700 Posts

The break I took from knitting helped me a lot. When I started back tonight, I did so with a positive spirit about the project. Whatever mental fuzzies I had going on have decided to leave. Quite happy about that. Anything can start to feel like a burden if you're burned out, even things you love. Taking a small break from it, just allowing yourself to have the time to NOT have to worry about it, can make all the difference in the world. It's why I skip days sometimes on the blog.

However, despite the skippage of days, Blogger lists this as my 700th blog post. I know I said this at 500 and 200 and probably even at post 5, but I am shocked and pleased it's been going on for so long.

The blog has seen me through pain and suffering and fear and moments of being broken. The blog has seen me muse about projects and movies and anime and music. This blog has been with me as worlds died and babies were born. This blog was here as I won the first writing contest I've entered in over 20 years.  The blog has been part of my process of restructuring my life, reorganizing my world, and reclaiming my health.

We've been through a lot together.

Where do we go from here?

The blog is rather free form and I like it that way. It you come here to read it, I'm assuming you like it that way too. With that in mind, I'm not going to list projects that I'm considering for the blog. I think I'm just going to do them without giving them titles or anything. I will say that I would like to have more focus in a positive and proactive direction. I'm not saying I won't rant and complain on the blog, but I do want to try and concentrate on the more positive aspects of my life and thoughts. The negs are getting me no where.

I'd also like to do more documentation of my life. I've been talking about this knitting project, but haven't gotten around to taking any pics of it. I should really do that. It's good to keep a physical record of my accomplishments. Past that, it will continue to be more of the random stuff that pops into my head and wants to be written about. Trust me, there is always lots of that stuff floating around in my head.

Then again, I'm guessing you already knew that.

Disrespect vs Disregard

I am Facebook friends with a lot of people I went to high school with, many of whom are very devote towards one religion or another. Most of the time, I'm cool with them. The ones who go crazy over whatever topic (be it religion or politics or whatever) get hidden so I don't have to see the crazy. I'm not saying all religion or politics or whatever is crazy . . . but if you post about it all the time, you may be headed in that direction.

For the most part though, it's live and let live for me. In fact, quite often when people post positive things about their faith, I find it lovely, even if I don't share their faith. I also find it interesting to see religion from the perspective of the person involved in it as opposed to how society presents it.

A few night ago, a man I'm FB friends with was talking about how a show had offended him because someone on it said, "Goddamn." He complained about how people should be more respectful to his faith and not say things like that. Soon it was one big moanfest about how no one respects them. I didn't post into the discussion (because I try not to argue with people on Facebook), but I knew I disagreed with them. I didn't disagree with their right to be offended, because they could be offended if they wished. I did, however, disagree about disrespect.

Do I respect your right to practice a religion. I sure do. As long as your religion is not harming people, I'm cool with it. I will not try to make you stop practicing your  religion, nor will I get in your face and tell you that your religion is stupid.

That is as far as I will go. As far as I am concerned, that is far as I have to go. If I do not personally believe in your religion or do anything that your religion dictates . . . that is not disrespectful to it, and certainly not to you. That is ME expressing my personal choices.

Here's an example. In many religion, people are forbidden from eating pork. If you happen to be someone who isn't allowed to eat pork, then I would never try to make you eat some. I would never trick you into eating some. I would never try to pass a law that required you to eat any. I would never walk up to you and talk about how stupid you are for not eating pork.

At the same time, I won't stop eating it. I'm not going to support any law that would make it illegal, just because you don't like it. If I had a restaurant, I would serve pork. If I owned a grocery store, I would sell it. I wouldn't be doing any of these things to offend you or your religion, I would do them because they are what I want to do and you and your religion don't factor into my decisions.

This is not me disrespecting you. This is me disregarding you. It's not that I am spiteful about what you believe . . . it's just that I don't care. Your beliefs are very special to you and that is awesome for you. They're not special to me, nor are you any more special in my eyes for having them. You're not going to get special consideration from my actions just because you happen to believe some stuff.

This isn't JUST a religious thing for me either. No matter what someone's personal choices are, for whatever reasons, the same policy applies. As I have mentioned before, my father is a vegetarian and has been for many years. I would never serve him a dish with meat. When we have holiday celebrations, we make sure he food that is not only meatfree, but also tasty and holiday special-feeling. I would never tell him to stop doing this, because I know it's what he wants to do.

As he's eating his special vegan stuffing and savory holiday carrots, be sure I'll be eating turkey and ham. Yes, in front of him. Yes, while I talk to him. I won't try to make him eat meat, but I'm certainly not going to let his personal decisions affect my personal decisions. If this offends him (which it never has), that's his problem. Not mine.

The thing about personal beliefs and personal choices is that they are exactly that . . . personal. They are things you make for you. If you choose to live by restrictions, do so. If you choose not to cuss, don't. If you want to wear something that covers your hair, more power to you.

But do not insist that the same has to go for others. Everyone else is making their own personal decisions as well, and as long as those decisions aren't harming you (real harming, not made up harming), then it's none of your business. And if their decisions and actions don't follow your personal code, that is more than likely not meant as them disrespecting you. It usually means they just really don't care what you think, and as much as you may not want to, you have to accept that.

Stepping Away

I felt really disconnected today. Things were fine during therapy, but afterwards, I just felt really disenchanted with life in general. The portion of the knit project I was working on just wasn't working for me. I ended up having to redo about seven inches of it due to a mistake I made. It was disheartening, but honestly, as bad as I felt today, I probably shouldn't have been working on something that required this much of my concentration anyway. I just didn't have the resources.

Today was one of those days when I really only had the spoons to be an old cat lady. Sitting here, with a cat against my leg . . . yeah, that's about as much as I really had the resources to manage. I wasn't good with conversations. I wasn't handling my knitting. I was only somewhat even paying attention to tv shows. I just wasn't with it today.

Why? Honestly, I'm not sure. I think maybe the pain and loss of winter has just finally exhausted my reserves. I need some still days, some quiet days. I need some time when nothing happens, even the predictable annoyances don't happen. I need some peace. The question is, how to go about it.

Seriously, what do you do when life is making your brain into one jagged little nerve?

Whenever you have those times when you feel very strung out, stressed out, or just disconnected from what's going on, I think it's important to recognize the situation and do what you can to alter it. Life is pretty complex for most people, so there may not be a lot you can do to make things different. However, even if you just change one or two little things, it will feel huge. Even if all you can do is pick something and just NOT do it for a while. Even taking a break from one minor thing can make everything feel better.

You have to keep in mind though that any kind of change you make during a time like this needs to be a change that YOU make. You can't wait for someone else to change something. You can't expect someone else to act in the way you think they should or stop doing something just because you know it would make life easier on everyone. In fact, if you start thinking about how OTHER people should change to make the situation better, you're honestly just making the situation worse for you because you're exhausting your emotional energy on something futile.

With that in mind, I know there are a lot of things that I can't change about tomorrow. I've already made plans to see my sister-in-law so I can give her a birthday gift. I need to take out the trash, do some physical activity, and deal with some chores.  And, of course, there is the knitting.

So . . . .while I do plan to go see my SIL tomorrow , I don't plan to stay very long. I have no problem with most of the rest of the list. Exercise will probably calm me down, and I feel much the same way my roommate does about taking out the trash. Honestly, anytime we can remove stuff from the house, it's cause to celebrate.

I don't think I'll knit tomorrow. I know this needs to get finished, but I think I need a day away from it. I need a bit of distance from the project, just some time to calibrate my mind. I'm not going to feel bad about that either. The only timeline here is one I placed on myself. I can alter that as need be. I can just take this day and be free of the stress of it.

It's actually making me feel better already.

Documenting the Change

Because I blog almost every day and probably because my memory and sense of reality are usually wonky, I tend to forget that I've only been blogging for about two years now.  I was thinking it had to at least be three, but that's only my emotional perception. The blog has changed so much about my life. It has helped to add order and structure to my days. It's also giving me a nice documentation of how I'm doing.

Two years ago, I posted about words I find to be funny. It's a cute post, but it's very clearly an 'early blog' post. It's the kind of thing you would say during a second or third date with someone. It wouldn't be something you said off the cuff either. It would be this kind of semi-rehearsed bit of conversation designed to make you look quirky, smart, and just a little strange. "Hey, so . . . I'm really weird. I'm funny too though. If you run right now, my feelings won't be hurt."

At first I didn't think this post said much about me, but I have to keep in mind that during these early months of blogging, I was still getting my feet wet. Every blog post I did was kind of scary. I felt so vulnerable when I would hit 'publish.' I almost always felt very happy too, because hitting that button meant one more day that I didn't stop blogging.

Last year, I wrote about how stem cells in a woman's body altered her DNA to accept a new kidney. I was really excited about this. To me, the idea of the body altering itself, changing its very foundation, in order to stay alive is amazing. This kind of mutation and alteration in order to continue displays the truth depth of our evolutionary prowess. 

This post was written during a time when my ideas about health, healing, and the body were beginning to do a dramatic shift. It was about this time that I began to focus on and truly believe in the idea of healing via strength. It's an idea that I've carried with me since then. It's the idea behind my plan for weight loss.

When I did the second post, I was less self-conscious about the ME aspect of the blog. Well over a year into this, I knew my voice and how to express it. I knew how to let the inspiration for the post be the center of my attention. This kind of divorce from my ego has allowed me to become a better writer. In a lot of ways, it's helped me to become a stronger person.

Weekend Over

I knitted to 20 inches today, meaning only ten left on this phase of the project. Then the hard part starts, though, honestly, even that won't be TOO hard. I've been experimenting with some crochet techniques that I've never used before. They won't come into play on this blanket, but they may happen on a scarf I plan to do after this. I plan on using up all of the yarn I currently have for various things. No more keeping orphaned yarn in the house. It get used and sent out to others . . . kind of like orphans in Victorian novels!

I've been in kind of a dark place emotionally, just dour and pessimistic and caustic about life. Yes, I know I'm often that way, but it's been a bit more intense than usual. Though even in the midst of it, there are still a lot of things I'm thankful for. I'm even thankful for being pessimistic and dark. It keeps me out of a lot of trouble.

Laundry happened today. I threw in some of the more wintery pieces and plan to go a head and put them back  into storage once they're folded. We may still have some cold days, but nothing I can't handle. I'm tired of the jackets and long sleeved shirts. I'm even starting to get tired of my knitted stuff, though I know I'll miss it by Fall.

The goal for tomorrow is to not be so harsh in my thinking. I need a day of gentle, happy, relaxing thoughts. I need some good mental space and a bit of renewal. Yes, I think more than anything else, I need renewal.

A Quiet Saturday

I started part three of my knitting project and made fairly good progress on it. It was the ideal amount of inches that I wanted, but it was a couple over what I should have realistically expected. Given that and the fact that I made some decisions about attachments and boarders, I feel like I am in a good place yarnwise.

Even though it's March, it's still rather cold so we're not putting away the winter blankets for a while. I'm hoping that by midMarch this coldness will be over and we can begin our spring cleaning.The house seriously needs it.

The kitty who sleeps with me has developed a cute habit of coming to sit on my feet and sleep while I sit at the computer. I love this so much. I hope she keeps it up, though I have my doubts. She tends to go insane during the summers and act like she doesn't know who we are.

I still miss Alice. Not a day goes by that I don't think about her.  Every time I look over at the couch, I think about my roommate playfully laying his head by her. She brought so much joy to our lives. The thing about grief is that it isn't constant. It doesn't break you into pieces. You keep on with your life. It's just, especially in this case, someone who was important to you is now gone. Whenever you think about that, it hurts all over again.

I'm hoping to get at least as much knitting done tomorrow as I did today. That will possibly have me finished with this part by Tusday, meaning I can work on attaching and boarders and all that jazz for the rest of the week. Once that is finished, my cousin will have a new baby blanket to wrap around her new baby. It's such a lovely thought.

Stepfather Transference and Imaginary Group Assassination

About twelve years ago, I was involved in an anime fan community.  This was back during the days when places like Homestead offered fairly good website building stuff for free. People would build sites dedicated to characters from various anime series and most often, the sites would be fan parodies of the characters. There was always a lot of creativity to this. People would do artwork based on how they saw the characters. They would write poems, fanfiction, and all kinds of slash. Needless to say, it was the kind of thing I was completely drawn to.

Usually people who hosted these sites would link up to some kind of message board. And while these message boards started out as just general discussion about the site or the anime, it eventually became a place for roleplay. People who liked the fansites would create their own characters who worked within  the context of the universe the web designer had built. Whole communities rose out of this. You'd find 20 or 30 people all working together to create cyber towns, worlds, and dramas.

The message board I was connected to was created by a girl with a subversive sense of humor and great drawing skills. She would roleplay both as herself and as the anime character for whom she's created the site. If it seems strange that she would roleplay her own self, keep in mind that there are always differences. In the world created by our collective imagination, she became the keeper of her anime character, his jailer, if you will. Pretty much the only person his evil self feared.

For a couple of years, it was a lot of fun. Our imaginary town grew into a kingdom. There were wars and invaders. We had enemies (usually asshats who'd been banned from the message board for being asshats). When I think about this imaginary land, I can tell you about it street by street. In my head, I can see the hill above the city where the Devil lived. I know where the smurf refugees stayed. I can even remember which island you had to avoid because its where we banished all the zombies (and later where we banished all the necrophiliacs who wanted to 'liberate' the zombies). I know where all of my characters lived. And I can even tell you where they were when things started to fall apart.

In the real life of the creator of the website, she met a guy. He was several  years older than her, into Star Wars, and cosplay. She loved the fact that he was into that stuff, because she was as well. She saw them as equals. He fancied himself far more creative than she was, although to this day I call bullshit on that.

The rest of us, every single one of us, hated him.

Well, we didn't at first.  At first, he really didn't interfere with anything at all. He was just this guy she was dating. She'd mention him every once in a while and we were all happy for her. The rest of us had lives outside of the message board too (well, most of us) and it was great that she'd met someone.

But then one day, she let him join our group. Suddenly he wanted to be a part of everything. He had some lame characters (one of them was a ninja, the other one was based off of a movie icon he liked) who really didn't mesh with the rest of us. At first, we tried to find ways for everyone to mesh, but he just didn't seem to understand the hodgepodge of what we were. In this imaginary world, pretty much anyone could wander into town. It was an accepted rule of the game and this asshole would try to argue with us about context.

He also wanted to be part of all the major plot lines. If someone was causing problems or if slavers were trying to capture all the catgirls (again), he would feel he had the right to private message everyone about how his characters should be the ones to solve the problems.  He would complain about the high levels of perversion. He would get jealous when other people would flirt with his girlfriend's characters.

In private party chats, where six or seven of us would gather away from the main group, we began to deal with our hatred of this man by pretending to assassinate his characters. One of us would pretend to be one or the other of his characters (usually the ninja. We really hated that damned ninja.) and we'd give this character exaggerated (though only slightly, because damn he was annoying) characteristics of how he usually acted. He would say things that would piss us off. And then, our usually peaceful little gathering of Pokemon, catgirls, fairies, and vampires would roleplay out ripping this bastard to shreds.

The pretends deaths would never be simple. Every time we killed him, we'd find new and inventive ways to do it. Usually his body parts would get tossed to the necrophiliacs when we were finished. Well, one time we baked him into a cake and pretended that his other character ate it. Then we killed that one because we worried he'd become doubly annoying.

I have rarely laughed as much as I did when we would pretend to kill this man's characters. There was so much glee in a community uniting to rid themselves of the damned ninja who kept trying to interfere with us. I was always amazed that even the sweetest and most adorable of our group would take delight in making this happen. Seriously, we all hated him.

This many years past the point, I think I know what this made us so happy. A lot of us had stepparents that had caused us a lot of pain when we were younger. When she brought him into our happy little imaginary world, it felt the same. We knew the signs. And he did all the stuff that bad stepparents do to make the situation worse. Instead of just accepting the situation, the family, for what it was, he felt he had the right to question it, fix it, and change it for the better. He did not.

See it wasn't just the mere fact of his existence that made us so angry. Had he just roleplayed in as some character who said hi from time to time and kissed the character of the webmistress, none of us would have cared. Over time, he probably would have been accepted and even welcomed. Instead, he tried to take over and make it all about him. When that didn't work, he made sure it all fell to pieces.

The lesson here? Ohh, there are a lot. But let's start with some advice for stepparents. When you become part of someone else's family, lay low for a while. Let them be themselves. Let them get used to you. Don't question everything that goes on, because you're going to come off as judgmental. Don't assume that just because this person you love has welcomed you that everyone else has as well, or even that they have to.

Most of all, never ever think that the best way for you to fit in is to start picking things apart and changing them to suit you. You're the person coming into an already established situation. You need to learn to flow with it, not the other way around. If that just isn't in your personality, then perhaps it's best that you stay away from this.

I think it's also important to think long and hard before you ask someone to give up something for you. If you read the blog, then you know that I believe this is almost always wrong to do anyway. However, it seems to be pretty common in relationships, so clearly I'm in the minority here. So, if you are asking someone to give up something for you, if you really love this person, then you need to give this a lot of thought. Sure, you think you know what you'll gain if they give it up, but what are they losing? How happy did this make them? How much of what attracted you to them is tied to this thing? What are you really asking them to sacrifice?

You see, our frustrations and fears about this guy had merit. Only a few months after the asshole boyfriend joined the group, the webmistress announced that she needed to concentrate on other things and would be shutting down the website. I really don't think anyone ever told her about our secret pretend killings, but I'm fairly sure both she and her boyfriend got the hint that we hated him. In a private chat during the last days, she told me that he didn't feel comfortable with the message board and it was becoming a source of a lot of fighting for them. She opted for him instead of staying with her creation. I'm sure many people would see that as the practical thing to do. I, of course, do not.

The rest of us tried to keep in contact. For a while we did, but without our collective imaginary land to hold us together, we eventually parted ways. I'm still in contact with some of them and we really don't talk about the old board. I think the way it ended still leaves a bitter taste in our mouths.

In my mind, I sometimes allow myself to walk down those imaginary streets. The world is mostly empty now, a ghost world of a once thriving culture. In the far distance, you can hear the groan of a zombie. Maybe some stray music from bands who were so bad that the fact that no one is in the audience is no different for them than it ever was.

A lost world. A fragmented culture. All destroyed because someone allowed themselves to be manipulated by someone who felt threatened that worlds could exist without him.