Owning Your Smile

I had a discussion with my roommate today about the weird thing where random strangers will walk up to women and ask that they smile. If a woman, especially an attractive woman, looks upset or down or just neutral, people will think it is perfectly okay to ask her to smile. In some cases, they'll even demand it. I've seen this a lot in comments people will post over women. If the woman isn't smiling in the picture or doesn't smile in the video, there will always be several comments that run along the lines of "would it hurt her to smile a little?" as if the fact that she never smiled was some kind of offence directed at the viewers.

I find this to be a highly strange practice. Smiling is an emotional reaction. Smiles can be faked, of course, but most of the time, people can tell when they are. A genuine smile is a response to some positive stimuli (or an evil plot). It should happen when it happens, and not just because you think it should. Asking someone to smile for you when they don't want to smile is like asking a flower to bloom when it's not ready to bloom. This isn't the time, no matter how much you think the flower would be prettier in full bloom.

When you ask some random stranger to smile for you, you're not doing anything to benefit THEM. Don't even for a second think you are. In fact, all you are doing to them is reinforcing the idea that they are there to be on display for the benefit of others, not to think and feel and react on their own terms. You may like their smile and you may find them easier to be around when they're displaying a positive emotion, but that is about you and whatever other people may be looking at them. It doesn't help the smiling person at all. You're just leeching off of their beauty.

If some random person walks up to you and asks/demands that you smile, I think the best response is your favorite form of "Go fuck yourself." Most people are probably more polite than I am, so I'm sure they won't say that. Some form of it SHOULD be said though, because these people need to be stopped. I really have no idea how it got into their heads that it was okay to ask women to smile, but it's not okay. You have no right to do that. So go fuck yourself.

Honestly, why would you even do that? You have no idea what this person is going through in that moment. They may have just found out their mom died. They may have just lost their job. They may have just decided to kill themselves because they were tired of being treated like everyone's pretty toy. Everyone, every day, is living through their own personal war. Leave them alone. Is that really too much to ask?

Doll Making

The thing about doing a project for the first time is that you never really know how it's going to turn out, even if you have a pattern right in front of you. Now that I've started making dolls, I've noticed this to be even more true. There is something about the nature of a doll that decides what it is going to be, even if the pattern tells you otherwise. A doll is created in a mesh of the pattern, your materials, you, and whatever cosmic muse is in charge of dolls.

I decided to make an Easter bunny. I found a nice, cute little pattern and knew I could handle it. Nothing on the pattern was really all that difficult. In fact, it was all very simple work and things I've done a million times. Hah. I will tell you now, my Wonkybunny looks NOTHING like the bunny they showed in the picture. Nothing at all. I don't even think it is the same reality of bunny. It's just a whole other kind of thing.

Part of this is my fault. I neglected to pay attention to the fact that the yarn being used in the pattern was a wool blend. I didn't use wool blend. I used common generic acrylic yarn so my thickness was different. Next time I make a bunny, I think I know how to compensate for this. That part is a pretty easy fix. It's really just going to require changing hook size. I DID change hook size on the bunny's ears, because they weren't laying the way I wanted them too. However, this decision to change hook on the ears and not on the rest of the bunny caused the second significant change in how the pattern looked. My ears, because I did follow the pattern without considering my change in hook size, are bigger than they should be. Seriously, the bunny's ears are longer than the bunny. I also made the decision to knit my eyes instead of just using some buttons. It's tricky to knit eyes and make them round(ish) enough, so then got bigger than I intended. My bunny has kind of alien eyes now.

So most of the core problems with how I handled the doll is that I didn't keep mindful of proportion. Things are off sizewise and it shows in the overall look of the bunny. Having made these mistakes, I'm pretty sure I know how to avoid them next time. I'll also make sure to sew on all needed parts before I stuff and close off the bunny. I seriously knew better than to do this, but the pattern said to wait so I waited. I'll never do that again.

The other changes are ones I did to try and help Wonkyalienbunny look more Easterish. I have him a hat, which turned out cuter than I thought it was going to be. I also added a lopsided basket with some green grass and eggs in it. These elements help him appear to be a seasonal and festive little chap. They also gave me a chance to add more color to him, which he really did need.

However, now that he is finished and occupying the clock on the mantle (the place designated for all decorations), I am very pleased with him. He has a lot of charm, my Wonkybunny. He is cheerful and happy about his part in the season. He's proud of his hat and reasonably sure his basket won't tip over. Plus, he's smiling, in his own alien kind of way. I'm glad I made him. I think he needed to exist.

Childhood and Harsh Realities

So I'm old now and bitter. Okay, I've probably always been bitter, but now I'm old too and that adds new layers to the bitterness. And yet, I still remember being a kid and remember what that was like. Admittedly, it kind of scares me a little bit because when I see kids now, I cringe at the idea of them going through the same stuff I went through. I'm sure they still do though. In fact, it's probably worse.

Recently, Martin put out a sample chapter from his new book that will probably never get published. The chapter was about Arya, who is around 12 at this time. She's been on her own for a while now and she is truly orphaned, as both parents were murdered (one right in front of her and one withing walking distance of her). She has killed people, been witness to many of the horrible things humans can do to one another, and seen a side of war that most people can't even imagine. So when this chapter came out, all of these  things factored into the person she now is. People were, predictably, outraged.

ARYA IS 12, SHE SHOULDN'T CUSS SO MUCH.

She's been around people who cuss a lot and needs to relate to them. She speaks the way she is spoken to and, yes, she does understand what she's saying. If you will recall, most of you probably understood the cuss words at that age.  You probably understood them even before that. There may have been one or two you'd never heard, but more than likely, you'd catch the meaning in context.

ARYA IS 12, SHE SHOULDN'T USE SEXUALITY TO GET THINGS!

In theory, I agree. No 12 year old should have to be in the position of using sex as a weapon against other people. However, Arya is someone who is trying to survive with very little resources. Men constantly comment about how pretty she is and discuss the things they want to do to her. It's shocking to hear, but, again, it's also sadly all too common for many kids. A lot of us heard that kind of thing at that age. Sometimes even younger. We'd like to believe that being a minor is a shield against people's sexual advances, but we all know that isn't the truth. Arya took the interest that a man was showing her and uses it to her advantage. She doesn't actually DO anything sexual with him, but she uses the promise of it as a method to accomplish her goals.

ARYA SHOULDN'T BE SO VIOLENT!

What author are you reading? Do you not realize this is the man who kills people at weddings and makes a 13 yr old boy so horrible that you cheer when he dies? Since this story began, Arya has seen very little besides violence. She knows it's a good way to accomplish things. In some cases, it was her only way to accomplish things. Is this taking her down a very dark path? Of course it is, but that is what happens to many children who grow up in the midst of war. They never become the kids who smile and play with toys. Those days are shattered for them.

People talk about how Arya has gone darker than any other character in the book, but how could she not? In reality, a kid like this probably would have been killed early on. GRRM is taking the approach of "what happens if someone experiences all of this and sees all of this but they live? What would they be like?" It's shocking and often painful to read. I'm sure a lot of people still hope for a happy ending for Arya, where she marries a nice noble boy about her own age and settles down to have a quiet and happy live. I really cannot see that happening. I think the character is too damaged at this point. I think anyone would be.

Quick Post

Short post tonight. The electricity went out last night and it took forever for it to come back on. I always feel helpless when that happens. I was nod made to live before modern convenience. It's so dark when you have nothing but candlelight. No wonder people went insane and murdered each other. Even the cats were looking at us funny.

I started a new project today. It's........well, it's going. It's really, really wonky, but maybe it will turn out okayish. Maybe. I hope so. Even if it doesn't, it will serve us as our Easter decoration and then maybe get turned into a baby gift for someone with a baby who isn't even sure what bunnies are supposed to look like anyway. That might be helpful.

Tomorrow we'll be stopping by the mailbox place and I'm hoping we haven't received any more mail fuckery from the PtB. It's altogether possible we will have. That happens this time of year, but I'm hoping it doesn't. I'd really like to have a weekend with no drama from any angle. I've had enough drama for one week/month/year/lifetime.

The War on Fun: Nerd Girl Addition

One of my FB friends had posted an article about an indie comic about the history of items made for fun and how people have tried their best to put a stop to them. Even chess. CHESS was considered bad for the minds and bodies of the young people. Chess. Anyway, the conversation started off of this concentrated a lot on how parents today are doing their best to edit out whatever might be harmful to their precious little darlings. I commented that, as the comic states, this kind of war on fun is nothing new.

In fact, when I was in middle school, I was the dreaded villainess in the minds of a mother or two, due to the fact that I introduced their innocent sons to Dungeons and Dragons. Yes, I was the wicked seductress who was luring the boyz away from their wholesome pursuits and whispering in their ears to worship the devil. Or something. That's what she made it sound like I was doing. Mostly I just let them borrow my step-father's copy of Fiend Folio. Maybe that was enough.

The funny thing is, later that afternoon, I went to i09 and found this article at the top of the page. I guess it was the day when we all discuss the baffling fear that adults had about D&D. Though, of course, there was plenty of propaganda to feed their fears. People would publish booklets and tracts about the evils of pen and paper gaming. It was believed that people would kill themselves if their characters died. I never saw that happen. Ever. Most people would just make another character.

This scare got very serious. They did a 60 Minutes report about it and, of course, there was the movie Mazes and Monsters. Mazes and Monsters was everyone's fears about D&D set to film. Someone gets too deeply into their character and violence happens. It actually involved people walking around and doing their pretend adventuring, which some people did, but not the majority of us because with nerdling children, there are things we just don't consider fun. Like walking. Anyway, yes, this scare was so huge there was a movie about. Preachers would preach about it. People would burn their books. All over a bunch of geeky kids sitting around with books, dice, paper, and maybe some little figurines. I never had the figurines. I did have a great dice collection though.

What really amazes me about the whole D&D scare is how it was based on so much misinformation. They had this list of boys who had killed themselves, but when one looked a little deeper into the cases, there is no real link between roleplaying and their suicides. Mental illness, hopelessness, depression, too much pressure, and all the usual suspects are the reasons, not a game. This is a classic case of people wanting to point the finger at something young people do to have fun and believing that if they get rid of it, all the children will be safe.

When the conflict between Christian Mama and me happened, I was in sixth grade. I'd just recently moved to the area and out of the very bad situation that was Stepfather #2. I was trying to make friends, trying to find a way to get the kids around me to relate to me, in my own little nerdgirl way. In the process of doing that, I was cast as the villain by a grown woman. I was a 12 yr old kid.

She didn't stop anyone from worshiping the Devil (because no one was) and she didn't stop anyone from casting spells (because no one was) and she didn't stop anyone from thinking they were a werewolf (because no one did . .  as far as I know). What she DID accomplish was to make an at-risk, new to town, vulnerable, and lonely little girl feel like she was an awful person. She threatened the friendships I'd worked so hard to establish. She reinforced all the negative shit already going on in my head. I didn't kill myself (clearly) but if it had happened, it would have had a lot to do with her and nothing to do with gaming.

The Voice of your Pain

This article is about the way that social media has changed how people grieve. It details several different programs that people have started and talks about the changing discussion and process of grief in the digital age. Some sites host essays on loss. Others catalog the pictures that people take at funerals, often of themselves. There is a web series where a mortician answers questions about death and dying, removing the some of the mysteries.

When my mom died, my online contact was fairly limited. I mostly just hung out at Sims forums and read some pop culture stuff, so I didn't mourn the loss of her in any kind of public way. It was a very private and internal thing. It still is, really. From time to time, I talk to people about it and I do discuss it here in the blog, but for the most part, coming to terms with my mother's death has been a private matter.

When my grandmother was will and on her way to dying, my aunt and uncle encouraged me to join Facebook. The process of her last days and how we experienced them was very much in the social forum. A lot of my family lives far away and visiting my grandmother wasn't possible in many cases. They wanted updates about her condition, details about how she was fairing, and of course, when she passed, they wanted to know.

My grieving experience over my grandmother was very public. I wrote about it. I messaged people about it. I wrote emails about it and discussed it many times online. Where my grieving over my mother is a very internal thing, my grief over my grandmother is quite open. I have a far easier time talking about it, even though the process of losing her was far more emotionally catastrophic because I was right next to her and holding her hand when it happened.

I think one of the main reasons I am able to be more open about Grandma's death is because even as it was happening, I was in a position to where I HAD to talk about it. People would ask me online about what was going on and of course I would tell them. How could I not? They didn't mean me any harm. They just wanted to know what was going on in the last days of this woman they cared about. This kind of openness can be rough in the moment, but on reflection, I think it helped me to accept her death and come to terms with the fact of it in ways that, even now, I haven't really processed with my mom.

Some people might not feel that being told in a FB comment that they are sorry for your loss holds any meaning. Perhaps for some people, that's even true. However, for me, it does hold meaning. It holds a lot of meaning. I believe as more and more people accept and welcome words typed at them as being an important thing, shared grief on social media could become a wonderful tool of healing.

A Case of the Mondays

Today was crap. The thing I had to fill out for my renewal screwed up on one part and the site wouldn't let me change it. It was a vital little piece of information and now it's wrong. I called them to see if I could do something about it, but of course I couldn't. Now I'm worried that calling them was the wrong thing to do. Now I'm on their radar. I hate being on people's radars. The trip to take the information to the place we needed to take it was difficult. Dropping the stuff off is always disturbing because you never know if they'll lose part of the stuff you turned in. They did that last year. I ended up having to make extra copies of everything.

By the time we got to Walmart, I was a mess. I basically cried the whole time my roommate was shopping. It was just too much stress over this paperwork. Emotionally, I was done. I couldn't given anymore to the situation or really any situation. I had no more input. I had no more creativity. I had nothing. Everything was gone. I was out of spoons.

Things settled down into their usual little patterns. After a while, I could participate in life again, if only marginally. Back when gas was less expensive and I had access to a more reliable car, this was the kind of day where I just would have wanted to drive and drive, letting my mind focus on nothing other than road safety. I think if there is anything I resent about our current state of affairs, it's the price of gas. Driving was cheap therapy for people. It was wrong to take that away from us.

Then my internet went out and that sucked. My new form of cheap therapy was taken from me. My roommate usually winds down in the evening by playing games and he didn't get to do much of that. He went through the same hell that I did today and he certainly deserved the wind down. Instead we spent the later hours of the night staring resentfully at the modem. Clearly, it eventually returned, but it took a long while.

I always hate it when people make blithe comments about the things people should do INSTEAD of being online. "Go outside." "Read a book" "Do something creative." Nice advice . .  . except, sometimes the reason you are online is because you are, as I was today, beyond your ability to do anything else. You can't concentrate to read. There is no outside for you to enjoy. There is nothing LEFT in you to be creative. All of that is gone and you just want a small little bit of distraction to calm your broken nerves. But no, the internet goes out and you have nothing.

Then it comes back on and you bitch about your day in a blog post.

The Axemaker's Addiction

In The Axemaker's Gift, James Burke talks about how one of the fundamental flaws with how we approach problems is that once we find a solution that seems to work, we stop looking for other solutions. After a while, the solution become so ingrained in who we are that we accept it as THE WAY to solve the problem. This is fine, as long as it DOES solve the problem. However, in many cases, the solution we believe to be the way to solve the problem doesn't always work. Unfortunately, because we now firmly believe the solution to be the ONLY WAY, we never question it.

This article at Salon tackles now this is playing out in the way we handle addiction in the US. For many years now, the Alcoholics Anonymous 12 Step program has been the basis for curing addiction. The 12 Step process is also the one most often used in rehab centers and in group therapy sessions. It is so accepted and institutionalized in the US that we have incorporated it into our legal system. Courts order people into 12 Step programs and rehab centers all the time. TV shows incorporate the success of AA into part of their story line. In fact, for a while, we had a show (Intervention) where the episode ended successfully when people would accept rehab, with the understood message being that they were on their way to recovery.

As the daughter of addicts, and as an addict myself, I can tell you that it is with no surprise that, in truth, AA only works somewhere between ten and fifteen percent of the time. Granted, while you  consider how many people do 12 Step programs, 10-15% is still a large number of people. Still, the fact remains that AA and its various programs aren't working for about 85% of the people who try the program. Most people repeat rehab programs over and over again (at a considerable cost to themselves or their families or, in some cases, the state) and many people start AA, only to give up as they begin to chafe under the powerlessness and religiosity of the program.

However, BECAUSE our culture places such FAITH in the success of the AA 12 Step programs, when we see that many people do not stay successfully sober after the program, we don't assume it is because of a flaw in the program . . . we assume it is a flaw in the people. They didn't try hard enough. They didn't take it seriously. They didn't really WANT to get clean. They won't accept they have a problem. These and any other number of excuses are given, almost all of them will blame the people who didn't successfully complete the program, all as a means to defend our faith in AA working.

I've struggled with my weight basically all of my life. I've been on tons of diets and programs and behavior modification stuff and yet I am still fat. In the last several years, I have began to finally lose that weight . . .because I realized that it wasn't my failure to conform to the programs but the failure of the programs to address what I needed in order to lose weight. What I needed involved things I worked out in therapy, modifications I made within my own control to make, and various other needs of my physical health were addressed. The process is slow and it is every day, but I know that it is something I can handle, without feeling powerless or putting myself in the hands of anything else.

When there are problems in society, we should never just STOP finding solutions once ONE solution seems to be working. After all, just because it works to solve a small part of the problem . . . or to solve it for certain people . . . doesn't mean that will be the case for everyone. To place our faith in just one answer is only only lazy and irresponsible, it's detrimental to people who are vulnerable to the problem. They slip through the cracks because we value our Solution more than we value them. In the end, a lot of people will suffer when we fail to come up with various answers to our problems.

The Letter P

Hello, children. How is everybody in the neighborhood? Are we having a good day? Well, actually, no we're not. Today's blog is brought to you by the Letter P. P, as in Pain. P, as in Panic.  P, as in learn to Prepare.

Yesterday I noticed that my hips were feeling rough. I wasn't too surprised about that. I've been walking, which always puts my body through adjustments, and there is a lot of weather shifts happening. As I am now one of those old people who experiences weather through the pain it causes her body, I knew we were in for a storm. I am not happy to have this power. Anyway, the hips are awful. They're basically killing me right now. I'm hoping that sleep and exercise will help them. Or that something will. This is very uncomfortable.

P also finds us in the form of the word Panic. I have to send off some paperwork this week and when we looked to make sure it was all there . . . it wasn't. I assumed it was, but neglected to remember that I needed one of the documents to verify TWO things and the copy I had was only verifying ONE of those things. This paperwork thing is pretty vital to me, so I need it all in order. I began to panic and freak out because I didn't have what I needed. It was serious panic too, the kind where I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to sleep. I was so angry at myself over this. I put things in jeopardy because I was too irresponsible to double check my information. It was bad.

Thankfully, my bouts of panic never last long. After a little while, I realized I probably had another option for getting the information. I went online and, thankfully, I was right. Within a few minutes, I had what I needed and everything was okay. At least, it was as okay as my limited bit of influence could make it be okay.

This brings us to the most important P word of the day. Preparation. With actual preparation (and not just halfassed preparation like I did), I would not have had to put myself through that emotional pit. I could have just gently sailed through this task with no problems. As I do not wish to go through that kind of panic again, from now on, I'm going to stay on top of this kind of thing. It's not that damned difficult to insure that paperwork stays in a place where it is easily found, organized, and used. I know this, I just need to practice it better. Sure I was able to come up with a solution for my neglect this time, but that doesn't always mean there will be one. Preparation should be where I put my energy, not in the scramble to make things work after I have failed to prepare.

Tomorrow, I hope that the letter of the day is Q (which follows P of course) and that our words for the day are Quiet, Quick, and Quell. I hope that the neighborhood is nice and quiet. I hope that what we have to prepare for our paperwork goes quickly. I also hope that exercise or a change in the weather or possibly meds will quell the pain in my hips. That would be quite nice, actually. Quite nice indeed.

The First Day of Spring

Today is the first day of Spring for this year. My roommate and I celebrated by having fresh strawberries. I also went to visit a friend and sat on a covered patio, enjoying the warmth and the wind. It was all very nice. I was sitting with my back to the sun, letting the sun warm my muscles, ease the ache that tends to stay in my back. As much as I can be annoyed with the Giant Ball in the Sky, there are times when I find the sun remarkably healing. Today was one of those days.

People have already starting mowing their lawns. I know the lawnmowing people don't mean it this way (possibly) but there is always this sense of smugness coming from their direction. Yes, I know you mowed first. Yes, I know your yard looks awesome. Peachy. Maybe I'm reading too much into that. Maybe the dude down the street wasn't giving me the Side Eye as I drove by him on his mower. Or, you know, maybe he was giving me that look for other reasons. With me, there are always other reasons.

The sound of lawnmowers annoys me, but at least it's not the worst sound coming from one of the neighboring houses. The neighbor dude down the street has this one loud ass machine that he runs all the time. It makes this huge vibration noise that always makes me worry that my computer is dying. My roommate has told me, many times, what that machine is really called, but I'm not sure my brain has ever registered what he said. In my head, that machine is, and always will be the Motherfucker Machine. The Motherfucker Machine was so named because that annoying motherfucker who lives down the street runs it almost constantly. I want that machine to die . . . no, I want it to electrocute him, so he won't just go out and purchase another one.

I'm not completely convinced the Motherfucker Machine even does anything of value. I think it is just there to make horrible noises. Any time he wants to just ruin everyone's mood, he goes out there and turns that machine on. For the next hour or so, we have to listen to it shake practically everything in the area. I don't think it is fixing anything or cleaning anything or creating any kind of benefit. I think it just makes horrible noises. Again, to be fair, my roommate possibly told me what the machine does, but my brain, in its fury, did not register what he said.

Oh well, that is just one of the problems when one lives close to other people, specifically other people who seem hellbent on making a lot of noise. I understand that noise can't be avoided. I like noise. I listen to music almost all the time. Of course, I wear headphones because I have some level of respect for the people around me. Too bad the Motherfucker Machine can't be silenced as easily.

As Time Goes By

A month ago today, I blogged about the fact that my roommate discovered his telemedicine bus would no longer be running. In that month, my roommate has been as proactive as he could be about gathering as much information as was available to find out if this program was over forever and what alternatives were out there. As is the case with most medical situations, he found out very little. Progress is slow. They don't know. No one is talking to anyone else. He finally had to make an appointment to travel to Tulsa so he could see his doctor. There was no other choice.

My roommate isn't happy about this at all. This program was one of the few securities he had in relation to his medical condition. The clinic that hosted this program has been so shady about the whole thing that it's put a sour taste in his mouth about the program. I don't blame him. It's very hard to trust someone when they tell you that they have their hands out to catch you, tell you to fall, and then walk away at the last second.

What I find curious about this is that the college that sponsored the telemedicine program has done nothing to talk about this on their website. In fact, here we are, a month later, and the website still looks like they have a thriving program. I would say this was just due to them not updating, but they have updated some things. It's just very odd.

In the meantime, we'll be preparing as best we can for this trip. It really sucks that it is so rough on us now. This used to be something we did for fun, but of course that was almost 20 years ago.

Female Trouble and Speculations

I ran into a friend of mine from high school and we started talking about what's been happening in our lives in the last couple of years. Like me, she's been through a lot of hell due to perimenopause. I'm starting to wonder how many women my age (40) are actually experiencing this same thing. It's more than a little frightening to think that we might start the pre-menopause hell and then not actually GO through menopause until we're in our 60s. Twenty years of this would be impossible. There is no way I could live through that. Now, the average span of perimenopause is usually two years, but that isn't set in stone. After all, the law of averages also puts most women in their late 40s to early 50s before this happens to them. It's looking that that is less and less the case now.

Then again, the average age for starting one's period used to be 12/13. I was nine. I know a lot of girls who were about nine or ten when they started. And for a while, I thought it was just because I was a heavier kid. In fact, I'd been led to believe that by medical professionals. Come to find out though, a lot of other girls started about that time as well, many of whom were at a healthy weight. Many of these women have continued to maintain that healthy weight throughout their lives and are still experiencing perimenopause symptoms in their late 30s and early 40s.

Economically, this could cause a lot of problems for a lot of women. There are very few jobs that will allow someone to take off work for 17 days because they can't stop bleeding. There are very few jobs that will allow someone to stay once they've begun to experience serious emotional breakdowns. There are very few jobs who will accept the idea that women  in their 40s are going through this because of menopause when that is a condition that people tend to expect a full decade later. Moreover, there are those who will use this hormonal upheaval as some kind of rallying point as to why women can't be trusted to perform their jobs. It's damned scary that people would do this, but it will happen. Something completely out of our control could derail our lives during a decade when many people are reaching the upper levels of their careers and gaining the most status.

Right now, the main thing that I know is that I want this hormone hell to end. I don't want to continue to spend my life in a vortex of blood and insanity. I would like to just live out my days calmly, peacefully, and clean. I don't want to have to worry about what might happen if I stay out too long or if I bend over just one too many times. I don't want to have to spend hours talking myself down from mood swings that come so abruptly and intensely that they can be nothing but false data. I just want to be normal again.

The Day of St. Patrick

My roommate and I made colcannon for dinner and it was very good. This was our major event for St. Patrick's Day. Other than that, I listened to Dropkick Murphys and sent links of their songs to some of my FB friends. It was enough of a celebration for me. I was happy with it. This was always my mom's holiday, as I have written about before. I mostly miss her on this day. My roommate helped me to not feel sad though. He decided that colcannon was "Irish Cthulhu." I really loved that.

He tends not to like holidays that don't have gifts or candy. To a large extent, I agree. But as I get older, I find that what I most want in a holiday is just some level of ritual to make it our own. Even if it is just making a meal we rarely make or making a homemade pie. Maybe all we will do is just sit out on the porch and watch other people's fireworks. So long as it is ours, it makes me happy.

Anyway, the day is over and we have Spring to look forward to. Normally I would never say that, but Winter has been pretty brutal and a new season might help things a lot. Happy St. Pat's everyone. I do wish you will well.

Cats in the Cradle

For most of her life, my little white cat has been haughty and not interested in spending much time with me. She would come over, on occasion, wanting to be petted, but for the most part, she tended to stay aloof. Recently, that has changed. She now runs to me whenever I come into the room and spends a great deal of time on my lap. Even when she would sit with me before, she would usually sit near me, but not on me. Now, as my roommate has pointed out, she tries her best to get closer and closer to me, sometimes even sitting with her head pushed against my boob.

Of course, during all the years she basically ignored me, I wanted her to sit with me. I would coax her, call for her, make sweet little noises, and sometimes, when I was unusually needy, I would beg. She didn't care. She was going to come sit near me when she decided to and not a moment before. Now that she sits on me the majority of the time, you'd think I'd be as happy as I could be. And . . . sometimes I am. Most of the time, however, she just annoys the hell out of me. She digs her claws into my skin, she tries to bite me, she swats my keyboard with her tail, or, when she's really in a mood, she'll try and sit ON my keyboard and keep me from using it.

This is, as we all know, one of the more odd things about relationships. The more we want someone, the more they seem to distance themselves from us. And if someone wants us more than we want them, we find it annoying and burdensome. From time to time, this can even be the same person. I guess this shouldn't surprise us because it's how things happen for a lot of us as kids. When we're very small, most kids want to be around their parents more than anyone else. Kids feel cheated when they're sent to babysitters or even sent to bed when they know their parents are still awake. They want to be with THEM. As the kids get older, they want to be around their parents less and it is the parents who seem to want their children near. The song "Cat's in the Cradle" by Harry Chapin is very true for a lot of people's relationships.

As for the cat and me, I'm doing my best to keep things in perspective. Yes, her constant need to sit on me can be annoying, but at the same time, the lifespan of a cat isn't that long. I only have a limited amount of years with her, so I should spend as much time making happy memories as I can. So even when she's slapping me with her tail and backclawing my thigh, I'm going to pet her and praise her. I'm going to remember that I'm being given a gift here. This cat loves me and is showing me how much she loves me. Being loved isn't something I've had every day of my life, so I should remember to appreciate it when it is given.

Besides, when she thinks I'm getting too happy about her sitting on me, she usually goes away.

Pi Day

Today was Pi Day. Instead of enjoying math in its purest form, my roommate and I decided to make a pie (which is what a lot of people do on Pi Day). Ours is a lemon pie in a gram cracker crust . . . well, mostly gram cracker. We didn't quite have enough of it so we added some cereal that didn't really do too well in the food processor. The crust isn't that great (and I suppose it goes without saying that this was the part I made). The filling is wonderful though. My roommate made that part. This was a first for us because instead of regular eggs, he used egg beaters.

We've both always mistrusted the low cal egg things. This is probably because we tried them when they came out and they sucked something awful back then. Things have improved though. We use them a lot. Besides having less calories and cholesterol than regular eggs, they have some other very significant advantages. For one thing, there is no shell. This means no cracking, no mess, and no bits of shell in whatever you're cooking. It also means no surprises. There is no 'crack open the shell to find a nasty, ruined/bloody/otherwise questionable egg inside. There is also no annoying scrambling or beating of the egg. It's already there for you.

The calorie reduction is significant though. It may not seem like much at first, but over time, reducing what is in your eggs can add up to a lot. I think people often underestimate the value of small changes to diet and life style. I know that making large changes in one's eating habits yield quicker results, but a lot of the time, this kind of drastic stuff can end quickly. It's just too much to handle all at once. Small changes though . . . well, for one thing, you don't notice them as much. It was just a little adjustment. Just less of this here and more movement there. For another thing, it doesn't feel like such a sacrifice. For someone like me, someone who can get very resentful of sacrifices, this is very helpful in keeping perspective.

We had a lot of fun making our pie. My roommate (the far better cook) did all of the complicated stuff. I just made the crust and helped him keep an eye on time. Timing is, after all, very important in pie making. So is chemistry. Come to think of it, we had more math going on than we realized.

FB Stuff I Want

Every time that Facebook changes their format, I swear I'm going to accept it and not complain. And yet, every time they change it, it just seems to work even worse than it did before. This latest change is no exception. My hell, this one sucks. Everything is all flat. The pictures are way too big. My news feed is repeating the same things over and over again. Worst of all, it just has this cheap feel to it. I wish I didn't feel this way. I wish I could just accept the changes and believe they were good, right, and smart. They never are though. I do believe there are changes that Facebook could make that would be wonderful, but they never seem to do those.

At one point, Facebook had a functioning game page that would allow you to go see all the stuff people posted concerning their games. You could click on the stuff they needed and get all the free gifts they offered. Such things did not clutter the Newsfeed, nor did they get lost in it. As it stands, if you post you need something for a game, it will more than likely be buried in the shuffle of everything else. Should FB be concerned about this? Oh very much so. Games are one of the main reasons many people are on FB every day. It is certainly a group they should work with and not against.

Instead of getting a Chrome app to block words and phrases that connect to political or otherwise content, FB should have this option within its own system. Just a little preferences button where you can tell it that you don't wish to see pictures of abused animals or read about how Obama is forcing everyone with a gun to get gay married or whatever crazy stuff they've come up with this week. I would truly like that feature installed before the next election so that I can block everyone's political crap and just get on with my life and do important things like look at pictures of cats and read about Game of Thrones.

It would also be nice of Facebook had a feature that allowed you to create newsfeeds for your interests. For example, I would have a tab for Game of Thrones content. Every time someone in my friends list posted something about the show, it would go into that specified news feed. That way I could click on the tab and see all of my GoT stuff in one place.  It would also be great if there was a way to tag articles on your main news feed that would collect on a Tagged page. Right now, you can follow people's articles, but that gets cumbersome because it means every time someone comments on it, you're informed. I don't need that. I need something more like "Oh, I want to read that article about Bigbang but I don't have time right now. Let's tag it so I can get back to it later." It would be a quick and easy way to save content without the pain of having to scroll for five years back down to the place where you found it.

While we're at it, I would love to get rid of the huge pictures that seem to dominate my page now. I want rid of the new PM system. And I would love to get rid of me being informed when people who are friends of my friends do stuff. I do not care. If I did care about those people, they would be my friends as well.  Of course, as I said, I complain every time Facebook changes things so this is nothing new. I will get used to the new format and learn to live with it. Usually about the time I learn to live with it, they change it again. I'm hoping they'll change it for the better next time.

Privilege and the Issue of Being Viewed

I read this article today about someone who thought they'd posted a really inspirational message to all the 'fatties' out there and the response from the person he was probably discussing. As I am sure you can imagine, this is a topic I'm very familiar with. The guy who wrote the first part honestly probably thinks that what he wrote was very inspiring and wonderful. He was probably sincere, in his off putting way, about what he was saying. He probably doesn't realize the impact that Thin Privilege has on his life or how his perspective from the stance of Thin Privilege can make him come off as an asshole.

I think this is the same problem that fitness mom has. You know, the one who is always posting photoshopped pictures of herself with messages like "I've had three babies and I work 8 hours a day, how's come you don't look as good as I do?" She THINKS she's trying to challenge people to be more healthy. All she is doing is pissing them off. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what your intentions are. If your message fails, you need to find a new way to convey it.

Anyway, I wanted to talk about privilege and being viewed. When you have standing as the Other (you're a woman, you're ethnic, you're not presenting a socially accepted body weight, you're old, you're gay, etc), being looked at isn't something you often desire. Quite often, you know the reason you're being watched is because of your Otherness. People are making judgments and assumptions about you. People are scrutinizing you, trying to assess if you pose a danger . . . or if they need to place you in danger. If you're reading this and it seems paranoid to you, keep in mind that you may be reading it from your own privilege. Maybe you've never been watched as an object of sexual desire. Maybe you've never been the 15 minute topic of a group of people's very loud jokes. Maybe you've never been publicly shamed, only on the basis of you being you. If things like this have never happened, awesome. For the rest of us, being watched isn't usually that fun.

Take this guy's letter for example. This running area was probably full of joggers, many of whom he could have watched. Instead, he picked out the fat person. He didn't just casually notice him either. He watched enough to see his gait, to make comment about the way he ran, to understand his routines.  Just that part alone is enough to send many people who don't enjoy a privileged status into cringing. He commented on the amount of sweat the man was producing. He noted how he didn't make eye contact with others. Watching him. Watching him. Watching him.

Then he went on to make assumptions about him. He talked about what he assumed were his eating habits. He talked about what the man must be thinking. He made guesses about how much he must weigh and when he started changing his life. And yes, yes. He said all of this in what seemed like a complimentary manner. But it wasn't. Instead, what this man communicated to the 'fattie' was that he is watching him, judging him, and making guesses about his life.

People bitch about fat people being fat, but then when they see one of us doing some kind of exercise, they act like the circus has come to town. Suddenly we're here for their amusement, their horror, and their judgment. The more openly shitty people just make snide comments about it. The ones who want to feel good about themselves try to be complimentary. "Oh look at me. I'm so awesome because I encouraged that nasty gross fat person to be less fat. I'm so good."

Everyone judges everyone else. I get that. I do that. I am probably just as guilty of watching people as the next person. At the same time, I'm also aware enough to know better than to say something about it. It's tacky. If you don't know someone, just keep your mouth (or your typing fingers) quiet about what is going on in their lives. The mama with 8 kids doesn't need your opinions. The cute gay couple who is taking care of their 3 yr old doesn't need you to tell them how it's so darling that they look just like a 'normal' family. The fat man on the track doesn't need to know you're impressed that he can get his fat self there, despite all his failings and the fact that donuts still exist. No one is stopping you from your opinions, but it might do you some good to keep them to yourself.

Just let us live in peace.

Placing Blame

I was talking to one of my friends tonight and she told me about how she no longer has her flat screen TV. Her son was playing with a toy and said toy broke, part of it flinging into the television and destroying its ability to function. She isn't mad at her kid. He didn't do this on purpose. It was an accident and she knew it was. The child wasn't yelled at or punished, other than being punished by the very real consequence of losing his television.

I'm glad she is sensible enough to realize this wasn't her kid's fault. I have to admit though, even as she was telling me the story, I inwardly cringed and thought about how happy I was that it wasn't me who broke her TV. Even as I was thinking this, I was almost paralyzed by a devastating sense of guilt and fear of the idea of that happening. It was a horrible little moment, but one I'm used to from my childhood.

See, when I was a kid, I WOULD HAVE been blamed for the broken TV. Even if it was an accident, even if it was a circumstance I never could have predicted, I would have been screamed at and made to feel guilty and told, over and over again, about how much money had been lost and how I had crippled the family. I wish I was exaggerating this, but I'm not. I would have been blamed and blamed until the people in charge were dead.

No, wait, let me amend that. There is no "when I was a kid" reality to that what I just described. All of my life, every moment of it until those people died, I would have been blamed, yelled at, and made to feel guilty. They seemed to take a perverse delight in finding my faults. Every time I did something wrong, it was pointed out, analyzed, discussed, and yelled about. They would never let it go. Once I did something wrong, once a sin was committed, it was an open topic for discussion. I could say I didn't wish to talk about it, but then what right did I have to say anything? I was the one who caused them pain and inconvenience. I was the one who cost them money and embarrassment. I was the problem.

Even though they are dead and I am more secure and rational, there are still places where these insecurities begin to cause me problems. I live in an old house with old plumbing and sometimes the washers on the faucets mess up and things have to be replaced. This means you have to turn the taps delicately, to make sure the washers last as long as possible. Even still, they will eventually wear out again, because it's an old house.

I get really paranoid about this. Whenever I get out of the shower, I turn my hair dryer on as soon as possible so that I can't hear if the faucet in the bathtub is making noise. I leave the dryer on as I put on my clothes and hum with my mouth closed so that it fills my ears as I walk into the living room. Whenever I go into the bathroom, I'll turn on the heater so that it will drown out any possible noise the faucet might make. Not that any of this would change ANY ONE THING if the washers have screwed up in the taps.......but at least I wouldn't have to hear it. Not yet. It's a false sense of security based on something that, most of the time, isn't even happening.

I don't calm down about it until my roommate showers. Once he's out of there, I'm fine. The reason? Well, if the taps mess up after he showered, then it wasn't something I could be blamed for. NOT that he would blame me because he's a grown up and realizes that this is an old house with problems. I wouldn't blame him either, for the same reasons. And yet, I still assume that I would be blamed. I still think that it would be seen as my fault, that I would have to defend myself. I worry that I will have to defend why I'm even here.

So, folks, if your kid is part of something that breaks an item in your home and the child's participation was completely accidental, don't scream at your kid. I know you may be frustrated or sad about what just happened, but if it really isn't the kid's fault, don't make them start thinking it IS their fault. They'll end up some basketcase like me who plays games with sound just to keep from worrying about a washer. They'll spend years thinking they are such a screw up that there is nothing they can really do to change that. Their reasons for this will be based on being blamed for things so minor that they have trouble distinguishing between the stuff that just HAPPENS and the stuff they really can change. Yes, even the smart kids will do this.

Because it isn't about being smart. It isn't about being logical. This kind of reaction is completely based in emotions, in self-identity, and shame.

Blinding Sun, Bikes, and Evil

This afternoon, I took a nap. Normally naps don't bring on deep and freakish dreams, but this nap did. The thing about really strange dreams is that they have aspects of reality in them.  The best weird dreams have so much reality to them that you find yourself completely believing everything that is happening. It's only on analysis that you notice all the implausible things. The dream I had this afternoon is a good example.

 I dreamed I was napping! Yes, I dreamed I was doing exactly what I was doing, which certainly added to the believably of it. My roommate woke me up and told me that lunch was ready. Again, this is usually what happens in the afternoon. I got up and went into the kitchen to talk to him. This is when things began to go sideways. There was a woman in a Sonic uniform outside of our house, walking back and forth, looking for something. I asked my roommate about her and he looked at me, fear in his eyes, and whispered that it was best we didn't talk about her. It was kind of that nice little Night Vale trick of turning ordinary people in ordinary jobs into something sinister.

While most of the business with the Sinister Sonic Waitress was clearly dreamlike, my reaction to it wasn't. I trust my roommate and know that he doesn't scare easily. If he was frightened of the woman, I knew that I should be as well. So in my dream, I began to get scared, because . . . well, Sonic Woman was gonna do SOMETHING bad. Get my order wrong or something.  As I was watching her pass back and forth outside, my roommate asked me if I'd put my bike in a shaded area after I rode it this morning. I reminded me that it was going to get really hot for the rest of the day and my bike shouldn't be out in the sun.

By this point I was beginning to panic. I couldn't remember WHERE I put my bike (because in reality, I don't have one, haven't ridden one in years, and certainly didn't remember where I parked it then) and I knew this was going to be a problem. Now, there are aspects of reality that were working here. I am exercising more and eventually DO want a bike again. I also get very anxious about issues dealing with my modes of transportation. The worry that I have about vehicle malfunction doesn't ever truly leave me, so it was easy for it to rev up in the dream.

Now I knew things were dire. IF I'd left my bike out in the sun, I was going to have to go move it, which meant trying to avoid that woman from Sonic who was clearly trying to kill people. I tried to look outside and see where I'd put the bike, but the sun kept blinding me and I couldn't see anything out there. It got so bad that even when I wasn't looking outside, all I could see was bright, bright sunlight. I knew this was going to cause a migraine headache, because in reality, that's what too much sunlight really does to me.

About that time, blinded, my head throbbing, my heart pounding in fear, I realized I was going to have to go outside and find my bike. I knew I needed to avoid the Sonic Woman, but it was unlikely I could. I wasn't seeing well enough to figure out her patterns and more than likely, I was going to die. Still, that was better than leaving my bike out in the sun..........because dreams have logic like that. I opened the door and told my roommate I would be right back.

And, of course, this was about the time I woke up and realized the whole mess was just a dream. Normally I hate it when my dreams stress me out, but this one was just so unnerving and creepy that I was just grateful to have escaped it. The dangerous parts of it weren't real and I don't have to fear being killed by some woman who works at Sonic. Having said that, I'll probably avoid the place for a while . . . just for good measure.

Time Time Time

So Daylight Saving Time has happened and I dislike it as much as I always do. At least I had today to get somewhat used to it. Tomorrow I need to call my doctor and make an appointment to see her for another Depo shot/check up in April and see if she will make an appointment with a gyno so I can talk to them about NovaSure or other possible options. I'm starting to feel strong enough to do this. Hopefully nothing will happen to zap that strength again. Every time I walk, I get a little worried about that. I certainly don't want to take being stronger for granted any more. It really puts things into perspective.

I guess if this first part of the year has taught me anything, it's to not take what I have for granted. The smallest pleasures, the smallest comforts, can be stripped away so easily. There were times when I couldn't just sit in my living room and watch TV. I couldn't listen to music or type at my friends. I couldn't play FB games without getting dizzy and feeling depleted. There were days when I felt like I had lost so much. I felt like this shell of a person, just doing her best to move from one moment to the next. I never want to feel that way again, but realistically, I know that as I age, it probably will happen again. Disease and the ravages of time will strip away at me, like they do at everyone.

This all kind of scares me because the thing that keeps people going (especially me) is a sense of having something to look forward to. Right now, on this night, I'm just really not sure what that is. It's not Spring. Spring will just bring fleas, storms, and growing grass. All of these things cause conflicts and drama. It's not summer. That will just be hot, with danger when stranded along the side of the road. It will be the constant war between trying to stay cool and not running up the electric bill. Right now, all of that just sounds overwhelming and awful. Maybe I can find stuff to make it okay, but I'm not seeing it at the moment.

Maybe I just need some sleep.

Daylight Savings Meh

I started walking the driveway again. It's been a while since I did that consistently, and even now I can't say it's completely consistent because I had to deal with ice and snow for three days and missed. As soon as the ice melted off though, I started again. I want to try and build as much endurance as I can right now. Walking is the best way to do that. I was worried that the activity would make me bleed again, but so far it hasn't. Other than my Bloody Sundays, things seem to have settled more. I'm still nervous about the whole situation, but that won't end until the cycles have ended, I suppose.

Speaking of consistent, I have no idea why I didn't blog last night. I intended to, but it just didn't happen. I am not even sure what I was doing. Well, I know part of what I was doing. My stepmon got me some very thin knitting needles for Christmas and I was messing with them. I'm working on a new dress for my iPod. The one I have now is starting to fall apart . . . mostly because I made it. The needles and my yarn are SO tiny that it's taking a long, long time to make this happen. I think I only have like two inches finished. But it will be worth it when I'm done.

I guess maybe I was just concentrating really hard on that and forgot about blogging. I don't think it was my late night watching of Survivor. I was happy and somewhat shocked to see the smart team on Survivor actually make it through a challenge. The strong team is still winning, but I'm sure their paranoia is going to cause them to implode pretty soon. This division is a very fun social experiment about how much people of the same type can mistrust one another.

The clocks spring forward tonight. Bastards. I hate spring forward. It annoys me to lose my hour. I hates it forever and don't want it to happen. But . . . I wasn't consulted, so I just have to deal with it. I wonder if there are people who don't. I wonder if there are people who just continue on with their lives and their schedules as if nothing happened. They keep their hour and tell the rest of the world to just fuck off.

I wish I could do that.

An Ass of You and Me

Today was one of those days when I basically wanted to tell off the world. Everybody seemed very ignorant and annoying. I'm glad I'm not a telepath. People would be getting very angry thought messages from me all the time. They would deserve it too.

Michelle Bachmann felt the need to tell American Jews how disappointed she was in them because they support Obama and not Republicans. After all, Republicans support Israel, which, apparently, is the only cause that anyone who is Jewish should care about, or something. She doesn't understand why all the Jews are being so liberal and supporting the liberal causes, because that doesn't jive with the stuff she thinks the should like. I know this is very disappointing for her. I have to say her disappointment makes me happy and I hope she experiences a lot of it in the future.

Then there was the man who got very upset that the airplane he was on was being flown by a pilot who also happened to be a woman. He wrote a note on his napkin, explaining that women should want to be mothers and not captains and that god didn't want women to fly planes. It was in the Bible. He marked a verse that is that one about how women should all stay at home and sell stuff in the market place and be meek or something. You know, the one they like to read on Mother's Day or at any time they want to justify sexual oppression. I am sure he was very disappointed when he realized his pilot was a woman and even more disappointed when he found out she'd been piloting planes for many years. Again, I find his disappointment to be delightful and hope he experiences a lot of it in the future.

You'll notice in both cases, the people involved made some very big assumptions about a whole group of people (Jews and women) and believed their assumptions to be the foundation of some deep truth. When the members of the groups refused to just conform to their expectations, they experienced disappointment and sadness about it. This will probably happen any time one makes assumptions and has expectations about people that one has decided to group together. For one thing, people are all individuals, who make decisions based on many factors. Whatever you may think about their "group" may have nothing to do with their own wishes and desires.

Also, just because you place them in a group doesn't mean they place themselves there. Women are not some collective whole who all think the same and have the same wants or needs. I always hate it when people ask "what do women want?" as if we're a groupmind who all strive for the same goals. We're not and we don't. And no book, even one that you may think is holy or important, is going to change that.

Any time we begin to make blanket statements about a group or have blanket beliefs about a group, especially about what we think they SHOULD be doing, we're being idiots. People, by the very nature of being people, will have any number of reactions to the world around them, no matter what group we happen to place them in. It's best to just not make those assumptions. It is certainly best not to let yourself get emotional about your own assumptions. Again, you are just going to end up disappointed. That would be a sad way to live.

Snow Reflections . . . Bitchery

Today we ventured outside in the slushy mess that was left after the ice storm on Sunday. Any place there was no shade, everything was melted away. There are a lot of shady places though (in every sense of the meaning) and we still had a lot of ice, slush, mud, and water with which to contend. It was a mess, but we made it home alive, so I shouldn't bitch.  I shouldn't, but I'm going to.

First of all, my town's idea of how to handle icy streets is to cover them in a layer of dirt and gravel. Does this actually do any good? I'm not convinced it does. In the places where things were still slick and icy, we basically had ice with a later of gravel-mud over it. Every where else, we just had gravel and mud. This means my tires (which are always in a state of suicide-contemplation anyway) are having to go from cold ice to mud to millions of tiny rocks.

Second, what level of insanity was in the minds of the person who decided that the best place to put the driveway to my house was in the North side with the house blocking all access to the sunlight? The rest of the universe will be melted off before my driveway. I walked out of the house and onto a solid layer of ice over snow. It will be there for weeks. Unfortunately, I don't have the option of waiting it out. I have to go outside, over and over again, on that crap. If I get to build my own house, the driveway will be on the side where we get sun.

Third, there seems to be some cosmic rule that if there is ice on the ground, I will have to go to Walmart. Even if I try my best to get things done before the ice comes, for some reason, I will still need to (not want to, but need to, as in no real choice) be at that hellhole. Walmart during any kind of bad weather is the worst.

They don't plow the snow back, even though they could, because they OWN A PLOW. No, instead, they let people just randomly park on ice covered parking places, losing every third place because people are parking so badly. People shake horribly as they try to navigate shopping carts over uneven shards of ice. When they're finished with their carts, they just leave them anywhere. The driving areas, other parking places, behind the cars of people still inside. They do not care how this affects anyone else. The whole world revolves around them at the moment.

Okay okay. Enough bitching. We made it home and no one got too hurt. I did slip once and my legs went into directions they did not wish to go, but that is just a minor soreness compared to what could have happened. The Walmart chaos drained me and my voice is a little gone from the cuss yellfit I had there, but all of that will heal with a good night's sleep.

Seriously though, drive way on the SOUTH SIDE. It makes life so much easier.

Being Shelter

It was bitterly cold today and we did not leave the house. On occasion, people would drive by, their tires cracking against the broken ice and making it sound like they would have blowouts at any moment. I didn't think it was wise to be out there, but then I had the luxury to not have to worry about it. We'd done shopping yesterday and didn't have to get out to pay bills . . . not quite yet, anyway. Tomorrow though, we may not have much choice in the matter. It is the first of the month and things need to be paid. We'll be out in the cold tomorrow, though, hopefully after noon when the sun has had a chance to melt off some more of the ice.

That isn't to say that we served no purpose today. By the benefit of the trees in the yard, the front porch, and my roommate's kindness in always keeping a water dish for outside animals, my household served as shelter for quite a few birds who didn't wish to venture out far in the snow and ice. Our usual couple of mockingbirds hung out on the tomato cages that sit on the porch.  They were there for quite a while, preening and allowing the house to protect them from the wind. Once the mockingbirds took to the trees, I saw a cardinal hopping around on the banister.

Quite often, when the weather is objectionable, the birds will use the porch as their landing base. They will fly off to collect seeds or other bits of food, and then bring it back to the banisters to eat.  If seeds aren't available, they'll make due with the stray bits of cat food that the outdoor cats don't eat. One little bird got especially fond of the cat food and would screech at my roommate whenever it would run out.

When the birds aren't eating, they will make other use of the porch. They'll use the fresh water for drinking and for cleaning as they chitter at each other. They'll sit on the arms of chairs or on those cages or just balance on some boards we have out there. Sometimes there are territorial wars, but most of the time, everyone gets along.

I find it deeply satisfying to know that my home is a shelter for the little animals who live around us. Okay, not for the mice. Fine, even for the mice, as long as I don't have to see them and they keep their fleas to themselves. I especially like the birds though. Birds are beautiful and graceful, fascinating to watch. Birds also eat a lot of the insects who would otherwise cause us problems. Most of all though, I love watching the birds because my mother loved watching birds and it makes me feel closer to her. She would have loved knowing the shelter near her. I love that too.

Ice Ice Sunday

It thundered and iced all day. There is now a thick layer of ice over everything outside, including the streets. I do not wish to go out in it and I am very happy we went shopping today instead of waiting until tomorrow. It's supposed to get down to 10 degrees tonight. That is a lot colder than I ever want to be, but we have warm fires, so I think we'll be okay. I'll still end up sleeping in just my undies though, because I do not want to deal with a hot flash. It's insane to think I'd have one when it's so cold, but insanity is the bitch of perimenopause.

The cats have been weird all day. They do not like this level of cold and they do not like the thunder or lightening. One of them crawled on my arm and insisted on sitting there, like she was some kind of parrot and I her pirate friend. Eventually I talked her down. It was a very strange time.

The schools are closed tomorrow and I'm assuming that basically everything will be closed tomorrow. We were going to go get our mail, but our mailbox place is privately owned and they usually don't open up if there is bad weather happening. It's a little annoying, but most of the employees live out of town and it would be impossible for them to make it in. Such is life in a small town.

Anyway, I'll keep this post short and sweet. I hope everyone stays warm tonight.

Right Hand Oppression

Someone on my Facebook list posted a thing about how they are Proud to be Straight. The blurb under the picture had some snide comments about how people will probably get angry about that and how they didn't care because they were proud about and the rest of us straight people should be too. The blurb complimented everyone who did post it for being 'brave' enough to stand up for their straightness. I hope it made them all feel really damned brave.

Because let's face it, it is so hard to be straight in our society. Every day, we face people rejecting us for it. We face possibly beatings from random strangers or even from people we love. We live under the constant threat of being fired from our jobs. People vote to where we can't get married. People make up laws to where they can deny us service because they feel morally inclined to reject straight people. Some of us have been kicked out of our homes for being straight. Some of us have been sent out of our churches or our circle of friends for being straight. Many of us who love Jesus have been told we can't really love him because we're straight.

Oh no wait.......we never face that. We never face any of that. Society is based around straight people as the accepted default. No one is trying to pass laws to stop straight marriage. No one will fire you for being straight. No one will prevent you from going to church or say you shouldn't adopt a baby. If someone is going to not be your friend because you're straight.......that's kind of odd and either they are crazy or maybe you're reading the situation wrong. For the most part, straight people have it easy.

Being proud of being straight is about as brave or difficult as being proud of being right handed. Being right handed makes life easier because almost everything is designed for you. Is it really so horrible that some people out there are lefties? Does it threaten you so much? Does it cause you to some how doubt the importance of your own existence? Are you really going to go so far as to pass laws to prevent people from making left-handed scissors? Does that somehow oppress you because you can't use them?

I'm straight. I'm not ashamed of the fact, but I don't see it as so remarkable that I feel I have to be proud of it. It's never put me in a position to where I had to defend my right to be straight. I've never once felt like anyone would love me less because of it. I've never lost a job and wondered if it was because I like men. If I decided to get married, people would be supportive. They would make sure I got gifts and cake and all the goodies. No one would refuse to come to my wedding on grounds of them hating my straightness.

You know, back to the left/right handed analogy, I'm right-handed, but due to a growth on my arm, there are some things that are very difficult for me to try and accomplish with my right hand these days. So I have to try and do them with my left hand, and it is the most difficult, backwards, awkward, and unnatural feeling in the world. It makes me think about how people would try to force lefties to fit in with everyone else and use their right hand as their dominant hand. It probably felt just as unnatural and wrong for them as this does for me.

Trying to force yourself to straight when you're not is probably a lot like that. Sure, you can go through the motions. You can even perform the tasks....but it will always feel wrong, because it isn't the way you were designed to be. Why force people to do that? Just give them the scissors and coffee cups that work for them. Let everyone live the way they were intended to live and be happy. That's something to be proud of.