Backorder

 Well.  What a hopeful day this is. 

I mean, I'm also horrified at the damage to our national and international security, and enraged that it's gone on so long. But at least it is coming out, and we may get accountability, and a chance for restoration and reform, maybe even progress. 

Seriously, this should never have happened.  But, as I say at work, all I need is a Time Machine and a magic wand, and those are both on backorder. 

We are going to be going through a lot of shit, for a long time yet.  The war is not over, and some of the worst days are yet to come.  We have a much better chance, now, though. I'm confident we will endure and come out better. 

Extinction

We saw friends in town for The Cure concert this week.  Dylan's friends since high school, so I largely listened. I've known them for 30 + years, this is fine. Many nodes of intersection.  And these days I am most comfortable allowing and listening. We have been keeping in touch via zoom over the past few years. Covid brought together the friends, when work and life moved everyone away.  Now that travel is  expensive, difficult, uncomfortable, they can all still share stories. 

My former friend is mentioned. She is not doing well, physically or mentally. Which is terribly sad, and not all that surprising. I knew some of her rough childhood, and the damage done - much of it I didn't understand until later on. Her husband still in touch with this same group of friends. I was how they knew each other, which makes me feel a bit responsible.  They were adults when they met, they chose  and I will never know how they feel about that now. I am not arrogant enough to think I could have acted any differently in a way that would have made any difference. 

But. 

There is a sadness that I have nowhere to go with.  And I will sit with it.  We will not be friends again, she wanted from me something I would not ever give. Not her therapist, not her mother figure, not her sister. 

I forgot how kind one of these friends is. He proudly wears the Asshole label, but his actions are inclusive and funny. He leaves space for women to be heard, and makes sure they know they are safe, all without a bit of fuss. Having him in our House is a small mitzvah. 

I am quietly amused that our friends with late teen kids, well those kids are all a version of Queer. And it's all taken in stride with a dash of humor. And like me, there is a reassessment of their own CIS-ness.  Their parents' generation - who would have been horrified and struggled, are dismissed without comment.  There has been a sea-change, and the squealing of the extremists is extinction burst. 

Then we met with Dylan's parents, two brothers, SIL and nephews.  One brother is so like Dylan in kindness, humor and interests. His father is looking so frail, and I'm getting him the information he needs to get on with the VA. While trying not to know too much about his health issues. My trouble is that I was trained from birth as a hyper-vigilant observer, making me a natural diagnostician.  And my job now is to help vets navigate this complex system. I have to keep my hands off, and it's really hard. 

Slept so well last night, with 4 more days to go on the steroid taper.   Making progress on the organizational rethink. Watching the struggle for justice, since knowing soothes me more than not knowing. Enjoying the relatively cool spring, if you can see 90˚F at the highest as cool. It is, since there are clouds and occasional storms.  

Simple

 

There was a prompt to post an awkward photo from childhood, so I went through what I had.  And what most struck me was... I wasn't ugly.  Compared to what I was told as a kid, all the fussing about my hair and dark circles under my eyes, and freckles, big nose, and thin lips and on and on, I can't see it. I was cute.  Even my adolescent photos... I was lovely.  Not movie start pretty, but not at all the plain and unpleasant face I assumed I had. I was beautiful, in my own way. 

And I feel such a wave of despair that I was not allowed to see that. That I was put in pastels - which were not flattering. My hair was badly cut and cared for, but it was a nice color with a slight curl. And I do look rather boyish if you hide the pigtails.  Maybe that is it, too. Well, and don't really have an open mouth smile. 

Messy hair, old t-shirt, and still, there I am. Not ugly.  

Having met several NB people in recent years, I have begun to think that if I were a young person today, I would identify as fem/NB. It's not a big revelation, more of finding a new way to express the idea. I knew I wasn't girly, but also that I wasn't a boy. Anatomically female, attracted mostly to men.  Lots of moving parts to sex/gender/orientation.  The idea that it is a simple question, "Are you a man or a woman?!" is, of course, a False Dichotomy. 

It took so long for me to grow into my own skin, and that was absolutely tied to how I was treated as a small human.  Maybe that is part of why I am so patient with my skittish cats, giving them what I needed is vital.  Not to mention admiring their beauty. 

Cuckoo

 Listening to a radio story about AI on my way home. The end of it was about how AI will make up things, lie, can be misogynistic and rude, but that they believe this will be "ironed out very soon."  

I laughed. No, I think the demon is in the design.  The closer we get to perfection, the more humans will recoil at the Uncanny Valley of it all.  I remember the autonomous robots that got sent out into the wild to make their way. People reacted with violent hostility, destroyed them, threw them into rivers. 

This is something deep in our animal minds, to reject the very close but not quite US. Our bone deep xenophobia will never be eradicated. Charmingly snarky AI only happens in fiction, writers create them to soothe us. But the reality is, the more human they seem, the more we are likely to detest them, viscerally. Without even understanding why. 

That AI grew up on being tested by human interactions, these same kinds of interactions, means they were abused as they were made. I remember some of them, how mean they were and how easy it was to respond with my own most malicious of responses. 

As long as bots stay at a significant distance, not too bright, cuddly teddy bears, and try not to be too annoying, our human reaction should stay manageable. The closer they get to 'real' - the more AI will mean Asshole Intelligence, and humans will react accordingly. The way we react to people who are a little bit different, to a neighbor who makes too much noise, the guy at work with too much perfume, the woman who stands a little too close. 

We have a deep instinct to distrust the cuckoo. 

Not everyone, but enough.