Link Me Up, Scotty - The Post-"ism" World Edition

In case you thought that on-line feminists aren't really subjected to rape threats, misogynistic language and a general assortment of condescending jerkwads, here comes "The (Un)censorship Project," sponsored by SkepChick. Superimposed on old-timey photos are actual communications from men who feel compelled to communicate their deep, insightful commentary with the website authors.

Way to represent, dudebros.
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"Gee, I'm totally surprised that the General who led the coup that deposed Mohammed Morsi last July in Egypt is running for President," said no one ever. Because democracy is just supposed to "win." You know - like magic.
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Some interesting thoughts on the nude female form, and why it really doesn't have to be about titillating the men in the audience.
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Video of the Week: Rowr.

Miscellaneous Monday - Forward Thinking Edition

Dog Day Afternoon

The Smart Man and I are finally ready to get the ball rolling in terms of our getting another dog. Boogie's been gone since Thanksgiving 2012, and while I suspect we would have been ready sooner if Moe hadn't died, we miss having a dog, and feel we're ready to take on the time commitment of raising and training another pup. We're investigating breeders now, and believe we may have a pup by early Fall.

His name shall be "Milo," and he shall be a good, good boy. And handsome. That, too.

Whole Foods

As I noted last week, I'm working hard to try and get my depression under control. One of the things I'm doing is trying to eliminate refined sugar and white flour from my diet, while simultaneously increasing "whole foods," as I've read some journal articles that lend credence to the idea that depressive minds do not do well with these types of foods. So no dessert for me, not even Weight Watchers or other low-cal options*, and I've incorporated some whole food smoothie recipes into my daily meal plans, as well. So far this seems to be working in terms of my daily mood, so I'm going to stick with it for a while and see what happens.

Side note: I don't want to turn into one of those people - you know, the ones whose conversation is "all food, all health, all the time," but my current drive toward better mental and physical health is taking up a considerable portion of my mental and physical energy at the moment. You have my permission to smack me a good one if I start acting all self-righteous and smug about it, though. Because I would TOTALLY DESERVE IT.

The Nature of the Manipulator

I read something on Captain Awkward this morning that really resonated with me: "Manipulators want to isolate you so that the only voice you listen to is theirs."

Oh, my, YES. There have been any number of people with whom I've had relationships who have fallen in with a manipulator who used this tactic to isolate and then control their victim. And I'm of two minds about this.

There's a part of me that believes that this type of controlling, isolating behavior is a form of emotional abuse, and that the person being manipulated needs help and compassion, not judgement.

And yet I'm honest enough with myself to also admit I believe that those who fall into this trap and thus fail to see reality (or the other party in the relationship) clearly are also culpable when their outside relationships fall apart and they find themselves isolated and alone. Because let's face it - if the Smart Man tried to force me to give up my familial relationships through lies and manipulation, there's a very good chance he'd find himself on the wrong side of the door with my fist-print in his throat.

And then I feel guilty because I know I'm indulging in victim blaming to a certain extent, as well as having a failure of compassion.

And then I feel like I'm letting people off the hook, because I believe in self-determination, agency, and choosing your own outcomes in your life.

Stupid moral dilemmas.

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*I have started using Noosa as a special dessert-like treat in lieu of traditional options. While the caloric and fat density on those things is really high, it also contains pretty decent ingredients compared to other choices.

Link me up, Scotty - Scandalous Edition

Tree Lobsters provides translation services for the language of politics, and nails it.
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The mantra of "Do what you love, love what you do" is like the superficial holy grail of work life. Unfortunately it betrays a level of privilege that is simply astounding, as well as being completely disrespectful of those who do work they don't love, because it allows them to support the human beings they do love.
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"I'm so surprised to learn that 72.5% of incidents reported to the group Working to Halt Hate Online were made by women who were degraded and harassed by men," said no woman with an Internet connection ever. What is UP with this, men? Is the fact that a woman says something online with which you disagree really sufficient provocation to threaten to tell her "Im [sic] looking you up, and when I find you, im [sic] going to rape you and remove your head?" Seriously? Who raised you?

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Video of the Week: The trailer for the upcoming movie Particle Fever, a documentary about (you guessed it) particle physics and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). I'm totally putting this in my Netflix queue.

Miscellaneous Monday - I'll Be Back Edition

Limited resources

Now that the holidays are over, I've been spending a considerable amount of time trying to get my depression under control. For me this means paying strict attention to nutrition, exercise and sleep, so that I can stabilize my emotions. What that means, of course, is that I have less attention for other things. So I've had to prioritize, and HCDSM has gotten the short end of the stick. I'm not going to apologize for prioritizing my mental health, but I do intend to return to regular writing at some point. Patience you must have, my young Padawan.

I have a dream

Today is MLK day here in the United States, and for the first time EVAH, I have the day off. I've just never worked anywhere that observed the day. Of course I had to work the day after Thanksgiving, so I suppose it all evens out.

This is my favorite quote by MLK. It resonates with me now more than ever.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.  - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Time suck

I'm taking a class right now called "Introduction to Computer Based Systems." It's required for my degree program, and while the material isn't particularly hard, going through the material, performing the labs and writing the assignments is taking an exceedingly long period of time each week. I'm filling in some gaps in my knowledge, though, so I'm trying to keep a good attitude about it for the sake of my mental health. 

Link Me Up, Scotty - Life and Death Edition

Two Morticians Walk Into a Bar...

I've recently started reading the blog of one Caleb Wilde, a Funeral Director in Chester County, PA, who writes about death, dying, and grief in both a serious and humorous way.

I've always thought that being a funeral director would be an extremely satisfying job. After all, you're helping people through some of the worst times of their lives. I could never do it myself, though - while the idea of a dead body doesn't bother me, the idea of embalming does. It seems a very morbid and quite barbaric custom.

Not in a million years

Would I get into the Chamonix Skywalk's "Step into the Void" installation. Crap on a cracker.

And the wonders therein

The 2013 National Geographic Photography Contest is over, and the winners are in. So, so cool.

Resolutions that matter

Something worth thinking about - how making excuses for yourself and your life leads to misery. Or more succinctly - love is a verb.

Video of the Week

This is a cover of the song "If I Die Young" by The Band Perry, sung by the lovely Amanda Powers. Amanda is the daughter of long time reader, fellow UCFer, and good friend Shawn Powers, and she recorded this for me. Thank you, Amanda.

Miscellaneous Monday - A New Year Edition

Thank goodness that's over

Christmas, that is.

The holidays have never been an easy time for me, and in light of my daughter's death last year, this season was particularly tough. So I've been crying a lot, and my sleep has been disturbed with dreams of my daughter, as my subconscious screams against reality.

I'm trying to look at 2014 with a little more hope, but I know I have new milestones I will have to endure that will probably result in additional emotional upheaval. But this is how it goes - small steps of healing, followed by rough times, lather, rinse, repeat.

Frankly, it's exhausting.

Nowhere to run to

Now that my insides are no longer falling out, I have an eye towards resuming my conditioning so I can run outside this summer. I was up to nine miles on Sundays before things started falling apart, but I suspect I'll have to start over at this point. Which means I'll be off to the field house, running around the indoor track. Around...and around...and around.

We don't need no education

Or least we don't need no "upper division" writing course that should have been called "Remedial Writing for the Semi-Literate." Thankfully it's over, but I still found the entire experience worthy of a devastating side-eye.

The final papers were supposed to include "peer review" of our draft papers. Being a fan of OCD, I submitted my paper a week in advance. Of the other three members of my group, one submitted her draft several days late. The other two were complete no shows.Now I could give two fucks about how other students choose to manage their work and their time. We're all adults here, and I'm not paying almost a thousand dollars a course to run herd on other people to make sure they get their work in on time.

Which is why I hate, with the heat of a thousand burning suns, "peer review" and "group projects." Based on the purely empirical evidence of my grades and professorial feedback and the subjective evidence of the discussion boards, I am a better student than most of my classmates. This means I typically get no value from "peer review" and end up doing more than my share of work during "group projects."

Thankfully the next ten classes in my curriculum are all technology based, which doesn't lend itself well to such nonsense. And get off my lawn.

Temper Tantrums and the Social Contract

We've all been there. We're shopping, or having dinner in a restaurant, or in some other public space, and we hear it - a very unhappy youngster who is making their displeasure known in a very loud and emphatic way. Sometimes it's the result of a thwarted desire, sometimes they're teething, sometimes they're just tired and feeling overwhelmed.

And for the people around them - especially their parent or caregiver - it's always annoying.

In such situations, people have a tendency to judge, to smugly announce that their kids never behaved in such a manner in public, to offer unsolicited advice on how to manage a child they've never met and don't know.

To them I say: Get over yourself.

Yes, it's bloody annoying to hear some child having a temper tantrum in a public place. But raising kids is hard. Raising them to be successful, contributing members of society is even harder. And those who are doing this work deserve support and compassion rather than judgement.

Raising successful adults is a gig to which we all contribute, whether we realize it or not. Our taxes support our local schools, our libraries, our recreation centers, and social services dedicated to families. We have the opportunity to support teachers, parents and kids in our charitable endeavors, and elect politicians who have kids' best interests in mind. We're all members of families who presumably have some goals surrounding the future success of our children. It's part of the social contract, and this investment helps to keep our society whole.

Nobody enjoys having their kids make a public scene. I would go so far as to speculate that most parents make a concerted effort to prevent such events by making sure their kids are rested, well fed, and have some structure in their lives. But there are many factors to which the outsider is not aware. Perhaps the child is autistic. Perhaps they're ill. Perhaps they had a really rough day at day care. It's unkind to assume the reason they're acting out is because they're brats or because their parents don't care about their behavior.

So the next time you find yourself judging some frazzled parent whose child is behaving badly, ask yourself: Would you prefer this parent give in to the poor behavior in order to quiet the child, thus teaching them that getting what they want is simply a matter of screaming the loudest rather than earning what they want? Would you prefer this parent exit the store, leaving their shopping or errands incomplete, thus adding more stress to their family in order to spare you a few minutes of discomfort while they deal with the issue in public?

I would prefer to offer some compassion, while simultaneously gritting my teeth against the screaming.

2013 by the numbers

Even though 2013 sucked worse than the worse sucky year ever, and I was happy to see it die in the fiery depths of a thousand burning suns, I think I'm constitutionally incapable of ending the year without making a note of the various inconsequential crap I keep track of over the course of the year.

So here's my 2013 by the numbers:

• In 2013, I knitted 50 scarves, 15 lap robes, and 400 hats for charity. Next year the numbers are likely to be significantly lower, since I won't be out on disability for five weeks due to organ removal. At least I hope that's the case, because DAMN. 
• In 2013, I read 107 books, including audiobooks, traditional books on my Kindle/iPad, and textbooks. I don't have the exact breakdown on genre, etc., because I don't really care that much about this particular obsession, but the big winners are Literature and Fiction, Science Fiction and Fantasy, and Generic Non-Fiction. Again, it seems unlikely that I'll read this much next year, since I'm back in student mode and hope to remain healthy, as well.
• In 2013, I took two college courses, bringing my total earned credits to 188. No, I still don't have a degree. Yes, I suspect I will have to graduate eventually. BUT NOT UNTIL I'M GOOD AND READY, STOP PRESSURING ME.
• In 2013, I spent 87 days away from home. A small percentage of those days was for pleasure, most were for business travel and family emergencies. I suspect my 2014 will be comparable, with (hopefully) fewer days for family emergencies and more days for pleasure.
• In 2013, I bought one car. I've been driving "family cars" since 1990, and honestly - to start the new year I felt like I wanted to get something that was fun to drive and suited me down to my toes, without having to take into consideration such things as "back seats" and "cargo space." So at the end of December I bought a 2013 Fiat 500 Abarth, 160 horses of turbo-charged impracticality and fun.* Go, me.

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*We kept the Jeep, as well. Because there's no way a full-grown Giant Schnauzer or a half-grown human being will fit into the back of my sweet new ride. So the Jeep's been relegated to being parked on the street rather than in the garage, like the orange-headed step-child that it is.

This I Believe - 2014

I believe in agency.

In July of last year, my husband and I were subjected to every parent's nightmare. Our local police department came to our home to tell us that our daughter was dead, having taken her own life the night before.

The next several months are a blur of misery and grief. Every day was like a punch in the gut, waking up to realize my baby girl was gone, having died alone and filled with despair. For as long as I live, I will never understand her choice.

I wish a lot of things about events surrounding my daughter's death. I wish she hadn't felt so alone. I wish she would have told someone - anyone - about how she was feeling. I wish the medical care she was receiving had been more effective in treating her depression. I wish I had kept closer tabs on her after she'd moved out of our house. Above all, I wish I could have helped her find her way into the light.

But what I don't wish is that she lacked agency in making her decision. 

Agency is a person's capacity to act in the world. People who have agency make their own decisions, and move through their lives choosing their paths as they will, not without outside influence, but without outside compulsion.

People have a right to make their own decisions. They have the right to determine their life's course without being compelled to make the decisions that others want them to make. I believe this to be true, and even though this belief has led me to the greatest tragedy of my life, even though my daughter's agency led to her death and broke my heart, I cannot change this fundamental belief just because the people I love don't choose as I would wish. Forsaking this belief is to force tyranny on others, or worse.

Agency is what makes us human and allows us to craft our own destinies. This power is an enormous gift, and a tremendous burden. I cannot wish it otherwise, even in my life's worst hour.

This I believe.