Valentine’s Day seems like a good day to do my rant about western ideals of modern love and romance. Consider this little proverb:

“It takes more than love to make a romantic relationship work.”

I don’t know if this is an actual cliche or if it’s one of those things that seems so obvious that it sounded like one the very first time someone realized it. Regardless, it is true because love is innately fantastic and fucking terrible.

You need a gigantic pile of other good stuff to balance it all out, or when the inevitable unpleasantness happens, you fall on your face. It can be one of those poor, bad times most folks’ vows warn them about, or–let’s pretend you have a wonderful, happy, fairy-tale quality life and there are no grey clouds EVER and your love is pure and eternal (which is a load of bunk, but OK)–one of you dies. Surely losing your Disney-style partner will tear out your insides and that is what your love earned you. Love requires mutual vulnerability, which is why where there is extreme happiness there will always be extreme pain.

However, if you have enough other good stuff it is not all doom and gloom. And that is why I wish that for just a short while, we could obsess over what indeed that other stuff essentially is, instead of continuing society’s mind-numbing obsession with love and romance, the knowledge of which doesn’t amount to a pile of beans in the long-term. Falling in love is easy! Romance is everywhere and transient! Anybody can have an affair with most anybody else and that doesn’t mean they should, or that it will last, or, rarest of all, that they’ll be happy.

Life is dripping with frustrating examples, but the kicker is, if we knew what that other stuff was, if we knew what it really takes–and no, the answer isn’t “work,” goddamn the Protestant work ethic–then we could all stop wasting our time and skip to being happy and/or move on.

That is what I’m talking about–being happy.

To have a good, happy relationship, you can’t be obsessed with the notion of romance or else you find yourself neck deep in expectations galore that only set you up for failure and frustration. Our culture beats the idea that we should be over our heads our whole lives, and if you don’t think so, consider personal ads. At this point in time it’s totally normal and acceptable and often suggested to place a personal ad for a romantic partner. But what about personal ads for friends or any other kind of intimate relationship? Go and try it and see what kind of “friends” turn up. I guarantee they’ll want more than just hangouts. You see, even the word “intimate” has been tainted by the OwR! But unromantic intimacy is SO very important and sometimes I feel like I’m taking crazy pills because its value is so infrequently expressed.

I think I take romance’s image so personally because of that 9 year relationship thing that I’m in. You see, people’s ideas about love offend me in the same way that a 1950s child wearing a plastic feather headdress and making “woh-woh-woh” sounds would offend a Native American. It is totally inaccurate, simplistic, and cheap. To claim an understanding with such an apparent total lack of any is insulting no matter the subject.

I am working on figuring out what that necessary other good stuff is and so far I have a three-part hypothesis: to make and keep a romantic relationship alive and healthy, all partners must possess respect, complimentary values, and a balance of power. You also need all those others things that all non-business relationships require, like actually liking each other, being able to converse easily, having a few things in common, and so on. But for an acquaintance or friendship to blossom into perennial romance you need R,CV & P.

Personally, I think respect is the most important factor because that’s the one that enables fire to ignite time after time after time. After all, being in love is not a constant thing. All things that burn exhaust themselves at least for a while, so it’s important to have the ability to fall in love over and over, and more deeply and passionately, throughout the duration of the relationship. To have fire you need the freedom and safety of respect. Freedom to explore yourself and each other and all that life has to offer, and the safety of the knowledge that regardless of how that exploration goes, if you fail or succeed, at the end of the day you’re not going to be looked down upon for it. I believe it is respect that allows the phenomena of adoration, for you can’t think somebody is “just SO amazing!” if you don’t truly marvel at their humanity.

Complimentary values are a bit more pragmatic, but oh so important for carrying out your romance in the world in which we all live. They will allow you to deal (or not deal) with jealousy, prioritize your time and lives, and make sure that everyone in the relationship feels that they matter and life is well spent. If it is very important to one partner to have children and the other never wants children, that’s bad romance joojoo. If one person likes to flirt and thinks jealousy is retarded and another partner thinks jealousy is a legit way of showing that they care, again abandon ship. The whole cat and mouse thing that the OwR teaches us leads many folks into such situations and it’s just not a water in which love can swim for long.

The balance of power rules over the other two. Each relationship can have totally unique and atraditional power structures but regardless of distribution it needs to even out “in the wash.” For example, let’s look at the much-criticized “traditional” western gender role romantic relationship. The masculine partner wins the bread and uses a stern hand with the children and the feminine partner reigns over the household and is sensitive and all of that. IF both partners honestly respect each other for the role they fill, and their own roles are in line with their values and are emotionally fulfilling, and each has equal power over different things (maybe the M earns the money but F handles all the finances, that sort of thing), they can have a healthy, happy romance together. Where we’ve run into problems galore is that these roles are NOT for most folks, and yet most try them out anyways because they think they’re supposed to.

When there’s an issue with any of these three factors, there will be tension. And where there’s tension there will be arguments, misunderstandings, etc. But if the foundation of respect is strong enough, you bet your booties you can realign the power and reassert the values of the relationship, too.

And you can fall in love all over again. <3<3<3

The necessity of regular, scheduled exercise, such as you might try to practice at The Gym, is the clearest evidence that the modern lifestyle is totally messed up and unsustainable. We live our lives in such a way that without concerted, health-oriented efforts, we would all become sick and die. Sure it takes several decades but still. The further removed our mode of “making a living” is from making what we need to live the more this is true. OK, I’m way over-simplifying here, which leads me to corporations, like most subjects do. It’s their fault.

Yes, all of it.

Today I saw a woman in hijab–and here I am meaning only her face and hands were showing–wearing RHINESTONE SUNGLASSES.

That is all.

For ’80s Night, oh yeah!

Since interactions with friends and family aren’t dependent upon my appearance this is all based on work, school, and out-and-about experiences.

Blonde

I receive plenty of sweetness, polite manners, and unwanted sexual remarks and advances. The assumption seems to be that I am younger, less experienced, more naive, and kinder than I actually am. When I put my foot down ignorance is thought to be the cause.

Light Brown

I receive considerably less remarks, questions, comments and awareness of my existence in general. I’m assumed to be less forgiving and funny, more shy and with greater direction than I am or have. When I put my foot down people are more willing to believe my reasons are good ones.

Dark Brown

I receive more requests for advice and input, name-calling, and rants about things people assume I oppose (or against things they think I support). I’m assumed to be more seriously-minded, independent, smart and mean than I actually am. When I put my foot down it’s just because I’m a bitch.

Auburn (in various shades/intensities)

I’m the brunt of fewer assumptions and suppositions and am treated the most like who I actually am, which is why sooner or later I always return to it. The bolder the red the nicer people tend to be.

Purple

Old people really like it, maybe because they relate to that level of not caring about aesthetical norms. Homeless people warm up to me more quickly than usual, I think because it makes me look less straight-laced than they think I am with normally-colored hair. People in general are friendlier to the point that if I go anywhere at all someone will act palsy towards me. In all cases I think the central message purple hair sends out is “No, it’s cool, I’m not here to judge anybody!”

Pink

I am the hero of little girls everywhere! Their tiny jaws drop and giggles aplenty ensue upon sighting the glory of my pinkness. It will be a sad thing to turn my back on this new-found army of revelatory joy.

Natural

I don’t remember. . .it’s been a few years.

Re: Mother’s Day

(Quick tidbit: Mother’s Day was originally a day a bunch of mothers got together and voiced their opposition to war, appealing to people on behalf of their children who go off and die for no good reason. Some non-mothers thought that was cute so they made it a holiday, sort of a mom-centric Memorial Day with a heavier pro-peace slant)

OK, we took a day that was supposed to be about mother’s standing up and saying war is bad and isn’t that cool and we should listen to and respect our mums–a great thing to observe–and turned it into a generalized celebration that means nothing. It’s not about how strong and courageous mothers are–it celebrates how they’re the “best!” It’s not about all the things that moms have accomplished or what they contribute (besides offspring, that is)–it celebrates all the aspects of motherhood that are already overly romanticized and valued, and in my mind harmfully stereotyped.

The fact that our “celebration” actually totally ignores the desires of the ones being celebrated is what really kicks me in the tuchus. Mother’s Day exemplifies how truly unvalued mothers–and women in general–are when you zoom out beyond the family unit by warping a day they tried to use to promote awareness of the harsh realities of war into a day they’re told to shut up and get flowers shoved in their faces.

Re: Birthdays

I propose that the true tragedy of being born is that never in life will we ever be that close to anyone or anything again. Besides brief spiritual revelations, however one may come by them, everything in life is so painfully separate–and it is our fault. The price is a constant struggle for meaning, for intimacy with greatness.

I am always, always so very lonely.

There’s a lot of songs that carry the theme, ‘I’m SO over you I’m interested in dating other people.’ Most have a “HA! In your FACE!” attitude like Nancy Sinatra’s awesome refrain

When the sun goes down and the moon comes up I’m gonna go out and prowl..Oh ya! Don’t come lookin’ for your pussy cat, cause I won’t be here no how! Whoa! How does that grab you darlin’?”

while others are sweet and respectful like Melanie’s lament

When I finish my laundry and air out my head Gonna look for another long-haired man to help me make my bed You know that I’ll miss you, but, strangely I’m glad Gonna make it without you And that’s what’s so sad.”

Obviously music is reflecting real life in this case, as I’m sure you can call to mind a dozen instances in your real life, movies, books and whatever, where a caring friend has told an ex-coupled person something along the lines of, “why don’t you get back out there already?” or offered to set them up with someone they believe to be a suitable mate. This is to the point that it seems like “moving on” is actually considered the same thing as moving onto other romantic partners. Or maybe it’s just the secret to achieving that resolution. Whatever. Here is the query I wanted to get to in, admittedly, a ridiculously roundabout way: how does one tell they are sufficiently “over” an ex without the addition of a new relationship? Consider anyone you know who remained single (for at least a relatively long while) after a break-up. At what point did you, as only a secondhand observer, consider that person to have successfully dealt with whatever healing was necessary from that relationship? If the ex-partner of that person re-entered the dating world before them how would that effect your perception of who-got-the-rottener-deal?

Weird, eh? But do you know what is le crap!? Can you think of many songs about breaking up/getting over somebody/moving on that don’t at least hint or threat other/new dudes and ladies? There’s plenty along the lines of “you’re such a dick/bitch” and “wow that was messed up, thanks” but try to find one that says, “I sure am glad to be free from all our coupled crap and be reunited with the joys of being on my own.” Maybe there are like two out there, which is by no means enough to instill me with any confidence in our society’s outlook on romance. The rarity of such songs mirrors the rarity of our personal strength.

Which reminds me of another thing!

. . .

OK, that’s where I meant to link to a whole tangential rant about The Obsession with Romance, but after beginning said post I was quickly distracted and haven’t returned to the right mindset to finish. So there’s another thing to add to the To Write List.

A fun individualist vs. collectivist proverb comparison for your amusement:

Western proverb: “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.”

Eastern proverb: “The quacking duck gets shot.”

A silly midwife saying:

“Let’s make like a baby and slip on outta here!”

Intrigued that 3 words all meaning essentially “a raised area of something” rhymed so perfectly, I thought maybe “ump” was a morpheme, so I looked up the etymology for “lumps,” “humps,” and “bumps.” Yes, this was unfortunately inspired by the truly terrible song “My Humps,” but nevermind that–here you go:

lump (n.) c.1300, lumpe, perhaps from a Scandinavian source (cf. cognate Dan. lumpe, 16c.), of unknown origin. Phrase lump in (one’s) throat “feeling of tightness brought on by emotion” is from 1803. Lumps “hard knocks, a beating” is colloquial, from 1935.

hump 1681 (in hump-backed), from Du. homp “lump,” from M.L.G. hump “bump,” from P.Gmc. *khump-. Replaced, or perhaps influenced by, O.E. crump. A meaning attested from 1901 is “mound in a railway yard over which cars must be pushed,” which may be behind the fig. sense of “critical point of an undertaking” (1914). The verb meaning “to do the sex act with” is attested from 1785, but the source of this indicates it is an older word. Humpback whale is from 1725.

bump 1611, perhaps Scand., probably echoic, original sense was “hitting” then of “swelling from being hit.” Also has a long association with obs. bum “to make a booming noise,” which influenced surviving senses like bumper crop, for something full to the brim. Bumpers first recorded 1839, on railroad cars; 1926 on automobiles. To bump into “meet” is from 1880s; to bump off “kill” is 1908 in underworld slang.

So OK, no morphemes there, just the common possibly Scandinavian background. I guess all those mountains, lakes, flatlands and fjords made them really aware of ups and downs? I like to think it’s more likely that the English found the sound “ump” funnier than the Latin, German and Celtic terms for the same things and over time adopted lumps, bumps and humps for humor’s sake, but probably I’m only humoring myself with that theory!

Ian and I went and saw Fire On The Mountain last night and hot damn it was good! It wasn’t so much a musical as it was a narrated, in-character, ho-down concert. All the actors played their instruments on the stage, and there was some clogging, and a lot of soul-felt howling, and I teared up like four times (once before they even started–just the sight of these people in their costumes holding their banjos and dulcimers and limberjacks made me SO happy). It made me miss my grandpa and want to dance with him because he’s from that whole coal mining culture in the Appalachians. My great-grandpa was shot in one of the union picket lines! HARDCORE. I seriously wish there was a soundtrack to this because I’d pick it up in the time it takes for your heart to go “lubb!” (that’s right, not even a full heartbeat!!!). We knew a bunch of the songs, too, and felt quite proud. Yay for the theatre!

I had a fun little Islamic/Lesbian Feminist moment yesterday Downstairs.

I bend over a lot at work loading laundry, cleaning showers, and so on, and I noticed when I first started there that if there were people around, particularly behind me, I tended to squat down or work sideways, as if I was wearing a dress and afraid I might flash somebody. Now I just do my work and don’t worry about my ass sticking out at people all the time. We’re all women and nobody cares.

This intrigued me yesterday because there happened to be one of our males-who-identifies-as-a-woman and a couple of ladies-who-like-ladies present at the same time and my mode of going about my business remained just as functional and unladylike. This implied that my comfort wasn’t because we all had vaginas, and it wasn’t because there was a guarantee of absent sexual objectification, it was because we all had feminine identities. There’s something resembling visual assault when an unwelcomed dude does the leering, but when it’s a woman it merely is what it is instead of carrying all that weight of social power.

That last thought is what made me realize, “Holy shit, I’m experiencing the validity of Separatism!”

Both the Lesbian Feminism movement and Muslim culture preach the empowerment of private all-woman spaces. It’s a connection that amuses me and to a degree they’re right. Living every day in a man-dominated world can be downright exhausting, so a man-free zone provides a sanctuary where one can relax and just be. I see it work for the women all the time, and I am now seeing how it works for me, for after working a shift Upstairs I am often anxious and hyped up on adrenaline, whereas after working a shift Downstairs I feel content and focused.

It’s nice!

Yesterday I was walking home from the bank and passed by The City Church, one of those giant (well not TOO giant, this is in Belltown), pseudo-industrial style brand of Christian worship facilities. There was some kind of function going on, as the parking lot was packed and they had placed a large sandwich board out on the sidewalk that read, “Parking for City Church goers ONLY.” That sign and that parking lot were enough to make me furrow my brow and stomp a bit more huffily, but then I saw a dude and a lady come out and cross in front of me to their car. He was generic enough not to mention anymore. She was wearing a plum colored pantsuit with a high-necked blouse underneath and high heels. They weren’t spiked or terribly tall, maybe 2″, but still the sight of those heels made me furious. You may already be aware of my obsession with heeled shoes (for which I intend to eventually write an explanation/elaboration/rant, but that day is not today), maybe not. Let me summarize by saying it’s a big issue for me, and so when I saw this lady in her Sunday best coming out of a church I already scorned I met with a new revelation/declaration: NO PERSON OF GOD WOULD WEAR HIGH HEELS. I’m sure there are some gods or goddesses out there that are all about the footwear, but the Generalized God of The Book (as in the god of Islam, Judaism and Christianity) is not. Casual practitioners can pull it off fine, of course, but you can’t be righteous AND adhere to all the pettiness of fashion and self-hatred of sexism. That ain’t how modesty rolls.

Speaking of crazy religious stuff, I have decided to observe Lent this year. Never having been involved in any kind of religious anything before, this is a huge deal for me. I’ve played the spectator many times, but that hardly counts. Since I’m not actually Christian I won’t be doing most of the things you’re supposed to do, first because I don’t know what they are and secondly because I don’t want to affiliate myself with anyone/anything. So, basically it comes down to this–I’m going to give up cookies, cake, and brownies (that’s right, my beloved, sweet baked goods) for 40 days, starting this Sunday. I know everybody else started on Ash Wednesday but blah!

You may expect updates.

I’ve suddenly become interested in foster parenting, which certainly begs that question. It isn’t something I’d do now, or even a couple years from now, but I know we’re going to want children probably in 3 years or so and we won’t be “ready.”

In three years, I plan to have finished my Master’s and be hopping onto the Occupational Therapy career-boat. Ian will still be in school, whether he’ll have his Bachelor’s by then or not, and will drop his working hours to part-time to take his turn as a full-time student. Maybe we will be buying a house. But, since we’re planning for me to become the primary income provider of the household, the very beginning of a career is a crappy time to get pregnant, have a baby, and then breastfeed.

This is why a foster child sounds really nice. The gob’ment gives you a bunch of parenting classes and puts a potty-trained, solid-food-eating, love-needing chillun’ in your home, and then they pay for food, clothes, and health insurance. If it’s terrifying it doesn’t matter because it’s temporary. The loving and caring for a child are the easy parts, what we need to practice are our patience and time budgeting, which fostercare amply provides. It seems to me the ultimate parenting training wheels.

Is this awesome
(Y/N)?

I am so tired of only living at night.

. . .

The homeless women I see every day have no place of their own, no time to their selves, and so it is not uncommon for some to become totally undone once they close the shower curtain and turn on the water. For them, the shower is a place of soul-bearing honesty and comfort in a world of harsh public vulnerability. A person who seemed lucid and strong a minute before can easily dissolve into raw emotion. I hear them talk to themselves, laugh, cackle, cry and sob, one woman howls rather heatedly, another moans in what sounds like pure agony. But regardless of their state prior to showering, and the weirdness projected during, their spirit is always noticeably higher afterwards. The dirt-and-sorrows-of-the-world analogy is quite obvious, but it really is wonderful to witness.

Same-sex relationships seem to be much more common among homeless females than they are within the housed populace. I don’t think being gay makes one more likely to be homeless and I don’t think old fashioned homosexuality is any higher than in mainstream society, but maybe homelessness prevents attraction to men? Consider the causes of homelessness and it makes a lot of sense. The mentally ill/disabled, the physically ill/disabled, and addicts–and most homeless women fall into at least one of those categories–are more susceptible than their able-bodied, wholly-minded contemporaries to abuse, in all its ugly forms. I haven’t conducted a survey or anything, but it’s pretty clear these women have negative histories with men, and I’m sure that helps make their sister-friends look pretty damn attractive. We have our needs, after all!

By “needs” I mean emotional and romantic intimacy and committed companionship. Pervs.

It seems like every December 31st/January 1st people who observe New Year’s divide into two opposing philosophical camps, the Resolutionists and the Irrelevantists. The former is obvious and socially sanctified, and already receives plenty of cricitism, so I’d like to harp on the latter.

Ian is a cranky member of the Irrelevant line of thinking and loves to lecture about the history of our calendar and how it’s all entirely arbitrary, how the first hour of 2007 is really no different than the last hour of 2006, and blah blah blah. This stance is reactionary and is only a dismissal of the Resolutionist view of renewed time, which, as I understand it, is that last year is a dried up old flower decomposing into dirt whereas this year is newly green and moist and beginning to blossom. And OK, that is really stupid.

Time can’t be old or new–it is time and it is space.

However, I don’t see anything wrong with making regularly spaced (by let’s say a “year,” since that’s how we’ve organized time) dates with yourself to reflect on a recent, past segment of your life and the world and to contemplate and rejoice in the possibilities of the near future. It’s nice to look back at some shitty thing you’ve gone through and think, “Fuck I’m glad that’s over,” and it’s good to build a framework for things to come so you don’t blink and it’s Christmas again. People are weird and we need excuses sometimes to express our love, hope, sadness, and regret. This is a good one.

What I am trying to show you about is that New Year’s should be like a secular Rosh Hashana.

(A Rant By the Cough-Addled Moi, 14 Hours Into My Workday)

For the sake of laziness (not simplicity which has far too many practicalities to its credit because simple and practical are not the same damn thing) I’m going to adopt some terminology to keep my two jobs straight. I will from now on refer to my front desk job as “working Upstairs” and to the homeless women’s center as “working Downstairs”.

OK, so this morning I was Downstairs and feeling very tired, sick, and just generally lackadaisical. So instead of socializing or rearranging inventory between stuff-to-do times I read from one of our many Binders of Interesting Stuff (one is all about common health issues in the shelter environment, one is a comprehensive, although out-of-date, compilation of every social service you can imagine in the Puget Sound area–you get the idea). Unlike the others its content wasn’t informative, but intended only to keep us poor “Servers” from getting too disheartened. It was full of probably a few years worth of those Weekly Reflections I wrote about before.

Anyways, the disturbing thing that I learned and wanted for whatever reason to declare on this here interweb is that, apparently, “God”–as a word, as it is practiced–doesn’t mean anything to me. I read the quotes, poems and stories at a fairly stable rate and with a fairly stable level of interest in understanding what I was reading, and then whenever I saw the word “God” or “Lord” I quickened my pace or skipped over that section entirely. It’s like when you’re reading a story that really has your attention and you come across a long foreign name, or maybe some French or Latin phrase that supposedly all haughty intellectuals are supposed to know, but you don’t, or any group of words that to you just looks like a string of irrelevant letters. If it’s French or Latin maybe you’ll search for a root you recognize, but if it’s a name in something that looks like a click language and you can’t fathom how to pronounce it you probably skip right over it. (Example: when I was reading Anna Karenina there were so many goddamn characters and all of them had Russian names, a language I know diddly about, that when I read names I basically scanned it for a series of letters and that’s what I knew the characters by. Prince Stepan Arkadyevitch Oblonsky? That was Stiva Arkd-Obsky, and so on). It’s as simple as tihs tnhig ebevyrdoy kowns auobt tkhnas to teh ietrnnet. We don’t really read, generally. We scan for things we recognize; we search for what we already understand to gain a larger/deeper understanding.

Well, I don’t understand the word “God”:
PROBLEM PROBLEM PROBLEM.

It has too many conflicting meanings, too wide a range of perceptions, for it to mean anything at all. I read it and I see an abyss of generalizations. I try to find meaning in the context, like I would with any word I don’t understand, and all I see is the author’s laziness. They assume I know what they mean by “god’s will,” “god’s love,” they think I know who their audience is when they lament, “Lord, grant me ___” and “thank you, Lord.” I guess my gauge is this: if you erase each sentence that contains “Lord” and “God” is there any weight left to the work? Absolutely sometimes, but in my experience the answer is more often, “No, not a lot.” And that’s lazy and irritating and utterly unmoving. My newly discovered problem that maybe I shouldn’t allow to be a problem is that I feel even more ridiculously isolated from the world’s gigantic population of Folk Who Believe In “God.” I want to understand SO BADLY, but we seem to be stupidly unable to communicate because of a lame vocab discrepancy.

This is one of many reasons why I like old-timey gospel music. I can tell what they mean because the music more than makes up for language’s ambiguity.

Ugh! I want to run away to somewhere warm and sunny where everyone eats fruit every day and there is no violence or hatred because we all love each other and sing together and fuck and the essence of life and wisdom fills the air like a honey-scented smog of fulfillment.

Er. . .that’s all for now.

I don’t find the concept of voting or my ability to vote exciting or comforting. Rather, voting only makes me angry.

I shouldn’t have to slosh through the rain to fill in a bubble that says we shouldn’t give huge pay outs TO property owners who want to break the law. I shouldn’t have to request that we NOT take away millions of dollars from education and give it to our wealthiest citizens. I don’t see why I have to OK every hmm and haw about paying for infrastructure repair, maintenance, and transportation expansion because it ISN’T FUCKING OPTIONAL. And lastly, how is allowing adult entertainers to make money a public issue? I DON’T CARE.

But I also don’t trust everyone else to not be retarded, so I vote anyways.

Funny but similarly cynical side note: the page with Ian’s name on it (and however many other voters whose last names come before Albert) was lost, so he had to fill out a provisional ballot. So ha ha! to Ian for being too much of a hippie for The Man to want him to vote.

was days and days ago, yeah, yeah I know. Photos are up of our Logan’s Run (the movie, not the book) -themed costumes, and the absence of our Box is awfully apparent, but the rest came out alright. I was Jessica 6, Ian was Old Man, Heather was a generic green character (although I maintain she was a clone of her present self, so Heather ####) and Tom was Logan. I wish there was a way I could dress up year-round without being categorized into the cosplay/role-playing scene, because gosh I love dressin’ up in costume and fancy dress parties are such a disappointing reason.

A popular stance among conservatives is that social services should be funded by charities so that people can choose what services they want to support. They’d like to slash taxes and reduce if not eradicate government spending on like, disability checks. If we were to adopt their desired optional approach to “philanthropy” I think it would only be fair if things like, say, the Star Wars project were also funded out of the goodness of concerned citizen’s hearts. While I agree that some military is a necessary part of any country, I certainly don’t want to pay out the hundreds of millions that we do, a stance that I feel mirrors the conservative idea that some social services are worth funding but not the ones that are, you know, “hand-outs” (like paying for children to learn how to read and see a doctor—stuff like that). I feel the exact same way, except about all the budget areas that they like to give monetary priority. So OK, let’s do this! I can see the telethon fundraisers and radio donation drives now, and let’s not forget everybody’s favorite: charity calls!

Oh wait, there’s this one kind of major problem I just thought of. People are incredibly greedy and short-sighted. Ooooooooh, right. That’s why we have taxes in the first place!

So here’s a better, or at least more intriguing, idea. I wonder what would happen if everyone, when they filled out their W2s, also selected what percentages of the money taken out of their paychecks would go to each department. Each person could control exactly what they were supporting. Obviously some departments (the important but boring and not-in-the-media Department of Housing and Urban Development, Corps of Engineers, National Science Foundation, etc.) would be ignored not because people don’t want to fund them but because most people probably don’t know what they do and they’d rather designate their money towards things they understand. So I suggest a Department of Balance that would take a set percentage not decided upon by individual taxpayers but by an election that would distribute their funds into the departments that needed more than was selected. To be ultra fair, you could choose a sub-department of the DoB that you’d like to have distribute your DoB taxes so you can choose the emphasis of your own spending.

Options could be Maintenance (including the departments of Agriculture, Energy, Education, Justice, the Interior, Transportation, etc., departments that keep our people fed and mostly literate, our streets not crumbling, and so on), Progression (Aeronautics and Space, Science, Small Business, Environment, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Education, departments that progress our technology, culture, minds, health) and Protection (Defense, Homeland Security, Commerce, Veterans Affairs, Environment, Social Security, Education, Health and Human Services, departments that protect us from becoming a third world country).

Actually that was yesterday.

More tantalizing photos are available here

A quick qualifier: Family and friends are generally exempt from the following complaints.

A compliment is a judgment, although a positive, appreciative one. When someone compliments me, particularly someone whose sexuality orients them towards me, I feel their eyes all over me. I feel their thoughts and their assumption of power over me, over how I feel about myself. By complimenting me they show me their preconceived notions that I should care what they think and that I will take their words as encouragement, but in reality they make me less likely to continue whatever warranted the compliment in the first place.

Because I have a vagina, and do not go out of my way to make that fact questioned, my value to strangers is primarily aesthetic: le duh. But it is irritating and enraging, as guys I pass on the street don’t stop me to express their appreciation of who I am or what I do, because they clearly can’t know anything about me that they cannot see. What makes them feel entitled to violate my space and consume my time?

A more paranoid but gender neutral issue I have with compliments is when the giver is a person who I perceive takes themselves too seriously. Because they give off the air of somebody who thinks they have everything figured out, I take their praise of doing something right as a backhanded way of telling me that I do everything else wrong, or at least sub-par. I know that this is really stupid, but mostly I just don’t like cocky people.

Good night!

This makes me so drunk with anger that I can’t think straight.

I don’t generally participate in the video game brand wars, but this seals Playstation’s loss in my mind.

is today. Stores are having sales, banks and post offices are closed, the newspaper’s filled with uncontroversial human-interest stories, and all are decorated with the flag’s colors and tacky stars. I don’t understand why Memorial Day is seemingly practiced as a day of patriotism. What do barbeques have to do with remembering our dead soldiers? I’m not against celebrating, but it should be via the appreciation of life and our relative good fortune, not of the military and cheap crap. Memorial Day is to remind us how awful war is, which considering we’re in the midst of one, is a pretty fucking important remembrance.

And so I return.

My step-dad is dead, my mom a widow, my sister without a father. My step-brother is thoroughly brainwashed by the Army and can speak of nothing non-military. My grandpa continues to get skinnier and weaker. Nevada is looking wonderfully green after an unusually wet winter, but is full of bleakness and confusion via its inhabitants. Everything is torn.

Mexicans who work at American-centric resorts do not like to speak Spanish. My aunt-in-law is now married to a very nice fellow and mostly everyone on that side is jubilantly happy (although this is not necessarily related to the wedding). The verde salsa of the Guerrero state of Mexico is THE BEST EVER. I learned that I very much want a small pool and that I can like fresh strawberry daiquiris. In unsurprising news, people do not like things that are different than they expect or what they are accustomed. But, regarding Mexico, I am optimistic.

What is one word to describe the outcome of my past couple of weeks? OVERWHELMED.

Since I work for a religiously based non-profit organization, they send everyone weekly reflections and things-to-think-about-on-holidays-and-events via e-mail. Sometimes they’re pretty interesting and sometimes they’re pretty lame.

Today’s was a quote by some quote-guy about how encouragement is the most important gift you can give to somebody and if people were encouraged more we’d have more “great minds” in the Einstein-Gandhi-Mother Theresa vein. This seems like an almost too simple and obvious solution to the world’s problems, but maybe it’s not. With encouragement people would push themselves more creatively and our arts and sciences would progress more freely and blah blah blah, but I think the biggest advantage would be that all those encouraged people would, as a side effect of the given encouragement and resulting tryings, probably feel better about themselves in general.

Imagine a world full of people with hearty self-esteems, and I don’t mean people who are cocky and narcissistic, but honest to goodness secure people. People who wouldn’t feel so easily threatened and would be less likely to engage in agression, people who wouldn’t be mean to those with lesser abilities than their own just to make themselves feel superior, people in whom jealousy and pettiness would have no purpose and therefore little existence. However, at second glance the problem of how to actually make the biggest impact with encouragement is clarified. My parents were always very supportive in that you-can-do-anything-you-put-your -mind-to sort of way, but I still ended up with poor ideas of myself and slumped through several years of depression.

This encouragement, then, seems to need to be rather specific. Perhaps if they had said, “I think you should do X because you’d be great at X-ing and I look forward to the results” instead of “of course you can do X, you’re so talented!” I’d have fallen into the well-adjusted category (sooner?).

And so I’d like to make a Call to Action! Woo! We must make a point to recognize other’s specific strengths and encourage them to develop and augment those strengths into skill and achievement, while offering our help along the way. Anyway, seeking out virtues in others is always a good exercise in humility and therefore worth some non-self-centered time.

I want to be a cowboy.

I’m afraid of becoming a desperado.

Also, the miscellany section has been busy.

there was a massive march downtown last night basically protesting the widespread hatred against non-legal U.S. citizens with sun-tanned appearances. Since I was working in the vicinity I got to witness the prolonged traffic jam and correlated grumpiness of everyone affected by it and a part of me thought, “gosh, if I wasn’t at work I’d love to be out there with them!” because it was heartening to see such a large turn-out of people who aren’t crazy or apathetic. But then I realized that a bigger part of me thought the whole effort was just funny and sad. Of course people shouldn’t be felons just because they happened to be born outside our borders and of course everyone ought to be given equal chances and blah blah blah. But the idea that all those people actually think the white guys in D.C. care AT ALL what anybody thinks or feels, well, that makes me want to cry.