I need to start making a conscious effort to be nice, or I'm going to turn into one of those negative disagreeable sorts who go around with frown lines all over their face...the sort you try to avoid if at all possible. When I was younger I was soooo gentle....I remember being unable to give my horse an injection that he really needed because I just couldn't bring myself to jab my friend with that needle. When I was a little older and married, my best friend (an ardent feminist who had no problem at all with incorporating 'bitch' into her self-image) told me rather disgustedly that I needed to grow a spine. She was right, of course....my husband was yelling at me constantly, making nasty humiliating scenes in public, forcing "marital duties" on me.....and I felt like divorcing the jerk would be "mean". It's almost like the instinct for self preservation was entirely lacking (shaking head).
I've learned how to be mean when I need to be. The problem now is that I can't seem to find the gentle girl that I used to be, anymore.
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Yet I still adore gentleness in other people, perhaps more than any other trait.
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It's one of the cardinal traits I breed for in dairy goats, one of those things that I simply will not compromise on. If a doe is mean, she goes, period.
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I don't think there's any faster way for a man to make me fall for him than to save the day and make things right when I'm all upset and I don't know what to do. The more gracefully he does it, the better. :-)
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Just like the fastest way for a man to earn my hatred is to kick me when I'm down or to be cruel when I'm weak. I despise and disrespect lowlifes who make the worst of an already bad or awkward situation.
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A quiet, shy voice, eyes that don't bore into mine.....yeah, that's what I like.
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And see, I've got a double standard going here, because even as I value this SO highly in other people, I'm a hypocrite. I haven't been keeping up on it myself, I've been letting myself slide into the abyss of bitchdom. That has to change.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Sometimes I think that the older we get, the more we become landmines of old sorrows, pains, hot spots, and and just more sensitive all around. I thought things would bother me less, they don't. Old stuff haunts me, old memories twang on my heart and bring tears to my eyes, old injustices make me angrier than I was when they first occurred.
A silly young girl at work (not stupid, just very young and inexperienced with life) was going on about some 13 year old girl being abused and how the little girl was sleeping with a 20 year old man. She was criticizing the girl all over the place...said that the 13 yo claimed her mom was abusive and beating on her, but the kid must've been making it up because she hadn't mentioned it to anyone else, and what a liar the kid must be.
I wanted to throttle her on the spot. Stupid, privileged little snit from a happy well adjusted family!!! What the heck does she know about abuse? Why is she berating this kid when there's a 20 year old guy involved?? How many happy 13 year olds from good healthy families screw around with 20 year old guys? She had the chance to make a difference for this kid, and she's blowing it.
When I finally got free of my family, I tried to tell the cops what was going on, that my step-dad was molesting 3 other kids. They went and asked them. Every single one of my siblings had been molested, and every single one of them categorically denied it- because they were afraid. I was the one who broke the silence, and it took years before I did so. My evil step-dad got off scott-free, because we couldn't prove anything if the others wouldn't admit it was going on. Now he's with some other woman who also has kids (groan). I wonder how many youngsters he's going to ruin before he dies- he'll probbaly never get caught.....
That's just an example. I'm brimming with shit like that. It's making me old. I want happy memories to drown out or at least balance the others.
A silly young girl at work (not stupid, just very young and inexperienced with life) was going on about some 13 year old girl being abused and how the little girl was sleeping with a 20 year old man. She was criticizing the girl all over the place...said that the 13 yo claimed her mom was abusive and beating on her, but the kid must've been making it up because she hadn't mentioned it to anyone else, and what a liar the kid must be.
I wanted to throttle her on the spot. Stupid, privileged little snit from a happy well adjusted family!!! What the heck does she know about abuse? Why is she berating this kid when there's a 20 year old guy involved?? How many happy 13 year olds from good healthy families screw around with 20 year old guys? She had the chance to make a difference for this kid, and she's blowing it.
When I finally got free of my family, I tried to tell the cops what was going on, that my step-dad was molesting 3 other kids. They went and asked them. Every single one of my siblings had been molested, and every single one of them categorically denied it- because they were afraid. I was the one who broke the silence, and it took years before I did so. My evil step-dad got off scott-free, because we couldn't prove anything if the others wouldn't admit it was going on. Now he's with some other woman who also has kids (groan). I wonder how many youngsters he's going to ruin before he dies- he'll probbaly never get caught.....
That's just an example. I'm brimming with shit like that. It's making me old. I want happy memories to drown out or at least balance the others.
Friday, August 04, 2006
Man, I'm tired. Sore, too.....can't wait until I get those boots. If they don't help at all, I don't know what I'll do......
But I'm thinking...people tend to whine and gripe if they're not perfectly, absolutely comfortable and 100% pain free. The more I think about it, the more unreasonable this seems. How likely is that to happen to an adult? And since it's so unlikely, at least for extended periods of time, if a person honestly expects that and makes it a factor of personal happiness, I think they're going to go about life slightly dissatisfied most of the time, when in reality, we ought to be glad we're not infested with tapeworms or living on the edge of starvation or in some third world country with no serious medical facilities.
I think about my friend Daniel Haugen (he was my first love and fiance) dying of cancer, of the pain he was in, and the morphine. He was such a religuously health foody, natural sort that I think he must have been in tremendous, unspeakable pain to have submitted to that. That's pain. These aching joints and sore muscles? Eh....normal wear and tear of daily life.
Still.....I'm holding out for those boots. I need to be able to walk around quickly to do my job well.
But I'm thinking...people tend to whine and gripe if they're not perfectly, absolutely comfortable and 100% pain free. The more I think about it, the more unreasonable this seems. How likely is that to happen to an adult? And since it's so unlikely, at least for extended periods of time, if a person honestly expects that and makes it a factor of personal happiness, I think they're going to go about life slightly dissatisfied most of the time, when in reality, we ought to be glad we're not infested with tapeworms or living on the edge of starvation or in some third world country with no serious medical facilities.
I think about my friend Daniel Haugen (he was my first love and fiance) dying of cancer, of the pain he was in, and the morphine. He was such a religuously health foody, natural sort that I think he must have been in tremendous, unspeakable pain to have submitted to that. That's pain. These aching joints and sore muscles? Eh....normal wear and tear of daily life.
Still.....I'm holding out for those boots. I need to be able to walk around quickly to do my job well.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
It used to be, even when I was a kid, that people didn't have as much stuff as they do now. And before my time, it used to be that ordinary, everyday items such as shoes and shirts and dresses and blankets were pretty danged expensive, so people only owned 2-3 changes of clothing or one pair of shoes. Kids had to run around barefoot in the summer so they could save their shoes for school (if they had any at all) and for the winter. They might have only one or two toys in their whole childhood. Socks that developed holes were carefully darned, not thrown away. Blankets as we know them weren't that common; quilts were. And quilts had to made made slowly, lovingly, by hand, most often from little scraps of feed sacks or bits of cloth leftover from making dresses and shirts. Have you ever seen a quilt where even the pieces themselves are made up of little strips joined together until they're big enough to make say, a diamond for the point of a star? People didn't do that because they had more spare time than they knew what to do with (like we do now), they did it because cloth was expensive enough to make it worth their while to save those little, bitty scraps. They didn't have refrigeration or plumbing or central heating or AC or automobiles. I'm certain that if they had had any idea of what sort of a life we have now, it would have seemed soemthing like paradise to them. They probably bemoaned the high prices of things and wished that the commmon, necessary items were more affordable.
Now look what happened: stuff is cheap. I can go to the dollar a bag sale at the thrift store and get a whole shopping bag full of clothes for a buck, less than 15 minutes or work-time even if i'm only making minimum wage. By comparison, Abe Lincoln worked for days splitting fence rails just to get a pair or two of breeches made for him. We throw socks away the moment they wear a little thin- if my coworkers caught me darning socks, I think they'd probably either take up a collection to buy me new ones or start plying me with handfuls of the things. Blankets are so cheap that people take those old quilts granny made by hand and use them for dog beds. Patches aren't often seen on clothing, even for poor children, and the status quo seems to be that you should buy your kid and entire new set of clothes just for school, every year. We are deluged with stuff. We buy all sorts of stuff we don't need, not only for ourselves but for other people. We throw things away that are still perfectly good simply because we're tired of them or because all that stuff is going to accumulate and drown us out of our own homes if we don't!
In a way I can see how this is good. But, look what's happened to the quality of the goods. If a person's only going to wear their jeans for a year, and they have 6-10 pairs of pants total, just how durable do those jeans need to be? How much are they willing to pay? The lowest price is what the consumer seems to want (hello, Wallyworld), and so the workmanship and standards of quality have gone down. Stuff doesn't last anymore the way it used to, and a lot of people don't expect it to. After all, when it gets old or too familiar, they'll just throw it away.
This results in a constant flow of goods through the household. We're assaulted day and night with ads insisting that because it's available and affordable, we should get it, right NOW. We *deserve* it. If we can't afford it, buy it anyway, and work out the details of that messy business later on. This trend is surprisingly pervasive and difficult to resist. The "gatherer" part of the hunter-gatherer is hard wired into us. And if, like me, you loathe throwing things away, it can become a problem, because that's like erecting a dam so that stuff comes in at a steady pace but only trickles out very slowly. Irritatingly enough, much of the stuff is cheap or tiresome or faddish, manufactured with the understanding that it'll be thrown away, soon. In other words, I have a lot of low quality stuff, and I think most of us do.
The solution: to pay more and really invest in long-wearing, high quality item that is truly needed and won't be going out of style or falling apart right off the bat. To buy things that we truly and deeply like and can live with for a long, long time. To purchase consciously, deliberately, and with thought, not spontaneously. And then, of course, to take really good care of those things. They cost more because they're worth more, so unless you're rich, you probably won't have a houseful overflowing from the attic and basement and stairs and under the beds and out of the closets.
Long story short, this is why I'm buying a pair of White's boots. My feet are killing me from wearing cheap shoes at work. Cheap shoes are all I've ever had. I ruin them in an amazingly short span of time. I cleaned house today, and I must have at least 5-6 pairs of cheap shoes, none of which I want to wear to work and all of which are going to cause my feet varying degrees of pain. It seems sort of scandalous for me to buy these expensive, handmade boots, but they should last me for years. If they wear out, the store can rebuild them. And also, I won't need to keep 4-5 backup pairs (held in reserve for when the others wear out) of shoes around the house. I can have just one pair and maybe a pair of sandals or dress shoes (like I'd ever need those anyway, heh!).
I'd like to follow this general principle in buying for most of what we get, ideally.
Now look what happened: stuff is cheap. I can go to the dollar a bag sale at the thrift store and get a whole shopping bag full of clothes for a buck, less than 15 minutes or work-time even if i'm only making minimum wage. By comparison, Abe Lincoln worked for days splitting fence rails just to get a pair or two of breeches made for him. We throw socks away the moment they wear a little thin- if my coworkers caught me darning socks, I think they'd probably either take up a collection to buy me new ones or start plying me with handfuls of the things. Blankets are so cheap that people take those old quilts granny made by hand and use them for dog beds. Patches aren't often seen on clothing, even for poor children, and the status quo seems to be that you should buy your kid and entire new set of clothes just for school, every year. We are deluged with stuff. We buy all sorts of stuff we don't need, not only for ourselves but for other people. We throw things away that are still perfectly good simply because we're tired of them or because all that stuff is going to accumulate and drown us out of our own homes if we don't!
In a way I can see how this is good. But, look what's happened to the quality of the goods. If a person's only going to wear their jeans for a year, and they have 6-10 pairs of pants total, just how durable do those jeans need to be? How much are they willing to pay? The lowest price is what the consumer seems to want (hello, Wallyworld), and so the workmanship and standards of quality have gone down. Stuff doesn't last anymore the way it used to, and a lot of people don't expect it to. After all, when it gets old or too familiar, they'll just throw it away.
This results in a constant flow of goods through the household. We're assaulted day and night with ads insisting that because it's available and affordable, we should get it, right NOW. We *deserve* it. If we can't afford it, buy it anyway, and work out the details of that messy business later on. This trend is surprisingly pervasive and difficult to resist. The "gatherer" part of the hunter-gatherer is hard wired into us. And if, like me, you loathe throwing things away, it can become a problem, because that's like erecting a dam so that stuff comes in at a steady pace but only trickles out very slowly. Irritatingly enough, much of the stuff is cheap or tiresome or faddish, manufactured with the understanding that it'll be thrown away, soon. In other words, I have a lot of low quality stuff, and I think most of us do.
The solution: to pay more and really invest in long-wearing, high quality item that is truly needed and won't be going out of style or falling apart right off the bat. To buy things that we truly and deeply like and can live with for a long, long time. To purchase consciously, deliberately, and with thought, not spontaneously. And then, of course, to take really good care of those things. They cost more because they're worth more, so unless you're rich, you probably won't have a houseful overflowing from the attic and basement and stairs and under the beds and out of the closets.
Long story short, this is why I'm buying a pair of White's boots. My feet are killing me from wearing cheap shoes at work. Cheap shoes are all I've ever had. I ruin them in an amazingly short span of time. I cleaned house today, and I must have at least 5-6 pairs of cheap shoes, none of which I want to wear to work and all of which are going to cause my feet varying degrees of pain. It seems sort of scandalous for me to buy these expensive, handmade boots, but they should last me for years. If they wear out, the store can rebuild them. And also, I won't need to keep 4-5 backup pairs (held in reserve for when the others wear out) of shoes around the house. I can have just one pair and maybe a pair of sandals or dress shoes (like I'd ever need those anyway, heh!).
I'd like to follow this general principle in buying for most of what we get, ideally.
OH.
It's slowly dawning on me that I'm not ugly at all. We all get teased about our looks in grade school. The problem was, I really believed it. I honestly thought that if a guy really loved me, perhaps he'd be able to love me in spite of my appearance, or maybe because he was too low on the totem pole to get something prettier and more desirable. It had never once crossed my mind that someone might actually like me exactly the way I am.
It's an epiphany.
How much of my life have I wasted tolerating abuse and men who didn't especially cherish me, all because I seriously believed that I was sooooo sub-standard compared to all the other women out there?
It's slowly dawning on me that I'm not ugly at all. We all get teased about our looks in grade school. The problem was, I really believed it. I honestly thought that if a guy really loved me, perhaps he'd be able to love me in spite of my appearance, or maybe because he was too low on the totem pole to get something prettier and more desirable. It had never once crossed my mind that someone might actually like me exactly the way I am.
It's an epiphany.
How much of my life have I wasted tolerating abuse and men who didn't especially cherish me, all because I seriously believed that I was sooooo sub-standard compared to all the other women out there?
Thursday, July 20, 2006
It occurred to me today that I don't really have much fun anymore. I don't know why exactly that is, except perhaps that I never have any free time to speak of. But even when I do have time, it's like it just doesn't even occur to me anymore to do something for sheer enjoyment, for its own sake.
And in reality, it's the same thing with my art- I feel guilty if I I'm not working or doing something *necessary* to our survival, and (let's be honest) resentful when other people in the household do do things just for fun, especially if I feel like I'm picking up their slack.
So: Places I'd like to go and things I'd like to see
See, half these places are nearby, and I either don't go to them or never have simply because I'm disinclined to do so all by myself or with a whole crew of kids. I guess I'm waiting until I get old and my hips have crapped out on me entirely? If I don't do something, I'll never see these things at all.
And in reality, it's the same thing with my art- I feel guilty if I I'm not working or doing something *necessary* to our survival, and (let's be honest) resentful when other people in the household do do things just for fun, especially if I feel like I'm picking up their slack.
So: Places I'd like to go and things I'd like to see
- The Pacific coast. I want to go beach combing there. I've never seen the pacific ocean, not even from a distance.
- Upper Priest Lake, another place I haven't been to, even though I'm within an hour of it. Several of my kids have been there, I always got left behind at home. :-( I want to see it, to hike it, to climb...
- Canada, another nearby place I've never been to. I have no idea what to expect, I'd just like to see it.
- If I had the chance and lots of money someday, I wouldn't mind going to Hawaii. On the other hand though, it wouldn't break my heart all to pieces if I couldn't.
- I'd like to visit botanical gardens and art museums in the area.
- Art on the Green in Couer d'Alene; again, this is less than an hour away, I'd love to see it, but I haven't. Why? Mainly because I don't want to go all by myself. I don't think it even costs any money.
- The college in Couer d'Alene, same reason, I'm afraid to go alone. Chicken...
- I wouldn't mind going back down to Colorado, the Taos area, and sightseeing around there. I'd like to see in person the things that Georgia O'Keefe painted, and to see her work in person.
- Chicago- The Art Institute. Of coure, there are a lot of other great msueums I'd also like to visit. I could spend a week or two just going to the museums in Chicago alone and be awfully happy about it.
- I also think it'd be neat to see the MOMA, the Met, and other big art museums in New York, but this isn't likely to happen. That makes me sad.
- Locally again, Gisborn mountain.
See, half these places are nearby, and I either don't go to them or never have simply because I'm disinclined to do so all by myself or with a whole crew of kids. I guess I'm waiting until I get old and my hips have crapped out on me entirely? If I don't do something, I'll never see these things at all.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Ok folks, I need opinions. Please, PLEASE, stop by my bio-blog and let me know what you think of it, if I'm leaving anything out that might not seem missing to me but is necessary, needs more detail, that sort of thing? The url is: This is what happened
I felt all broken up and sad today, like crying, and I couldn't even put my finger on why. I mean, I'm sure that I coudl select somethign sad and heartbreaking from my past to focus on as a source of the pain, but that wouldn't have been it, it was just sort of...like this hazy oppressive thing without defined edges. I think that when I stop nursing the baby and start to take the St. John's wort again, I'll feel happier more of the time.
And God help us all if I don't get my coffee, on time......geez.
I know I am a bitch, and I hate it, but damned if I can help it.
There is this girl at work who is driving me nuts, and I know she's even more depressed than I am, but the annoying thing is that she just drips. She doesn't really make any attempt to pull herself together and start changing things, or to summon some inner strength or initiative. When she's around, I start feeling impatient and bitchy, because I don't want to succumb to the same sort of despair, which is contagious. There are some pretty obvious things that could be done which would dramatically improve her situation, but she doesn't want to hear about them. Instead, she just mopes around feeling envious of how "lucky" the rest of us are(!!!).
That was bad enough, but then she started using it as an excuse for eating the food we're supposed to be selling. Look, I've been hungry before too, but you simply cannot consume the product, and especially not out in the open. The anxiety of worrying over her getting abruptly fired on the spot is eating me alive, and besides, it bugs me to see her going about hand to mouth constantly. I tried to tell her, she wouldn't listen. So today I had had enough, and asked a manager about it, and she got a lot more worked up about it a lot faster than I had ever imagined she would. She wanted me to narc on the girl so we could fire her pronto. Made me everlastingly glad that I don't munch the food (shudder). She marched me straight to the big boss...I don't think they were happy that I declined to ofer the information. The people in the deli are going to hate me that I said anything at all...I had no idea...I mean, I knew it was a no-no, but I did not realize it was a BIG FUCKING DEAL that should be reported pronto. So everyone hates me now....great.
I felt all broken up and sad today, like crying, and I couldn't even put my finger on why. I mean, I'm sure that I coudl select somethign sad and heartbreaking from my past to focus on as a source of the pain, but that wouldn't have been it, it was just sort of...like this hazy oppressive thing without defined edges. I think that when I stop nursing the baby and start to take the St. John's wort again, I'll feel happier more of the time.
And God help us all if I don't get my coffee, on time......geez.
I know I am a bitch, and I hate it, but damned if I can help it.
There is this girl at work who is driving me nuts, and I know she's even more depressed than I am, but the annoying thing is that she just drips. She doesn't really make any attempt to pull herself together and start changing things, or to summon some inner strength or initiative. When she's around, I start feeling impatient and bitchy, because I don't want to succumb to the same sort of despair, which is contagious. There are some pretty obvious things that could be done which would dramatically improve her situation, but she doesn't want to hear about them. Instead, she just mopes around feeling envious of how "lucky" the rest of us are(!!!).
That was bad enough, but then she started using it as an excuse for eating the food we're supposed to be selling. Look, I've been hungry before too, but you simply cannot consume the product, and especially not out in the open. The anxiety of worrying over her getting abruptly fired on the spot is eating me alive, and besides, it bugs me to see her going about hand to mouth constantly. I tried to tell her, she wouldn't listen. So today I had had enough, and asked a manager about it, and she got a lot more worked up about it a lot faster than I had ever imagined she would. She wanted me to narc on the girl so we could fire her pronto. Made me everlastingly glad that I don't munch the food (shudder). She marched me straight to the big boss...I don't think they were happy that I declined to ofer the information. The people in the deli are going to hate me that I said anything at all...I had no idea...I mean, I knew it was a no-no, but I did not realize it was a BIG FUCKING DEAL that should be reported pronto. So everyone hates me now....great.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
I've been an avid Superman fan since early childhood. I was the little girl who pined after superman underwear in vain (it was only available for boys) and who collected just about every other type of Superman parphenalia I could cajole my relatives into buying for me. I wanted desperately to marry Superman when I grew up and viewed Lois Lane with serious dislike.
Now I'm feeling sorry for her. This movie shoud be retitled, "Superman, the Deadbeat Dad".
There are a lot of little (and big) glitches in the logic throughout the movie. First of all, he's aware of everyone calling out for help, but he didn't hear his beloved's dismay at his disapearance, and even with his X ray vision, he was unaware of her pregnancy? Secondly, after getting laid by Superman, she immediately takes up with another guy quickly enough to deceive him into thinking the kid is his? I mean, this is Superman we're talking about here. His stamina and special abilities should be enough that no ordinary man would ever be able to compete with him.....but she forgets him, Bam! just like that. Not only does she forget him, but upon his return, she doesn't ditch the human guy, while almost any woman probably would, regardless of scruples, and frankly, Lois Lane doesn't have many scruples. After all, she cuckolded her mate and lied to him about the kid, walks right into private property and sneaks around, etc.... Honesty and behaving honorably just aren't strong points for her, except, apparently, in this case.
Then there's the kid. Superman can't tell this tyke is his? What happened with all his mind reading and whatnot? The boy has occasional super-human strength, but no mind reading ability whatsoever?
But the biggest disappointment as far as the plot goes is that Superman, with all his assets and abilities, doesn't even try to lend Lois a hand in the raising of his son. He's content to leave it to the poor fool who got suckered and to sneak in once in awhile to peer at his sleeping child, like some kind of a vampire, perching on roofs. Seriously, folks, this is the best that Superman can do? He can't keep his girl or parent his own kid? Or, is he just above it all, preferring to bask in the spotlight of public adoration?
Maybe his name should be Super-ego.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
It's been an interesting week. I pried myself away from my workplace for an entire week. I survived; I did not go into withdrawl! Definitely missed the structure and routine, though.
While I was gone:
I met my SO's family. I honestly didn't realize how hungry I was for family (umm, wait, that doesn't sound the way I meant it to!!) until I met all these people. At first I curled up and hid in the room because I was afraid of them, but then his mom found me and coaxed me out. My own clan has more or less turned their backs on me ( I guess I'm too embarrassing for whatever reason), so I'm going to adopt these folks, it looks like. They seem to either like me a lot or do an awfully good job of concealing their dismay.
We saw a movie, in an actual movie theater. More on this later.
And, I made up with my sister. Never mind why we were incommunicado, it's unimportant at this point. The salient thing here is that after quite a few years (possibly 5?), I saw her again, she got to meet my kids, and her husband (shunned by the rest of our clan for snobbish reasons) and my SO seemed to get on well.
This is funny: I've always been insecure that my men would rather have her, and that they'd rather have me act more like her. She's taller, smaller waisted, cuter, daintier, has smaller feet, a higher voice, and all the social poise that I lack. Her husband told us that when they were first married, she woke up crying in the night; he asked her what was wrong. She'd had a dream that he liked *me* instead of her!! Can you imagine? My sister, that I've been so jealous of since early childhood? She's insecure, too! I don't need to view her as a rival anymore.
And, although I didn't get a chance to do any artwork at all on my vacation, I did see a lot of pretty inspiring scenery and color. I purchased an artist's mannekin, some liquin medium, and a wooden palette, all of which I can use, but here is the thing: I keep on purchasing art supplies, and then I delay doing anything with them. I think I'm afraid of failure or something. When I do draw or paint, I feel all uptight, like each drawing or sketch or whatever has to be a masterpiece, and I either can't get started at all, or I can't complete it. It's just horrible....
While I was gone:
I met my SO's family. I honestly didn't realize how hungry I was for family (umm, wait, that doesn't sound the way I meant it to!!) until I met all these people. At first I curled up and hid in the room because I was afraid of them, but then his mom found me and coaxed me out. My own clan has more or less turned their backs on me ( I guess I'm too embarrassing for whatever reason), so I'm going to adopt these folks, it looks like. They seem to either like me a lot or do an awfully good job of concealing their dismay.
We saw a movie, in an actual movie theater. More on this later.
And, I made up with my sister. Never mind why we were incommunicado, it's unimportant at this point. The salient thing here is that after quite a few years (possibly 5?), I saw her again, she got to meet my kids, and her husband (shunned by the rest of our clan for snobbish reasons) and my SO seemed to get on well.
This is funny: I've always been insecure that my men would rather have her, and that they'd rather have me act more like her. She's taller, smaller waisted, cuter, daintier, has smaller feet, a higher voice, and all the social poise that I lack. Her husband told us that when they were first married, she woke up crying in the night; he asked her what was wrong. She'd had a dream that he liked *me* instead of her!! Can you imagine? My sister, that I've been so jealous of since early childhood? She's insecure, too! I don't need to view her as a rival anymore.
And, although I didn't get a chance to do any artwork at all on my vacation, I did see a lot of pretty inspiring scenery and color. I purchased an artist's mannekin, some liquin medium, and a wooden palette, all of which I can use, but here is the thing: I keep on purchasing art supplies, and then I delay doing anything with them. I think I'm afraid of failure or something. When I do draw or paint, I feel all uptight, like each drawing or sketch or whatever has to be a masterpiece, and I either can't get started at all, or I can't complete it. It's just horrible....
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Screw it. So what if they're mad? If I haven't done something obviously wrong or out of line and someone is still mad at me for whatever reason, that's their problem. Really, life's too short.....
I get mad at people all the time (usually for a very short time- irritated might be a better term) and people hardly ever care. I seriously doubt that other people lie awake at night worrying about whether I'm angry with them.
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OK, well, it was an attempt, at stars and stripes....
It's getting close to the 4th of July, and not only are tempers flaring at work, but my kids are pestering me incessantly for fireworks. Here's the way I look at it:
A. Why should I work for hours under stressful conditions with lazy butts who make me look bad (no, I don't mean you) just to waste it for, at the most, ten minutes of cheap thrills and danger? My money and work going up in smoke!! Sorry kids, I don't have money to burn. Spend your own dough
B. Also, there are plenty of people all around me who apparently do have money to send up in smoke. Watcing their money burn is a lot more satisfyling than if it's mine, to be honest. I have no cost, no mess, no danger of singed fingers or injured children, and there are enough people doing this already that I can enjoy it for a lot longer than ten minutes.
Yeah, I spose that is selfish....but it's my money. I don't feel obligated to blow it on these reminiscences of bombs and gunshots.
I get mad at people all the time (usually for a very short time- irritated might be a better term) and people hardly ever care. I seriously doubt that other people lie awake at night worrying about whether I'm angry with them.
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OK, well, it was an attempt, at stars and stripes....
It's getting close to the 4th of July, and not only are tempers flaring at work, but my kids are pestering me incessantly for fireworks. Here's the way I look at it:
A. Why should I work for hours under stressful conditions with lazy butts who make me look bad (no, I don't mean you) just to waste it for, at the most, ten minutes of cheap thrills and danger? My money and work going up in smoke!! Sorry kids, I don't have money to burn. Spend your own dough
B. Also, there are plenty of people all around me who apparently do have money to send up in smoke. Watcing their money burn is a lot more satisfyling than if it's mine, to be honest. I have no cost, no mess, no danger of singed fingers or injured children, and there are enough people doing this already that I can enjoy it for a lot longer than ten minutes.
Yeah, I spose that is selfish....but it's my money. I don't feel obligated to blow it on these reminiscences of bombs and gunshots.
Friday, June 30, 2006
I'm so sick and tired of wondering and fearing that people might angry at me. I'm never quite sure. Experience has taught me that when people are angry they can be:
See, I'm not always sure.
And if I'm not sure, experience has also taught me that it's best to be safe, because angry people can be violent, and unpredictably so. So usually, if I have even the faintest tinge of fear that someone might be upset with me (which is most of the time, since their anger signals are so variable) I either smile in what must be a rather uncertain, hideously half-hearted grimace, or I start to apologize, hoping to quench the thirst of their anger with my pathetic submission before it gets (horrors!) worse.
"I'm sorry"
"I'm so sorry"
"I'm really sorry"
"I didn't mean it that way..."
"Did I do something wrong? I'm sorry"
Or sometimes I just worry silently and brood over it for a long time, getting more and more upset, unsure of what I could possibly have done wrong, whether or not that remark was sarcasm, whether they're angry at me or someone else, and just replaying everything that could possibly pertain to the scenario in an attempt to decipher where I screwed up (again).
Jesus, people!! Just spell it out! I'm so damned tired of being sorry all the time when I don't even know why or what for or whether the person's even justified in the anger towards me, if it exists at all. I'm f*****g sick of groveling and begging people to allow me to please them.
Who the hell do they think they are, anyway? Can't I be angry sometimes, too?
- obviously angry: yelling, scowling, and the like
- Smiling
- Silent, cold, and unresponsive, which, to be honest, is really hard for me to distinguish from solitary-quiet or sad/depressed
- Ignoring me like I don't exist but talking to other people
- and a number or others that are hard for me to read.
See, I'm not always sure.
And if I'm not sure, experience has also taught me that it's best to be safe, because angry people can be violent, and unpredictably so. So usually, if I have even the faintest tinge of fear that someone might be upset with me (which is most of the time, since their anger signals are so variable) I either smile in what must be a rather uncertain, hideously half-hearted grimace, or I start to apologize, hoping to quench the thirst of their anger with my pathetic submission before it gets (horrors!) worse.
"I'm sorry"
"I'm so sorry"
"I'm really sorry"
"I didn't mean it that way..."
"Did I do something wrong? I'm sorry"
Or sometimes I just worry silently and brood over it for a long time, getting more and more upset, unsure of what I could possibly have done wrong, whether or not that remark was sarcasm, whether they're angry at me or someone else, and just replaying everything that could possibly pertain to the scenario in an attempt to decipher where I screwed up (again).
Jesus, people!! Just spell it out! I'm so damned tired of being sorry all the time when I don't even know why or what for or whether the person's even justified in the anger towards me, if it exists at all. I'm f*****g sick of groveling and begging people to allow me to please them.
Who the hell do they think they are, anyway? Can't I be angry sometimes, too?
Monday, June 26, 2006
So, I'm planning my garden and getting ready to place the bulb order. They're cheaper if I order before the 31st of this month. I'm thinking that it'd be cool to make a small bed devoted to strange, off the wall plants, including these. Any one of them is only moderately weird by itself, but all together?
Friday, June 23, 2006
Despair is wrapping its quiet, deadly little fingers around me again. I'm beginning to realize that the things that I say and think don't matter, what I fell doesn't matter, that I'm sort of an invisible person who just exists but doesn't make much of an impact. A cipher. I might not be hated, but neither will I be loved. I'm just going to continue existing day in and day out, like an unseen planet that cycles through the sky, watching everyone else...just circling along in some kind a a semi-ghostlike existence.
I wish I could take my St.John's wort, but the doctor said it'll go through my milk, that I have to wait until I'm done nursing. And I wish that I could have more confidence, that I could be a little more outgoing, but I'm entirely too sensitive for my own good...and when I get hurt, I ball up and don't ever want to talk to anyone again.
I think what it is, is that I need to get some sleep, maybe..... :-(
I wish I could take my St.John's wort, but the doctor said it'll go through my milk, that I have to wait until I'm done nursing. And I wish that I could have more confidence, that I could be a little more outgoing, but I'm entirely too sensitive for my own good...and when I get hurt, I ball up and don't ever want to talk to anyone again.
I think what it is, is that I need to get some sleep, maybe..... :-(
Thursday, June 22, 2006
I'm depressed and pissed off. :-/ It's my workplace again.
There is a girl at work who excels at looking cute and innocent while doing the absolute least amount of work she can possibly get away with, as slowly as possible. She smiles serenely as she works at her very leisurely pace, oblivious to the tension and chaos she is creating when we have to pick up her slack. Imagine our irritation when she proudly and smugly announces that she has received a $1.00 raise (unheard of among us) for being such a good worker! WTF?!!!! Then she adds the nice little morsel: she is going to receive another .50 raise at summer's end. We are all gnashing our teeth and agreeing that this is exactly why our boss admonishes us not to discuss our wages. I haven't had a raise in over a year, and it isn't so much the monetary element that bugs me, so much as the idea that they must not be very happy with me. I work so damned hard and consistently try to improve upon my performance, and this is just very hard to take....I would be delighted with something like, "I see that you're doing a good job, thanks", but no such thing is forthcoming. That raise would have been better spent on almost any other worker in our section....it isn't that I think I deserved it, because frankly, I know damned well that I don't deserve that kind of a raise, but neither does she.
Last night I realized that ultimately, it's their own danged business how they spend their money. I have no right to be disgruntled about whether or not she got her raise. I just wish she'd shut up about it. With that in mind, I resolved to go to work with a better attitude about this, and just put her stupid raise out of my head. I tried, I really did.....
Today didn't make it very easy, though.
Have you ever noticed there there are girls who can do half the amount of work and just look cute and innocent and still come out smelling like a rose, while the others take the heat? I have no idea how they pull this off. I sort of wish I knew, but I'd be too proud and stuck up to do it even if I did.... ::sigh::
I just hate it that people (especially guys) fall for this B.S. My sister was exactly that way. I thought I'd be done with this crap when I left home and got away from her......
There is a girl at work who excels at looking cute and innocent while doing the absolute least amount of work she can possibly get away with, as slowly as possible. She smiles serenely as she works at her very leisurely pace, oblivious to the tension and chaos she is creating when we have to pick up her slack. Imagine our irritation when she proudly and smugly announces that she has received a $1.00 raise (unheard of among us) for being such a good worker! WTF?!!!! Then she adds the nice little morsel: she is going to receive another .50 raise at summer's end. We are all gnashing our teeth and agreeing that this is exactly why our boss admonishes us not to discuss our wages. I haven't had a raise in over a year, and it isn't so much the monetary element that bugs me, so much as the idea that they must not be very happy with me. I work so damned hard and consistently try to improve upon my performance, and this is just very hard to take....I would be delighted with something like, "I see that you're doing a good job, thanks", but no such thing is forthcoming. That raise would have been better spent on almost any other worker in our section....it isn't that I think I deserved it, because frankly, I know damned well that I don't deserve that kind of a raise, but neither does she.
Last night I realized that ultimately, it's their own danged business how they spend their money. I have no right to be disgruntled about whether or not she got her raise. I just wish she'd shut up about it. With that in mind, I resolved to go to work with a better attitude about this, and just put her stupid raise out of my head. I tried, I really did.....
Today didn't make it very easy, though.
Have you ever noticed there there are girls who can do half the amount of work and just look cute and innocent and still come out smelling like a rose, while the others take the heat? I have no idea how they pull this off. I sort of wish I knew, but I'd be too proud and stuck up to do it even if I did.... ::sigh::
I just hate it that people (especially guys) fall for this B.S. My sister was exactly that way. I thought I'd be done with this crap when I left home and got away from her......
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
OK, I did it, and here is the addy for that blog: This is what happened. Comments are welcome.
On a different subject, I'm becoming interested in the Quakers, a pacifist group. At first I had the impression that you have to believe in God in the conventional sense in order to be a Friend, but apparently there are other agnostic Quakers out there. When I look at the beautiful faces of my five little boys, I just can't stomach the thought of their joining the army and killing other people's children.
On a different subject, I'm becoming interested in the Quakers, a pacifist group. At first I had the impression that you have to believe in God in the conventional sense in order to be a Friend, but apparently there are other agnostic Quakers out there. When I look at the beautiful faces of my five little boys, I just can't stomach the thought of their joining the army and killing other people's children.
Sunday, June 18, 2006
I sometimes feel as though my past is strangling me. I've tried counseling; it doesn't work very well, primarily because what the (neurotypical) therapists say is unhelpful to me (as a person on the autism spectrum who doesn't relate very well to the neurotypical perspective). The fact that they don't understand my point of view all that well is also problematic, as are their admonitions not to think about certain things (next to impossible for me).
I'm actually beginning to make a few friends (to my surprise) and so from time to time I mention excerpts from my past, but it's really hard for me to put it into perspective for them. When I tell them that my first marriage (total nightmare) was more or less arranged by my very religious parents, they just go, "What?????" They don't have the context. Meanwhile, people who've known me since I was a kid drift through the store and I get lost in the detritus of the past and the attempt to reconcile it with my present life.
I started to write a book about it once, but at the time I was still in serious conflict about some of the religious/spiritual issues. I tried desperately to salvage some of what I believed in, to justify it....and the result was a defensive, convoluted mess. My sister wrote a book (sampling liberally from what I had written), and her spin on it was that we had fallen into a cult and that she had been rescued and returned to true Christianity...not a point of view that I could share.
A LOT of people tell me that I should simply get over it and not think about the past. Move on, they say! That's easier said than done, when the contemporaries I grew up with come through my workplace, and I see the same struggle in them, some of them succumbing to drugs, others going as ultra religious as their parents, and others ....attempting some kind of a compromise? As though that were possible, heh. Some of them won't even speak to me or acknowledge my presence. We flap and struggle through life like wounded birds...some of us relatively unharmed after all, others maimed and crippled up....
So I think what I'm going to do, so as not to clutter this place up, is to create another blog for that purpose. I'll link to it from here.
===============================================================
And, an aside, while we're sitting here referring to spirtuality and religious issues. I'm considering the Friends, that is to say, Quakers. Pacificism is something I take seriously. The only thing is, I'm not sure there's a god, or that it matters, so probably I don't qualify, I'd think.
I'm actually beginning to make a few friends (to my surprise) and so from time to time I mention excerpts from my past, but it's really hard for me to put it into perspective for them. When I tell them that my first marriage (total nightmare) was more or less arranged by my very religious parents, they just go, "What?????" They don't have the context. Meanwhile, people who've known me since I was a kid drift through the store and I get lost in the detritus of the past and the attempt to reconcile it with my present life.
I started to write a book about it once, but at the time I was still in serious conflict about some of the religious/spiritual issues. I tried desperately to salvage some of what I believed in, to justify it....and the result was a defensive, convoluted mess. My sister wrote a book (sampling liberally from what I had written), and her spin on it was that we had fallen into a cult and that she had been rescued and returned to true Christianity...not a point of view that I could share.
A LOT of people tell me that I should simply get over it and not think about the past. Move on, they say! That's easier said than done, when the contemporaries I grew up with come through my workplace, and I see the same struggle in them, some of them succumbing to drugs, others going as ultra religious as their parents, and others ....attempting some kind of a compromise? As though that were possible, heh. Some of them won't even speak to me or acknowledge my presence. We flap and struggle through life like wounded birds...some of us relatively unharmed after all, others maimed and crippled up....
So I think what I'm going to do, so as not to clutter this place up, is to create another blog for that purpose. I'll link to it from here.
===============================================================
And, an aside, while we're sitting here referring to spirtuality and religious issues. I'm considering the Friends, that is to say, Quakers. Pacificism is something I take seriously. The only thing is, I'm not sure there's a god, or that it matters, so probably I don't qualify, I'd think.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
People who scare me
(That is to say, almost everyone).
My manager scares me. I never know what in the heck she's thinking, and I've spent enough time watching her closely (as well as listening) to observe that she is not straightforward about what she is thinking. Most of the time she will not divulge what she truly thinks or feels about someone to their face. This frightens me to no end. I could screw up badly enough that she would be chomping at the bit to get rid of me, and yet she'd smile and speak politely to me? I have seen it happen...to others.... Help!!!!! Please, just *tell* me if I screw up, right when I do it! Then I can fix it, right then, before you all get mad.
Another manager scares me, because I kow that he's a very religious person. HIs life is centered around his faith. I actually admire that, but I'm agnostic. I have this uneasy sensation that if he discovered that, he would find things to dislike about me. :squirm:
Little kids used to scare me, because they're not mine and that made me uncomfortable. I don't know how to relate to other people's kids, just my own. I am, however, gradually becoming acclimated to the offspring of other people and they no longer intimidate me.
Druggies, particularly meth heads, are the human equivialent of a horror movie monster in my mind. These people are very, very unpredictable and about as illogical and disconnected as you can get. Potheads, on the other hand, are just amusing and fairly harmless.
Drunks. They aren't thinking clearly, therefore they might be dangerous.
Extremely well dressed churchy-looking ladies who are very very prim and proper with every hair in place leave me hopping anxiously. Anyone that anal is apt to be hard to please. Jehovah Witnesses are the benign exception. They're always generous with smiles and friendly waves, and they seem less...stiff and starched.
Big dirty looking guys with an unfocused gaze and hair flying every which way: are they dangerous? Perhaps. Definitely scary unless I know them.
Teenage boys full of hormones; I used to be almost phobic of them and young men in general. Now I'm old enough that they don't seem as threatening.
Gals who blab their mouths all the time with lots of silly crap, especially the ones who revel in picking apart the cosmetic flaws of movie stars. Geez Louise, if a movie star can't please them, what do they have to say about me behind my back?
Cheap women: firstly, they make my skin crawl. Secondly, this is a woman who will steal your man in a heartbeat without remorse, given half a chance. You cannot trust her...at all.
People who gossip continuously about anyone and everyone, loudly for all to hear. God help you if someone you know tells them something about you! On the other hand, they're extremely useful if you want to spread news quickly with minimal effort. Just be very, VERY careful what you say and that you word it in such a way as to be quite clear as to your menaing.
Most people who touch me without permission. My reaction is to jump or recoil as if burned. Eeek! You *touched* me!! There are a few people that I don't mind touching or inadvertently bumping me. If you touch me and I don't cringe, it's a compliment.
Groups of people: teenagers, crowds, cliques, etc. It isn't nice to feel reminded of one's outsider status. Besdies, they outnumber me.
But I think what scares me the most are people who act friendly to my face, and then as I walk away, I glance back and catch them looking at me in a not very friendly way. What do they really think? What will they do? The nasty thing about this is that you cannot confront them about it or get it out in the open since they're always nice to your face.
------------------
Now
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One thing I did realize is that I tend to really like people who are direct and outspoken about what they think, even if it isn't what I want to hear. If I need to hear it, tell me. I'll get over the dismay or disappointment soon enough, and then the problem can be dealt with, or we can agree to disagree.
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And
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I like it when people make me feel safe or if they have a reassuring presence. That's very nice when the world is a virtual minefield of potentially frightening sorts.
(That is to say, almost everyone).
My manager scares me. I never know what in the heck she's thinking, and I've spent enough time watching her closely (as well as listening) to observe that she is not straightforward about what she is thinking. Most of the time she will not divulge what she truly thinks or feels about someone to their face. This frightens me to no end. I could screw up badly enough that she would be chomping at the bit to get rid of me, and yet she'd smile and speak politely to me? I have seen it happen...to others.... Help!!!!! Please, just *tell* me if I screw up, right when I do it! Then I can fix it, right then, before you all get mad.
Another manager scares me, because I kow that he's a very religious person. HIs life is centered around his faith. I actually admire that, but I'm agnostic. I have this uneasy sensation that if he discovered that, he would find things to dislike about me. :squirm:
Little kids used to scare me, because they're not mine and that made me uncomfortable. I don't know how to relate to other people's kids, just my own. I am, however, gradually becoming acclimated to the offspring of other people and they no longer intimidate me.
Druggies, particularly meth heads, are the human equivialent of a horror movie monster in my mind. These people are very, very unpredictable and about as illogical and disconnected as you can get. Potheads, on the other hand, are just amusing and fairly harmless.
Drunks. They aren't thinking clearly, therefore they might be dangerous.
Extremely well dressed churchy-looking ladies who are very very prim and proper with every hair in place leave me hopping anxiously. Anyone that anal is apt to be hard to please. Jehovah Witnesses are the benign exception. They're always generous with smiles and friendly waves, and they seem less...stiff and starched.
Big dirty looking guys with an unfocused gaze and hair flying every which way: are they dangerous? Perhaps. Definitely scary unless I know them.
Teenage boys full of hormones; I used to be almost phobic of them and young men in general. Now I'm old enough that they don't seem as threatening.
Gals who blab their mouths all the time with lots of silly crap, especially the ones who revel in picking apart the cosmetic flaws of movie stars. Geez Louise, if a movie star can't please them, what do they have to say about me behind my back?
Cheap women: firstly, they make my skin crawl. Secondly, this is a woman who will steal your man in a heartbeat without remorse, given half a chance. You cannot trust her...at all.
People who gossip continuously about anyone and everyone, loudly for all to hear. God help you if someone you know tells them something about you! On the other hand, they're extremely useful if you want to spread news quickly with minimal effort. Just be very, VERY careful what you say and that you word it in such a way as to be quite clear as to your menaing.
Most people who touch me without permission. My reaction is to jump or recoil as if burned. Eeek! You *touched* me!! There are a few people that I don't mind touching or inadvertently bumping me. If you touch me and I don't cringe, it's a compliment.
Groups of people: teenagers, crowds, cliques, etc. It isn't nice to feel reminded of one's outsider status. Besdies, they outnumber me.
But I think what scares me the most are people who act friendly to my face, and then as I walk away, I glance back and catch them looking at me in a not very friendly way. What do they really think? What will they do? The nasty thing about this is that you cannot confront them about it or get it out in the open since they're always nice to your face.
------------------
Now
------------------
One thing I did realize is that I tend to really like people who are direct and outspoken about what they think, even if it isn't what I want to hear. If I need to hear it, tell me. I'll get over the dismay or disappointment soon enough, and then the problem can be dealt with, or we can agree to disagree.
-----------------
And
-----------------
I like it when people make me feel safe or if they have a reassuring presence. That's very nice when the world is a virtual minefield of potentially frightening sorts.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
I, the health minded, formerly vegetarian food snob, the one who buys organic milk and eggs, who munches tofu (organic and locally produced of course) cold and all by itself, the one who disdains to buy or eat the majority of "food" in the store, am sitting here relishing a thick, juicy steak. I can't even defend it on the grounds of it being free range or organic, because it isn't. It's local meat (relatively- I think it's from Washington state) but it could easily be local feedlots for all I know. Frankly, right now I don't care. The words *Premium*Angus*Beef* are singing happily through my iron starved, protein craving brain.
This is the third day that I've been bloodthirsty for red meat. I could blame it on the guy (I'm assuming he was affiliated with beef producers) who cooked a whole prime rib in the deli and then sampled it out for the store's grand opening. At first, when I saw the hunk of meat laying on the cart and entering the oven, my reaction was "piece of beef", and I started visualizing where on the animal that big cut of meat came from. Some time later, when it was about half done, I was surprised to notice a flickering interest asserting itself. "I might try that? Hmmm. OK. I might try that..." By the time they determined that the still-very-bright-pink/red meat was hot enough not to be dangerous any more, I was practically drooling and having to restrain myself from hovering over it longingly. For hours I watched him cut it up into tasty inch sized cubes and pierce them with toothpicks and set them on a plate. Every time I had a chance to get a piece, there were people in the way. Finally, towards the end of the day, when the man seemed truly weary of pitching his product, I was able to snag one. Oh my, was that good! Yes! That hit the spot!
Ever since, I've been hungry for meat, and chicken just won't cut it. STEAK. PINK STEAK. (insert orgasmic sighs of pleasure and contentment.) I think my body is hungry for protein because I'm nursing. Heck, even the fat tastes good. And now I'm thinking that if I get a place of my own, I want to raise a beef calf, so I can have lots of this stuff, and know it was raised well and humanely. A Scottish Highland calf would be good, if I can find it. MMMMMMmmmmm.....
This is the third day that I've been bloodthirsty for red meat. I could blame it on the guy (I'm assuming he was affiliated with beef producers) who cooked a whole prime rib in the deli and then sampled it out for the store's grand opening. At first, when I saw the hunk of meat laying on the cart and entering the oven, my reaction was "piece of beef", and I started visualizing where on the animal that big cut of meat came from. Some time later, when it was about half done, I was surprised to notice a flickering interest asserting itself. "I might try that? Hmmm. OK. I might try that..." By the time they determined that the still-very-bright-pink/red meat was hot enough not to be dangerous any more, I was practically drooling and having to restrain myself from hovering over it longingly. For hours I watched him cut it up into tasty inch sized cubes and pierce them with toothpicks and set them on a plate. Every time I had a chance to get a piece, there were people in the way. Finally, towards the end of the day, when the man seemed truly weary of pitching his product, I was able to snag one. Oh my, was that good! Yes! That hit the spot!
Ever since, I've been hungry for meat, and chicken just won't cut it. STEAK. PINK STEAK. (insert orgasmic sighs of pleasure and contentment.) I think my body is hungry for protein because I'm nursing. Heck, even the fat tastes good. And now I'm thinking that if I get a place of my own, I want to raise a beef calf, so I can have lots of this stuff, and know it was raised well and humanely. A Scottish Highland calf would be good, if I can find it. MMMMMMmmmmm.....
Monday, May 15, 2006
White People with Dreadlocks
........................................................
Getting right to the point here, I don't think white people should put their hair in dreads. First of all, it looks nasty. They look great on black people , but I think that the *only* instance where I've ever seen them look attractive on a white has been in the movie "The Fifth Element". That cute redhead looked OK with them, and they weren't the fat ropey kind tied into a ponytail sticking straight out behind, like I've seen on other white people.
Secondly, it smacks of....more than imitation. It almost borders on parody to see white folks with dreads, wearing gangsta type clothes, listening to rap music. It looks just ridiculous, and this is coming from someone who grew up in inner city Chicago. It's particularly out of place in Rednecksville, Idaho, where if a black person comes into view, people gawk and stare and point and whisper: "Did you see??"
I'm not racist, either. This isn't about racism.
It's just that something in me sneers at this sort of thing, sort of like when people make "chinese stir fry" and add potatoes to it, or worse, ketchup. I mean, if they want to lightly saute vegetables and eat them with rice, fine. But don't call that shit Chinese. You put ketchup in it, it's ruined. And while we're at it, taco pizza??
I guess I just can't see emulating another culture in such a way as to make it look stupid or to seem disrespectful. Another example would be Christianized versions of Jewish feasts and holy days. Their spin on it is enough to make one want to scream and rend your clothing! Arrrgh!
I do realize that America's the melting pot and all that. I've probably eaten curry, borscht, challah, and chicken adobo all in the same week and not thought twice about it. It's just this indiscriminate, inaccurate, shamelessly random and halfhearted sampling (and then proudly showing it off as being from that culture) that irks me.
........................................................
Getting right to the point here, I don't think white people should put their hair in dreads. First of all, it looks nasty. They look great on black people , but I think that the *only* instance where I've ever seen them look attractive on a white has been in the movie "The Fifth Element". That cute redhead looked OK with them, and they weren't the fat ropey kind tied into a ponytail sticking straight out behind, like I've seen on other white people.
Secondly, it smacks of....more than imitation. It almost borders on parody to see white folks with dreads, wearing gangsta type clothes, listening to rap music. It looks just ridiculous, and this is coming from someone who grew up in inner city Chicago. It's particularly out of place in Rednecksville, Idaho, where if a black person comes into view, people gawk and stare and point and whisper: "Did you see??"
I'm not racist, either. This isn't about racism.
It's just that something in me sneers at this sort of thing, sort of like when people make "chinese stir fry" and add potatoes to it, or worse, ketchup. I mean, if they want to lightly saute vegetables and eat them with rice, fine. But don't call that shit Chinese. You put ketchup in it, it's ruined. And while we're at it, taco pizza??
I guess I just can't see emulating another culture in such a way as to make it look stupid or to seem disrespectful. Another example would be Christianized versions of Jewish feasts and holy days. Their spin on it is enough to make one want to scream and rend your clothing! Arrrgh!
I do realize that America's the melting pot and all that. I've probably eaten curry, borscht, challah, and chicken adobo all in the same week and not thought twice about it. It's just this indiscriminate, inaccurate, shamelessly random and halfhearted sampling (and then proudly showing it off as being from that culture) that irks me.
Monday, May 08, 2006
Waxing nostalgic and homesick....
I could buy and stock bird feeders until the stores ran out of stock...and never see a cardinal...although I might see cedar waxwings, which are almost as nice.
I could drive all day, and I won't see any cornfields..or soybeans, either.
I could search the forests and yards and edges of parking lots in vain- no mulberries.
I've yet to see a Farm and Fleet store here.
I could lay awake all night long outside, all summer long, and not see even a single firefly, ever. Once I thought I did see one, a few years ago, and I got really excited...but it turned out I was mistaken.
And even though milkweed doesn't grow here, I could plant it. It wouldn't matter, though...the monarch butterflies with their cool striped caterpillars wouldn't visit the plants.
Yeah, I'm homesick
After all these years. After busting my butt to get here and to stay here, I miss the midwest. I'm trying to tell myself that if I were there, I'd be missing all the great things that we have here that simply don't exist there. I guess that as we get older, we sort of miss what we grew up with.... :-/
I could buy and stock bird feeders until the stores ran out of stock...and never see a cardinal...although I might see cedar waxwings, which are almost as nice.
I could drive all day, and I won't see any cornfields..or soybeans, either.
I could search the forests and yards and edges of parking lots in vain- no mulberries.
I've yet to see a Farm and Fleet store here.
I could lay awake all night long outside, all summer long, and not see even a single firefly, ever. Once I thought I did see one, a few years ago, and I got really excited...but it turned out I was mistaken.
And even though milkweed doesn't grow here, I could plant it. It wouldn't matter, though...the monarch butterflies with their cool striped caterpillars wouldn't visit the plants.
After all these years. After busting my butt to get here and to stay here, I miss the midwest. I'm trying to tell myself that if I were there, I'd be missing all the great things that we have here that simply don't exist there. I guess that as we get older, we sort of miss what we grew up with....
Friday, May 05, 2006
An excerpt from today:
7 year old daughter looking through cake decorating book with brother: Daniel, do you like this cake?
son: No.
daughter: It looks like a circus! Don't you like it?
son: No.
daughter: Why not? Don't you like circuses?
son: No.
daughter: Why not, Daniel?
son (somewhat frustrated): It has clowns on it!!
daughter: Don't you like clowns?
son: No.
daughter: Why not? Why don't you like clowns? Don't you want a cake with clowns on it?
son: No.
daughter: Why not?
Son: I don't like clowns.
daughter: You don't like clowns? Why not? Clowns are nice!
Son (yelling): They're not nice, they're FUNNY!!!
***********************************************************
LOL...I agree with him...I don't like clowns, either. And it is their eerie gaiety that disturbs me the most. The sad clowns don't bother me at all.
7 year old daughter looking through cake decorating book with brother: Daniel, do you like this cake?
son: No.
daughter: It looks like a circus! Don't you like it?
son: No.
daughter: Why not? Don't you like circuses?
son: No.
daughter: Why not, Daniel?
son (somewhat frustrated): It has clowns on it!!
daughter: Don't you like clowns?
son: No.
daughter: Why not? Why don't you like clowns? Don't you want a cake with clowns on it?
son: No.
daughter: Why not?
Son: I don't like clowns.
daughter: You don't like clowns? Why not? Clowns are nice!
Son (yelling): They're not nice, they're FUNNY!!!
***********************************************************
LOL...I agree with him...I don't like clowns, either. And it is their eerie gaiety that disturbs me the most. The sad clowns don't bother me at all.
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Disablity
Let me make something clear from the start here: I have an offical diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder that used to be thought of as rare but is increasingly more common than 'they' thought. It does affect my life in both positive and negative ways, and has had a profound impact on the path I've taken- largely due to decisions or actions that seemed rather small at the time, such as not making a phone call because I had a phone aversion/phobia. I'm not sure what it feels like for other people to be normal, but looking on it from the outside, you normal folks seem pretty boring to me, as a whole. So given a choice, I don't think I'd choose to be normal even if it were an option. I don't want a bland, white bread, 2 dimensional life, even if it is easier. Thank for the thought, though...really.
In that context, then, here is what I've been thinking about today: whether I could be called "disabled" or not. I function...with effort. I'm independent, even if it did take a damned long time for me to get that way (for example, I didn't get a driver's license until I was 30). Relationships.....uh, sore subject...but I don't think that's necessarily part of a criteria for being disabled, at least not if we're talking personal relationships. The main thing seems to be----> work.
I had a job about a year ago, working with an agency that provided services to developmentally disabled people. My clients varied from degrees of mental retardation (barely detectable to profound)to autistic (again, degrees) to cerebral palsy to spina bifida to I don't know what else....no mental illness, though...that wasn't our area of expertise. When I applied for the job, I has heard of Asperger's, and a fellow aspie friend had suggested I might want to check into seeing if I had it, too...but I hadn't as yet followed up on it or even given it much thought. I honestly felt that the failure of my life was due to laziness, or other people's actions (which to be fair, was certainly a large factor, too) or just bad luck. I wondered how other people could sustain the effort required just to keep themselves up (clean clothes, make-up, daily shower, clean car, organized life, all that jazz) and do it so easily, when it was such a gargantuan task for me. Again, I figured that I must just be lazy...despite the fact that I did more physical labor in a day than most of them did in a week. I'm getting sidetracked here...... So, anyway, I apply for this job, and I get it. The aplication asks if I'm disabled, and I check "No", because as far as I knew, I was just "not quite with it" and possibly lazy, but otherwise just motivationally challenged. The advertisement for the position mentioned the fact that disabled employees would receive a higher rate of pay, and there was also a poster in the building posting this fact, for all to see. I don't remember how much higher, but the difference was reasonably significant.
Well, after some exposure to autistic people (who I hadn't ever interacted with much before unless you count undiagnosed family memmbers) a nagging sensation got ahold of me, and it became clearer with every interaction: these people made *sense*!!! No offense, but most of you folks don't, to me. Your way of thought doesn't make sense to my mind. I realized that I had a connection, and that there were also behavioral similarities between my client and I. I didn't realize how I looked until I saw her as a reflection...exaggerated, maybe, but a reflection of many of my own traits nevertheless. I began to feel hanuted, and afraid that I would lose my job if my employers found out. I found myself defending my client from the other workers and getting my personal feelings involved...why couldn't they leave her alone except for the things that really mattered? Why should it matter if she doesn't make sense to them? They were constantly telling her to shut up, and that what she said was nonsense...and it wasn't, not to me. Some of it was profound.
Finally I went to a psychologist (actually, he may have been a psychiatrist...not clear on that) and he did in fact diagnose me with Asperger's. I informed my workplaces. They started putting me only with clients who were retarded and pahsing out interactions with other autistics- the only people I could really relate to or, to my way of thinking, really help. I dodn't ask them if they would change my wages to those of a disabled person, because it seemed awkward. That wasn't the reason I got diagnosed; I did it for my own peace of mind and to try to find out what the heck was the matter with me. I didn't want to seem greedy. At any rate, they didn't change my pay. Other disabled workers continued to get what they got, and I got the normal wages.
So my question is, was that fair or right? Should I have gotten the higher wages? Am I disabled in that sense?
I do know that my work was hampered by my AS. They frequently made me do socially awkward things, like spending an entire hour or more alone in a guy's house with him, or meeting clients for the first time by simply driving up to their house and knocking on their door (the thought gives me the shudders!!!) or watching a kid who was particpating in a relay race that involved mass balloon popping and another woman shreiking excitedly at the top of her lungs (instant anxiety attack material). I wound up quitting, because they refused to accomodate me and the stress of feeling more like a client than a worker was becoming intolerable. They seemed pleased.
At my current job, I seem to do OK. I have a good work ethic and now that it's familiar, I love being at work. I feel safe there. The thing is, I very nearly didn't make it there, either. I don't know how many times I almost walked out of that place! It tooks me months and months to learn what most new girls soak up in a matter of weeks. For the first few days, I actually ran away from the customers! ;-) Even now....if my co-workers and employers were decidely intolerant of my idiosyncrisies, they could probably make life bad enough for me that I'd quit.
The irritating thing is that given my I.Q. and actual ability, I'm performing way below what I'd *like* to. I mean, it's basically higher end fast food. Occasionally it is frustrating to feel so subservient in that setting when, had I had an education past 8th grade, my social status could well have been more or less equal to anyone there. I don't particularly care about social status though, which is probably a large part of why I have none. On the other hand, I feel like a peon, a nothing, and I don't like that, either. I was supposed to be an artist, or a doctor, or..something wonderful. And, look at me. Not only am I just a lowly deli worker, I'm a deli worker who has to struggle to perform well at her job almost every day. It's......I don't know....how else can I say it?
Let me make something clear from the start here: I have an offical diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder that used to be thought of as rare but is increasingly more common than 'they' thought. It does affect my life in both positive and negative ways, and has had a profound impact on the path I've taken- largely due to decisions or actions that seemed rather small at the time, such as not making a phone call because I had a phone aversion/phobia. I'm not sure what it feels like for other people to be normal, but looking on it from the outside, you normal folks seem pretty boring to me, as a whole. So given a choice, I don't think I'd choose to be normal even if it were an option. I don't want a bland, white bread, 2 dimensional life, even if it is easier. Thank for the thought, though...really.
In that context, then, here is what I've been thinking about today: whether I could be called "disabled" or not. I function...with effort. I'm independent, even if it did take a damned long time for me to get that way (for example, I didn't get a driver's license until I was 30). Relationships.....uh, sore subject...but I don't think that's necessarily part of a criteria for being disabled, at least not if we're talking personal relationships. The main thing seems to be----> work.
I had a job about a year ago, working with an agency that provided services to developmentally disabled people. My clients varied from degrees of mental retardation (barely detectable to profound)to autistic (again, degrees) to cerebral palsy to spina bifida to I don't know what else....no mental illness, though...that wasn't our area of expertise. When I applied for the job, I has heard of Asperger's, and a fellow aspie friend had suggested I might want to check into seeing if I had it, too...but I hadn't as yet followed up on it or even given it much thought. I honestly felt that the failure of my life was due to laziness, or other people's actions (which to be fair, was certainly a large factor, too) or just bad luck. I wondered how other people could sustain the effort required just to keep themselves up (clean clothes, make-up, daily shower, clean car, organized life, all that jazz) and do it so easily, when it was such a gargantuan task for me. Again, I figured that I must just be lazy...despite the fact that I did more physical labor in a day than most of them did in a week. I'm getting sidetracked here...... So, anyway, I apply for this job, and I get it. The aplication asks if I'm disabled, and I check "No", because as far as I knew, I was just "not quite with it" and possibly lazy, but otherwise just motivationally challenged. The advertisement for the position mentioned the fact that disabled employees would receive a higher rate of pay, and there was also a poster in the building posting this fact, for all to see. I don't remember how much higher, but the difference was reasonably significant.
Well, after some exposure to autistic people (who I hadn't ever interacted with much before unless you count undiagnosed family memmbers) a nagging sensation got ahold of me, and it became clearer with every interaction: these people made *sense*!!! No offense, but most of you folks don't, to me. Your way of thought doesn't make sense to my mind. I realized that I had a connection, and that there were also behavioral similarities between my client and I. I didn't realize how I looked until I saw her as a reflection...exaggerated, maybe, but a reflection of many of my own traits nevertheless. I began to feel hanuted, and afraid that I would lose my job if my employers found out. I found myself defending my client from the other workers and getting my personal feelings involved...why couldn't they leave her alone except for the things that really mattered? Why should it matter if she doesn't make sense to them? They were constantly telling her to shut up, and that what she said was nonsense...and it wasn't, not to me. Some of it was profound.
Finally I went to a psychologist (actually, he may have been a psychiatrist...not clear on that) and he did in fact diagnose me with Asperger's. I informed my workplaces. They started putting me only with clients who were retarded and pahsing out interactions with other autistics- the only people I could really relate to or, to my way of thinking, really help. I dodn't ask them if they would change my wages to those of a disabled person, because it seemed awkward. That wasn't the reason I got diagnosed; I did it for my own peace of mind and to try to find out what the heck was the matter with me. I didn't want to seem greedy. At any rate, they didn't change my pay. Other disabled workers continued to get what they got, and I got the normal wages.
So my question is, was that fair or right? Should I have gotten the higher wages? Am I disabled in that sense?
I do know that my work was hampered by my AS. They frequently made me do socially awkward things, like spending an entire hour or more alone in a guy's house with him, or meeting clients for the first time by simply driving up to their house and knocking on their door (the thought gives me the shudders!!!) or watching a kid who was particpating in a relay race that involved mass balloon popping and another woman shreiking excitedly at the top of her lungs (instant anxiety attack material). I wound up quitting, because they refused to accomodate me and the stress of feeling more like a client than a worker was becoming intolerable. They seemed pleased.
At my current job, I seem to do OK. I have a good work ethic and now that it's familiar, I love being at work. I feel safe there. The thing is, I very nearly didn't make it there, either. I don't know how many times I almost walked out of that place! It tooks me months and months to learn what most new girls soak up in a matter of weeks. For the first few days, I actually ran away from the customers! ;-) Even now....if my co-workers and employers were decidely intolerant of my idiosyncrisies, they could probably make life bad enough for me that I'd quit.
The irritating thing is that given my I.Q. and actual ability, I'm performing way below what I'd *like* to. I mean, it's basically higher end fast food. Occasionally it is frustrating to feel so subservient in that setting when, had I had an education past 8th grade, my social status could well have been more or less equal to anyone there. I don't particularly care about social status though, which is probably a large part of why I have none. On the other hand, I feel like a peon, a nothing, and I don't like that, either. I was supposed to be an artist, or a doctor, or..something wonderful. And, look at me. Not only am I just a lowly deli worker, I'm a deli worker who has to struggle to perform well at her job almost every day. It's......I don't know....how else can I say it?
Saturday, April 15, 2006
I think, or at least, I like to think, that I'm a reasonably forgiving and accomadating person. I don't typically harbor grduges or hate people indefinitely. (I will, however, admit to hating some people for shorter periods of time, perhaps a week or longer). Sometimes a person screws me over so badly that I simply have no interest in ever interacting with them again. It isn't necessarily that I hate them...just that I do not want the strain of dealing with them anymore or being reminded of the painful events that have occurred, or risking being subjected to yet more of the same. Very often, there's no hatred or animosity involved...just pain. With some people, it just hurts too damned much to see them or think of them or to replay all of it...I can't deal with it, so I wall them off from me. Of course, if I cared *very* much about the person, and I end up seeing them anyway, I may well act flippant and casual, like I could care less, and then once I'm alone again, fall apart. At least they haven't seen the pain, so I still have my dignity.
Once in a while, though, I do encounter a case where I seriously and deeply, vehemently, dislike someone: people who are gratuitously mean. Mean for no other good reason than that they're in a position to dish it out. If they're phony sugary nice as a thin skin over it, you can multiply my aversion by at least 10....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A seperate, unrelated topic
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Propognosia (or, difficulty recognizing faces)
I could claim that it's because I rarely look at people faces directly for very long, and I'm sure that that is indeed a factor. The fact is, though, that I've been known to not recognize my own dad when I saw him in an unexpected setting. Big deal? No. This causes so many embarrassing social problems you wouldn't believe it. Much of my social recognition is based on factors such as clothing, hair style, scent, setting, color, large accessories such as eyeglasses, gait and other body movements, voice, body size and shape, etc. In fact, you could mark out the faces on most of the people I know and I could recognize them well if all the other factors were as usual. If I see someone in a dfferent setting, I may treat them as a stranger even though I've just spoken to them at length the day before...because I flat out do not recognize them. There may be a nagging familiarity about the person that I can't place....but I've had so many awkward encounters where I thought I knew soemone and didn't know from where, and it turned out that they were, in fact, total strangers (who were embarrassed and confused that I thought I knew them) that I have discontinued saying, "Don't I know you from??" all it takes is for someone to wear their hair differently, or dye it, or not wear a uniform, or for me to see them in a different place, to assume the status of a total stranger to my brain.
Now, if they walk up to me and say "Hi! (yak yak yak)" then usually the voice and other cues (scent, gestures, hints in conversation) will cue me in to the identity of the person within a few minutes. I try not to let on that I don't remember who they are in the meantime....
And, I don't think it's a memory problem. I have a photographic memory. The thing is, faces usually aren't in it unless I've seen the thousands and thousands of times, and possibly even if I have. They're blurry or absent, while other things, such as appliances left on or forgotten objects, are quite clear. I try to explain it, when I make a particularly embarrassing faux pas (such as recoiling violently when a friend comes up and touches or hugs me in public before I recognize them!), but I think it must still be offensive to some degree.
It's one of those Asperger's things that I don't really relish having.
Once in a while, though, I do encounter a case where I seriously and deeply, vehemently, dislike someone: people who are gratuitously mean. Mean for no other good reason than that they're in a position to dish it out. If they're phony sugary nice as a thin skin over it, you can multiply my aversion by at least 10....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A seperate, unrelated topic
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Propognosia (or, difficulty recognizing faces)
I could claim that it's because I rarely look at people faces directly for very long, and I'm sure that that is indeed a factor. The fact is, though, that I've been known to not recognize my own dad when I saw him in an unexpected setting. Big deal? No. This causes so many embarrassing social problems you wouldn't believe it. Much of my social recognition is based on factors such as clothing, hair style, scent, setting, color, large accessories such as eyeglasses, gait and other body movements, voice, body size and shape, etc. In fact, you could mark out the faces on most of the people I know and I could recognize them well if all the other factors were as usual. If I see someone in a dfferent setting, I may treat them as a stranger even though I've just spoken to them at length the day before...because I flat out do not recognize them. There may be a nagging familiarity about the person that I can't place....but I've had so many awkward encounters where I thought I knew soemone and didn't know from where, and it turned out that they were, in fact, total strangers (who were embarrassed and confused that I thought I knew them) that I have discontinued saying, "Don't I know you from??" all it takes is for someone to wear their hair differently, or dye it, or not wear a uniform, or for me to see them in a different place, to assume the status of a total stranger to my brain.
Now, if they walk up to me and say "Hi! (yak yak yak)" then usually the voice and other cues (scent, gestures, hints in conversation) will cue me in to the identity of the person within a few minutes. I try not to let on that I don't remember who they are in the meantime....
And, I don't think it's a memory problem. I have a photographic memory. The thing is, faces usually aren't in it unless I've seen the thousands and thousands of times, and possibly even if I have. They're blurry or absent, while other things, such as appliances left on or forgotten objects, are quite clear. I try to explain it, when I make a particularly embarrassing faux pas (such as recoiling violently when a friend comes up and touches or hugs me in public before I recognize them!), but I think it must still be offensive to some degree.
It's one of those Asperger's things that I don't really relish having.
Friday, March 31, 2006
Random Sleep Deprived Bits and Pieces
....................................................
---->> It drives me crazy (and hurts my feelings, too, since I'm on the subject) when I'm bending over backwards to please someone or do my job or to perform well or just generally going out of my way more than usual in an attempt to win approval, and all the effort goes unpraised while something insignificant gets highlighted and criticized. I really hate to admit this, but there occasionally are times when I get invested in wanting to please people.
---> Now I know how my family feels.... :-( I'll try to lighten up.
---> Illegal immigration. Ya know, we took a lot of this country from the Mexicans, from the little bit of history I can recall. I have an idea. Why don't we ask Mexico to join the union? A lot of them end up here anyway, and why? Because conditions there are bad. At the rate we're losing farmland, we could use more of it, and I honestly think it could be a positive thing to join forces with Mexico rather than building walls and demonizing people who are only attempting to do the same thing our own ancestors did- to improve their way of life for their family. I'm not talkign about subjugating it, either. I think we should ask Mexico if they'd like to join the U.S. and be another state (or probably several more states).
--> I'm spending 8 hours a day on my feet, running around actively, and I'm breastfeeding. But I'm still not losing much weight. Huh?! Time to grease up the bicycle....
-->And another thing: I look ugly. People keep calling me a guy. It's getting old. My eye veers occasionally to the beauty products and makeup. Only problem, is, I have about as much of a clue about this stuff as most guys would, and I am seriously afraid to use it for fear of looking like a clown. Eeeeek! Besides, I hate the way it feels (from the few times other women have held me down and plastered my face). Do guys not mind the way it feels on their lips? Ick!
--> People, wear less perfume. Seriously. Half a bottle is way too much. Take the bottle with you in your car or briefcase or purse or whatever, -hell, tie it around your neck for all I care- and apply just very small amounts at a time rather than dousing yourself in enough to last the whole day and part of the next.
--> Things I want to see offered at the store: The health foody brand of chocolate that has endangered animals printed on the wrappers. That stuff is serious chocolate. Lundberg organic rice cakes with seaweed and tamari. Sounds awful? Well, I'm not a fan of seaweed myself, but I really do like this stuff. And, leeks! I wanted to make a nice leek soup, and there weren't any. No, I refuse to go to Safeway. Hey, I can dream, right? I never thought they'd carry my favorite type of soda (Blue Sky Ginseng creme) but they do now...and I never even dared to ask for it. :-)
....................................................
---->> It drives me crazy (and hurts my feelings, too, since I'm on the subject) when I'm bending over backwards to please someone or do my job or to perform well or just generally going out of my way more than usual in an attempt to win approval, and all the effort goes unpraised while something insignificant gets highlighted and criticized. I really hate to admit this, but there occasionally are times when I get invested in wanting to please people.
---> Now I know how my family feels.... :-( I'll try to lighten up.
---> Illegal immigration. Ya know, we took a lot of this country from the Mexicans, from the little bit of history I can recall. I have an idea. Why don't we ask Mexico to join the union? A lot of them end up here anyway, and why? Because conditions there are bad. At the rate we're losing farmland, we could use more of it, and I honestly think it could be a positive thing to join forces with Mexico rather than building walls and demonizing people who are only attempting to do the same thing our own ancestors did- to improve their way of life for their family. I'm not talkign about subjugating it, either. I think we should ask Mexico if they'd like to join the U.S. and be another state (or probably several more states).
--> I'm spending 8 hours a day on my feet, running around actively, and I'm breastfeeding. But I'm still not losing much weight. Huh?! Time to grease up the bicycle....
-->And another thing: I look ugly. People keep calling me a guy. It's getting old. My eye veers occasionally to the beauty products and makeup. Only problem, is, I have about as much of a clue about this stuff as most guys would, and I am seriously afraid to use it for fear of looking like a clown. Eeeeek! Besides, I hate the way it feels (from the few times other women have held me down and plastered my face). Do guys not mind the way it feels on their lips? Ick!
--> People, wear less perfume. Seriously. Half a bottle is way too much. Take the bottle with you in your car or briefcase or purse or whatever, -hell, tie it around your neck for all I care- and apply just very small amounts at a time rather than dousing yourself in enough to last the whole day and part of the next.
--> Things I want to see offered at the store: The health foody brand of chocolate that has endangered animals printed on the wrappers. That stuff is serious chocolate. Lundberg organic rice cakes with seaweed and tamari. Sounds awful? Well, I'm not a fan of seaweed myself, but I really do like this stuff. And, leeks! I wanted to make a nice leek soup, and there weren't any. No, I refuse to go to Safeway. Hey, I can dream, right? I never thought they'd carry my favorite type of soda (Blue Sky Ginseng creme) but they do now...and I never even dared to ask for it. :-)
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Loath as I am to admit it, I'm beginning to come to the following conclusion: it is damned near impossible to single parent six children and do justice to anyone. In fact, I'm actually thinking it would be really hard under the best of circumstances, which in my mind would be: parents who really love each other very deeply and are the natural and commited parents of all six kids, with ample financial resources, a big enough house, out in the country with homegrown food and all that jazz. It might be pretty doable with extended family, if they were decent caring people who could be trusted with the children (i.e., not to hit them, sit them in front of a boob tube all day, etc).
Okay, so I'm feeling burned out. Look, I'm in a one bedroom house, which no matter how often I clean it, gets messed up again. Making them help me doesn't work, because as soon as I get one or two of them to lend a hand and we're a happy group, one of the others comes careening excitedly into view ("come and see this!!!") and disrupts things. I'm really trying to find a place of our own, but the only current possibility is a place half the size of this one, with no electricity or phone and possibly no water, either (well, duh, without power for the water pump, what good is the well?).
Moreover, the baby and I have both got a cold. He isn't sleeping well because his nose is stuffed up. Since the thought of having my kid sleep in a crib away from me is anathema, I don't get much sleep either. (I honestly don't know how people can sleep at all with their baby in another room. I'd worry all night long....)
Work, strangely enough, has become the solace from my homelife. There is a structure, and a schedule that always turns out pretty much as planned. It certainly isn't quiet there (they tested the fire alarm system today, eeeeek!) but it isn't the nerve-wracking stress of one impending disaster after another while you're trying to soothe the baby to sleep. The daycare provider dotes on the baby, and I can tell it isn't just when I'm there, because he's always happy and smiling when I come to get him...so while he's always in my mind, I don't worry, either. There is a rhythmn and a continuity to the work that is lacking at home, because I don't have the energy to enforce the sort of structure that I'd like to see here.
!! Charlie is crying!! :signs off:
Okay, so I'm feeling burned out. Look, I'm in a one bedroom house, which no matter how often I clean it, gets messed up again. Making them help me doesn't work, because as soon as I get one or two of them to lend a hand and we're a happy group, one of the others comes careening excitedly into view ("come and see this!!!") and disrupts things. I'm really trying to find a place of our own, but the only current possibility is a place half the size of this one, with no electricity or phone and possibly no water, either (well, duh, without power for the water pump, what good is the well?).
Moreover, the baby and I have both got a cold. He isn't sleeping well because his nose is stuffed up. Since the thought of having my kid sleep in a crib away from me is anathema, I don't get much sleep either. (I honestly don't know how people can sleep at all with their baby in another room. I'd worry all night long....)
Work, strangely enough, has become the solace from my homelife. There is a structure, and a schedule that always turns out pretty much as planned. It certainly isn't quiet there (they tested the fire alarm system today, eeeeek!) but it isn't the nerve-wracking stress of one impending disaster after another while you're trying to soothe the baby to sleep. The daycare provider dotes on the baby, and I can tell it isn't just when I'm there, because he's always happy and smiling when I come to get him...so while he's always in my mind, I don't worry, either. There is a rhythmn and a continuity to the work that is lacking at home, because I don't have the energy to enforce the sort of structure that I'd like to see here.
!! Charlie is crying!! :signs off:
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
I've come to the following (admittedly opinionated and generalized) conclusion:
White Americans don't particularly like or understand rice.
It's taken me a long time to grasp this simple fact, because as far as I'm concerned, plain steamed rice is GREAT, especially if it's jasmine rice. Yes, all by itself. Cold, even. Cold steamed rice with _nothing_ on it for breakfast, mmmm! :-) Rice three times a day, fine. Give me rice like that every day of the week and I'll still be looking forward to it. The notion of getting tired of rice is incomprehensible to me. I'm thinking that this has soemthing to do with the fat that my Filipino grandma helped raise me. She made excellent rice, every time, and we frequently did eat it cold, (or hot), three times a day. Rice was a mainstay, or a side dish, or a snack to be nipped at with fingers in passing, or all three. Even when my appetite for all other food lags, rice is one of the foods that retains it's appeal. Chicken soup with ginger and garlic would be the other. In my mind, rice occupies a place of respect and could almost be a food group all by itself.
Most non-Asians in the U.S. don't seem to see it the same way. Rice? Starch!! Carbs! Cover it with sauces or meats or obliterate it with "chinese" stir fry or douse it with soy sauce or grease it up with butter or flavor it with something or use it to add bulk to a soup or smear a sauce of canned soup mix over it, or worse yet, gravy. (ew!!!) Cook it so that the grains are slippery and seperate (how can you pick it up with your fingers when it's cooked that way? It doesn't feel right!). Spice it up or drown it. They might consider eating bread all by itself, but are far more likely to eat plain boiled pasta without a sauce than a bowl of plain rice.
How can they taste it when they do that? It's not that I think eating it with soy sauce is bad (so long as it's not a brown lump of rice sitting in a darker brown puddle) or that eating it with stir fry or adobo is incorrect. It's just, well, what in the hell is the matter with people that they can't like it by itself and seem so desperate not to taste it?
White Americans don't particularly like or understand rice.
It's taken me a long time to grasp this simple fact, because as far as I'm concerned, plain steamed rice is GREAT, especially if it's jasmine rice. Yes, all by itself. Cold, even. Cold steamed rice with _nothing_ on it for breakfast, mmmm! :-) Rice three times a day, fine. Give me rice like that every day of the week and I'll still be looking forward to it. The notion of getting tired of rice is incomprehensible to me. I'm thinking that this has soemthing to do with the fat that my Filipino grandma helped raise me. She made excellent rice, every time, and we frequently did eat it cold, (or hot), three times a day. Rice was a mainstay, or a side dish, or a snack to be nipped at with fingers in passing, or all three. Even when my appetite for all other food lags, rice is one of the foods that retains it's appeal. Chicken soup with ginger and garlic would be the other. In my mind, rice occupies a place of respect and could almost be a food group all by itself.
Most non-Asians in the U.S. don't seem to see it the same way. Rice? Starch!! Carbs! Cover it with sauces or meats or obliterate it with "chinese" stir fry or douse it with soy sauce or grease it up with butter or flavor it with something or use it to add bulk to a soup or smear a sauce of canned soup mix over it, or worse yet, gravy. (ew!!!) Cook it so that the grains are slippery and seperate (how can you pick it up with your fingers when it's cooked that way? It doesn't feel right!). Spice it up or drown it. They might consider eating bread all by itself, but are far more likely to eat plain boiled pasta without a sauce than a bowl of plain rice.
How can they taste it when they do that? It's not that I think eating it with soy sauce is bad (so long as it's not a brown lump of rice sitting in a darker brown puddle) or that eating it with stir fry or adobo is incorrect. It's just, well, what in the hell is the matter with people that they can't like it by itself and seem so desperate not to taste it?
Sunday, February 26, 2006
I've returned to work now, part time at present. I needed to go back, because I was losing the social skills... I enjoy working, even though it isn't prestigious or even vaguely important. Hey, the world just isn't going to end or even be much affected by a shortage of deep-fried deli food and ready-to-eat-sandwiches. I like the structure and routine, though, I genuinely do. Be nice if they gave me a raise- I haven't had one since I told them I was pregnant.
Ah yes, the baby. Charlie's the last one I'll have, and I don't think I've tried so hard to do everything right since my firstborn. It's like, since he's my very last chance, the very last time I'll hold my own soft, fuzzy headed little guy...I want to make the most of it. I want to nurse him as long as I can, upset him only when really necessary, play him classical music, read books to him, and just generally mess him up as little as possible.
Obviously this conflicts with working. So far, Tim and I have been staggering our schedules so he's always with one of us. This week, he's going to go to daycare for the first time for (gasp!!) about four hours. I've taken care to choose a place where they won't just let him cry, where he'll be held most of the time (I've watched her hold other babies- most places don't do that), and his older siblings go there, too. But I still feel guilty. :-(
When I was a kid, I took it for granted that all women had babies and all women stayed home with their kids, to take care of them. Women who didn't have kids were strange or must hate kids.
As a teen, I held the very arrogant opinion that all women should have children, that birth control was wrong, and not only should the woman stay home with them, but she should home birth, home school, feed the kids only natural home-grown food, and so on.
As a young woman, reality broadsided me, hard. I realized that with many men, if you don't bring in money, you have no status or respect. I felt like livestock, just breeding and feeding.
Now I'm trying to find a balance....and it isn't easy.
Ah yes, the baby. Charlie's the last one I'll have, and I don't think I've tried so hard to do everything right since my firstborn. It's like, since he's my very last chance, the very last time I'll hold my own soft, fuzzy headed little guy...I want to make the most of it. I want to nurse him as long as I can, upset him only when really necessary, play him classical music, read books to him, and just generally mess him up as little as possible.
Obviously this conflicts with working. So far, Tim and I have been staggering our schedules so he's always with one of us. This week, he's going to go to daycare for the first time for (gasp!!) about four hours. I've taken care to choose a place where they won't just let him cry, where he'll be held most of the time (I've watched her hold other babies- most places don't do that), and his older siblings go there, too. But I still feel guilty. :-(
When I was a kid, I took it for granted that all women had babies and all women stayed home with their kids, to take care of them. Women who didn't have kids were strange or must hate kids.
As a teen, I held the very arrogant opinion that all women should have children, that birth control was wrong, and not only should the woman stay home with them, but she should home birth, home school, feed the kids only natural home-grown food, and so on.
As a young woman, reality broadsided me, hard. I realized that with many men, if you don't bring in money, you have no status or respect. I felt like livestock, just breeding and feeding.
Now I'm trying to find a balance....and it isn't easy.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
I think I've discovered something. A person is not comprised of or defined by their accomplisments or by what they say or how they seem...not really. It can seem that way though, and that's why we pass over a lot of gems without even realizing it. It isn't their popularity or who they're friends with or any of that.
The real essence of a person is their dreams...especially the ones that haven't materialized. In the detritus of broken dreams sparkles their highest goals, their ideals, their values, what they want most, what they desire most to give to the world. It tells more about who they really are than anything you could see from the outside. It is more than good intentions, a dream is the most powerful, potent part of you. Without dreams, what are we? Automatons, androids, moving bodies with no depth or soul. It's the most vulnerable, intimate part of us. I always feel a sort of fear whenever I speak out loud of my hopes and reams, as if by birthing them into the outside world via speech, they'll be endangered or jinxed somehow. I feel this way even if I'm only talking to the goats. It's that private, that personal.
I guess that's why, when I want to be close to a man, when I'm seeking to reconnect or to fall back in love with him to to find some appeal or questioning the future of the relationship, I ask him about his dreams or goals. What does he want? What does he see when he looks into the future? What is the goal? If the answer is absent or displeasing (for example, the Vietnam vet whose goal was to build and live in a house made out of sandbags) my interest wanes.
This isn't to say that pipedreams are enough; they aren't. There should be some effort to realize at least some of it (I don't think it's really possible for us to attain the entirety of it, or they'd cease to be appealing). But the dreams contain the seed of a person's character.
And broken or unrealized dreams make a person vulnerable, and therefore lovable (noone ever fell in love with the suit of armor). Don't be ashamed because it didn't work out or because you had to choose between two things andleave one behind, or even that you never started to try. The fact that it crossed your mind *is* worth something.
The real essence of a person is their dreams...especially the ones that haven't materialized. In the detritus of broken dreams sparkles their highest goals, their ideals, their values, what they want most, what they desire most to give to the world. It tells more about who they really are than anything you could see from the outside. It is more than good intentions, a dream is the most powerful, potent part of you. Without dreams, what are we? Automatons, androids, moving bodies with no depth or soul. It's the most vulnerable, intimate part of us. I always feel a sort of fear whenever I speak out loud of my hopes and reams, as if by birthing them into the outside world via speech, they'll be endangered or jinxed somehow. I feel this way even if I'm only talking to the goats. It's that private, that personal.
I guess that's why, when I want to be close to a man, when I'm seeking to reconnect or to fall back in love with him to to find some appeal or questioning the future of the relationship, I ask him about his dreams or goals. What does he want? What does he see when he looks into the future? What is the goal? If the answer is absent or displeasing (for example, the Vietnam vet whose goal was to build and live in a house made out of sandbags) my interest wanes.
This isn't to say that pipedreams are enough; they aren't. There should be some effort to realize at least some of it (I don't think it's really possible for us to attain the entirety of it, or they'd cease to be appealing). But the dreams contain the seed of a person's character.
And broken or unrealized dreams make a person vulnerable, and therefore lovable (noone ever fell in love with the suit of armor). Don't be ashamed because it didn't work out or because you had to choose between two things andleave one behind, or even that you never started to try. The fact that it crossed your mind *is* worth something.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
I don't know how to classify this or define it. What do you call it when friends you've had for years turn cold and congealed at the very sight of you for no good reason? I haven't wronged them; in fact, I see them only infrequently, and one of them I hadn't seen for months until just a few days ago.
I think it's my haircut.
The plan was to get it buzzed right down to my scalp with just enough length left to show that I'm not bald. That's what I wanted. But when my SO heard of my impending haircut, he begged me not to cut it too short. So instead, I had her use that awful, practically unbearable razor-comb (the sensation and sound of it drives me nuts!) over the top and to leave it about an inch long. The sides and backs got clippered short, none of it as short as my original plan. He still freaked when I came home...
Since the haircut, several people have called me "dude", "sir", or have used other indications that they are not positive of my gender but they think I'm male. I suppose this should upset me, but instead I find it amusing. A lot of other people, especially women, squint their eyes and look at me with a very unpleasant expression...hate? suspicion? loathing? It's clear that they think I'm a dike. This amuses me, too; except, now I have just the faintest taste of what life must be like for people who actually are gay. I knew our area had a lot of homophobes- I just didn't know how many there were. Oh well. I don't need them anyway.
But it really stings to be treated that way by people that you like and have been friends with for years. I have to keep revising the files in my mind, transferring people that I thought were my friends into the "Aquaintances- you goofed, they weren't friends after all" file.
I think it's my haircut.
The plan was to get it buzzed right down to my scalp with just enough length left to show that I'm not bald. That's what I wanted. But when my SO heard of my impending haircut, he begged me not to cut it too short. So instead, I had her use that awful, practically unbearable razor-comb (the sensation and sound of it drives me nuts!) over the top and to leave it about an inch long. The sides and backs got clippered short, none of it as short as my original plan. He still freaked when I came home...
Since the haircut, several people have called me "dude", "sir", or have used other indications that they are not positive of my gender but they think I'm male. I suppose this should upset me, but instead I find it amusing. A lot of other people, especially women, squint their eyes and look at me with a very unpleasant expression...hate? suspicion? loathing? It's clear that they think I'm a dike. This amuses me, too; except, now I have just the faintest taste of what life must be like for people who actually are gay. I knew our area had a lot of homophobes- I just didn't know how many there were. Oh well. I don't need them anyway.
But it really stings to be treated that way by people that you like and have been friends with for years. I have to keep revising the files in my mind, transferring people that I thought were my friends into the "Aquaintances- you goofed, they weren't friends after all" file.
Friday, February 03, 2006
Indigo Blue Raw Jagged Edges. At first it's nauseating olive green and screaming orange, alternating with apathy grey and suicidal black. The green is wavy and seasick. Orange is spiky. Grey is like an foggily endless plateau. The black is like a hole waiting for me, like a gaping mouth ready to swallow me up if I stumble into it, reeling like a drunk. Bursts of hope flare hot pink and then subside into the harsh and wan yellow glare of reality.
When those subside comes the indigo and darkness black. The bleakness grey stays. Other colors mean nothing.
After a time, a long time, in fact- they merge and coalesce and the view clears. It hovers inside like a small but omnipresent cloud.
When those subside comes the indigo and darkness black. The bleakness grey stays. Other colors mean nothing.
After a time, a long time, in fact- they merge and coalesce and the view clears. It hovers inside like a small but omnipresent cloud.
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Wow, is it ever snowing out there! It looks like we're going to get some real winter after all. My second son is out there making a snowman; from the looks of the snowball he's rolling, a big one. Um, OK, I just peeked out the window again, and now I'm a little concerned. He's rolled that snowball down out of our yard and across the street into the vacant neighbor's yard, and it is now HUGE. I'm wondering if he'll even get it back across the street. To roll it back up into our yard, he's going to need help. I have to give the kid credit, though. Nathan always seems to have grand plans, and he quite often surprises me with what he can accomplish. (another peek)
It appears now that his goal is to roll the snowball not into our yard but into that of the neighbor girls that my boys play with. There are several other started and abandoned snowmen in that yard with children sitting atop them throwing snowballs at one another. Meanwhile, Nathan is industriously heaving the snowball in that direction. It's now almost as big around as he is tall! A guy came by with a small tractor and snowplow and helped him roll it when it got flat on one side and hard to roll. Nathan is like that- he seems to inspire people to like him and pitch in with him, due to his raw enthusiasm. And sure enough, he's rolled it to the other children and they've now gathered around patting it into place and making it spherical. All I can see of Nathan is his head with a green hat peeking over the other side. ;-)
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It sort of makes me think. I end up not even starting a lot of stuff because I plan it out extensively, think on it, and I want to make sure that all the setbacks have been foreseen and solutions found for them. Sometimes I don't even talk about these dreams and goals, they just fester inside of me like so many dead embryos. Every new day, rather than shimmering with possibilities, haunts me with its passage of time; one more day that I haven't reached for what I wanted, that I've been too cowardly to pursue it. I guess I should take a clue from my son and just go for it?
It appears now that his goal is to roll the snowball not into our yard but into that of the neighbor girls that my boys play with. There are several other started and abandoned snowmen in that yard with children sitting atop them throwing snowballs at one another. Meanwhile, Nathan is industriously heaving the snowball in that direction. It's now almost as big around as he is tall! A guy came by with a small tractor and snowplow and helped him roll it when it got flat on one side and hard to roll. Nathan is like that- he seems to inspire people to like him and pitch in with him, due to his raw enthusiasm. And sure enough, he's rolled it to the other children and they've now gathered around patting it into place and making it spherical. All I can see of Nathan is his head with a green hat peeking over the other side. ;-)
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It sort of makes me think. I end up not even starting a lot of stuff because I plan it out extensively, think on it, and I want to make sure that all the setbacks have been foreseen and solutions found for them. Sometimes I don't even talk about these dreams and goals, they just fester inside of me like so many dead embryos. Every new day, rather than shimmering with possibilities, haunts me with its passage of time; one more day that I haven't reached for what I wanted, that I've been too cowardly to pursue it. I guess I should take a clue from my son and just go for it?
Saturday, January 21, 2006
Ah...the floors. The floor tiles throughout the store, including the deli/bakery, have been ripped up, exposing ugly blackish gray concrete with the old adhesive stuck to it. I noticed today that the main store has pretty new beige tiles laid down. They're shiny and nice. Guess what kind of tiles we get in the deli? None. That's right, we don't get new tiles. They going to paint and coat the bare concrete for us. Isn't that sweet? Pardon me for saying so, but I'm inclined to think that the deli girls work harder on their feet than most of the other employees. Our job is high pressure and requires a lot of constant action as well as lifting. It isn't really surprising that I developed chronic hip pain, but I am appalled that they would give us nothing but concrete to stand on!! I mean, maybe I have a sense of entitlement, but I actually sort of feel that if one area in the store needs extra cushioning or floor mats or whatever, it's that deli. Whatever meager cushioning was provided by those old tiles, they should've been left in there if we weren't going to get new ones. Employees in chronic pain are not productive workers....I guess they don't care, or maybe they haven't thought of it. :-/
It just doesn't look like a sustainable long term work prospect for me...
I was misinformed. We are getting new tiles just like the rest of the store! Rant over.
Friday, December 30, 2005
Now that I'm not working.....I feel more reclusive than ever. It is getting to the point where even the thought of going to the grocery store is...not fear imspiring, but...unattractive. I don't feel like seeing other people, and it isn't because I'm depressed, either. It just isn't appealing.
Also, without the constant social drain on my energies and coping mechanisms, I feel more creative and alive (internally), less like a robotic drone. :nods: It's nice.
Alas, I can't keep doing this unless I find a way to make it pay....
So I need to find some sort of employment either in tandem with my usual workplace or instead of it. I'd like something less social, more physical/utiltarian/results oriented. My current thought of the day is to work just one or two days a week at my old workplace and apprentice as a finish carpenter or drywall finisher. In fact, I wouldn't mind regular construction/framing, but I'm not sure I could find anyone willing to hire a 5' 2" tall woman who usually weighs 120# at the most.....maybe it's possible...I definitely don't mind working.
Except, what I really wanted to do with my life was *ART*. I don't want to wait until I'm old, and even then, I won't be able to do anything but just tread water unless I find something better paying to do....
Also, without the constant social drain on my energies and coping mechanisms, I feel more creative and alive (internally), less like a robotic drone. :nods: It's nice.
Alas, I can't keep doing this unless I find a way to make it pay....
So I need to find some sort of employment either in tandem with my usual workplace or instead of it. I'd like something less social, more physical/utiltarian/results oriented. My current thought of the day is to work just one or two days a week at my old workplace and apprentice as a finish carpenter or drywall finisher. In fact, I wouldn't mind regular construction/framing, but I'm not sure I could find anyone willing to hire a 5' 2" tall woman who usually weighs 120# at the most.....maybe it's possible...I definitely don't mind working.
Except, what I really wanted to do with my life was *ART*. I don't want to wait until I'm old, and even then, I won't be able to do anything but just tread water unless I find something better paying to do....
Thursday, December 29, 2005
My baby is now externalized! (is that a word?) Charles, 7#, 7oz, born 12-20. He is nice, sleeps for several hours at a time, but seems alarmingly small/frail.
The C-section went well, and overall I feel 200% better than I would have after a regular birth...but getting tubes tied was unexpectedly more painful (recovery-wise) than I thought it'd be.
Meanwhile, the bitchiness that was a constant tone of my pregnancy has evaporated, and in its place, I just feel....vulnerable...and creative. It's very hard for me to sit still and rest like I'm supposed to, and I keep overdoing it and hurting myself. Life seems too full and open with things to do....
The C-section went well, and overall I feel 200% better than I would have after a regular birth...but getting tubes tied was unexpectedly more painful (recovery-wise) than I thought it'd be.
Meanwhile, the bitchiness that was a constant tone of my pregnancy has evaporated, and in its place, I just feel....vulnerable...and creative. It's very hard for me to sit still and rest like I'm supposed to, and I keep overdoing it and hurting myself. Life seems too full and open with things to do....
Friday, December 09, 2005
Something else:
*Just got an ultrasound today. The baby is most definitely male. :-)
*My doctor thinks that the reason for my slow postpartum recovery is probably that I bled a lot. She said that when you lose that much blood, it takes the body a loooong time to build it back up again. When you consider that a new mother is also undergoing the physiological strain of beginning lactation (with it's dramatic surge of excess milk production), I can see how it would set a person back. Healing, lactating, anemic/making more blood, plus inadequate rest? Yeah, it makes sense.
*So she's going to try to make sure that I don't bleed too much this time, if possible. Nice!
*A whole month after getting an echocardiogram, they still haven't given me a verdict on what exactly was wrong with my heart last time and if it will recur! I do like to imagine that if it were life threatening, they'd have told me by now.....
*Also- this baby is on the small side: only about 7.5 lbs. I am currently feeling horribly guilty about not ingesting more meat/protein....the fact is that I have little to no appetite for meat since I got pregnant, especially store meat. I have to force myself to eat red meat..... More eggs, cheese, and soy milk, I guess...
*Just got an ultrasound today. The baby is most definitely male. :-)
*My doctor thinks that the reason for my slow postpartum recovery is probably that I bled a lot. She said that when you lose that much blood, it takes the body a loooong time to build it back up again. When you consider that a new mother is also undergoing the physiological strain of beginning lactation (with it's dramatic surge of excess milk production), I can see how it would set a person back. Healing, lactating, anemic/making more blood, plus inadequate rest? Yeah, it makes sense.
*So she's going to try to make sure that I don't bleed too much this time, if possible. Nice!
*A whole month after getting an echocardiogram, they still haven't given me a verdict on what exactly was wrong with my heart last time and if it will recur! I do like to imagine that if it were life threatening, they'd have told me by now.....
*Also- this baby is on the small side: only about 7.5 lbs. I am currently feeling horribly guilty about not ingesting more meat/protein....the fact is that I have little to no appetite for meat since I got pregnant, especially store meat. I have to force myself to eat red meat..... More eggs, cheese, and soy milk, I guess...
Realization of the day:
Spanking (and I could include corporal punishment and child abuse of various forms) isn't really about causing the child pain at all. The primary goal is not to hurt the child, it's to humiliate them. That's why it's so painful and leaves such a lasting mark that still smarts years later.....
Think about it......
Spanking (and I could include corporal punishment and child abuse of various forms) isn't really about causing the child pain at all. The primary goal is not to hurt the child, it's to humiliate them. That's why it's so painful and leaves such a lasting mark that still smarts years later.....
Think about it......
Friday, December 02, 2005
I am really, really scared. Eighteen days (or less) from now, I'll be holding a new baby in my arms. It isn't so much the prospect of the actual birth that frightens me, it's the afterwards....
This place doesn't feel like home to me, not really. The last three births may have been in more difficult/primitive conditions, but I felt comfortable and grounded. With this place, if we miss a month's rent, we'll have to more, and to where? There's no privacy, no place to hide, no sanctuary, goats to seek solace with if I need them. No silence, no solitude, and it's killing me. I can't insist on these things without infringing on everyone else's rights or pissing people off.
And I *know* I'm a troll and I'm trying really hard to be reasonable and not to complain, but I just can't relax. I'm either on edge from constant noise or recovering from some kind of stress or afraid that I've irritated someone or yelling for the boys to shut up, or pleading with people to please, please, PLEASE try to get along and stop fighting!
How is this baby going to sleep? Nobody cares about noise or being quiet...I can't sleep until everyone else is sleeping first, and even small noises wake me up in the morning, after which I can't go back to sleep again. How am I going to rest and recover? How am I ever going to relax enough to be able to nurse this poor kid and let my milk down? Nobody listens to me unless I yell and bitch at them...and I don't want to yell around a little baby....
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I guess it wouldn't be as big an issue if I recovered the way other women seem to. I didn't realize, until recently, that I was different that way. I thought all women got knocked out of commission for weeks on end. They don't. My coworkers waltz right into the store with the less-than-a-week-old babies, and the look fine! They don't stagger and fight for the energy to stay standing. They don't have to sit down every 15-20 feet. Heck, then even carry not only the baby, but also a large, bulky car seat/baby carrier thing (which seems like an awful lot of trouble and inconvenience and weight compared to a nice snuggly baby against your shoulder). I can't believe this, but it's true- I've seen it. My manager even returned to work just a week after her first child!!!
I don't know if I hemorrhage when I give birth or what, but it's all I can do to remain standing for a few minutes for the first 2-3 days. After that, I can walk around a little- but not much, and not for very long. I might muster up the strength to appear at the breakfast table. I'm certainly not going to be the one cooking the breakfast....not for quite a while.
And the idea of being that weak/helpless/pathetic, in this situation, just scares the living bejeezuz out of me......
This place doesn't feel like home to me, not really. The last three births may have been in more difficult/primitive conditions, but I felt comfortable and grounded. With this place, if we miss a month's rent, we'll have to more, and to where? There's no privacy, no place to hide, no sanctuary, goats to seek solace with if I need them. No silence, no solitude, and it's killing me. I can't insist on these things without infringing on everyone else's rights or pissing people off.
And I *know* I'm a troll and I'm trying really hard to be reasonable and not to complain, but I just can't relax. I'm either on edge from constant noise or recovering from some kind of stress or afraid that I've irritated someone or yelling for the boys to shut up, or pleading with people to please, please, PLEASE try to get along and stop fighting!
How is this baby going to sleep? Nobody cares about noise or being quiet...I can't sleep until everyone else is sleeping first, and even small noises wake me up in the morning, after which I can't go back to sleep again. How am I going to rest and recover? How am I ever going to relax enough to be able to nurse this poor kid and let my milk down? Nobody listens to me unless I yell and bitch at them...and I don't want to yell around a little baby....
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I guess it wouldn't be as big an issue if I recovered the way other women seem to. I didn't realize, until recently, that I was different that way. I thought all women got knocked out of commission for weeks on end. They don't. My coworkers waltz right into the store with the less-than-a-week-old babies, and the look fine! They don't stagger and fight for the energy to stay standing. They don't have to sit down every 15-20 feet. Heck, then even carry not only the baby, but also a large, bulky car seat/baby carrier thing (which seems like an awful lot of trouble and inconvenience and weight compared to a nice snuggly baby against your shoulder). I can't believe this, but it's true- I've seen it. My manager even returned to work just a week after her first child!!!
I don't know if I hemorrhage when I give birth or what, but it's all I can do to remain standing for a few minutes for the first 2-3 days. After that, I can walk around a little- but not much, and not for very long. I might muster up the strength to appear at the breakfast table. I'm certainly not going to be the one cooking the breakfast....not for quite a while.
And the idea of being that weak/helpless/pathetic, in this situation, just scares the living bejeezuz out of me......
Saturday, November 19, 2005
Latest reading material:
Animals in Translation by temple Grandin
This book is fascinating. I'm not done with it yet, but I haven't found a single paragraph yet that bored me. I recommend it to every intelligent, thinking person interested in either animals or autism. My only disappointment is that she hardly mentions goats at all, but goats are not a standard livestock that goes through feedlots and meat processing plants, so this isn't actually too surprising. I think that it may be she doesn't work very much or at all with goats, because if she had, she would likely have lots of interesting anecdotes about them! Anyway, this is a good book. I think you should read it.
And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts
This book is depressing. While I don't approve of the behavior that led to the amazingly rapid spread of AIDS, I find it profoundly disturbing that our government took such an incredibly long time to come up with anything remotely resembling a legitimate concern or response to the epidemic. It is all too obvious that they didn't care....after all, AIDS was a "gay" disease. How could they be so complacent? I don't know, the whole thing seems like some sort of a holocaust to me. When people with that attitude (i.e. "let the fags die") look at a gay person, do they see soemone who is a person who happens to be attracted to the same sex, or do they see some sort of, I don't know...a monster? Do they just assume that...oh I don't know, never mind...trying to wrap my brain around the sort of mindset that flat out couldn't care less about hundreds of gay men dying is just beyond me....
----and this is all I am currently reading, because otherwise I wind up starting several books and finishing none of them. -----
Thoughts on:
Uncle Tom's Cabin
I think that this book was far more effective for its time than it would be in this day and age. It relies very heavily on a sense of moral obligation, religion, and sentiment/feeling. It was written in an age when people still felt soem sort of duty to God and to obey what the Bible said. Now, a slaveowner reading it would simply shrug it off and say, "Oh well, that's the way things are! Capitalism is the name of the game!" I did find the notes of satire scattered through out the book very refreshing. I suppose that in some ways, I am an innocent, because like And the Band Played On, I was frequently appalled and had a hard time comprehending how people could act that way and be so unthinkingly cruel. It seems surreal to me. This is odd, because I am not a sentimental or gooey-emotional person. Maybe a better way to phrase it is this: I am not emotionally "warm", and I don't think that I'm all that "good" either, but this kind of behavior is incomprehensible to me. I don't understand it.
The Wisdom of the Body
This book was interesting, yet I haven't finished it. I wonder why? I think what happened was that there was a chapter I didn't understand or couldn't picture. I suppose I should skip that section. I think I got bogged down tryign to reread paragraphs that were not computing...again and again and again...sort of like trying to learn algebra (I have been trying to learn basic algebra for ummm...17 years now).
The Natural House
I will paraphrase something from this book that vastly amused me: "If you want to build a house of cordwood, you should be aware that it is very labor intensive. Cutting, splitting, and debarking the wood is an incredible amount of work. Even a small cabin can use as much as 5 cords of wood!" (At this point, chamoisee just about falls off of her chair laughing hysterically!!!) Five cords of wood is a lot of work?! Did they expect the house to build itself? Any building method requires a lot of work! Work is good for you, people! It's a fact of life. Get over it! And no, five cords of wood doesn't seem like a whole lot of work to me at all. Now, 20-30 cords would....but 5 cords is about what anyoen livign up here would need to go through the winter. It's just a pretty standard amount of work, and it could easily be doen within a week, assuming that you did mostly firewood during the day for that week (not working a regular job besides). It isn't drudgery, and it isn't bad work, either. Poeple who are wimpy enough to whine about 5 cords of wood should wear a nice suit and work in an office and pay contractors buku bucks to build the house for them. (rolls eyes)
The Straw Bale House
Straw bales as a structural load bearing component of a house? Supporting a roof? Chamoisee is both leery and skeptical....I'm not saying that it can't be done...just that...well, I wouldn't feel comfortable doing it. I would want some post and beam construction in there. Heck, I wouldn't feel that good about using alfalfa bales in that way, and they're a heck of a lot stouter than straw bales are. A stack of straw bales has a tendecy to sag and fall over and compress badly...not my idea of a secure, load bearing wall.
--------------------------------------------------
And in case you are wondering, I haven't had any more meltdowns at work lately. After tomorrow, I will be working just one day a week. The thoguht throws me into a mild panic...because in a way, my work = my self esteem. I sort of *need* to work to feel legitimate and worthwhile. Housework isn't the same. It doesn't make money, it isn't valued, and....it's not the same. Fact of the matter is, though, I went home early 2-3 times last week because I was in pain. I need to cut back and take a rest for a few weeks before the baby gets here. I guess I can obsess with makign sure that the house runs smoothly...or start 10 different new projects and finish 2 or 3 of them...something...
Hey- maybe I will have time to paint? (wistful)
Animals in Translation by temple Grandin
This book is fascinating. I'm not done with it yet, but I haven't found a single paragraph yet that bored me. I recommend it to every intelligent, thinking person interested in either animals or autism. My only disappointment is that she hardly mentions goats at all, but goats are not a standard livestock that goes through feedlots and meat processing plants, so this isn't actually too surprising. I think that it may be she doesn't work very much or at all with goats, because if she had, she would likely have lots of interesting anecdotes about them! Anyway, this is a good book. I think you should read it.
And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts
This book is depressing. While I don't approve of the behavior that led to the amazingly rapid spread of AIDS, I find it profoundly disturbing that our government took such an incredibly long time to come up with anything remotely resembling a legitimate concern or response to the epidemic. It is all too obvious that they didn't care....after all, AIDS was a "gay" disease. How could they be so complacent? I don't know, the whole thing seems like some sort of a holocaust to me. When people with that attitude (i.e. "let the fags die") look at a gay person, do they see soemone who is a person who happens to be attracted to the same sex, or do they see some sort of, I don't know...a monster? Do they just assume that...oh I don't know, never mind...trying to wrap my brain around the sort of mindset that flat out couldn't care less about hundreds of gay men dying is just beyond me....
----and this is all I am currently reading, because otherwise I wind up starting several books and finishing none of them. -----
Thoughts on:
Uncle Tom's Cabin
I think that this book was far more effective for its time than it would be in this day and age. It relies very heavily on a sense of moral obligation, religion, and sentiment/feeling. It was written in an age when people still felt soem sort of duty to God and to obey what the Bible said. Now, a slaveowner reading it would simply shrug it off and say, "Oh well, that's the way things are! Capitalism is the name of the game!" I did find the notes of satire scattered through out the book very refreshing. I suppose that in some ways, I am an innocent, because like And the Band Played On, I was frequently appalled and had a hard time comprehending how people could act that way and be so unthinkingly cruel. It seems surreal to me. This is odd, because I am not a sentimental or gooey-emotional person. Maybe a better way to phrase it is this: I am not emotionally "warm", and I don't think that I'm all that "good" either, but this kind of behavior is incomprehensible to me. I don't understand it.
The Wisdom of the Body
This book was interesting, yet I haven't finished it. I wonder why? I think what happened was that there was a chapter I didn't understand or couldn't picture. I suppose I should skip that section. I think I got bogged down tryign to reread paragraphs that were not computing...again and again and again...sort of like trying to learn algebra (I have been trying to learn basic algebra for ummm...17 years now).
The Natural House
I will paraphrase something from this book that vastly amused me: "If you want to build a house of cordwood, you should be aware that it is very labor intensive. Cutting, splitting, and debarking the wood is an incredible amount of work. Even a small cabin can use as much as 5 cords of wood!" (At this point, chamoisee just about falls off of her chair laughing hysterically!!!) Five cords of wood is a lot of work?! Did they expect the house to build itself? Any building method requires a lot of work! Work is good for you, people! It's a fact of life. Get over it! And no, five cords of wood doesn't seem like a whole lot of work to me at all. Now, 20-30 cords would....but 5 cords is about what anyoen livign up here would need to go through the winter. It's just a pretty standard amount of work, and it could easily be doen within a week, assuming that you did mostly firewood during the day for that week (not working a regular job besides). It isn't drudgery, and it isn't bad work, either. Poeple who are wimpy enough to whine about 5 cords of wood should wear a nice suit and work in an office and pay contractors buku bucks to build the house for them. (rolls eyes)
The Straw Bale House
Straw bales as a structural load bearing component of a house? Supporting a roof? Chamoisee is both leery and skeptical....I'm not saying that it can't be done...just that...well, I wouldn't feel comfortable doing it. I would want some post and beam construction in there. Heck, I wouldn't feel that good about using alfalfa bales in that way, and they're a heck of a lot stouter than straw bales are. A stack of straw bales has a tendecy to sag and fall over and compress badly...not my idea of a secure, load bearing wall.
--------------------------------------------------
And in case you are wondering, I haven't had any more meltdowns at work lately. After tomorrow, I will be working just one day a week. The thoguht throws me into a mild panic...because in a way, my work = my self esteem. I sort of *need* to work to feel legitimate and worthwhile. Housework isn't the same. It doesn't make money, it isn't valued, and....it's not the same. Fact of the matter is, though, I went home early 2-3 times last week because I was in pain. I need to cut back and take a rest for a few weeks before the baby gets here. I guess I can obsess with makign sure that the house runs smoothly...or start 10 different new projects and finish 2 or 3 of them...something...
Hey- maybe I will have time to paint? (wistful)
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Current mood: whiny. My pelvic bones and musculature are aching and hurting more or less regularly, and not only it is not going to get better anytime soon, but over the coming month, it will get worse!. I only have about a month to go before the birth of what will be my last child... His father says that he would gladly endure the pain for me if he could...but I think if he had it for a few hours, he would be happy for a reprieve!! :-P
Ah well. Only a month to get ready for another baby...lots of stuff to do! The time will fly...
Ah well. Only a month to get ready for another baby...lots of stuff to do! The time will fly...
Sunday, November 13, 2005
An excerpt from a day in life as me....(11-11-05)
- From the moment I wake up, my entire day is focused on th efact that this is an altenate Friday, in other words, *Payday*.
- We are so strapped that I was grateful almost to tears when my partner shelled out the very last of his change for me to put into the gas tank. Yes, change. I actually had to count out coins in order to keep my car on the road and get to work.
- My remaining total cash was probably about a dollar in small change, barely enough to get a snack, let alone pay for 2-3 meals at work, and no espresso, either! Eeeek! (yes, I am spoiled in this regard, and no, even when it's a single shot with calcium-rich milk, I probably should not be drinking even one espresso a day while pregnant)
- Therefore, I got up with plenty of time to spare in order to get the check from the store, cash it at the bank, and return to the store in time to get that espresso and breakfast before clocking in for work.
- The drive through window is closed! There is a sign about the bank being closed for Veteran's Day! It is not yet 9:00. Is it Veteran's Day today? Perhaps the bank hasn't opened yet. I will wait until 9:00 and see. In the meantime, why not check the mail? The post office is right next door to the bank.
- The post office's office is also closed (although they have still filled our boxes and I hear the quiet soudn of soemone working in the space beyond the boxes, the discreet shuffling of letters and papers), and there is another sign about Veteran's Day, Friday, the 11th of November. Today is Friday, and I think it is the 11th, therefore it is Veteran's Day. It has to be. The bank will not be opening today.
- I drive back to work and walk back towards the store, investigating the bank near the store first (which is also closed). I have to cash my check!! How? The day is pleasant and sunny and breezy and feels/smells like spring. On the way out to the car and towards the bank, it was so pleasant that I had wanted to spin as I walked towards the car, with the warm fresh air caressing my face and hair. I don't feel that way anymore, and the day seems like a contrast.
- As I near the store, a coworker merges with me and I tell her that the banks are closed! We wonder if the store (which has a check cashing service) will cash my paycheck. I ask her how much they charge, and she gives me a look that I cannot interpret and says "They shouldn't charge anything!" as we walk through the doors. I am not sure what this means. Will they charge me, but she thinks they shouldn't? How much will it be? Will they not charge? I am confused and beginning to feel uneasy.
- I stand in line at the express aisle. The checker, Christy, is the same one who gave me my paycheck a few minutes before. She is my friend, I think, at least, we are always very friendly and she is always nice to me and we enjoy talking during our breaks. Once I get to her, I ask her if I can cash my paycheck here and how much it will cost. She says that it shouldn't cost anything, if Steve (the boss) will let me do it. I wil have to ask Steve.
- I exit her line and stand in Steve's line and wait to ask him. I am beginning to feel like a hungry goat running through the milking parlor when the grain has run out, hopping onto the milking stands expectantly hoping for the grain that is not there... Maybe if it is a different milking stand, or a different person, the grain will magically appear.
- I ask Steve. It is hard for me to make eye contact with him. I like Steve, but he is my boss and I find him intimidating, too. I feel small and vulnerable. He says something to the effect of the negative and something else that conjures up an image of ALL the store's employees trying to cash their checks here and the store running out of money. The words are getting lost because my mind is starting to flood and I am scared and overwhelmed. I see his face and he is trying to be nice but his words are not registering very much...
- And then he asks me if I need any money orders, which seems like a bizarre question. Why would I need a money order? (visual image of another piece of paper similar to the check). No, I do not need a money order.
- I need to eat, I am afraid that I will not get anything to eat and my baby will be hungry and I hear the meager inadequate coins sloshing around faintly in my pocket, advertising their smallness. I hardly see anything and I walk as though in a dream. Also dreamlike, I hear Christy calling me back over to her line so I wait in her line again and I am now feeling ridiculous because I know that going through the motions of standing in these lines is not going to make a difference.
- I see Christy now and she is being very nice and asking me what I need. Do I need something to eat? I feel overwhelmed with hunger and desperation and fear and my mind is hardly functioning anymore. I just feel like crying, and she is so nice and that makes it very hard not to. I cannot speak. There are no words. I am only trying very hard not to cry in front of these people.
- I see my checkbook. I can write a check? Yes. This is what I can do, write a check for more than what I need and then I'll have enough gas to get back to work, too. But I can't talk to ask her if this is okay, the words are lost. She says that she can loan me money over the weekend if I need to. Steve is there and he is asking if I am OK. I am not OK, I am hungry and scared and the world is swirling around me in a whirlpool of raw emotion and it is very hard not to cry and get lost and swept away into it.
- He asks again about a money order, but this time the word seems foreign and completely devoid of meaning, just sounds. Mon-ey Or-der... No meaning. It does not satisfy or cancel out the picture of the breakfast and espresso or the gas for the car. It is just an irritating puzzle piece that does not fit, why does he keep saying it? I hear myself saying, almost in irritation, "What is a money order?" I am confused by hearing this nonsensical word that does not fit or apply.....
- "You're kidding, right?" "You don't know what a money order is? You're not serious."
- Of course I know what a money order is. I shake my head impatiently and my hands are up by my ears fanning them, trying to filter out all the confusion. If I could explain it, I would tell him that I am having a lot of trouble processing right now. I hear Christy saying something to him to that effect, how does she know? Her husband had a stroke, does this happen to him, too? Maybe...
- I try to shake the confusion off. I will write a check. I finally manage to ask her if I can do that, because I do have enough money in the bank to write a check. She is still offering to loan me money, but it will be Ok if I can write the check. Yes. Then I can buy food. I am forcing myself to not cry and to try to stay in control. As she cashes it for me, she explains: if I had any bills that needed to be paid, I could get a money order in exchange for part of the check. I see a visual of the dollar amount of my check and the amount of rent that we pay. They do not match. No, that wouldn't work. The way I am doing it will be better.
- I am finally able to get something to eat for breakfast and to make the espresso, and so I come through the line one more time, this time to pay for the long desired food. I am embarrassed though....
Sunday, October 09, 2005
Books currently being read:
Uncle Tom's Cabin -Harriet Beecher Stowe, of course.
I've been wanting to read this classic since I was a teen. It's a good read, even if it is strongly Christian and moralizing. I suppose that, given the era and the author's intent, the latter was fairly necessary. It's sort of hard for me to believe that A. Such a time really existed, and not that long ago, in our country and B. That anyone could actually believe that such treatment of other humans was moral or humane, and that they could have classed people as livestock based on nothing more than the color of their skin of the percentage of their blood. How could a man sell off his own children unfeelingly, without even blinking, simply because their mother was black or partly black? (Does not compute with Chamoisee's logic)
The Wisdom of the Body Sherwin Nuland
I loved this guy's other book, How We Die, so I was delighted when I found this one. To be honest though, I'm not sure I like it better. There was something awfully fascinating about the process of death (yeah, i am weird and probably morbid, too). Which isn't to say I don't enjoy this book- I do. It's just that there was something riveting about reading through the various descriptions of death, knowing that inevitably, one of them will also befall me. (I ultimately concluded that bleeding to death is the best way to go).
The Desert Southwest Burba, Paniche, Moore
A treasured recent Library Book Sale find. It is a coffe table type book with lots of pictures (and text) of primarily adobe houses. The motive here was to glean ideas for an (adobe style) paper bale or straw bale home.
The Natural House Daniel D. Chiras
A nice variety of alternative building methods.
The Straw Bale House Steen, Steen, and Bainbridge
I am surprised to learn that, contrary to what I had thought, there acually are people who use the straw bales as load bearing walls. This seems foolhardy to me- like asking for trouble. I have dealt with enough straw to know that it's far less dense than say, alfalfa hay, and I sure as hell wouldn't want to use alfalfa hay for loadbearing walls, either- it'd settle too much. I don't think I would feel truly secure using this method without a post and beam framework as the supporting structure.
The Hive Camilo Jose Cela
So far, mildly interesting....but not interesting enoug to hold my attention as yet. It's sort of like War and Peace (which I wasn't able to bring myself to finish even after renewing it umpteen times from the library): there are too damned many people to keep track of! Not only are there a lot of people, but the story (both books) seems to be mostly about the people and their feelings: boring... With War and Peace, there were only two characters that I could even faintly relate to- Prince Andre and...the other guy, the dorky loser who was duped into marrying a girl not really suited to him. I don't remember his name now. I was very hard to maintain concentration long enough to get to where I could read about one of the interesting characters again....so eventually I quit trying.
---------------------------------------------
And what else.....
I've come to the conclusion that what I need is this: a job that is more mentally challenging. If I did that, I could more or less make my job my life, do well at it, and then relax when I got home. As it is, I feel intellectually starved and almost desperate for some sort of mental stimulation: a bad thing because, not only do I get discontented and bitchy/weepy/frustrated/despairing, but at some point I also reach a state where I get my mental jollies out of making sarcastic remarks and exercising a very strange sort of humor and offending/irritating/befuddling the people around me. Or I get to where I make snide comments about stupid rednecks with low I.Q.s and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (which really, if I think about it, isn't funny or nice- FAS babies didn't ask to be born that way) at every turn. Worse yet, I spend hours at the computer constructign topics specifically to get a rise out of people and get them all incensed so I will have someone to deabte with (except, most of them don't give me a lucid debate, just lots of emotion and dreck, which is dissapointing).
God, how I wish I had someone to play Boggle with.... :-/
I've even beat Dave at chess the last 5 times we played.
Uncle Tom's Cabin -Harriet Beecher Stowe, of course.
I've been wanting to read this classic since I was a teen. It's a good read, even if it is strongly Christian and moralizing. I suppose that, given the era and the author's intent, the latter was fairly necessary. It's sort of hard for me to believe that A. Such a time really existed, and not that long ago, in our country and B. That anyone could actually believe that such treatment of other humans was moral or humane, and that they could have classed people as livestock based on nothing more than the color of their skin of the percentage of their blood. How could a man sell off his own children unfeelingly, without even blinking, simply because their mother was black or partly black? (Does not compute with Chamoisee's logic)
The Wisdom of the Body Sherwin Nuland
I loved this guy's other book, How We Die, so I was delighted when I found this one. To be honest though, I'm not sure I like it better. There was something awfully fascinating about the process of death (yeah, i am weird and probably morbid, too). Which isn't to say I don't enjoy this book- I do. It's just that there was something riveting about reading through the various descriptions of death, knowing that inevitably, one of them will also befall me. (I ultimately concluded that bleeding to death is the best way to go).
The Desert Southwest Burba, Paniche, Moore
A treasured recent Library Book Sale find. It is a coffe table type book with lots of pictures (and text) of primarily adobe houses. The motive here was to glean ideas for an (adobe style) paper bale or straw bale home.
The Natural House Daniel D. Chiras
A nice variety of alternative building methods.
The Straw Bale House Steen, Steen, and Bainbridge
I am surprised to learn that, contrary to what I had thought, there acually are people who use the straw bales as load bearing walls. This seems foolhardy to me- like asking for trouble. I have dealt with enough straw to know that it's far less dense than say, alfalfa hay, and I sure as hell wouldn't want to use alfalfa hay for loadbearing walls, either- it'd settle too much. I don't think I would feel truly secure using this method without a post and beam framework as the supporting structure.
The Hive Camilo Jose Cela
So far, mildly interesting....but not interesting enoug to hold my attention as yet. It's sort of like War and Peace (which I wasn't able to bring myself to finish even after renewing it umpteen times from the library): there are too damned many people to keep track of! Not only are there a lot of people, but the story (both books) seems to be mostly about the people and their feelings: boring... With War and Peace, there were only two characters that I could even faintly relate to- Prince Andre and...the other guy, the dorky loser who was duped into marrying a girl not really suited to him. I don't remember his name now. I was very hard to maintain concentration long enough to get to where I could read about one of the interesting characters again....so eventually I quit trying.
---------------------------------------------
And what else.....
I've come to the conclusion that what I need is this: a job that is more mentally challenging. If I did that, I could more or less make my job my life, do well at it, and then relax when I got home. As it is, I feel intellectually starved and almost desperate for some sort of mental stimulation: a bad thing because, not only do I get discontented and bitchy/weepy/frustrated/despairing, but at some point I also reach a state where I get my mental jollies out of making sarcastic remarks and exercising a very strange sort of humor and offending/irritating/befuddling the people around me. Or I get to where I make snide comments about stupid rednecks with low I.Q.s and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (which really, if I think about it, isn't funny or nice- FAS babies didn't ask to be born that way) at every turn. Worse yet, I spend hours at the computer constructign topics specifically to get a rise out of people and get them all incensed so I will have someone to deabte with (except, most of them don't give me a lucid debate, just lots of emotion and dreck, which is dissapointing).
God, how I wish I had someone to play Boggle with.... :-/
I've even beat Dave at chess the last 5 times we played.