Sunshine...

Sunshine

Walking along sun dappled sidewalks

Gentle breeze rustles the leaves

Spring flowers perfume the air

Children waking to a new adventure

Early morning dog walkers nodding their hellos

The smell of breakfast cooking coming from sleepy houses

The world comes awake to golden sun

The day stretches and yawns

A sleepy Saturday begins

Lovely

Sunshine

Peace

I guess I won't kill anyone today...

(still working on getting over that bad mood)

Moody!

I am in a really foul mood today. Started yesterday and has just built. There are reasons. Racism. Ignorance. Injustice. Politics. Propaganda. Big things. And other reasons, big to me. Helplessness to make something happen for someone I love. Unfairness. Ignorance there too, I believe. And biological reasons. Hormones and lack of sleep.

All of it adds together to put me in a bad mood.

I hate being in a bad mood which just adds to it.

It gets all cyclical. I don't like being pissed off so I am even more pissed off.

I have very little patience for people so the people who might be able to cheer me up are ignored so I don't unleash my acid tongue on them.

Because when I am in a bad mood I can bring you along with me. And I don't want to do that. Because who wants to be in a bad mood and worse yet who wants to be responsible for someone's bad mood?

But you know that mad that you get when everything else just makes you madder? When the world is conspiring against you to make you furious? That's the mad I'm at now.

My conditioner bottle broke. The twist top just twisted right off. But not all the way off, just halfway. Enough that I can't get conditioner out of the bottle without death defying maneuvers. And normally this would be met with an "Oh well, I need to buy an empty bottle to put this in so I can use it up." But this morning it was met with a long string of colorful and creatively grouped swear words.

The guy who raced over to the hamstring machine ahead of me at the gym got a glare, and then another one when because he dashed in front of me and I had to move on to a different machine to keep working TWO MORE people got in ahead of me on the hamstring machine. And what the fuck, people, for ages I've been the only one to use that machine. What is with all the hamstring love now?Nobody works their hamstring. It's a forgotten muscle. Go back to your quads and leave the hamstrings for those of us with balance issues....

I did put on my best polite manners for the old guy who wanted to chat. Even though I had to look around a bit when he greeted me with, "Hello there, young lady, how are you today?" Oh yeah...to the 75 year old I'm a young lady. But I don't chat during workouts so he got 5 minutes of polite conversation and an, "Enjoy your workout" from me and I count it as a win. Just so you know he has been ignoring his upper body workouts, doing more cardio and keeping up with his yoga, but really neglecting the upper body. He is English, doesn't have an accent any more because he's been here so long, but he's English. Do I watch football? Not a lot of Americans do, but he played when he was younger. Proper football, not American football. He has had good luck with his knees which is nice because he just doesn't want to have to have a replacement. He also greeted about 4 other people in that time frame so I'm guessing now that I've made his RADAR I will not be off the hook for more meet and greets during work time. Joy.

And don't even get me started on the idiots on the road. People should learn how to fucking drive or at least get out of my fucking way and if you can't do the fucking speed limit on this fucking road then take a different one. It's fortyfuckingfive not thirty you fucking slow ass Subaru driver! Or you know...something like that...

The Starbucks website is so poorly designed I can't even with it right now...

I want to dive face first in a plate of brownies but I also would like to lose more than a halfafuckingpound in a fuckingmonth so that doesn't seem like a good fucking idea now fucking does it?

And...well...there you have it. I'm in a bad mood.

Good fucking luck to all of us...we're going to need it.

Worry...

Are you a worrier?

I read an interview with Stephen King when The Langoliers came out where he said that he believed there needed to be a certain number of people who were afraid of flying on each plane. That it was their worry that actually kept the plane aloft.

Are you one of those people that thinks that you keep bad things away by imagining what might happen? When a loved one leaves you think they might get in a horrific accident and you think that by worrying about it you keep it from happening? That it's when you relax that the bad things happen?

Don't get too comfortable.

Keep your guard up.

Ever vigilant!

Or are you chill? Calm, cool and collected? Don't worry about tomorrow, each day has worries enough of its own. Worrying about a problem does no good. If it happens it still happened and worrying about it did nothing to prevent it. And if it doesn't happen then you wasted all of that time being worried for nothing.

Take it easy.

Calm down.

Relax.

I've done and been both. The calm one and the worrier. Sometimes about the same problem. Sometimes in the same day.

I think, though, that I tend to worry the most about a problem when I should be doing something about it, or at least feel like I should. I don't tend to worry about things that are totally out of my control. I can't affect those. So they might get a passing bit of concern (will the weather hold for a flight that needs taken, that sort of thing) but I don't really obsess about them. When I find myself doing the worry circle it's usually something that I have some sort of control over and am just not doing anything about. It becomes like guilt, an actionable emotion. Am I worried about money while at the same time spending a little extra on nonsense? Am I worried about my weight while at the same time reaching for the cake? Am I worried about a health issue while not calling the doctor? Those times seem to be for me when the worry starts to build.

It's a trigger to do something. Don't worry, act.

As a parent of an adult I've had to shift my worry cycle. I can be concerned about C's life, but I can't really worry over it because I have no control. I can make suggestions for him, point out things he should be paying attention to, but then I have to just let things go. He will live his life and make his choices and at this point I'm not included in the decision making as anything more than a possible opinion. But when he was younger I worried a lot more. Am I doing the right things? Am I making the right choices for him? Because I had control. Or at least some.

So I tend to worry when I have control and not worry when I don't. Which seems really backwards now that I think about it. Why worry if I can change things? And shouldn't I worry more if things are completely out of my hands?

Maybe I should be worried that I worry about the wrong things....

Take it on faith...

Thinking about my mother's faith after our phone conversation yesterday. And a picture that my sister posted of Dad where she talked about what a great man of God he was. And thinking about a friend who posted about her religion and how different it is from theirs. Then read a story about the SBC issuing their latest proclamation on "you can't make us accept gay marriage any more than we accepted interracial marriages!" (though eventually they did, after apologizing for the whole pro-slavery stance that they were founded on...but quibbles...) Add to that the news that American Gods is going to be made in to a television series and I have religion on the brain.

Religion is always interesting to me. Not just because I was raised very religious and left the church. Not just because I am the only member of this generation in my family that is not religious. Not just because I have lived in parts of the country that are extremely religious and now live in one of the least religious cities in America. Not just because I have friends who represent all sorts of different faiths. Not just because I find that often I know more about someone's religion than they do. They have the faith part of their belief down, but often have no idea about certain parts of their religion's history or even important passages in their religious books. Or even how closely most of the world's religions hew to each other. How much they borrow from each other. Not just because often someone will say that they are a certain faith and you ask them the last time they went to church and they have no idea...

It's not interesting to me for just those things, but those things add to it. It's interesting to me because I enjoy a good story. And most religions have good stories. Not just the creation myths, but the actual story of why that faith is practiced now. Most religions aren't as old as people think they are. At least not the form that they are practicing. They like to think it's tied in to some ancient belief but most often it's only a few hundred years old. Protestants? You think over 2000 years ago...try around 500. That's a big difference. There is usually a "yes but it CAME from antiquity..." story that goes along with it. Neo-paganism is a big one for this. It's all a recreation of what they think was practiced before, but they don't really know. They just believe. The whole faith thing. And then there is Mormonism which isn't even as old as the United States. Though part of their story includes a visit by Jesus to this part of the world as well as his hanging out in what's now the Middle East.

See? The stories are interesting.

The problem I have with religion is when people want to force their stories on me or in to my legal system. That's when I get in arguments and have issue. But for the most part I think if you have your religion and your faith and your beliefs and they bring you comfort, that's great. What ever you have in your life that brings a level of joy to you that doesn't negatively impact others is excellent. And I know for a lot of people that is their religious belief. But to me it really is just a story. And your story isn't any more important than someone else's story.

That's important to understand. You have to realize that you are sneering at someone else's implausible story while holding on to yours. Why do you think that there is any more chance of Noah's Ark being an actual thing than a tribe of ancient Israelites making it to the new world in a pre-Colombian age? You accept your own stories and reject others. I get it. But it doesn't make your story right and their story wrong. It just means that's the story you believe and the system you bought in to.

That's what it's like to look at religion from the outside peering in. I see that your stories are great for you, and their stories are great for them, but none of them make a whole lot of sense when you break them down. But they are still interesting to read.

I do love a good story.

It's all still relative...

Called my mom for her birthday today. Eighty three years old. Happy 83rd birthday to my mother. Conversations with her have always been interesting and as she's aged they are sometimes really entertaining...

What did we talk about? The prison break in New York. She's just glad that C has graduated and is not up in Vermont anymore because they might be hiding out there. She also is pretty sure it goes much deeper than just the one woman helping them. Cutting through a steel wall is noisy. How did no one hear them? I happen to agree with her. I did think for a minute when they talked about Vermont that I was glad C wasn't there (though even if he was still in school he would have been home on break, and he didn't spend a lot of time just traipsing through heavily wooded areas where criminals might be hiding, but I still thought it) and I cannot believe that they cut through steel walls and steam pipes without anyone hearing them. Crazy.

Her new phone. She had stopped answering her old phone. The only way you could get in touch with her was to text my sister and wait for a call back. It was odd. My sister had said she got mad at her phone and was done with it. Oooookay. Not the weirdest thing my mother would have ever done, but still odd. So anyway yesterday we all get a text with a new phone number for Mom so ta da new phone. Come to find out she didn't get mad at her phone she got mad at the shitty customer service at Verizon. When Dad died she and my brother took in his death certificate to get his contract cancelled. They tried to charge her $250 for an early termination fee. Let that little piece of fuckery settle in a bit. So when they were impressed upon that that was not going to happen they got the extra line removed and Mom listed as the primary. Which stuck for about a year and then they put Dad back on it and started raising her bill every few months. She went from a $30 phone bill up to an $80. And when she would try to cancel they wouldn't let her. Finally she got it cancelled and ordered a new phone from AARP. It's just a phone, she doesn't do anything but talk on it, which is SO weird, that's like the last thing I do with a phone...but anyway. She didn't get mad at her phone, she got mad at Verizon. Which I totally get. I left them a few years ago because they were horrible at customer service.

We talked about the family dinner last night. She's concerned about my aunt and uncle driving across country this summer. She doesn't think they should be driving that far. But she's not sure she should call their son and have him talk to them. She knows it would piss of my uncle but she also knows she would feel lousy if something happened to them and she didn't say anything. I told her it was a hard call to make. When do you tell someone it's time to give up the car keys? Which she then told me she only drives a very little now, and only on back streets, and very carefully. I guess she was worried I might reach through the phone and snatch hers away.

While we were talking about my uncle's balance she mentioned hers is not so good all the time. She said she does okay in the house because they have so much stuff there is always something to grab to steady herself. When she goes to the grocery store they always park close and she gets a cart to steady herself. I suggested one of those little push cart type things that are part walker, part place to sit to rest which led to the following exchange:

"We have two of those, we have a big one and a little one and a wheelchair."

"Oh, okay."

"Marshall uses them. Well he used them."

"He doesn't really use them anymore."

"No, he gets around just fine now."
And we both laughed...

Because why wouldn't you joke with your mother about your dead dad on the anniversary of his death?

Then because we were on the subject of health and death we talked about her new chemo treatments. She is doing well on them, she has another scan at the end of this month so she will be interested to see how everything looks. Though she thinks she should have just come with a zipper since they have to look at her insides so often...I've often thought it would be nice to have a seam so I could adjust my weight easier.

One of the nurses she sees often (she gets an infusion once a month) recently lost a family member and Mom talked to her about it and about how she (Mom) knows that her time could come at any point now. The nurse said she (Mom) seemed to have a really good attitude about it. Mom said she told her that of course she did, she knows exactly where she is going so why wouldn't she?

Which made me smile. Because for her it's true. She believes that eventually God will say, "Ruby?" and she will "go home" and she will see Dad again. And be reunited with the three children they lost and other family and friends that are just waiting for her. So she's really calm about the whole thing. I'm also really nonchalant about the thought of dying. But for different reasons. There was a point before I was born where I wasn't. I just wasn't. There was no me. And that doesn't bother me. Or scare me. Why should I be bothered or scared of the opposite end? There will be a point where I stop. Where there will be no me. And to be scared of the after would mean that I should have been scared of the before, and well, I wasn't. So when it happens it will happen and life for everyone else will go on. And if I've done a good job with my life part of me will stay with them. Which is all you can ask for.

And then she needed to go run errands. I told her to have fun and she laughed, "It's a thrill a minute!" Which is totally something I say to Brent when I tell him about the exciting trip to Target I took.

So to recap I talked to my crazy mother today and got her wacky take on the world and we agreed on the prison break, Verizon phone service, inappropriate humor and dying...

So....yeah....

Just starting...

All right, I have finally finished the two books on shame that I was reading. Jon Ronson's So You've Been Publicly Shamed and Jennifer Jacquet's Is Shame Necessary? The two books approached the subject of public shaming from different angles. Ronson's book was about individual people who had been shamed and Jacquet's book was more about using shame as a tool toward corporations to influence their decision making.

I wanted to read them because I was starting to feel more and more uncomfortable with the way the online world seems to handle shaming. Someone makes a lame joke over Twitter and people get out their virtual pitchforks and it turns to blood sport. You see pictures posted on your Facebook feed, "Share this image of this person doing this bad thing that I have zero back story or corroborating evidence for but share it and potentially wreck this person's life anyway." Differences in opinions are treated as unbreachable problems instead of points to start a discussion from. And not just unbreachable as in fine, we disagree and will always disagree, but SOMEONE is wrong and must be bashed into submission.

At least verbally. But not entirely I mean let's throw in a rape threat if you are a woman and a death threat works for everyone no matter the gender.

It's all a bit much don't you think?

And yet, there is a place in the world for shame. A little healthy shame keeps us in line socially, we should be concerned with how our actions affect other people. Reminding companies that they need to be good stewards in their quest for profits is a good use for shame as well.

But it's so easy for it to get out of hand and cross the line. I don't think one bad joke, no matter how distasteful you find it, is reason for someone to lose their job. Wouldn't it be better to say, "hey, the reason that's not funny is because...." and point out that the person/group/thing they are making fun of isn't really all that funny. Instead we declare them the worst, just absolutely the worst and they are shamed. And doxxed. And threatened. Because they misspoke. Or even if they didn't misspeak, and they did intend to say something off color, did the virtual pitchforks make a difference?

Did it change their belief system? Did it bring them to another stage of understanding? Or did it just scare them in to silence? And give people ammunition to use in the argument against the growing legions of people speaking out against the thought police? Which, yes, the thought police are always out there, bullying people in to silence, but they aren't a reason why you shouldn't be able to tell someone when they are being an asshole and should have a little shame.

See how complicated it ends up?

I'm still thinking about it all and will write more later on the subject, but here is the start, the just finished the second book what do I think now that I've seen a few other opinions on the subject, good and bad?

Where is the line? Where is the good vs. bad point? Where is the speak out or shut up measure? When is mass shaming appropriate? When does it lead to positive changes? When does it just hamper discussion? I have a feeling I will never reach a solid yes or no stance but as most things in my life it will be fluid and totally depend on circumstances.

But it's good to think about. To question. To understand why you do and do not do certain things.

Shame....

Reaching...

So I wanted to write a blog a day until I caught up with where I should be by this time to reach my goal. Or course when I decided to do that my font of fiction works in my brain shut off. So I've been struggling with nonfiction everyday. Something to write just to get words on paper. To stretch out the old fingers and take them around the keyboard. To make sure I am continually writing because writers write. And all of those things I keep telling myself to make sure I sit down and do this every day.

And there have been a few things to write about, which is great, and there have been things I could write about but I've been balancing between a really good mood and fighting off the bad mood that could hit ('tis the season) and so I have avoided writing anything that could bring on the gloom. Which isn't great. Because once the couple of things to write about were exhausted and the things I just can't even right now have been avoided I'm stuck with a blank page.

So what does that leave? I could tell you all about what I'm doing right now. I mean, besides the blog frenzy catch up super writer force choke the words on the page part...

I wrote about the new workout program. That's still plugging along. Not losing any weight, but also not feeling like I've been beat with a stick after the workout anymore either. Of course tomorrow I increase my weights so we will see how long that lasts. Using the Misfit Shine to encourage over all activity. Gotta get those dots! Starting tomorrow I am going to increase my points goal on that as well. I was avoiding doing it even though most days I hit my goal pretty easily because I don't want to be THAT active on the weekends. I like a lazy weekend. But I realized I can just change the goal on Saturday morning and put it back on Monday morning. Viola! Problem solved. Dual goal system. Sticking with 1200 points for the weekend, moving to 1400 for the weekday. I've also decided I am going to try and keep my streak alive until we go to New Mexico in July. Unless I get sick, or hurt, I think I can do it. The biggest challenge will be right before NM when Brent is in Germany and I will have to be active on a weekend without him here to encourage me.

I'm working on the Rosetta Stone puzzle still. It's really slow going. I gave up for awhile because it was just too hard. So it just sat on the table, an outline with nothing else. Been plugging away at it again this week and I've gotten about 15 more pieces in...not even kidding. It's really freaking hard. The pieces are all really close in color and they are small enough that the difference in language isn't always easy to see. And even if I can say, of for sure this is Greek, that only means it will be someplace in the lower third of the puzzle. It's hard is what I am saying here. When I am finally finished with it (maybe by my birthday?) I will really feel like I've accomplished something.

I'm getting a little bent out of shape with the whole new adult coloring craze. Not just in a hipster, "Dudes, I've been doing it for years" sort of way though there is a touch of "Really? A trend? How about a thing that some of us just do?" but in the one of the reasons I've always liked it is because it's cheap. A box of crayons and a book, less than $5 for HOURS of entertainment. Now books are getting more and more expensive and pencils and crayons are getting fancier and more expensive as well. And sure I could just stick with my old school tools but some of the new stuff is SUPER cool. But still...trendy means more expensive and that bugs me. I will just wait for the tide to roll back out and on to a new beach and pick stuff up on clearance I guess....

Still cooking with Blue Apron and enjoying the recipes there, though I have been thinking about shifting the way Brent and I eat a little so that would mean stopping the service. I haven't decided for sure yet. So many studies point toward Mediterranean as the way to go, but it's not as high in protein as Brent likes and it's not as high in cake as I like. So...I'm torn. Actually I'm not torn so much as resisting. I know I should switch. I know it's better for us. I know it hits the heart health that is a concern in both of our families as well as the brain health I am obsessed with. But...cake.

Let's see what else...
Summer movie season is in full effect and I'm trying out the movie a week approach. Or at least sort of trying it out. I think we already missed a week after I decided to do one a week...so one a weekish...ANYWAY...it means we are probably going to see things we might have skipped otherwise, but I love going to the movies so even if there are a few clankers in there it will be fun over all I think.

And tonight is the season finale of Game of Thrones so I am rushing through this to post it and put it up on Facebook before I have to stay off the internet so asshats with no self control or care about their West Coast friends can watch a show without it being spoiled....

And done! Whew....