. It was fitting, under the circumstances.

In my head, I start doing Charlie Brown's little dance of victorious joy that he does when he gets invited to a party. To me, it's always just the perfect symbol of being this person on the outside of things who for once actually gets to have the normal human things happen. I WAS GOING TO GET A SURPRISE PARTY! YAYAYAYAAYYA!!

Oh...........

But then my friend messages back and tells me she was mistaken. It was actually the invite for another one of her friend's daughters......the girl happens to have the same name as me.

...........

So instead of the Charlie Brown victory dance of joy, this was more like Charlie Brown running for the football and falling on his ass when the football is pulled out of the way. No party. No gifts. No cake. Suck it up, 40 year old.  This time will be no different than the rest of them.

God, I hate December.

The Flickering Lights

I have new glasses and for the first time ever, I have transition lenses. I'm happy about this because it is far more convenient for me. For years, I've been one of those people who had to pull out my prescription sunglasses from my purse when I needed to be shielded from that giant ball in the sky.  Now I can just let the glasses glide into darkness and protect me. Yay.

I love the new frames. I chose them because they made me look smug and I like looking smug. They're less tall than my last glasses and slightly more wide. I'm fine with the less tall part, but the width is giving me some issues.

A while back, my roommate told me about this odd new experience in his life. Since he started wearing his new glasses, he's been seeing things out of the corner of his eye. Small things. He sometimes just saw shadows. He would assume they were the cats or the shadows of the cats, only to realize the cats were no where around. When he told me about this, he said I looked at him like I thought he was crazy. I didn't think he was crazy. I just mostly hoped it was some kind of trick of the light and not the house suddenly increasing in the population of ghost cats.

Now that I have my new glasses, I have a better understanding of this phenomena of seeing stuff that isn't there. I've started seeing flickering lights in the corner of my eye. It isn't an all the time thing. There is a certain level of light where it starts happening. Once that level hits, I've started, on occasion, seeing this flicker of lights playing around the edges of the room.

I know it's probably the width of the glasses reflecting one of the lamps in the room. Logically, I know this is what it is, even if my mind does come up with all kinds of fun alternative ideas. It's probably something I'll get used to, though it's distracting enough that I don't think Ill ever NOT notice it.

So anyway, that's the new fun thing with the glasses. I now have smugness and flickering lights. Oh the joy.

Bold in the Cold

You have no idea how much I hate being out on the ice and snow. Wait, actually, if you read the blog, you probably do have an idea about how much I hate it. Still, hate or not, I have a feeling this is going to be a vastly bad winter ( so hope that feeling is wrong), and I need to be a grownup and face it.

My roommate, brave and responsible soul that he is, handles this madness so much better than me. From day one, he was out scraping ice off the van and making sure both vehicles would start. He drove the van around the block to check out road conditions. He even walked around the house with a long broom handle and knocked icicles off of the house.

Faced with all of this bravery, I decided I would drive him to the store today. Logic dictated that the main roads would be clear and we were going to Walmart, which had a vested interest in being clear.  I drove slower than I normally would, but not as slow as I would have in the past.

I'm glad I got out. One one had, it was beautiful. Most yards were still untouched sheets of white snow. A lot of houses still had icicles. One of the other rock houses had an icicle on it that was at least six feet long. You could kill several vampires with that. The Hill was beautiful, a mix of whites and grays and blues. All of the trees and power lines still had ice on them, which is lovely if sinister.

I say sinister because a lot of the yards were covered in broken tree limbs. In some cases, such as our neighbors, there were so many downed limbs that it was difficult to even navigate the driveway. I'm really glad we did all of our tree/bush trimming back at the end of summer. I think it saved us a lot of grief from this storm.

So I survived the first winter storm of this year. It's possible this could be our only little bout of snow. The rest of winter could prove to be as lackluster and mundane as our summer was. This would be nice, but somehow I doubt it. But as long as it doesn't stand in the way of me seeing my hobbits or getting gifts, I guess I can live with that.

A Sweet and Simple Sunday

I spent the day working on yarn projects. I finished the hat portion of my nephew's hat and beard thing and then began to work on the accessories for my best friend's snow wonkies. She wanted Mr. and Mrs. Wonky, so I varied up the design. Mrs. Wonky is going to be somewhat of a tart, as is only proper for a crocheted snow wench. I made two hats, two noses, two mouths, four eyes, four buttons, and three scarves..........I made three because I didn't think the first Mrs. Wonky's scarf was pretty enough. I may use the other scarf later on.

Tomorrow I'll start on bodies. I hope to have both of them finished by Wednesday. It's quite possible I will, because the pattern doesn't take took long and while I'll be slowing down to sew on the accessories, said accessories are at least already made. I think they will be adorable. I'm fairly pleased with the first snowman, and I tend to get somewhat betterish with these things.

I'm always a little shocked when I see how much money people are charging for handcrafted things like these snowmen, but when you consider the expense of materials and, more importantly, time, it takes to make them, the prices make more sense. It really makes me have a larger appreciation for the rag dolls my mom used to make.

Despite the hours, I am truly enjoying this. I love making the tiny scarves and little hats. I know I've said this before, but if I could find a way to make a living doing things for dolls, I would be the happiest person alive. I love dolls and I always have. It's one of the reasons I love Sims so much, because Sims are basically dolls who can breed. To me, each doll has a personality and a background. As I work on things for them, they spring to live.

Okay, they don't literally spring to live. I don't have those kinds of dolls (yet).

Anyway, as my awake time is winding down, I'm feeling pretty good about things. Making toys always fills me with happiness. Perhaps I was one of Santa's elves in a past life?

Winter is for the Birds

Ever since the ice started falling, we've had a lot of birds showing up. They'll come on the porch, safe out of whatever nature is blowing at them from the sky, and fluff out their wings as they try to get warm. The house, I assume, feels warm to them. It's a nice barrier against the wind and snow. We also keep cat food and water on the porch, which gives the birds something to eat and drink. I guess we're kind of like an bad weather refuge for them. I am completely okay with this.

I like watching the birds. Birds can give off tons of personality, just by the way they fluff out their wings or shake. I like to watch them hop around and sit with such delicate grace on the tomato cages that live on the front porch. My mom always loved birds, so any time they're around, I'm reminded of her. Anything my mother actually found joy in is something that makes me happy.

Most of all, I enjoy watching the cats watch the birds. The cats get super interested in what the birds are doing. They'll do little dances or head bobs. Sometimes they'll trill at the birds. When cats WANT something, they make adorably cute faces. It is a bit unnerving that a cat can make a 'come get in my belly, little bird' face and it be cute, but it totally is cute.

No matter how bad the snow is, no matter how long we have to stay cooped up in the house, I think what will stand out for me the most about this early December snow is the cool birds I got to see. I'm grateful for that.

Snow Day

I woke up to big fluffy white poofs of snow falling from the sky. It was pretty. I did not go out in it. My roommate, brave and practical soul that he is, DID go out in it. He wanted to make sure the cars ran okay and spent the better part of an hour trying to get the ice off of the van.  This was not an easy task.

Past that, we stayed inside and tried our best to keep warm. I called my SIL to see if they were okay. They'd lost power the night before. A couple of people called me to see if I was doing okay. That was sweet of them. I worked on some projects and need to work on them more tomorrow. The holidays are fast approaching and I need to finish up a couple of things before they get here.

Drop Drop Drop

Yesterday when my roommate and I were driving around town, I had my window down. I saw people walking around in shorts and flipflops.  We spoke several times about how clearly this cold front we were supposed to have couldn't be that bad because there was no way the temperature could drop down low enough for it to have any real impact.

Today when we went to Walmart, I sat in the car, freezing, and watched as icicles formed on my mirrors. Right now as I'm typing this, I can hear tree limbs cracking and breaking under the weight of the ice. Clearly the weather CAN drop enough to do all that was predicted. I'm not happy about it either. I am, however, cold. I'm going to go to bed now and hope that I still have electricity in the morning.

The Jellies

A lot of people have been discussing fitness advocate Maria Kang and her less than tactful comments about fat people. This has gotten so bad that she was temporarily banned from Facebook. Now, I assume this banning is on her more professional account because it isn't like you can't go and make a private profile with a different name. The only people who really suffer from privately getting banned are the ones who lose all the game accounts they've been working on for years and will probably miss some minor deadline for something. You know, people like me.

Anyway, so she started talking smack about fat acceptance and people taking pride in their larger than average curves. She isn't the only person who hates this, of course. Not by a long shot. She is, however, being loud and annoying about it, and like most concern trolls, she just doesn't see why everyone is so upset that she is pointing out the truth.

Her basic idea is right. Being overweight can lead to a lot of health problems. I say "can" because that isn't always the case. Still, we know it isn't healthy for the most part. The thing is, and this is where her troll trail flies of the rails, when most people are in shape or when they are discussing , thinking about, or judging the fitness of others, health is the last thing on their minds. They are usually assessing beauty and compliance to what is socially acceptable. In a lot of people's minds, health is just a very minor benefit when it comes to that kind of conformity. Bitching about the fact that people don't shame the fatties enough and claiming that it's a health concern sounds like so much bullshit.

Do I think she hates fat people? Hate, as they say, is a strong word. She certainly has a low opinion of us. She thinks we all lack in dedication and discipline and hard work because, in her mind, these traits are only evident in a fit body. This is a rather narrow view, but a common one. Yet it isn't something most folks feel the need to rant about to the point they get kicked off Facebook.

So what does lead to this level of venom?

Jealousy.

Now I am not saying that Maria Kang wants to come down to the donut shop with us fat folk (much), but I am saying her rancor is motivated by a deep and bitter jealousy. It's not about the beauty side of the equation. This is about the social approval side of it.

I'm seeing in this woman the same kind of anger and resentment one finds in people who worked so hard to be popular in high school and are now faced with a popular culture that glorifies geeks, outsiders, and other social undesirables. These people, and people like Kang, work so hard to conform and fit in. It is the cornerstone of their self worth. "Look at how well I follow the rules. Pet me on the head and tell me how good I am." A great deal of their self-esteem seems to be built on the idea that they have achieved things that other people just can't manage to do.

So yeah, I'm sure it's quite a shock to her system when she sees people not only feeling no shame for their fat ways but have also gained a support system around them. I know that she's stated she struggles to maintain her current state of fitness and I know it is a struggle. Still, she shouldn't push that struggle out on everyone else.

ON THE OTHER HAND, I don't think that Maria Kang's choice to show off her body is wrong. She did work hard to look that way and she certainly has a right to feel proud of herself. It's just that she should concentrate on the accomplishment of attaining that level of fitness and not on the how well she has conformed to socially acceptable standards, because that just leads to the dark side. And other women (and men, I guess?) need to get over this shit where they feel threatened by her picture because that also leads to the dark side. She looks good. She worked for that. She's kind of a bitch about it, yeah, but get over it.

I'd like to end this whole mess by stating that I also have a problem with the fat acceptance movement focusing so much on 'look how sexy you are, big girl!" message. I don't think it's helping anyone to just basically state, "Hey guess what, we can sexually objectify you just as much as we do the skinny women yay!!!" Build your self worth in some other area. Be funny. Be creative. Be the best brick layer. Something, anything, besides just an object of sexual acceptance. We need to realize we're more than that.

Tree Traditions

My best friend and I started living together in 1993. We had a small apartment with only two windows. It was dark and dank and we loved it because it was ours and we weren't at home any more. I felt so wonderfully independent. We were determined to celebrate all the holidays, including Christmas. 

This year was our 20th year of decorating a Christmas tree together. This is a picture of her naked tree. Well, it has some lights on it, but those are just the boob pasties of the tree world. The true story of a Christmas tree is in the ornaments. My best friend's tree is no exception to this.

In her case, ornaments come in several different containers and represent many different facets of her life, and of mine. The main box contains all of her more expensive collectible ones.  Her collections are usually gifts from family members. I know that her sister started several of the series for her and it's been a gift every year. Her sister as also started collections for my best friend's son.

But fancy ornaments were not always part of our tradition. For a long while, our tree was decorated with whatever we could find.  The boxes are a good example of this. Like most college students, I fell prey to the company called Fingerhut (which we called Fingerbutt, of course) and bought some of their holiday nasties one year. Each of these little cardboard boxes contained some candy or a tiny, useless toy.  The boxes, some candy canes, and cheap ass balls went on the tree that year.

My roommate still has these boxes and still puts them on her tree. While we scarfed all the candy out of them years ago, one of them still contains a Santa toy. Every year we will forget what is in it. We'll shake the box, open it, proclaim it to be Santa, and then decide that he will remain in the box for another year. I hope that when I die, she lets Santa out of the box and puts him in my urn with me.

Fingerhut wasn't our only financial blunder during college. At one point, we also decided to start investing in a monthly delivery of Disney ornaments. We really, honestly thought we could manage this.

This was such a huge mistake. The damned things were expensive, if delightfully well made. I think we got about four of them before we realized there was no way we could pay on them. It was a costly misstep, so every year whenever Genie and his coworkers go on the tree, they are a lovely and festive cautionary tale.

It takes us several hours to get all the decorations on her tree. We always listen to holiday music. When we were younger, this happened by way of cassette tapes on a boombox. After a few years, we considered ourselves lucky to have upgraded to a cd player . . . still in a boombox.  That lasted for quite a long while, but changed to satellite radio in the mid2000s.  Today, we listened to a radio station off of her phone being bluetoothed over to her iHome speaker system . . . you know, magic. We don't just put up our ornaments. We also put up ones from her husband and the growing collection of ones from her son.

Things have changed over the years, but the foundation of what we do is still the same. The Christmas tree is our collection of memories, the good ones and the ones remarkable for us having survived them. Tree decoration is a small event, I suppose, but it's an important tradition to me, one I hope to never miss.

Christmas Decoration

As you know, my roommate and I have decided on a one decoration per holiday rule. I started working on the one for Christmas today. Meet Wonky the Snowman. This is his head.

Wonky took several hours to do, mostly because I kept screwing up the pattern. At first, this was just because, well, honestly, I'm not even sure. After a while it was because I couldn't see straight anymore. This is Wonky's hat on Rowan's head. She is not happy. Then again, she never is.

After almost all day, Wonky got a body. I like him a lot. He's smirking, but it's a very sincere little smirk. I also like the way his hat sits all jaunty on his head. There was a lot of joy when I managed to start making his body look somewhat snowmanish.

This is the whole package, scarf, buttons, and everything. He'll sit on the mantle until the holiday is over (or until the cats pull him down and hide him forever). It will be nice to have him be part of our winter.

Poetic Devices and Vices

My ears are ringing so loudly right now. I had my headphones on, and I'm to the point where it started becoming problem. Technically, they're earbuds. Skullcandy. And I love that. I love that so much, I'm asking for more for Christmas. I need at least two more pairs. That should cover all my devices.

I thought about asking for the expensive over the head ones. I like them a lot,plus I would like to get away from earbuds. There is something disconcerting about having your ears penetrated every time you want to listen to music. Half the time, my allergies and general ear issues make wearing them somewhat painful. Still, earbuds are the least expensive and, to be honest, I'm very hard on headphones. I'm lucky my current Skullcandies have lasted as long as they have. I tend to kill headphones within a year. Though, I guess I shouldn't speak too soon. I still have a month with them.

Speaking of gift ideas, I'm also looking for a side table/utility cart for my desk set up. I want to have my computer up higher than it is. The problem being, I need a cart that a. actually puts it up higher b. fits in the space I need c. is least but not over 26" high, and d. is affordable. You have no idea how difficult it is to make that happen.  Part of the problem is that desktop computers are on their way out. I'm finding lots of desks for laptops and tablets, but I don't have one of these. I'm guessing I'll probably have to Frankenstein some kind of storage together. Then again, that's always fun.

Anyway, short post tonight. I'm trying to get some things done and my brain is bouncing. Sleep well.