Somebody Wake Up Billie Joe...

 And that's the end of September. 

So how did it go?

Still kind of weird to be in the half in half out spot, where I'm finishing out the 2023 goals but already thinking about no goals at all just habits for the next year. BUT...it's where I am so here we go.

Reading: The biography was The Many Lives Of Mama Love by Lara Love Hardin. I've already recommended it to people. Really good. Especially for those of us who are already in the space of understanding that we don't do rehabilitation we do retribution and our justice system often isn't. It gives you such a good, clear, insight into how the system is rigged against success and how any sentence becomes a life sentence.  I wrote about the self help book already and eh. I mean, I'll finish out the year because I'm like that but I think I can safely say it's not an experiment I ever need to repeat.

Overall reading numbers, even with going in and resetting it to a higher number, I'm ahead for the year. So that should be just fine. I think I talked about subbing in the Fantastic Stranglings Horror book club choice for the regular one. I actually did end up getting the regular one on the release day from the library but since that was just Tuesday I would have had to stop what I was currently reading and just read that one, and just read, do nothing else, to get it done by today so I think the sub was the right call. And this way it actually sets me up to not sweat release dates for the rest of the year for her books. This one will be my October book and that puts me ahead. I like to have that cushion. 

Also the sub in was great because Camp Damascus ended up being a great book. Just right in my wheelhouse of truly horrific. 

Writing is still on track. I did the quick post earlier when I passed the highest number of blogs I'd ever written before. I'm still pretty tickled about that. It's a big number, the goal this year, and when I set it there was a voice in the back of my head that was already planning how I would deal with not reaching it. Now it's within grasp. Still a lot of writing left to do, but I can see the end now and that's pretty amazing. Still hitting the blogs here and the bonus piece to Dana every other week, even if I switched to writing prompts for a bit on that one. Though I think, THINK, that the one I'll send her this week will be back to the main story. I started on it and got stuck again so if I can work it out a bit today and tomorrow I might just actually finish a LONG ASS story this year. 

Went ahead and restarted the HRT. Right after I posted about not being sure if I would try the new regimen or not the heat blooms came roaring back. I had forgotten how awful it is to lie in bed as wave after wave of heat washes over you and you can't sleep for shit. So I'm back on hormones. So far they've knocked back out the daytime heat and cut the night time way back. Hopefully by the end of next month it will all be gone again. And, of course, the few pounds that I lost when I went off it came back as well. Oh well. I'd rather have a bit of a belly than no sleep for sure. 

Workouts were super consistent so that was good. I don't think I'll change anything for October, just more of the same for the next month should be good. It's two days of weights, one day of core and at least 2 of cardio but I did cardio 5 days most of the month. I think that will settle out to three days of cardio. That seems to be a good balance. 

No new mini goals (since I'm in that half foot in part) for October. Just keep wrapping up these 2023 numbers. I've got the bio the self help and the Stranglings books already downloaded on my Kindle so that will be smooth sailing as well. 

Enjoy your Fall, y'all!

Nightmares...

She had had the dream for as long as she could remember. 

Everyone has their own version of stress dreams. Showing up at school not prepared for a final exam, or in your pajamas, or less.

Needing to get to work but not remembering how to get there.

Driving in a car and then the road suddenly ends.

There are a million different versions of stress dreams. Everyone has them.

Hers had been with her so long that she recognized when it would start. Something in her subconscious would be awake enough to think, oh here we are again. She was never aware enough to stop it at that point, but she knew it was happening. Which made it worse. 

She guessed that was part of the stress reaction for her, knowing something was going wrong and not being able to stop it. 

And she could never put her finger on why it was so upsetting when she would think about it later. 

Like, some nightmares are clearly scary: when you were having them, when you woke up and thought about them, when you told someone else about them. 

And most stress dreams are understandable. Of course it would be stressful to show up for a test you hadn't studied for. We all could imagine that feeling. 

But her stress dream was a set of stairs. 

They were steep. That was true. And that could be a little much for people who didn't like heights, or ladders, but she wasn't one of those people. She had once done a hike up a "forbidden staircase" that was nothing but bits of rebar that had been nailed into the side of a rock face. Slippery, spaced oddly, only a staircase if you used your imagination. It had been awesome. 

But that set of stairs in her dream? 

It would make her feel uneasy the whole next day. 

The dream would start with her in a building somewhere. The building always changed but there would be a point where she would be faced with the stairs. Those steep, narrow, stairs. And even though she never wanted to she would always know she had to climb them. The feeling of dread would grow heavier and heavier the further up the staircase she went. The stairs would seem steeper and steeper as well. And so far apart. Like room for three or four steps for each one. 

Narrow, steep, hard to climb.

But she had to climb them. No matter how much the fear gripped her. No matter how much her legs would shake and her palms would sweat. 

She couldn't tell you what was at the top of the stairs. She'd never made it. Sometimes she slipped and would wake as she fell. Sometimes she just got stuck, couldn't move forward or back, just stood there panicking until she woke up covered in slick of cold sweat. 

She hated those fucking stairs. 

She had a psychologist ask her if it was a repressed memory. Something from her childhood that had happened up a set of stairs. Or on a set of stairs. Or around a set of stairs. She had thought, or near a set of stairs, or when she had first learned the word stairs, or maybe someone had stared at her and her mind had turned that into a set of stairs. In other words, she didn't really buy into the whole repressed memory thing even back when it was very popular. And if it were repressed, then how would she know? It would be repressed.

She never knew why she reacted to them. Never knew why they were so terrifying. But they were. And they were consistent. Dreams about them for as long as she could remember. 

But today was the first time she'd ever seen them in real life. 

Heart pounding she took the first step.

Woo Hoo!

Okay, I was going to write fiction today, and I still might but I needed NEEDED to get this blog post out of the way first. 

This post.

This very one. 

The one you have open on your screen.

This post is the 186th post of the year.

Which makes it the most blog posts I've ever posted in one year.

I know, it's not the goal number for the year. I haven't reached that. But I'm still really thrilled by it. 

And you really should celebrate the small steps that lead you to your goals. 

I have a friend right now in Flight Attendant training and at the end of every week she posts that she's one more week down and how many are left to go. I am so psyched for her every week. Because, yes, her goal is to finish the training (a lot of her fellow potential flight attendants have already been sent home) but to finish the training she needs to finish each week. And each day. Celebrate those steps!

It reminds me of when I was in Weight Watchers, back before they started calling it WW and you got stars for every 5 pounds and 10 pounds and trinkets for percentages and then goal and then weeks at goal and so on. Now, of course, you all know for me it triggered the crazy and I kept going for another 5 pound star but still...CELEBRATE every step on the way to your bigger goals. 

And today I passed what used to be the "Best Year Ever" number. 

Now back to thinking about the fiction I want to post by Saturday...

Maybe a story about a woman who wrote a lot of blogs?

Oh no...I want to write FICTION and I totally did that!

Stay Mad...

Five years ago was the day we heard Dr. Ford and (now) Justice Kavanaugh give testimony during (then) Federal Judge for Life Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings for him to sit on the Supreme Court.

Three years ago I posted that two years later and I was still furious. 

I can confirm that I still am.

On the day it was happening I sort of live updated the hearings. My reactions to everything that was said by each of them and by the Senators doing the hearing. I'm still just...I mean pissed doesn't really cover it. It didn't then and it doesn't now. 

He lied. He sat there and lied and yet...

And I'm not even talking about him lying about what happened to Dr. Ford. I will say that none of us other than the three of them that were there actually know what happened. I know that I believe her. But I will never know for sure because we can't. I'm talking about him lying about other things. Which makes me doubt he was telling the truth about her.

Any Gen Xer watching him get questioned had to yell bullshit, or laugh in disbelief when he tried to say "The Devil's Triangle" is a drinking game. Or that he was of legal drinking age in high school. Or that boofing was butt chugging alcohol. None of that is true. And yet, nobody called him out on it. He lied. On record. About bullshit stuff that he didn't need to lie about. Though, I guess if you and a buddy are being accused of trapping a woman in a room and trying to tear her clothes off having a post in your yearbook about the devil's triangle might be well...inconvenient. (For those of you who aren't Gen X the devil's triangle is a three way where you have two men and a woman instead of two women and a man, casual homophobia was pretty common in the 80s)

He also said that he would never give a democrat a fair hearing. And I guess that's true. But shouldn't it have been disqualifying? 

And he was belligerent (I LIKE BEER) and acted like sitting on the Supreme Court was something he was owed. Something that people were trying to take away from him. I mean, not by force, nobody locked him in a room and tried to strip him of his judicial robes or anything. And I mean, not even like legally deciding that his own bodily autonomy was up for debate. But you know, he was owed that seat and how dare anyone suggest otherwise. 

And the one piece that has always boggled my brain (not like it wasn't already boggled from the rest but this one stuck out so much) he pulled that damn calendar out like it was a proof of innocence when on the day that Dr. Ford said it happened he had marked having 'skis with the folks that Dr. Ford said were at this impromptu house party. She wouldn't have seen that calendar ahead of time so how would she have known to say those people were there drinking? You know, unless she was telling the truth. 

And to have him flourish it out like it was proof he didn't do it because he wrote everything on his calendar and you can clearly see that "Tried to rape a girl at a party" wasn't on there so... Now don't you feel silly even asking? 

There was also Senator Hatch when asked if he found Dr. Ford's testimony credible saying she was very attractive... what? I mean... What?

Five years later and it still just makes me so angry. Deeply angry. 

And I'm okay with that. I hope there never comes a day where I don't feel a growing rage as I read back over what was being said. I hope I never decide that it's just a thing that happened and no big deal. I hope my face always does that my face thing when I think about it. 

Stay mad when things deserve your spite. 

And that day, those Senators, that man, deserve your spite. 

Art and Artist Again...

Finished Stephen King's latest book Holly today. I love the character, I think this is his fourth book she's in, though this is the first novel where she's the main character. 

The book is set in 2021-2022 and he wrote it in 2021. So Covid features as almost another character. 

It's weird. Books and TV shows that are in that timeline, and are supposed to be in "our" world that have to deal with Covid are jarring in a way. But in another way it's weird when it doesn't. Like the last story that featured Holly was a short story set in December 2020 but he wrote it in 2019 so he had no idea what was coming. Reading that and following dates it was odd as well. It was like, nope, she wouldn't be doing any of that because you couldn't. 

And this time it was weird reading it because some of the things we thought back then we don't really think anymore and some of the worst of the pandemic things we'd all like to not think about. Like how every conversation seemed to be about Covid in one way or another. And how just wearing a mask in public was seen as some sort of political statement. 

After I finished and marked it as read on Goodreads I checked out the reviews. 

And people were pissed. 

How dare he push the idea that people should get vaccinated and wear masks! Holly is a hypochondriac and the story starts with her mother dying from Covid. Of course she was going to be really careful about masking and space and vaccines. But King dared to talk about it. A lot. Because that's the way it was in 2021 and 2022. 

He also isn't a Trump fan. His account on what was Twitter was clear on that. And he has some characters that are not Trump fans. To be fair he has some that are as well. But his personal opinion is fairly clear and some of his characters share that opinion. And there are so many people who are NEVER going to read him again because of it. 

Well, I'm sure he's very upset about that. I mean struggling writers need all the readers that they can get...

But there was a lot of bluster about how artists need to keep their politics out of their work. That they read to escape the real world, the don't want it in their escapism. 

I so disagree with that. 

I mean, I get it. Even agreeing with King's politics it was a bit much. I'd like to get back to a place where we don't think about the virus constantly (even though right now you should be paying attention because there is another surge happening with the new strain) and I'd love to get back to a place where Trump is irrelevant. But I don't get to dictate what other people want to talk about, write about, sing about. 

A few years ago I had a disagreement with two friends on Facebook about this. (to be fair I disagree with people about this all the time, it's just this one stuck out) That if you go to a concert the artist shouldn't talk politics. It's about the songs, not about their beliefs. I so fully disagree with that. If you just want to hear their music without the banter listen to it at home, not live. Your ticket does not pay for them silencing their opinion. The reason why it stuck out to me is that they are very much opposite politically but both think the "shut up and sing" model should be followed. And they both sort of decided since they agreed with each other I should admit I was wrong.

Well...

No.

Entertainment can be politics free or politically filled. You don't have to see artists that don't match your views. There are quite a few singers I'd never pay to go see. That's the only place I get to decide. I don't get to tell them to not talk, I just don't have to pay to listen. 

I don't get to tell King to shush about Covid and Trump already. I just don't have to buy his books. And apparently a lot of people won't anymore. Though his politics have almost always had an underlying vibe in his books so it's weird that you wouldn't expect it. But that is the Trumpinization of things. They probably would have been fine if the only Trump mention was the owner of the bowling alley talking about the Democrats stealing the election, but one bad word about him and well, they aren't going to sit with you anymore. 

I feel that way about people who talk positively about him, so I get it. 

And even though I think it's weird that you wouldn't expect it from King, I also don't think it's a wrong stance to take that you aren't going to read his stuff anymore. 

That's the choice you get to make. 

The choice you don't get to make is his choice to do it or not. He gets to decide what and how he speaks about things. Even Covid and Trump. 

But I am looking forward to a time where we don't speak about either one anymore, because they aren't causing major damage anymore. 

Fingers crossed it comes soon. 

Separation of Blog and Post...

So yesterday was Bisexuality Visibility Day. I made a post about it on Facebook and then realized that though I've talked about it here in the blogs I didn't make like some sort of announcement a few years ago when I finally took the label as mine. 

And it's not the first time that has happened. Where I will post something, or be talking to someone about something, and realize they have no idea what I'm talking about even though I've talked about it at length. But on my blog. 

Can you believe there are people who don't read my blog? I know, right?

But it is odd sometimes. I'm really open here. I'm really open most places, honestly. But here is long form. I've written paragraphs, pages, books of my thoughts about things. All of the nuance, all of the details are here. There it's just short blips. Or sometimes longer posts as well. I can't help it, some things are complicated and need paragraphs, not sound bite sized clips, but even a long post there isn't the same as short blog here.

I think we, the whole we, just want to be seen and understood. We all grasp that we are complicated and don't want to be misunderstood so we try and try to be clear, or clear things up that aren't clear. 

We just want to be seen. 

Even on days that aren't to mark how entire groups of people are erased from history (PICK A SIDE!).

I think that's really what drives me the most. I want to be understood. I want to understand others. I want that moment where it all clicks together and I know why you do what you do. Why you think the way you think. Where I feel like I really know something about you. And I want you to have that moment with me. 

I think we all do.

Think of how many relationships end with that feeling of "You didn't even know me at all."

What a good thing it is to be seen. To be understood. To be known. 

Sometimes I will get a text or a message from someone where they will share a story and then apologize for getting too personal. I always have to tell people that it's okay. That I don't want their superficial when I can have their deep. I am never going to be mad at you for sharing a story or a touch point. Never. If you are on my friend list, you are there for a reason and the better we know each other the better in my book. Let me see who you really are.

Is that the basis of loving someone? Seeing them? If you say you love someone but you don't really understand them is it that you love them, or you love who you think they are? Or what you can project about yourself on to them?

I've heard that said about Obama when he ran for President. People didn't really know him. He didn't have much of a record in public office just yet. So it was easy to project on to him who they wanted him to be. Hope and change meant something different to everyone and we all put our own version of that on to him. By the end of his presidency when we all felt like we knew who he was a little more there were people that were disappointed. He let them down. He wasn't who they thought he was. But whose fault was that? Had you seen him or had you projected on him what you wanted?

How many personal relationships are like that? You just needed someone to be a certain way and when they weren't you were disappointed. Whose fault was it? Them for not being that person or you for not seeing who they really are?

As I'm looking at my new year no goals just be plan I'm thinking more and more about the way I use social media. Should there be a separation of blog and posts? Should I keep the Facebook/Insta/Threads (if I ever start posting on Threads) lighter and superficial or should I keep the balance I have now between sometimes it's preachy (yes, it's okay, I know I get preachy) and sometimes it's just cats or should I make it just like the blog, a lot more personal?

I'm not sure. 

I just know I want to be seen and to see as well. 

Why?

The workout program that came with my treadmill has trainers that you walk/jog/hike with. One of their favorite things to say is "What is your why?" It's standard fitness talk. Why are you working out? You have to find your why or on days that you just don't feel like it, which face it are most, you just won't. 

What is your why? Is it being fit enough to play with your kids or your grandkids? Is it wanting to lose weight? Is it wanting to lower your blood pressure? On and on, what is your why? As you all know my why is I move so I can keep moving. If I'm not active my arthritis gets really painful. My other why is that I like having muscles. That's why I lift weights. I'd rather have biceps than bingo wings. And at 55 I'm trying to make peace with having a little of both. 

What is your why?

I was thinking about that yesterday and how when Katie was little she used to do the endless whys. You know that one if you've been around little ones. The Why Game. Why is the cat asleep? Because he's tired. Why? Because he was playing with his toys and that makes him tired. Why? You answer that question and get another why and another and another and another, until finally you are out of answers. And you either say I don't know or because I said so, depending on your mood. 

Thinking about that and I realized I have played the why game with myself for a long time as well. And I highly recommend it to everyone.

Why do you believe what you do?

Why do you act the way you do?

Why do you value this or that friendship or relationship?

Why? 

And keep drilling down those whys. It's a good way to understand the real why as to what you believe. 

And maybe a good start on changing that belief if it needs to be changed. 

Question your answers. Question your beliefs. Question everything. Be really solid in your why.

If you can't answer why then ask yourself if it's really worth holding on to. 

We can see them limiting the whys in education. You can't teach certain things. You can't ask certain questions. You can't acknowledge certain things. There are laws in place in multiple states that teachers can't present information that makes white kids feel badly about being white. When instead of saying you can't teach that somebody should be asking those kids why. Why does this make you feel badly about being white? Why? Ask and ask again. We do not learn if we limit the whys. 

Education should be about unlimited whys. Get all the answers you can get. Get them from all sorts of different people. Ask and then ask again. You need to understand fully what you are being taught and the only way to manage that is to ask why.

I know I'm completely biased about this because my parents raised me to question everything even if I came up with different answers than they did. I make the joke that they were even good natured about the first thing I questioned was their church and the next their politics. It's part of why I am fairly good (losing some of it now, the longer I've been away) with being able to argue points about religion and conservatism. It's because they were my beliefs for awhile. Until I started questioning why. Why do I believe this? Why do I think this is right? Why doesn't this align with other things I believe? Which one needs to change? And why? 

I didn't stay with the church or with the republican party. My whys lead me down a different path. But they weren't easy, quick, flash decisions, there were a lot of whys first. And I'm really comfortable with the ultimate decisions that I made because of those whys. Ask yourself why you believe what you believe. Ask yourself why you are voting for who you vote for. And then keep asking why. 

A mother is teaching her daughter how to cook the family Easter dinner. The first thing they do is cut the ham in half then season it with the apricot jelly. The daughter asks why do you cut the ham in half? 

Her mother is stumped. She doesn't know. It's just the way she was taught by her mother. So they call the grandmother. Why do you cut the ham in half before getting it ready to cook? She doesn't know either. It's just the way her mother taught her to do it. 

Luckily Great Grandmother is still with them so they call her and ask. Why do we cut the ham in half before cooking it? 

Oh, because our oven was too small for the whole ham to fit. 

Always ask why.

So Private...

“He’s just very private.” Elaine was explaining why her new boyfriend didn’t want her to post any pictures of him or tag him in any of her posts.

Julie and Rebecca met each other’s quick glance and raised their eyebrows.

“He only has social media to keep up with some family members on the East Coast. He rarely even posts anything himself.”

“So why does he care if you do? I mean, you could post a picture of the two of you out and not tag him. It’s not like anyone but your friends would see it.”

“He just doesn’t like it. And I respect that. It’s part of being in a relationship. Respecting boundaries.”

Julie nodded, “Okay, sure. But does he respect your strong desire to show everyone you have a boyfriend? Because we know it’s making you a little crazy to not be able to show pictures.”

“But I have shown you pictures. Just not publicly.”

“Does he know that? I mean does he know you send them to us in private messages, or does he think you just keep them for yourself? How private is private to him?”

“I haven’t mentioned it.”

“So…he wouldn’t be happy about it.”

“I don’t know. I just haven’t mentioned it.”

“And he doesn’t want to hang out with us, have you met his friends?”

“He doesn’t really have any.”

“What?”

“He doesn’t really have any friends. He works all the time. I’m the first person he’s even dated in years. He doesn’t really feel the need to be social.”

Rebecca caught Julie’s eye again.

“He doesn’t have friends. He’s not social. He doesn’t like you to post pictures on your socials. What do you two have in common?”

Elaine giggled. Grown ass woman giggles. “Well…”

“Ah. I see. And how did that even come about? I mean, you had to meet him some place, right? You didn’t just order him online?”

“Well, I kind of ordered him online. I used that ‘It’s Just Lunch’ app.”

“The anti-Tinder app? The I don’t want sex with no relationships I just want a sandwich with a friend app. And you used it to find someone to have sex with who doesn’t have relationships? How is that even possible?”

“It wasn’t like that! Okay, maybe it was a little like that. We just had a really great connection over lunch, and it turned out it wasn’t just lunch.”

“And are you sure he has no friends and no other relationships?”

“I knew you would be like that!”

“Like what?”

“You’re assuming he’s seeing someone else and I’m just someone he has sex with.”

“Well? Have you checked?”

“We spend a lot of time together. Not just at my place either. We’ve been to his. And he’s definitely single.  And no there aren’t pictures of a mystery woman in his apartment. There aren’t a lot of pictures at all. Like I said, he’s very private, he’s a real loner, his family isn’t out here, they’re all back East, he doesn’t have a group of buddies he hangs out with. He’s fine being alone, most of the time, and now he has me, so he doesn’t have to be alone all of the time.”

“Okay, well, I guess as long as you are happy. But it still seems a little weird to me that you are in a relationship with someone so different from you. I mean you have so many friends you have to have a planner to schedule visits. Your family is always getting together and doing things. You have multiple social media accounts that you are constantly posting on. I mean this lunch alone you’ve posted three photos and we haven’t even ordered.”

“Maybe that’s why I like him. Because he’s so different. I sort of like having him as my little secret.”

“But how secret is he really? I mean you’ve told everyone about him.”

“Not everyone actually. I’ve only told you two. I know you both can keep a secret from anyone except each other, so I knew you’d be a safe place to share. Someday I’ll convince him to let me tell everyone and share everything. But for now, I’m okay.”

 Julie looked at Rebecca and cocked her head just a touch. Rebecca barely lifted her eyebrows in response. A whole conversation passing in those small gestures.

“So not only does he keep you a secret, but you’ve kept him a secret as well?”

“Yeah, for now.”

“So does anyone in his life know you?”

“I don’t think so. I mean he could have mentioned me, of course, but I don’t get the impression that he has.”

“Hunh, well, as interesting as this all is, I’m starving. We should order.”

Julie, Rebecca and Elaine finished their lunch date laughing and catching up on everything else in each other’s lives. Elaine had a business trip coming up in a few weeks. Fun for her, a lot of conferences and meetings. She loved seeing everyone she didn’t always get to, she was a social butterfly at heart and the weeks of being secretive, though kind of exciting in a way, had made her more than ready to hang out with a large group of equally gregarious social media posting people.

Julie and Rebecca would be traveling that same weekend as well. Totally off the grid though. Hiking in a pretty remote area. It was something they tried to do fairly often. They really enjoyed their time away.

A few weeks later as Elaine was posting picture after picture of herself and her friends at their conference Julie and Rebecca packed up their “woods car.” Not the car they drove most of the time, but the one they kept at the U-Store It facility two towns over. The one with the really good fake plates. And the false trunk which was so insulated you could barely hear the thumping coming from inside it.

“No friends. No local family. No social media posting.”

“He’s just so private.”

They smiled at each other. Another entire conversation passing between them with just a look.

They really did enjoy their time off the grid. And their shared hobbies.

Book Review(ish)

If you are planning on reading Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle you should back out now. I can't really talk about what I want to talk about without some spoilery type things, even though I will try not to give it all away just incase after reading this you decided, "Oh I should read that book!" But I will be talking about some really significant things in the book so it will spoil part of it, so yeah, if you think you are going to read it, back out right now.

So to start, I never thought I'd be reading a Chuck Tingle book. I mean don't get me wrong, titles like: Pounded by President Bigfoot or Sentient Lesbian Food Gets Me Off or the classic Space Raptor Butt Trilogy were well, they were something. I just didn't think they were something for me. 

But part of my reading challenge this year was to read the Fantastic Stranglings book each month. This month's book isn't going to be released until Tuesday so even if I decided to buy the book instead of check it out from the library the odds of me finishing it by Friday aren't strong. Not impossible, but it's at the cost of a lot of other things I would be doing instead of reading all day. Time to call an audible.

She has two other book clubs as well. One for romance and one for horror. I tried reading the romance ones for awhile last year. It's a really popular genre and one I just haven't given much time to so I thought I'd see if I was missing anything. 

I was not. 

So that left her horror club. Which happened to be Camp Damascus. Which had already caught my eye for the number of "best" lists it was already hitting. 

Really? A Chuck Tingle book? The satire to the extreme guy? The did he really write a book called Pounded in the Butt by My Own Butt guy? (Yes, yes he did)

Ooookay....

And, y'all? I really liked it. 

The book is about a lot of things, but the thing it's about that grabbed me was losing your religion when you are VERY religious. And what that does to you. And how much of you is wrapped up in your religion. And then the next step of realizing that while you believed what you did you yourself were pushing those wrong ideas at other people. 

You not only had damage done to you, but you did damage to others. You actively participated or helped others do those things. Those things that you no longer believe and can also now see were wrong.

It's one of the best descriptions about that feeling I've ever seen in a book. The way she mourns first her own loses, then realizes what she helped to do. And is horrified. 

There is also another character in the book from the same religion who leaves their church but does not leave his faith. He still goes to church, just a different one, and still believes strongly in the biblical teachings. Which I also appreciated. I have friends who chose that path. They did not lose their faith completely, they just found churches that more reflected what they believed. 

I told Brent that Mr. Tingle (whoever he really is) had to have been raised ultra religious and either was sent to conversion therapy or knew someone who had been because I don't think you could research your way into that sort of specificity. I could be wrong, I mean one of the reasons I don't write longer stories is because I hate the researching part...

But his capturing of the emotions of what it is like, how hard it is, how devastating it is and the guilt you feel. 

So good. Really so good.

And because it was so good I'm thinking I might have to pick up one of his other books just to see if the writing is that good all throughout the umm....pounding.

Or maybe not. Maybe I'll just hold this one special and dear to me and call it a day. 

How Does That Happen?

It was cold this morning. Like really chilly. The house is still teetering on that line where the heater could click on if I let the thermostat read the living room (the back door is cracked for the cats) instead of the office at the front of the house. 

When I came in from my workout I actually checked to make sure something wonky hadn't happened and the AC had turned on. That's how chilly it felt. 

Wednesday there is a soccer match and I'll need to make sure I wear a sweatshirt so I don't freeze during the game. We didn't grab anything for last Saturday's game and by the end we were really regretting it. Just a few matches ago I was hiding inside the Key Club for the first bit of the game because it was too hot to stand in the direct sunlight. 

It's crazy how fast time goes. It's Fall. (technically not until Friday, but we're basically there) And for awhile there will be some really warmish days off and on, but we should be done with the hot for sure. And we will end up with days (like tomorrow) where it's not even going to get out of the 60s. 

I'm thrilled, by the way, that it's cooler. I much prefer it when it's cooler. I sleep better at night. I feel better during the day. I love a cozy sweater and blanket on the couch to cuddle up in. But it still seems like summer just started. 

Stephen King talks about Pretty Pony time. How there is only one stretch in our lives where time actually passes at the correct pace. One pretty pony. Two pretty pony. Three pretty pony. Those are the seconds passing. When you are young time stretches. Think about how long it was from September to Christmas when you were 8 or 9. When you are old time folds and condenses. Think about how quickly the time from September to Christmas flies. But there is this patch when you are a young adult where it's exactly right. Pretty pony time. 

We just don't notice that time. We notice the drag and we notice the speed. 

And the speed? It does not slow down at all. Every year goes a little faster. 

Now, our generations will have the pandemic time that did not obey any rules of speed or slowness. It was the year that lasted for 10, the two  years that blended into one. It was the what day is it anyway? Tuwedfri? So that completely wrecked all of us, but in different ways. 

Now that we are back to our new normals, mostly, time has gone back to it's regularly scheduled pace. And I'm telling you I was just figuring out what we were going to do this summer and now I cannot believe I didn't get those shelves ordered in time to put out my Halloween decorations! 

Which I totally sat down to order today and got overwhelmed again. Do I want to put a few low shelves in the wide hallway or maybe hang some shelves on the wall instead? How about a low cabinet in the living room but I really want something that won't compete with the window so do they even make them that low? And...

Hey...I should write a blog. 

You know it's bad when I'm writing TO procrastinate...

And would you look at the time? I should probably get some lunch.

I swear it was just breakfast...

So Inspiring!

If you haven't read the short story Rebellion that I posted early this week then you should read that before you read this blog. 

Last week while I was talking to Katie she was telling me about a show she watches and two characters trying to get matching tattoos. One is a living piece of gum and the other a vampire. Princess Bubblegum kept "gumming" up the needle and the vampire kept healing before the tattoo would take. And hilarity ensues...

While she's telling me about that a part of my brain clicked into action. The cogs starting spinning. The whirligigs started whirling. And I said, "I don't write alternative history type stuff but how cool of a WWII story would that make? Someone gets outed as a vampire because the Nazis are trying to give them the identifying tattoo and it keeps healing? Then they take out that camp and keep taking out Nazis basically being the turning point in the war and that's why we won WWII. Vampires."

Katie listened to the random rant and even gave me a some sort of supportive sounds.

Then I said, "You must wonder what it would have been like to be raised by normal people. Though your dad is sort of normal so maybe you got a taste of it?"

This is not the first time I've apologized for being not typical. And she knows I'm not really sorry. I mean, I am who I am and I like me a lot so I'm not sorry about that. But there are times I do think it might have been nice for her to have people who didn't think sideways as her parents. Stability is highly rated, I've heard. But I'm not really sorry. I mean...she's great and she got that way being raised by us so...

Writing for Dana right now for our exchanges; I've mentioned that I'm sort of stuck with the longer story I have written most of the year. I'm bored with all of them so I've been doing one offs. Things that will most likely hit the blog later so they are bonus pieces for the weeks that I don't have any ideas. What I've been doing is opening a random writing prompt generator and writing whatever it gives me. 

This week as I started writing I had to stop and think...wait...this prompt is basically the same prompt I got a few weeks ago. Just a slight variation. That one was "an unexpected letter" and this one is "a surprise package." Well fuck. I'm not going to write the same story twice so... Then I was stuck. Got two paragraphs in and... nothing. I shut everything down, told Brent I couldn't unlock the story and would have to let it sit for a bit and went to do chores. 

Which is a great way to get things to unlock. Take a walk. Clean something you don't have to think about while you clean it. Just get busy enough to distract that part of your brain and your subconscious will take over noodling on the problem. I was washing dishes and thought, "OH! That's it!" 

When Brent wrapped up for the evening I told him I didn't have it all yet but I knew who was dead now so I knew the story. And he told me he almost said, "Figure out who you are going to kill and you'll know what to write."  (Poor, Katie) 

Then when we were talking about the story at dinner he said, "I think that's the agreement Good Denise must have made with Bad Denise to let her take charge. 'You'll still get to kill people, just with less chance of going to jail.'"

It made me laugh. 

And made me realize Brent talks about GD and BD as if they weren't the same person as well so maybe I'm not the only, let's say unique, parent afterall. 

Sorry, Katie.

Courting Disaster...

My senior year in high school I was on the ballot for Homecoming Queen. To this day I am not sure if someone put my name on there as joke because they* didn't like me, or as an honor because they did. High school being what it is, at the time I assumed a joke, and it wasn't until decades later that I ever even entertained the idea that it might have been a compliment. 

When the ballots came out a friend told me I was on it, told me they were so surprised I was running because that didn't seem like my sort of thing. I said I wasn't running because it wasn't, they must have seen Denise and had the wrong Denise. But no, she showed me the ballot and there it was: Denise Clifton. 

The first thing I did was go to the VP who was in charge of those sorts of extra curriculars and see if I could get my name removed. That's how much those sorts of things weren't my thing. But no. It was on there and shouldn't I really be excited by that? The chance to be on the Homecoming Court? To represent Highland's best and shiniest? Buzz! Buzz! Buzz! Yeah...sure. rah.

I think Ralph, Cinnamon and I spent an afternoon debating actually running hard for it. Like campaigning. A vote for the different. Go after the underclassmen to vote and the kids that didn't really care about popularity contests like that. A way to sort of fuck up their party. It was fun to think about, in its own nihilistic way, but to actually run seriously would mean a part of me took that sort of thing seriously and I was not prepared to do that. So I ignored it instead. Left my name there with the cavalcade of popular kids, hummed "One of these things is not like the others" and moved on.

The getting underclassmen to vote for you was a strategy I had seen used. My freshman year the TA in my Health class worked all of us for votes. We could get extra credit on papers and quizzes if we said we were voting for her. I cannot remember if I did end up voting for her or not. I know I was torn because on one hand I was impressed by her really wanting something, but on the other it sort of seemed like cheating since Homecoming Court is, at its core, a popularity contest for upperclassmen and just a few months in to school we had no idea who any of them were. 

I also remember not liking how hard the Health teacher was campaigning for her. I'd like to say it was because of an imbalance of power dynamic or something high minded like that, but it was because I didn't like him. He really bugged me. I found out years later that he was a serial abuser of high school girls so my instincts were right on, but at the time all I knew was that when he turned his attention on me my face would do that my face thing and I had a hard time being respectful enough of his position to get an A in an easy A class. My instincts aren't always spot on, but they are usually pretty darn good.

I just checked my freshman year book and she did make the court. But I have no idea how popular she was outside of knowing her as the TA in Health so I'm not sure if she needed the extra votes or not. She did just make court, not Queen so maybe? 

When they announced the court my senior year I...well I didn't make it. I mean, this isn't a John Hughes movie. I didn't take my glasses off and suddenly become so beautiful they all forgot that they HATED me. I mean, I wasn't even wearing glasses full-time just yet so I didn't have that trick to use! I do know that I got some votes because a few kids told me that they voted for me. Which was sweet in one way, and in another it showed they didn't really know me well at all. 

I also voted for the court that year. Even though it wasn't important to me a few people I really loved (and still do) were on the ballot and I knew it wasn't a silly thing for them. I did not vote for myself, though I wish I had kept a copy of the ballot. Seeing my name there, out of spite or out of love, would now make me smile instead of the look of horror I had then. I still have no idea how it got there, but I do think it was probably not supposed to be kind. And that's okay too. Not everything in the world is kind. And maybe the fact that I wasn't heartbroken over it made them rethink their grand schemes to be an evil overlord and realize they just weren't cut out for that life and maybe working for a nonprofit would be a better idea. 

Hey, you write your own 80s movie if you don't like that ending!

*I'm pretty sure I've written about it before. I managed to insult the entirety of Prep Hall (the conclave of jocks and popular kids) at the beginning of sophomore year. It lead to what is honestly one of the Top 5 moments of my high school career when I walked into school on Monday morning and the whole group took one look at me and then turned their backs. 

Help Yourself #9...

I did it again...ended up with a business book. Deep Work:Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport.

I had put this one on hold at the library a long time ago. I pulled the recommendation from a newsletter I read. The interview with the author made it sound like it was focused on how to get into that flow state of working. How to tune out distractions to allow for more creativity to come. Which I really liked the sound of. 

It's really easy to find 300 other things to do when I really was planning on sitting down and writing. Even now I could switch over to Facebook or do a quick Google search or maybe play a word game on my phone...there is always something within reach that seems like it might be more engaging. But once I get writing, once that moment of flow starts, there's not much I'd rather be doing. I love looking at the end result of rows and rows of words on the screen. Or reading the story I just wrote from top to bottom and seeing that it does hang together, it does make sense, it's entertaining. So how can I get my mind into that state easier and quicker? 

That's what I thought it was going to be. 

It was not. It was more about how to be the best, most productive, worker bee in the hive. Which almost all business books are. I mean, that's the point of them right? But when you think you are getting a book on creativity (the newsletter I found the book in) and you get one on late stage capitalism and how to let it steal the joy from every fucking thing...well...

What useful information did I get out of it? Not a lot. I mean, there were the common sense things, don't check your email while you are working on something that requires deep thought. Don't have your IM program constantly running. Just put up an out of office response on those things when you are working so people know not to expect a reply. Book a room in an expensive hotel to encourage you to finish your project early. (JK 'I'm a Problem' Rowling did that to finish Harry Potter and he thought it was a great idea. Because most of us can book a $1000 a night hotel to write) As you can see a lot of his ideas were geared toward a certain level of worker and income level. 

And they weren't even realistic for that. I mean, Brent could turn off his email and his IM and just tell people he was unavailable while he worked on things, but I don't know that it would allow him to work on them for long before they let him go. He has to be available incase something needs taken care of right now. We even have two different types of vacations, we have REAL vacations where he leaves his phone off and his computer at home and Intel vacations where he mostly doesn't work, just a few meetings and phone calls. And he's not even at the VP level. They never get real breaks.

The book also suffered from what all business books do. They are moments in time. This one was written using business world examples that just don't work anymore. I mean Jack Dorsey was still running Twitter, Nate Silver hadn't lost his shine and the pandemic hadn't happened. 

He was very anti-Zoom style meetings (video conferencing, because he was writing pre-pandemic when Zoom wasn't a commonly known program). Very anti-digital communication as a whole. He called it all shallow. Do you want deep or do you want shallow? I feel like the pandemic must have been really hard for him. There was no in person. It was all digital. And if you hadn't already learned how to make digital work for you? Well...good luck. 

What would I have gotten from it in my 20s? Confused... You mean to tell me that I am going to carry my phone with me all the time, but I won't use it to make calls, I'll use it like a...reference library/movie theater/post office/video game service? What? Yeah, too much current technology for my 20 year old brain to be able to make the leap. The idea of having to turn off all of the digital distractions to work wouldn't really register. Maybe equating it to taking the phone off the hook? Maybe?

It was a book on Deep Work that could have used a deep edit. Way too long. Way too in love with his own ideas. Not really all that helpful. 

Side note time....

One of the things he really hates is social media. Calls it a waste of time. And on one hand I absolutely agree that it can be a giant time suck and managing it is really hard. But one of his suggestions to show how useless it is is to log off of Facebook for a month (crazy! Who would do such a thing?) and then when you log back on see how much you really missed and he guarantees that it won't be anything much. And when you log off don't tell anyone and then you will see that nobody even missed you. The connections are too shallow and superficial to count. 

This man has never had a Facebook account and wears that badge proudly. Which is fine. I know a few people who haven't. But to speak on how shallow it is without ever having used it struck me as so unbelievably condescending. And then of course, his diatribe about how your connections to people online aren't real. That if you disappear for a month they won't even notice. Well...yeah they will. Or at least some of them will. And just like it would be a dick move to ghost your friends and family in "real life" it's a dick move to do it online. Tell people so they don't worry. Because, sorry dude, you can make real deep connections with people online. 

His take is that there is no way to get to know someone just by writing things down. And, of course, I found this to be laughable. I think you can get to know someone even better by writing back and forth. You get time to think about what you want to say. You can share stories. You can share jokes. You can share pictures. You can write down the most personal details of your life and post them in a blog...

Or you know, something like that...

It's not unusual for people who have not made deep friendships with others online to not understand how it happens. It's not unusual for those people to use terms like "real world" or "real friends" when talking about it. But it still doesn't mean I like it. Like I said, it's so condescending. "Do it the way I do it or it's lesser." 

Oh fuck you. 

So yeah...this was not the book for me. Too long. Not really that helpful. And also insulting. But other than that...

Rebellion...

She knew exactly who turned her in. She had spent the entire time on the train thinking about it. It was the young woman who lived upstairs. The one that had suddenly had more rations than everyone else in the building. Double the flour allotment. A better cut of meat. She hadn't changed jobs, or boyfriends, so the only way to get extras like that was to turn informant. And once you got a taste for such luxuries everyone became a potential target. 

Thinking it over and working out just when the neighbor might have gone to the authorities and with what story had helped keep her mind off of the train itself. The crowd. The smells. They were packed in tightly. There had been no accomodations for bodily functions and eventually they had all soiled themselves. Urine, feces and the overriding stench of fear permeated the space. 

You might not realize fear has its own smell but it does. Not just the acrid sweat smell, but something deeper. It was the scent that let predators know which animals were prey. And right now the dark boxcar was filled with prey.

There was no light that managed to leak into the car. She wasn't sure if it was just that well constructed or if it was the massive crush of bodies. Any light that might have come from the sides could not travel far. The roof was solid so nothing came in from there. No light. No breeze. No sign of the outside world at all. Which was probably a blessing. 

They had heard stories of the night trains that ran full and came back empty. 

When the train finally stopped and the door rolled open, men yelling and pointing rifles at them all, it was dark outside, except for the bright lights shining at the gates of a camp up the hill. They were sorted on the platform. The men to one side, the women and children to another. Then in those groups the young from the old, those that looked frail from those that looked strong. And they were pushed and prodded up that hill. 

She looked young and fit. One of the guards spit at her. Called her a dirty gypsy. But she could see the hunger in his eyes and knew he'd come looking for her later. Men like that always did. 

Once inside the gates they were lead to a room and forced to disrobe. Sprayed down with water and then some sort of chemical. Delousing probably. They would assume they were all infested with bugs. It helped them feel better to degrade those they thought lesser. If they did it enough maybe everyone would agree. The spray took away one layer of the stench from the train but the smell of fear remained. She remembered to look down and away. 

They were given plain clothes to wear. Barely more than rags. Worn before. Smelling of someone else. But it was better than standing there naked while they stared. 

They were marking them. Printing numbers on their arms. Tattoos. An extra insult added to the rest of the indignities for those that were there for no other reason than their religion. “You shall not make gashes in your flesh for the dead, or incise any marks on yourselves: I am the Lord” Forced to get a tattoo, she assumed their God would make an exception for them. But they still wept as it was done, not just from the pain.

At first they thought they were out of ink. Then they thought the needle was broken. Then the mistake was made to be fascinated by what was happening. A number laid down and by the time the next was started the first was gone. The skin healed. They watched it happen a few times. Fascinated.

She looked around the room. Counting the number of guards. Working out how fast she would need to be. Wondering if those with her would understand that she was their chance at salvation or if the fear of what she was would freeze them into place. 

"Sie ist ein Dämon!"

She took out the tattooist first. Then worked out from there. Broken necks and bodies tossed. She cleared guard towers and offices filled with smug bastards who first looked at her with arrogance, wondering why this gypsy woman was daring to come near them. But that quickly changed to fear. 

And their fear was sweet. 

She fed well. 

The Germans covered up the story of the uprising. They didn't want it to get out that the prisoners could revolt. But that night she changed from being content to hide in plain sight and wait for the madness to end.

It was not the last of the camps to fall. 

Sie ist ein Dämon.

But at least she wasn't a monster. 

No Chill...

Because of the On This Day feature I can almost pinpoint when I lose my chill about certain issues. 

Like I always tend to start out a little, well nicer, about people saying things that I disagree with. I try reasoning with them, or giving examples of why I feel the way I do. And this goes on for awhile and then...no chill sets in. It could be weeks, or it could be months. Sometimes it's even longer.

But because I have that written record now I can actually see it happening. 

Covid it was a clear line. Which makes complete sense. I was much more relaxed about it, and about the people who questioned it being a real serious issue, even though I believed we needed to take it seriously, right up until Ann died. Then my chill completely disappeared. I was still up for debate on things like what do we need to do to get stores and businesses opened, what do we need to do to allow people to visit loved ones in long term care? But I was not open to any more people who wanted to talk about it being a hoax, or not that dangerous, or just like the flu. That was off the table now. If you brought it up? Zero. Chill.

There was a discussion on my feed today that was about how complicated it was, that Ann died because she and the people around her didn't take it seriously enough, but that my cousin's mother was deteriorating in her nursing home with no visitors because they were taking it very seriously. Where was the balance? Someone wanted to come in with a conspiracy theory about transmission numbers not being accurately tracked and I was having none of it. Give me your facts, show me your work, don't tell me you know something other people don't but you can't tell me because...reasons. 

Bullshit. 

And I never ever got my chill back about it. I will never ever be able to understand how (and let's be clear here, it's a political divide that happened) it became a political stance to wear or not wear masks. How the same group that cries, "Think of the children!" when there is book about two male penguins raising a chick freaks the fuck out when schools say that cases are rising again so they decided to go back to wearing masks. How dare they decide to protect children from an actual disease that is actually happening right now. 

No chill.

I lost my chill about 9/11 discussions about 5 years ago. And it's more that I just don't talk about it much because other people don't have any chill about it and I was tired of that. 

My feelings about it are that I don't like the message that seems to be pushed. The never forget message around pictures of the attack itself. I don't need to remember the buildings falling. I don't need to remember the people jumping from the windows. I don't need to remember the death. Those images were seared into our brains on constant loop. I don't need a reminder of that, it's all still there. I can never forget that. What I would rather see is the positives that came from the horror. The moments of people banding together. The feeling of being together. All of us. 

That doesn't happen anymore. We don't feel united in things. We are so separate. 

Even a global pandemic could not bring us together to fight against the spread. 

But when I've posted that I feel this way I get slammed by people wanted to say how wrong I am. That it's fine to post the pictures of the Towers falling or of the people jumping because that was what happened and we need to remember that part. And no matter how much I say, my opinion, I think, I feel, I don't, they keep blasting away because they have no chill. No room at all for an opinion that says I don't want to focus on the death, I want to focus on what the living did next, and I'm not saying you can't have a death orgy once a year, I just don't like it. But that's not allowed. They have no chill.

It's interesting to see the differences over the years. It's interesting to recognize my "voice" in posts and discussion but realize that is not me anymore. I wouldn't have that sort of discussion anymore. I would say my piece and then shut that shit down. 

LGBTQ2S+ discussions have never had any chill from me. I'm guessing you would have had to go much farther back than Facebook's creation to find that in me. The only thing that has changed is the acronym. And that's not even consistent now. I alternate between four different ones. LGBT+, LGBTQ+, LGBTQIA+ and LGBTQ2S+.  I've heard a lot of good arguments around a lot of different groupings and for me, I think that the + covers all of them no matter which of them I use. But I'm willing to shift if needed. Chill within my no chill zone I guess. 

What about you? What have you lost your chill about or noticed that other people have no chill so you don't engage? 

It's commenting on blogs isn't it? 

Dang it...

Is It Real or Is It Memorex?

Reading comments under a post today that I thought would be fun and light hearted stuff. 

It was a question thing, If someone went to sleep in 1971 and woke up today what would they be most surprised by?

A friend of mine had commented so it showed in my feed. I thought the comments would be interesting and fun, the sort of advancements we just take for granted now that would have been unbelievable in 1971. Like our smartphones. The internet. Electric cars. Watching movies on giant screen TVs. Giant screen flat TVs. Those sorts of things. 

Instead it was all political venom. Just nasty shit. With the usual misspellings and bad grammar you have come to expect. 

So then I had to wonder, are these real people? Which is always the question now right? How many of these are really people who live here and will vote here and actually believe this and how many of them are troll farm paid bad actors or bots programmed to post certain phrases? How many of them are people who just want to shit stir and know if they post something nasty other people will bite and the comments will take off? 

How much of it is real?

And how much of it will become real? 

Like, I fully believe a lot of what divides the country right now started as shit stirring and foreign interference posting. But those Russian (and now Chinese as well) troll farms only work because they understand how easily manipulated the American people are. Because they've watched us tear each other apart over ridiculous shit for...well ever. Things that shouldn't be political are. Things that should just be common sense aren't. Things that shouldn't form the core of your personality suddenly are your whole identity. 

Like sunglasses in truck guy. You know him. You know his opinions, his bumper stickers, the flag he has flying from his tailgate. And you also know it started as a stock photo image from a troll farm and then escaped into the wild when actual sunglasses in truck guys were like Hey! That's me! I don't love anything as much as I hate liberals!

And I get really tired of arguing about both siderisms. Like Oh well both sides are just as bad. One, they aren't. They just objectively aren't. But two, who the fuck cares? Like if Hunter Biden did bad shit he should go to jail. AND ALSO we should be looking into that Saudi money that Jared Kushner took. It's a yes and, not a because both. 

I used to say that we wouldn't accept that excuse from our kids. Well Johnny did it. I don't care. I'm not Johnny's mother. You don't get to do that thing. Someone else did something shitty is not an excuse to do something shitty. 

But the whole when they go low we go high things rankles me too. I've talked about that before. It's aspirational. I can appreciate the sentiment and how you believe it's the best way to live your life, but...you cannot good behavior someone else into better behavior. Does that make sense? Continuing to ignore when they are dismantling the right to vote doesn't work. It needs to be called out. When they cannot win without gerrymandering and trying to impeach a justice who can over turn those gerrymandered districts calling that out as cheating isn't going low. It's standing up for what you believe. 

When they say that kids can't get medical care that their parents and doctors think they should get or that Drag Queen story hours are evil and you point out that they are being bigoted and transphobic you aren't being intolerant, that's being honest. Stop thinking you have to sit back and be polite to people who are being awful. 

But because we've got all that going all the time now, and as the parent of a trans woman, I can't ignore the constant chipping away of her humanity, it's hard to see what is real and what isn't. And then to wonder does it matter? Does it matter if even 90% of the online commentary is fake if 100% of the legislation is real?

Even if they know they aren't actually responding to the majority, that the comments are plants and fakes, they are still legislating based on that same principle. That what they want is all that matters. Like is Ted Cruz really that dumb that he keeps falling for fake stories and fake polls or is he smart enough to know that it doesn't matter if it's fake if you get it out in front of people enough times they start to believe it. 

Look at what they did with Hillary Clinton and the emails and Benghazi. There are still people out there who will swear up and down that she personally poured clorox on her servers and that she was asleep while the compound was attacked, even though it was the middle of the day here. Because time zones. But people were told that so often that they will tell you with a straight face that those things are true. 

Trump and the pee tapes. There is no evidence that those are real. He also did not pay a porn star for sex. He had sex with a porn star and then later tried to pay her for her silence about it. It's different. But trying to break through the things that people KNOW is almost impossible. 

So I read through the comments, for a short amount of time, just long enough to realize my imagined fun read was not going to happen, and thought, does it matter if this is coming from real people or not? 

Real people are reading it. 

Some real people are wondering if they are being manipulated, but even if they are wondering it's still happening. There is still a part of them soaking in that information. And then what? Are they believing it? Are they fighting against it? Are they logging off and ignoring it? 

The courts are saying more and more that there is no moderation that can be done. That blocking even blatant misinformation is a violation of free speech. So it will get worse. And it's already bad. 

Maybe that's what would be the biggest shock for someone waking up from 1971. That we took all of these really amazing tools, like interconnected world communication, and we used them to spread lies about each other. To spread misinformation about something as important as a worldwide pandemic. To obfuscate actual treason by making up pretend treason (Pelosi tore up that speech, remember!).

Or maybe since 1971 was the year the Pentagon Papers were released they wouldn't be surprised at all. Maybe they would have seen it all coming. That technology might have progressed but people are still the same.

See? Not at all a fun little post with answers like "Your oven can send you a message telling you when it's preheated!"

Four More Months...

I've got four more months of this year left. I'm on the downhill slide portion of the year for sure. Before you know it it will be Halloween then Thanksgiving then Christmas and Happy New Year what's next?

But right now I'm looking at the calendar and the number of days left that I want to be sitting down writing and the complete dearth of ideas in my head and...

Four more months. It's pretty daunting. 

Around 50 new ideas for nonfiction pieces and 15 fiction pieces. New ideas. From the vacant space in my head that is labeled "BLOG IDEAS"

It's times like these that I think I have nothing new to say. I've written about it all. Anything that is interesting to me I've already covered. Anything that pisses me off I've already ranted about. Anything that is political I've beaten to death. I have nothing new. 

Not that that has ever stopped me. I mean I revisit the same topics multiple times. I'm pretty sure I've written blogs about topics that if you were to put them side by side you'd think, did you cut and paste? But no, I just felt like talking about it again. And honestly probably forgot I already had. 

Even this piece, the I have no ideas so I'm just going to free flow all of the words banging around in the echo filled empty cave of my head onto the screen. I have written this piece probably 300 times. Give or take a few hundred. 

Life is like that though. 

Brent and I have been together for a few decades and we've had the same conversations over and over again. We know what each other thinks about politics, about clothes, about shoes, about the cats...we've covered all the ground. And yet...

Sometimes one of us will say something and the other is surprised. They had no idea. A food that someone doesn't like, or a color, or a TV show. Or there is a favorite song that you never knew was a favorite. Sometimes a story about childhood. And you think surely you've covered everything by now, but nope. There is something new in there. In the middle of a conversation you've had 4000 times give or take a few thousand.

And I guess that's the trick. Even when you think you've said all there is to say, or heard all there is to hear, you just keep talking and keep listening. 

There is always something new to be discovered. 

Even if you've read this exact same blog 301 times.

Not Quite Right...

This first bit is a warning. I mean, most of you already know most of what I'm about to write about but maybe have only gotten it in pieces so it hasn't been jarring. I know that I feel differently than most people do. I know that what I think about these things could be considered really offensive to some people. But it's what I think, what I feel, and it's my blog. 

Also consider this your trigger warning as I'm about to write about death and disease and ending your own life on your own terms. 

(though there are a lot of interesting studies coming out now that seem to show trigger warnings, instead of being helpful, have actually been harmful, which as you all know I am not a huge fan of them so these studies reinforce my own biases against them)

I do not understand the fairness in life or I guess the lack of fairness in life. It's a big part of why I cannot wrap my brain around religion anymore. If there was an omnipotent being out there who filled a parental role (Our Father who art in Heaven and all that jazz) then someone should really call CPS on them. 

It's all too arbitrary. Who lives. Who dies. Who gets sick. Who stays healthy. I mean sometimes you can see it, the lead singer for a musical group died this past week from liver failure. Anyone who watched the trajectory of his life could see that was a definite possibility. But even that, I mean, I know a few alcoholics who have been drinking excessively for decades and they are fine. So why does one person get liver failure and another doesn't? It's arbitrary.

I just donated to a friend's fundraiser for St. Judes and their continuing mission to help kids with cancer. Kids with cancer. That's another thing I would bring up with any god I happened to come face to face with. I mean, what the actual fuck? Why would I ever believe in a deity that gives cancer to kids and calls it a moment of faith for you to accept there are "reasons" for that. 

Then there are the times that are like my whole why can't we direct the weather moments. Like if it's flooding in one part of the world and drought in another why haven't we figured out yet how to move the weather where it's needed? 

Why are some people doing everything in their power and in the medical establishments power to stay alive while other people are done and ready to die? Why isn't there more balance? Why is it so arbitrary? 

As you all know, my mother decided to die. Her religious views, and the rest of my family all practice except me, would never allow for suicide. Suicide is a sin. But stopping eating and drinking? Well that's a gray zone. So instead of going out quickly and painlessly she suffered along for a few weeks as her body shut down. I also fully believe if she hadn't had the pressure of her religion and society saying you shouldn't, she would have chosen to die a few years earlier than she did. When her health really started to fail, after Dad had died, when her sister died, when her best friend started to show signs of dementia, I think those things all sapped her will to live, but she didn't really feel she had the choice to stop. Until the very end when she decided she was just too tired to keep going and was done. 

I have had a few other people in my life lose their lives to depression. The disease kills just as much as cancer or heart attacks but we just only recently started talking about it that way. That it's the disease that kills you. And generally it's a messy death. Because we don't allow people to choose to go out on their own terms. There isn't a clean, painless way to go. There isn't even a process for sitting down with your family and saying goodbye. Can you imagine how much better that would be? If we had a process? 

Not just for people who suffer from depression, because I know that particular disease would make even the thought of sitting with your family and explaining what you were going to do seem overwhelming, but in all choices. 

I have another friend who has always been really clear that he will eventually end his own life. When he first told me he did the caveat of "Not tonight, don't stay up all night worrying that you didn't do enough" but eventually he will. He's very matter of fact about it. He's not a sufferer of depression. He just feels like there is a point in a life where it's enough and when he reaches that point he will end his. 

The first time we talked about it, years ago, it really bothered me. Because that's not how it's supposed to work. People who kill themselves either do it by accident (Overdosing), from depression, or if you happen to live in the right place you can get a medically assisted death with dignity choice for terminal illness. But to just decide that you will someday make that choice? What? I've come around to his point of view. It's not the choice I would make for myself. Not as a healthy capable adult. But for him? It brings him comfort to know it's his choice. 

But he's the exception. Not just the decision he made, but that he shared with anyone. We don't allow for that in our society. The choice. 

But imagine how much better off we would be if we did. If it was totally normal to be able to sit down with those who are closest to you and say, "I am choosing to die." Imagine if that were normal. If the person was suffering from depression you could see if there was a different path that could be taken. Get them help to rebalance brain chemistry if that's what they needed. Instead of your first sign that they were suffering that greatly was their death. 

And if they were just ready to die, if there was an easier way to go than a shotgun or a rope or a hastily concocted overdose, how much better would that be? To say your goodbyes, to let people know that it wasn't anything they did, to surround yourself with your loved ones, or to not, and to drift away peacefully. No nasty surprises for the people you leave behind. No what could I have done differently remorse.

If we just could talk about death a little more freely. 

Or if the universe wasn't so arbitrary. 

I've had friends die from a variety of diseases that they did every single treatment available to cure. They were not ready to go. They did not want to die. Not at all. They did everything they could possibly do to prevent it and yet...

Why doesn't the universe give the people who are ready to die the terminal diseases and the ones who are not ready stay healthy? I mean, if you were running the place and somehow disease had to be a part of it (because face it, if I were running the show I wouldn't see a reason for disease) but if you had to have it as a part, then why not give the people who are ready to be done with this world the diseases instead of the ones who are still digging this life?

It's unfair. 

I hate when things are unfair. 

Why can't we direct the weather where it's needed?
Why can't death come for those that are ready for it instead of those that aren't?

Why don't we talk about death a little more freely and openly?

I'm planning on living to be 100. It's a nice round number and it makes me happy to think of it. But if my health fails, or my mind starts to slip I would like the choice to go out on my own terms. Gently. Easily. With full honesty to my family and friends. With dignity. 

Life is not fair and I really hate that. 

Back to School!

It's that time again! Back to school pictures are filling my feed. 

Or I guess it's round two of that time again. 

There are a ton of schools in the States that start in August now so I've had the slow trickle of pictures since the first week of August. But today was full swing. 

It's always weird how other people's children can make you feel older than your own do. I get it, it's because we don't see them everyday so we don't get the gradual aging and changing. We get big jumps in time, holiday, birthday, first day of school. BAM! The little kid from last year is suddenly as tall as Mom. Then BAM! they are taller. And the baby faces are replaced with Oh holy crap that's an adult there looking back at me!

They are the living reminder that the days might be long but the years are fast.

Katie will be 31 this year. That seems a little unreal to me. And there are still times I have to remind myself that she's a full grown adult. This weekend I was asking her questions and making sure she was okay with things going on in her life and you could hear it in her voice, the, "I've got this, Mom. None of your concern." Which, of course, as soon as I heard it I back off and .... Hahahahahaha!! No, no I didn't. I said my piece and then backed off. She might be all grown up but she'll always be my baby in some part of my heart. 

And honestly this was going to be a lot longer but Tig has been a pistol the whole time I've been trying to write so I'm giving up. 

He's three now. 

I keep waiting for that years pass quickly part and him to stop being an ornery kitten....

Gray Day...

If they had come in November she wondered how long it would have taken to notice them. 

They were silent so they might have been days. 

Though maybe the weight would have been noticed right away. That's what she felt. Weight. Like they were always pressing down on her. Heavy air around them. 

But the ships were gray like clouds. If they had come in November they could have hovered right above the clouds all winter and nobody on the ground would have noticed. 

Except, of course if you were flying and got above the clouds and then suddenly there they would be. 

But would the people on the ground have believed it?

Up there, above the clouds are hundreds of ships just hovering. The aliens have finally invaded. Trust us. We can see them even if you can't. 

No, she didn't think they would have believed. 

There were people right now who didn't believe they were there when all you had to do was look up and pay attention to how heavy everything felt. Like the made their own extra gravity waves.

Moving was difficult.

Breathing was difficult. 

Not seeing the sun was difficult.

Even for her. Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. Going months at a time during the winter not seeing the sun. It was hard to lose it so completely. 

She realized then how much light they actually did get during those long winters. The clouds would lighten. The sky would get brighter. Even if it was darker than her friends in Southern California were used to, it was still a change. There was difference between day and night.

Now there was no difference. The only light they got was from the lights on the ships. And they kept those spotlights on all the time.

Now they lived inside, even when they were outside. That's what it felt like. 

Silent, hovering, gray ships beaming down their spotlights and their extra heavy air. 

Nobody knew what they wanted. They didn't interact at all. Just hovered. With their spotlights on. 

People made up stories about being visited by them, of seeing them leave their ships, of landing parties. But those stories all fell apart when they were looked into deeper. 

As far as anyone knew they can come in. Hundreds of them. Formed a dome over the Earth. Turned on their lights and just...

What? Waited? Waited for them to die out? Watched to see how they would respond? Was it some sort of science experiment? Or terra farming to turn this into a world they could inhabit? Or were they so far advanced, so far ahead of them on the evolutionary scale that they didn't even recognized them as a life form to pay attention to? Like building your house over an ant hill. You didn't ever recognize them as something to concern yourself with. Knew that the concrete in the foundation would prevent them from coming inside. 

Maybe the Earth was just the foundation of their new world. The linked ships were actually how they always lived. 

But what did the need from the Earth at all? 

There were groups that were already worshiping them. Had turned them into gods. Projecting a whole set of beliefs on them. If we do this, they will find favor with us. 

And there were groups literally projecting things on the ships. Using them as permanent screens. Art installations, advertising space. How can I make this profitable to me? Which she supposed was a religion just as much as the other was. 

As for her she just waited. 

It was getting colder and colder. At first there were gaps in their cover. Sun was still getting in. Cycles were still happening. But then they closed ranks. Extended docking stations (that's what she thought of them as, though her nephew called them links, like the flat pieces in a Lego set that you built on). After they completely closed off the sky the weather stopped cycling. The places that had still been getting rain stopped. There wasn't enough heat to generate clouds anymore. The oceans stilled. No winds. Their manually generated gravity was too strong for the moon to influence the tides anymore. Everything just stopped. 

Cold. Gray. Still. So heavy. 

She waited. 

Others prayed, to their old gods or to these new ones. They prayed for change. 

Others projected their wishes, or their anger, or their new product line to keep you warm, on the underbellies of the ships. 

Others just went about their lives as if nothing had changed. "If you don't pay attention to the negative then it's not negative!" or "You are doing exactly what THEY want you to. I won't be manipulated like that."

Some people found comfort in pretending they were all still fine. 

She found those people to be insufferable. She'd rather spend a day listening to the religious fanatics than the "you are choosing to be miserable about this" crowd. 

She wondered if they had come in November would anyone have even noticed?

You Don't Get a Gold Star for That...

I just talked about how the world is just a giant game to be played. And you all know I love my gold stars. But did you know I also play the games with everyone else? 

They just don't always know it. 

But I will think things like, "You don't get points for that." or "That's not an actual accomplishment, no stars for that."

Like there is a running tally in my head all the time keeping track of who is winning and who is losing. 

But the game is generally (imagine flashing lights and sparkles) WHO'S A GOOD HUMAN?

Like it's a constant running thing. Are you a good witch or a bad witch? Are you a decent person or a piece of shit? And then there are variations in the middle. I mean not everyone is all the way to POS but they might lean that way at times. No points. 

And sometimes my inside my head voice slips out and I say it out loud. "Did you think you deserved points for that?" or "Do you think that means you get a gold star?" The good thing is those things are universal enough that even though they might not be playing the WHO'S A GOOD HUMAN? game they understand what I mean.

There's a bible verse I like to trot out for those that use their religion as a guide. In the book of James, James says, Put up or shut up, My Dudes. Or you know, faith without works is dead. It's the one I use when they send their thoughts and prayers but don't actually DO anything else. We have a gun problem in the United States, we can fix it, but just saying you are praying for the latest round of victims and their families isn't the way. That's faith without works. 

You actually have to do something. 

Or stop doing something as the case may be. 

You see the meme posted around elections a lot. Some sort of picture or pleasant color scheme with the words Don't tell someone you love them, and then vote for someone who will hurt them. It's one I used to fight with my family over. Staunch Republicans voting for other Republicans knowing that those Republicans wanted to pass laws preventing gay people from having equal rights. How do you say you love members of your own family and then vote for people who will hurt them? YOU are voting to hurt them. That's you. 

You don't get points by saying I think it's fine, and then vote for people who will fight to make sure it's not. 

In fact, you get points taken away. 

Because if you know better, you do better. (Thank you, Ms. Angelou) So if you know it's wrong to discriminate against the LGBTQ2+ community and you are still voting for people who do...well that's worse. That's you actively making a choice to be awful when you know you shouldn't be. 

You are hiding behind whatever you are using to justify that vote, but you know that vote will cause harm to real people. You don't get points because you say words. You get points because you follow through with actions. 

"I'm not homophobic" while you vote for someone who wants to keep gay people from being able to adopt. You might not think you are homophobic but you are allowing homophobia so that's just as bad. And you don't get to pretend it's not. 

No points. Points deducted. You are losing the game. 

Try not to lose the game.