Complaint

If you got a problem, don't care what it is
If you need a hand, I can assure you this
I can help, I got two strong arms
I can help
It would sure do me good, to do you good
Let me help

(Billy Swan)


My father always complained that I never let him help me. That I was MissIndependent (like that's a bad thing.) Thing is, his help wasn't help. He was intrusive and manipulative, and none too bright. He only wanted it to make himself feel good, that it wasn't anything I wanted never occurred to him. Nor did I want to be any more beholden to him than I already seemed to be. He thought this was why I had no friends, not letting people help me. Which only solidified me in my rejection of his offers (demands.)

This song always hits that button. Reading the lyrics clearly for the first time, it's worse than I thought.


My father also complained that anything he told me, I wouldn't do. Well, yeah. I didn't like him, so I considered his approval to be an insult, his taste a guide to what to disdain. He never wanted to give me what I wanted, only what he wanted to give. Bastard. Strings strangled his self described 'generosity.'


One of our skeezier street folks told me he would clear away all that stuff, the verge I've cleared of weeds last year, and have planted this year. Yeah, I could hire him to destroy all my work. Piece of shit don't like my garden. Rather a compliment, looked at properly.

This can be the problem with giving, it's insulting and selfish. When given by the wrong person.

Sorry, this is all pretty negative. I'll do better tomorrow.

Sitting here, saw someone stop in front. So I went to see if they were up to "no good." No, apparently, just admiring the front garden.

oh.

Asap

Cranky today, and so was everyone else. A kind of vague irritableness that seemed to get everyone. Next week looks to be a doozie, I'm going in on my day off to cover lunches. With the damn time change (to those in other parts of the world, no joke, in the US it changes this weekend) likely the whole next week will be likewise annoying. I resolve to stay cheerful, and have beer at home.

Had a tree guy in to take care of our weed trees. Went to the pertinent neighbors - who all were not only nice, but downright enthusiastic about getting rid of the damn things. Will schedule ASAP, in view of putting in garden.

During a newspaper interview in March 1966, John Lennon said that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus.”

On August 13, radio station KLUE in Longview, Texas, organized a bonfire in which protesting Christians burned their Beatles records.

The following day, the station’s broadcast tower was struck by lightning, rendering the news director unconscious and knocking the station off the air.

From Futility Closet.

Friday, bah. Done, basta.

Addiction

When did "addictive" become a selling point? When did dependence become attractive? I'd noticed this in ads lately, the word addictive as something positive, and this puzzles me. Addictive food, or coffee, or any item being sold. Ok, maybe not tables, or socks, but every damn thing else. What is the deal?

I strove to be independent, and addiction was a weakness, a character flaw. Understandable perhaps, even treatable, but not desirable. A trait one admitted to, like being addicted to Tetris (not that I was. Welltris was my downfall.) Not anything to be proud of, more to be gotten over, or past. Certainly not a reason to buy something.

My sole drive, when I was young, was to be free of constraint, inner or outer. Failed a lot, but further dependence was repellant. So, what is the deal?

Flags

Fire in the southwest part of the valley, in my least favorite spot in the state. Camp Williams always was an unpleasant drill weekend when I was in the National Guard. Cold always, except for the few hours around noon if it was summer, then it baked. Desolate in a bad way, treeless and forsaken, fit only for the military.

Well, a fire started out there, late on the third day of a Red Flag Alert statewide, on a machine gun range. Took them a couple of hours to call in the fire department, after it turned out they didn't have the equipment to handle a large fire when the winds were hitting 50 MPH. It spread to about 3,500 acres, destroyed three homes, thousands of people still evacuated as they get it under control.

The Army is a Idiot. As though more proof were needed. I have no more anger left for such foolishness, exhausted my supply while in the midst of it. Simply contempt now. At least today the commander of the base is admitting full-on error. I'm just imagining how many people out there got shouted at today. And how many Lt. Cols will be simple Lt.s tomorrow. I can just picture it, too.

"This is the only chance this year we have to qualify!"
"Sir, there is a Red Flag warning up, has been for the last two days, we're going to start a fire."
"Sergeant, this has to be done today. I've never seen a warning. Get your men out there."

Yeah, lots of people got shouted at today. And I don't feel sorry for most of them.

Bounce

In the midst of yesterday, I got to watch a few minutes of the Netherlands-Brazil match. The bit where Netherlands got their second goal by bouncing it off two player's heads. (At about 1:30.) Then the Brazilian player stomped on the knee of the Netherlands player, tried to take the ball, then pretended to be helping him up. Gee wiz wow athleticism and luckful joy, followed by the other team's petty malice. We all unequivocally rooted for Netherlands after that. I really am enjoying watching here and there. Especially for those moments at work, as many of the residents, and our head of anesthesia, are ardent fans. I don't know the rules, I don't care. It's beautiful to watch. Many in the US, used to basketball's inflated scores, have a bit of trouble with scoreless matches and ties. To me, that is part of what I enjoy. It's all about the play, the scoring almost an afterthought.

It's gaining popularity here, probably because of the World Cup coverage. And as schools have cut back on expensive sports programs, and taken up soccer as a relatively less expensive alternative to football, baseball and even basketball, it should gain even more ground. Title IX is part of it, since it's one of the few sports that doesn't require a whole, separate, purpose built area for the girls to play. It's a law that has been squirmed out of more than followed, but it has had an effect. Since I've always hated American football, and basketball, I see this as a good thing indeed. Pro-football at the college level (yeah, they're not amateurs, no matter what they say) brings in money to the college, and that money gets used -- for football. It's a manipulative cycle that leaves a lot of young men with dashed dreams, broken bodies, and nothing like an education. And the women left out in the cold with the discredited concept of Separate But Equal.

When I started high school, a Catholic institution, there were a group of boys who tried to get funding and support for a football team. No one was much interested. To their credit, they became the all male cheerleaders for the (very successful) girls basketball team. The boys basketball team was pitiful. Although the track team, male and female, was pretty good. My first college had a pathetic football program, but world class fencing. I think having wider choices is good. US football players all have a particular physique, as do basketball players, and to a lesser extent - baseball. But soccer players seem to be a bit more varied. Taking US football out of the field of play and off the budget, means more people can be athletic in a variety of ways, not all of it competitive, encompassing all kinds of body types and abilities.



Oh, and I intend to use the word Vuvuzela as a term to describe something annoying or problematic that cannot be criticized because it is "cultural."

Towel

Linen towel of ancient lineage, the last from Aunt Evelyn, who always had them. So did Granny, but she got the calendar ones that hung for a year, then saw service drying dishes.

We had a visiting surgeon yesterday, from Korea. Very pleasant, and spoke often with our surgeon du jour, apparently fluent in Medicalese, but less so in English. Dr. B. wanted to learn the Korean word for "sloppy," in reference to the original repair he was fixing. But "sloppy" was not in Dr. Visiting's English vocabulary. Scrubbed in myself, I pondered how I would explain it to him, but kept to myself my solution. Too many unknowns about how my offering instruction would be taken, to little benefit. He'll either look it up later, or not.

Hard for me, to know something, really know, and not offer that information. Rarely appreciated, often deeply resented, no matter how gently offered. Which causes me to think less of those unwilling to at least consider. I love learning from others, even if I can't use their information right then, I put it in my pocket for later, and appreciate the help. Sometimes, granted, it can be hard to take. Even if it's utterly wrong, it can be useful data. A word to look up later, right or wrong. An idea that can be useful in a different context. Part of the repertoire.

I gravitate to those smarter than myself, to pick their brains, learn their strategies, challenge my own knowledge. The perk of working with surgeons, asking them questions about what they are doing. Or eavesdropping as they teach residents. Many of them are not globally smart, having instead areas of brilliance and know-how, that doesn't much apply to other fields.

Tests were always fun for me. Let me know clearly just how bright I was, and wasn't. Usually about the 90th percentile, verbal and general, around the 60th in math and visual-spacial skills. Never could get past the most basic chess. I do the US version of crosswords, but I don't think I'd be up to the British version - never quite grasping anagrams and other more complicated wordplay and literary references. I've often been a coward about reading difficult books, occasionally surprized at finding a classic to be quite readable. I've never made it through any Dickens novel. Among bright people, I'm pretty average.

On the other hand, Cash Cab was turned on at work yesterday, and two dimwits got in, missed the first question, got the second with help, missed the third with help, missed the last one all by themselves, and were kicked out. The questions were straightforward, nothing obscure. And the two nurses (capable women, really) thought the first three were too hard, although both of them got the (last) Romeo and Juliet answer quite easily. I walked out to get my room ready, trying not even to think "Really? You didn't know any of them? Seriously?" (How many people in the US don't know about the San Andreas Fault in California?) Ok, everyone has knowledge gaps, but when it's so many, it does indicate profound lack of attention.

I'd love to see the Dunning Kruger Effect research done with much older subjects, see if that changes anything. But then, I've always found curiosity a much more attractive trait than confidence.




Happy Glorious 25th of May and Don't Panic, it's also Towel Day!

Market

Finally this weekend, I managed to get my ass moving enough to clean. Started with cleaning a bit of carpet, due to Moby re-marking it. Enzymatic cleaner, hot water, and Feliway, and hopefully that will discourage further deposits. This is new, sort of, he's always liked throw rugs placed anywhere, but not regular carpeting. I'm sure it's a cat thing that makes perfect sense to him. Staring at the clean area spurred me on to do more, although we started with a grocery run.

We shop, when we can, at a market that is further away, and with somewhat higher prices at times, but on stuff we often can't get at the Close store. We learned to do this in Boston, eclectically shopping in different places throughout the week, since we often stopped on the way home from elsewhere, always walking, often just wanting to carry a bag, not bring the wheeled cart.

So we go to the Upper Store, in part because of a few brands, better cheeses, mostly because it's so much less frustrating, to move around in, to check out. They deal with our cloth bags without a whimper or a snarl, and seem to actually train their baggers. I mentioned the Upper Store at work, and they were aghast, "It's more expensive!" They mostly shop at Costco, and the like, getting huge amounts at discount, having houses (or living with their parents) with plenty of places to store the bulk, and more people to eat the food.

We are two people with different tastes, in a small apartment. Even if we pay twice as much (we don't) it's still a bargain because we eat what we buy. Getting twice as much would mean throwing half away, as it went bad, or we got sick of it. Which is why we don't make a point of going to Farmer's Markets (although I did at the excellent ones in Boston.) Prices seem good, fresh local vegetation, until I factor in how much of the mass will get eaten, versus thrown away, or just goes bad.

My mother often complained about the prices of food. But however low our income then, as we teetered on the edges of poverty, I would have preferred less food with better nutrition. No money for more than a couple pieces of fruit, when it was cheap. But we always had sugar and flour, coffee and tea, white bread and mayonnaise. She isn't really to blame, this was how her mother cooked, the common wisdom then was Fill 'em up with whatever will stick to their ribs.

But something is wrong when spinach is a rare treat given me by Aunt Alma. The first time I tasted spinach, I was in heaven. I ate lemons, just pulling apart sections and eating them like an orange, also from my dear aunt. I ate the rhubarb out of the back yard, the sour grapes from the arbor through the neighbors fence, the cherry tomatoes from the garden (bless mom for the garden) clover leaves. I may have been a bit malnourished. Not that I did much better when I had to feed myself. I still struggle to eat well, it all gets very complicated and fraught.

Because I wanted to brag about all the cleaning that got done, and instead ranted on about food.

Simplicity

It's really this simple. I'm in control of my own happiness. No one can make me unhappy, no one can make me mad or angry or happy. (Make it easier or more difficult, sure. Not Make.) Just as I can resist being pleased, I can resist whatever feelings form when I see the stupidity, the infuriating, and maliciousness going on around me. I can choose - how to act, what I allow myself to feel. My choice completely. I can become enraged, blame them, throw a fit, lose control. For who will control me? No one can, ultimately. Even the cops can only tie me down, put a spit bag over my head, isolate me, but I can rage and rage.

Or I can shrug, laugh, and cope, and go on being content with my own life. The latter seems much simpler. I can take every gesture of kindness from D, and pick at it, criticize and badger, demanding perfection. Or I can accept that I am loved for myself, find him endearing and generous and kind, and be grateful beyond words to have found a decent human being to live my life with. Hmmmm...

Amazes me how often people make the apparently easier decisions simply because they don't want to look inside themselves for a moment. Breast implants when simply being happy with oneself is more satisfying and less painful and risky. Starving oneself instead of accepting a few age-related pounds. Unhappy with income or health or work or friends... . Change it or don't, but be content as well.

The one reason for a good time machine, I would go back to my young self and say, smile. Not for them, not for the ones who demand a smile, or say "oh, it can't be that bad." Feel free to flip them off. But "don't be distracted, smile for yourself, because it will help you feel better inside." I would tell young me to be cheerful, not because I feel like it, but because acting cheerful will help me feel better. I would tell myself not to blame anyone, including myself, but to relax and enjoy, even the bad stuff, especially the bad stuff, because that is the only way to fight the evil. Yes, it's hard, takes effort and persistence, but it's not difficult, nothing tricky there, takes no special skills. Just the ability to realize that I am the only one with any control over myself.

Just like in grade school, when I knew perfectly well, if the teacher calls for quiet, I have to close my own mouth. If every child did the same, there would be instantaneous silence, every time. Instead, the busy bodies hushed everyone else, and added to the din of the kids who waited to be individually shushed. I knew that then. Saw how it worked in the Army, when the one still talking had to perform push-ups until the Drill got tired. Same principle. They could only make me do push-ups because I agreed to obey their orders, so ultimately - my choice.

Neither the world, nor anyone else, will ever conform to my whims, my wants, or even my needs. If they appear to, it is mere coincidence, which fools many. Manipulators and torturers get surface compliance temporarily, same as any application of punishment. It looks right, but the recoil is primed, no thoughts were changed. Damage done, but not the change of belief intended.

So, I have learned to choose well, because it's all on me.

Sheepcat

Moby has never been one to sit on laps. I can count the number of times he has done so. He'll sit on the armrest of the couch closeby, or on us if we are in bed lying down, but not next to us sitting up. Until the sheepskin. D and I can sit here, and Moby will take the other half...

Hard freeze, more snow flurrying, nothing of yesterday 's snow stuck down here, although the mountains are white. Not unheard of, but not all that usual, either. In Boston, to be expected. In Detroit, I saw it snow on the first and last days of school (the kind of thing a weather-geek-kid would remember), which is to say very early June, and very late August, so an April snow there is just barely cause for comment. May snow, that will be pretty odd, here.

This is not like a Boston spring. The winds won't bite all day, the snow won't turn to ice underfoot for a week, tomorrow could be mild. The atmosphere isn't thick enough to maintain a constant temperature.

Finding myself letting the little irritations bother me this week. The drivers who can't stay in their lanes, nor come within a car length of the line at the intersection. Or the ones who brake for GREEN lights. Scares me, and notifies me of an idiot behind the wheel. Possibly exacerbated by cell phones/texting.

Also had to try to teach a float nurse our computer charting last week. She just couldn't get it, not from several of us who tried over several days. Each day was a new day for her, to the point that I wonder if she should get checked for, say, early onset Alzheimer's. We all struggled with the new charting, but within a day, or about 4-6 charts, we all pretty much had it down, bar the swearing (which continues, to be honest.) The one thing that really drives me nuts with the computer-hesitant is the insistence on using the little slider in the slider bar, instead of clicking in the long bar to page up or down. To the point that they won't even try for the larger target. And I know I used to frustrate D with my inability to use shortcuts, but I did, at least, try. I did eventually use some of them.

Bopped

There are days when I miss Boston with all my heart. We couldn't keep living there, we knew that, but we also knew there were aspects of living there we would miss all our lives. The trains, walking all over, the beauty of the place, people who knew how to move through and with a crowd, India Quality, the bay and ferries to go upon it, the weather (I'm not kidding, I like rain and winter.) But such is life, we have to go and live where we can live.

Today, while managing a few errands and a simple nourishing lunch, I was twice, Twice, bumped by older women taking up way too much space and their large purses. One came through a door I was already going through, and she made no effort to sidle or pull in her huge bag. I may have, quite accidentally, jabbed her bulging arm as I fended off her bag and squeezed past. Then, waiting at the cashier at Ace Hardware, another woman, talking to her family, came up, turned and her leather sack purse hit me in the back. Not a tight space, plenty of room, and she continued to talk to her group, not a murmured "s'cuse." I moved away from her, and struck out my foot to keep her from backing into me, and got my elbow ready. We came home right after, tired of the local manners, and to prevent me ramming my elbow into the next woman with a bag who couldn't keep to herself.

Once, years ago, in the heavily crowded local airport (before all the security changes) two elegantly dressed women stood at the bottom of the escalator, chatting to each other, oblivious to all around, forcing everyone getting off to awkwardly inch around them to get off. As I stepped off, carrying my tightly packed, gym bag carryon, I may, possibly, have - entirely by accident - whacked one or both of them with it. I did clearly say, "oh, excuse me." Honestly.

People in this state are prone to private conversations across halls, forcing people to walk between them, or in the most inconvenient narrowing of a pathway, doorways. They are awkward walking along sidewalks, taking their half out of the middle, and give false cues as to their movements in our cavernous grocery stores, negating the apparent open space.

D once saw our governor at the time, in conversation, and blocking the exit of the grocery store. He wanted to say something rude and sharp, but decided he didn't want the potential legal attention. And he grew up here.

sigh

Wall

The book hit the wall. A philosopher who lived with a wolf. Ok, rescue a wolf raised in captivity, give it a decent life, train it as well as possible, fine. But justify BUYIING it as a puppy, without acknowledging that one is supporting illegal breeders who sell these wild animals to whatever fucktard with $500 will buy them, then leave them chained in a yard the rest of their pitiful lives, is willful stupidity. I can forgive ignorance, I have no patience for willful idiots with education. Just because he did better with the wolf he cared for, he still gave his money to someone who won't ensure that others WON'T, so he IS part of the problem, no matter how he justifies it.

Right up there with justifiers of abortion doctor murderers. Now, if one works all their lives to make sure every child has a home, a decent upbringing, free from hunger and abuse at very least, And Succeeds - then, and ONLY then, when they can rightfully argue that there is no reason for abortion, because every child is wanted, can one make a moral argument against abortion. Anything else is self indulgent wankery. Especially for men who will never have to make this agonizing decision.

If I contribute to a problem, I have no right justifying those who fail to solve it at the end stage. I have to work toward solving the root of it, or shut the fuck up about band-aid, easy solutions that satisfy the urge to enact revenge. Put money in the hands of the users, and justify it by your own lack of malice, and the evil is still being funded. Violence is easy, dealing with the side effects of violence is not. I don't want to live with myself as a violent person, I want to be compassionate. I want peace and gentleness. So I have to make peaceful, gentle choices. Every moment. So I cannot support the death penalty, because although it certainly stops that individual murderer or killing again, what does it do to us? We become killers, and the blood is on our hands.

So I look at the death penalty not as a solution to murderers, but as a stain on the soul of my own culture. Offering them assisted suicide I am good with. But only inasmuch as it is equally accessable to the terminally ill and those in intractable pain. I want this available for me, I want the humane euthanasia option, without the interference of the godbotherers.

But then, I have nothing but ridiculing contempt for organized religion and irrational faith, especially those that want to impose their dogma on me, without a rational moral compass and consistent ethics.

Get the damn plank out of your own eye, just as I prefer to get that wood out of my own, first. Only then do we have any right to condemn each other. And by then, we should not want to.

No one can make anyone do anything. We can only control ourselves, and we'd best be on about it. Do or do not, but don't justify evil.

Can you tell I got stuck in the staff room during a particularly ignorant discussion this week? And kept my thoughts to myself, as per.

Psychic

Jeans that fit. I've given up on walking my way back into the next size down comfortably anytime soon. Don't be put off by the crossed arms. That's a polite posture in the OR, when scrubbed in, it allows others to move around you with more space.

We are not psychic. As a species, we just aren't. And yet we keep assuming we can know what is in another's mind without asking. We attribute to others what we would be feeling in that situation. Judgement, rudeness, lying, friendliness, and perhaps rarely the most accurate, disinterest. This has benefits, allows us to be compassionate. May keep us safe around hostile people. But it's not really accurate for anything less than those very general situations.

My mother consistently told me she couldn't read my mind, that I had to actually tell her what was wrong. (So, very good instructions.) I was one of those quiet kids by nature, and around my father, learned early to keep my thoughts to myself. I knew whatever I said to him would be giving him ammunition to throw back at me. And at other times, my mother would tell me she knew me better than I knew myself, knew what I was thinking. Knowing I could lie to her about nibbling on the chocolate chips she kept for baking, and get away with it, gave me a mental space of my own. Gave the lie to her contradictory assertions.

She also assured me "Of course he loves you, he's your father." I knew he didn't treat me lovingly. I didn't care if he bragged about how smart I was to the men in the neighborhood he talked with, assuming that was true. Even that smacked of taking credit for my achievements - when he actually interfered with my studying and was contemptuous of intelligence. How my mother could claim to know what he felt, especially when it contradicted my own reading, and her own statement that she couldn't read minds, confused me.

I don't know, I cannot know, what is in anyone else's thoughts. Unless they tell me, and that seems consistent with how they behave. So D and I tell each other what we feel, what we are thinking, and have so many years together to trust each other at our words. We watch Moby's body language, and guess at his intentions to the best of our ability. We know these are just educated guesses. We hope he feels loved, by treating him kindly, as the cat he is.

I have observed since childhood that the people who most assert that they are not lying, that others are liars, are the most likely to be twisting the truth all out of shape. Angry people figure everyone is out to get them. I am starting to learn that behaving in a cheerful way allows the people around me to relax enough to be at their best, take me as a friend. This has been my work of the past week, and the response, both from my cow-orkers, and within myself, has astonished me. I'd already come a long way toward this, but the sense of mastery eluded me.

Telling a girl to "Gimme a smile!" is intrusive and insulting, resulting in my own defensive snarls of "what have I got to smile about..." If only one person had told me, "When you smile, you feel better. You smile for your own joy, it just happens to leak out on others." Not to go around grinning all the time. My face when I am thinking is not a happy-looking one, but that's a matter of others trying to read my mind. Which fails, of course. But my having a ready smile, to throw up as a shield or an opening to others, helps me prepare for social interaction, upsets their presumptions about me.

The whole of life is just full of new lessons, ain't it?

Local

Being pretty good at boundaries, having grown up with a father with no concept of them, I rarely get seriously stuck in social embarrassment. I tend to either walk away, or go silent, or just smile ruefully. But there have been times when there was no escape. I don't consider the oddnesses of my patients to be conversations, since I never thought I had to do anything but listen kindly. It's only when I have had to respond that I count here.

The one that happened to mind this week was when I was ride share hostage to an elderly Mormon woman, not long after my moving to the Mecca of this particular church. Ok, I was only 22, which added to my shock. So, I buckle up, and we drive off, and she says, relatively casually, "You know, Jesus preached to the Indians here in those lost years." She may have also mentioned something about dinosaurs being planted by god as a test to her faith. Maybe that was another time. Now, I knew a bit about what the dominant church here teaches, but, Jebus made it to the pre-Columbian western US to teach natives? Really? Literally? You really believe this is factual? I think I managed an "Oh, well..." Worse than meeting a trekkie or a UFO believer, because she seemed so nice-old-lady mainstream.

And I grew up Catholic, which is full of damned odd corners. I mean, I was once taken to see a weeping statue of the BVM. Stood out in the cold saying the rosary with my mother, shuffled through to witness the miracle, saw nothing (nada, zilch, zero) and left feeling cheated and even more prone to atheism, or at least agnosticism, than before. I've seen weird. I've kissed the nailed feet of a statue of Jebus every Good Friday as a kid. I've had my throat blessed with candles on the Feast of St. Blaise, I grew up with a picture of a saint with stigmata in our LIVING ROOM. And this elderly, conservative woman assuring me of this peculiar fact, out of the blue, startled me badly. And made me want to get out and take the bus.

On the other hand, I was nearly as shocked when I heard about the local custom of flocked Christmas trees. Not artificial trees with artificial snow, I've seen that, tasteless, but sure, fine, whatever. But artificial snow on REAL trees. This struck me as obscenely funny, and peculiarly perverse.

So we choke on gnats and swallow camels, and maybe it would be better to think about what we believe in.

Dress

(Some are just always ultra stylish.)

Now, I will admit one very girly fascination. Oscar fashion. I could defend it by adding that I had a costume history class that means I look at it as art and artifact, and that would be true. But it would be misleading. As a poor kid with either cheap, or homemade clothes, I have always loved good fabric and high style. I love swirling, draping, soft and lovely clothing.

And something is terribly rotten in the state of dress. When, at the event considered the epitome of elegance, and the personages considered the most beautiful by our culture, a large portion look ridiculous, something is broken. Oh, Bjork's swan dress was probably more eccentricity on her individual part, possibly an ironic commentary on the show. But when every year these decorated celebrities appear in extraordinarily unflattering gowns, either the designers or the aesthetic is screwy.

N suggested to me that this may be because High Fashion designers are more about the art of the creation of the dress. Whereas once, hollywood stars would be dressed by costume designers, many of whom where women, whose job it was to make them look wonderful on film. And pure fashion designers, with a large gay male representation, maybe just don't get what is attractive about women, so they make costumes that are more detached, more like festival/Mardi Gras/Halloween/fancy dress.

Not that evening wear was ever all that concerned about comfort, but it was meant to accentuate appeal, reveal the body, or create a silhouette and a line. The need for dress reform movement, to release women from heavy corsetry, speaks to the kind of restrictions put on women by that society. The exposure and ridicule of women today speaks to ours. It's not frivolous to see what is raised to an ideal, and try to understand what those symptoms indicate.

Sandra Bollock looked wonderful, though.

Again

Another song worm in my brain the other morning, about singing and dancing in the streets. A cover version of it, no less. And the subject matter bothered me as much as the tune turning and turning and turning. I have long suspected that songs about singing were redundant at the very least.

"What is this song about?"

"Dunno. Ah, put down words about singing it. Yeah, that'll do."

Might as well just make it instrumental, or fa, la, la, la, rah. Not that it's bad, exactly. No doubt a tool to get past writer's block, write about anything, what you are doing right then, just to get moving.

It always feels like a placeholder to me, "Your Photo Here" or Lorem Ipsum. According to one resident I worked with, Oye Como Va is much the same, listen to us, we're a great band. Although there may be a bit more of a joke that doesn't translate well. Doesn't invalidate the music, or a great performance, but when the lyrics wax lyrical about the lyrics, it gets it's knickers in a knot. As it were.

Novels about writers writing novels. Poems about poetry. Movies about making movies. Plays about putting on plays. A movie about a play about producing a play - Noises Off comes to mind. On stage, it was amusing, the movie lumbered about in misery. Having taken a Self-reflexive Cinema course, I notice self referential movies acutely.

Even painters painting themselves painting. Actually, those can be rather clever, like Diego Velasquez



or Norman Rockwell,



who are conscious of the distancing. There is humor intended. Still, self portraiture in art is rarely considered the best work. The huge paintings of rooms of paintings, however clever, are also, ultimately, unimaginative. Etudes can be lovely. Scales do not a symphony make. It all gets very recursive.

Creating about the process is a useful tool. Only a master can turn it so completely inside out it can become art again.

Bad? Not necessarily. Useful exercise for the artist? Sure. Really imaginative and creative? A vanishing rarity. Mostly, no.

Got any other examples of ridiculous redundancy? Or when it is handled so well it becomes illuminating?




Speaking of rant. Found several new-to-me bloggers, who use Embedded below post comments. And although I've left my notes a few times, I will not continue. Anyone who makes it that difficult to comment should just shut the comments off completely.

Cookies

This will be blasphemy. I hate the very idea of Girl Scout Cookies. I remember selling them in my short stint in the scouts, which was a kind of torture, and which didn't get our troop out into the wilds. Even that long ago, it became an end in itself, instead of a means to get out of the city. For an inner city kid, the organization was anemic, quite unlike the image of getting urban children out among the trees learning to start fires - as it were. I did once attend a Girl Scout day camp for a few weeks, and I learned how to braid plastic lanyards and glue popsicle sticks - crappy crafts that I knew enough to hate at the time.

If the GSA had bake sales or other fund raisers to clearly send children off to camp, I would have no objection. That a commercial cookie is sold by "scouts" it means little girls are learning not scouting, but marketing. I don't care how tasty the confection might be, this is the whoring of small girls. Worse, pimping, because they don't even get to keep and use the proceeds.

Cranky of me? Take away your own lust for thin mints, nostalgia for what it was supposed to accomplish, and look at what is really happening. The Boy Scouts (of America) have their own issues, but they don't sell cookies, do they? Getting little girls mentors, all going out camping is a wonderful ideal. Focusing on coercing them to sell sugar, for no clear benefit, is a skewed kind of value to be teaching. Nay, demanding.

Ok, maybe some troops may actually have real outings. Mine didn't, and I expect many are the same. I did a year, and called it quits. Maybe the whole idea is obsolete. It's been going out of style for forty years.

Oh, yeah, I just remembered, I'm 48 as of last week. So long thinking, well, I'll have to add that number, and when the date passed, I rather forgot. But then, took me until the 4th of this month to adjust the date on my watch. February will mess you up.

Style

I seem to have lost my eyelashes. Noticed it as I recovered from the flu. They were never lush, but they existed. I can feel the short, faint brush of them, but they are invisible.


The design of this site is due to Moira. Far from wanting to update it, I would like some of the new gadgets without changing the look at all. I think she did a superb job, the font clear, the slightly grey'd black color of the text, against a slight cream background, easy on the eye. The chocolate brown for high lighted text. Nothing flashes, nothing distracts or sparkles. No busy ground that stays still while the body moves, no squee hopping bunnies or flittering snow. A home, not a posh hotel. I want to communicate, not dazzle.

Many sites with all those bells and whistles keep me away. Bright white text on all black backgrounds are the most common. Perhaps they have intelligent, insightful writing, but I am as barred from finding out as I am from eating at a restaurant with ceiling fans or fluorescents making the light flicker. My eyes ache, my stomach turns, then the migraine threatens. When someone I've read for years changes to something that keeps me away, I feel I must let them know why. Not to have them change it, but so they know why I cannot return. Would not want them to think it was anything they wrote, since I couldn't even read it.

I could follow along on the RSS feed, more or less. I've tried doing exactly that, but I still feel like I'm looking in through a window, not allowed in to join the conversation. Irrational, yes.

Here in the Blogosphere, I am remarkably normal. This is the only place I really fit. I don't mind at all that I'm not welcome in all corners. On one blog I once enjoyed reading, I never got any kind of reply to my comments, and I was often the only comment, or one of two or three. She replied to all the others. After a while, I assumed I had no place there, and deleted the link. Her space, fair enough.

Up at 0300, awake, mind racing, obsessing about the rude awakenings in my life. When I got caught for not doing my 3rd grade math homework, because I'd never learned my times tables, and learned hard that problems had to be faced and solved, not ignored. In my last year of the theater degree, after the supposedly pro forma audition for -- something, and the whole class was accepted, except for me and one other girl. Slapped down, I knew I needed a different path. This past year, when wild accusations were made against me, and although I was not the problem, I was the only one with the solution. Jarring lessons, the need to wake up, not complain or excuse, dream or wish, nor even hope. I once heard the story of Pandora's box explained, the ending is not a happy one. Hope staying is the way it works as an evil. The other evils spread, hope works it's poison by stringing us along instead of taking our lumps and becoming aware.

Bitter truth, sharp, piercing, acidic to scrape away the delusions and accretions and cancerous self comforting lies and evasions. Good strong beer, black tea, Turkish coffee, hot chili to counteract the cloying sweetness. February in it's season, to be loved for itself.

Shiny

I once watched everything Disney with the rapt admiration of a child for the shiniest object in view. I loved the smoothness of the animation, the emotions of little Dumbo cradled by his imprisoned mother, the creation of a more colorful world. But as I got older, I began to sense the deep misogyny, and the obvious racism, as well as the aggressive marketing. Stories of Disneyland and -world taking visitors, turning them over and shaking until all their money fell out were common long before EuroDisney's issues with poor treatment of their employees. (Not to mention abuse of artists right from the beginning of the Disney Studios.) Accidents hushed up, local takeover of law enforcement, surface gloss to cover cracking infrastructure.

These days, I resent the Disney takeover of classic children's books, turning them into sly and suggestive, and overblown, PG rated films. Selling crack to kids. Pushing the Princess ideal to little girls, when real princesses were political pawns, whored out to whatever noble could pay in influence. That it is now seen as a fairy tale in pink sickens me. That girls see this as what they should be, instead of pursuing intellectual, or even spiritual study, undermines our humanity.

Disney is a huge, multinational corporation out to get our money, and every child in the world's money. That some folks react to any criticism of it as though I were kicking a puppy, is just ridiculous. It's not harmless. We live by our stories, and when we give over our stories to the most mercenary, and effectively larcenous, company, is poisonous.

At least one reader, long ago, took umbrage at my calling the megacorp of Disney evil. She left in a huff. Didn't bother me.

I once much preferred the Disney Winnie the Pooh, baffled by the appeal of the E. H. Shepard drawings. I got a little older, and knew better. I came to appreciate not having all the lines colored in to perfection, allowing the space for my own interpretation and participation.