apparently it's NaHaiWriMo

the month is short the

days are short this poem is short

the darkness lingers

Conversations With My Cat

 (Rachel enters room. Gizmo, a cat, is looking out the window, making quiet chittering noises)

Rachel: ooo, do you see something? is it a squirrel?!

(she goes to the window and looks out. looks at Gizmo. looks out the window again.)

Rachel: it's nice that we have similar interests.

One Hundred and Twenty One Jump Street

Finally saw Wicked (movie) last night. How does Jonathan Bailey look 20 years older than all the other students at the school?

(Didn't really enjoy the movie. It felt very slowly paced, especially any time we were about to start a song. Also, most of the events felt very under motivated, like a bunch of stuff Just Happened. Which is weird considering it covered only the first half of the stage show, but had the same running time as the entire stage show; you'd think they had plenty of time to explain things? Support things? I dunno.)

We Can All Talk TO the Animals, But Do They Talk Back?

i talk to crows. well, let’s be super real here, i talk to everything. but i make an effort to be polite to crows, because they’re smart.

the other day on the back deck:

crow: CAW!

me (playing duolingo): hey crow. want to learn spanish with me? (pause) why am i assuming you don’t already know spanish?

crow: CAW!

weird, but harmless. twenty minutes later:

crow: CAW!

CLEARLY A HUMAN: CAW!

crow: CAW!

CAH: caw caw CAW! i’m sorry, i don’t have any nuts with me. i’ll remember to bring some next time.

crow: CAW!

so i’m not the weirdest person out there. always comforting to rediscover that.

A Very Close Call

I got a text this morning that my meal kits had been delivered. this was a bit of a surprise, not because it was unexpected, but because i hadn’t heard it arrive. generally the box is heralded by a decisive THUD that can be heard through the entire house and gives one the notion the delivery person is testing just how far away they can stand and still manage to chuck the thing up onto the porch.

this week’s menu included a fish meal, so though I was in the middle of making my breakfast, I figured I should get it inside sooner rather than later. I had just gotten to the door when…

CREEEEEEAK!

…I heard the gate between the sidewalk and my yard open. 

people occasionally ask me when I’m going to fix my squeaky gate. The short answer is never. The long answer is I work from home and love the warning before someone actually knocks on the door, so never ever ever ever.

I walked away from the door, because I’m not at home to random visitors. there was a knock. I continued accessorizing my oatmeal. there was a much lighter knock? then the gate squeaked again. I gave it a few minutes, just in case it was a fake out situation, and then opened the door.

next to my food box was a pamphlet. a pamphlet about jesus. specifically inviting me to a memorial service for his death. friends, if my gate were not noisy, i would have run smack into a jehovah’s witness. to be fair, it _is_ very nice weather for going door to door and bugging people with your religion, but today I am most thankful for the benign intervention of my squeaky gate. amen.

Vampirism is Wasted on the Curmudgeonly

I don't know what possessed me to reread Twilight the other day, but fortunately I only own the first book, so the torment was short lived.

My main feeling at the end was low level outrage that such an absolute wet blanket of a person eventually gets all the perks of being a vampire. Lady Buzzkill Lives Forever. Goodie Gumdrops.

My second feeling at the end was gratitude for the sneak peek of the next novel, because _that's_ what stopped me from reading any further back in the day.

My knowledge of the rest of the series comes from the excellently snarky blog “Reasoning with Vampires.” It was a fun way to learn about what happened without having to suffer through more Bella the Bummer Queen and also a great grammar refresher. The blog author also introduced me to the books of E. Lockhart, who is a much better writer than Meyers all the way around. Among other positives, her young heroines/anti-heroines have lots more agency.

Because it wasn’t as much in the zeitgeist the last time I read it, I never really noticed how hard Bella as a character mashes the “I’m NoT LiKe oThEr GiRLs” button. “i don’t care about stupid things like make-up or prom! i care about important things like reading chaucer and jane austen!” ok, except you never do any reading or buy any of the books you allegedly so desperately crave? and you’re also completely, utterly obsessed with your boyfriend and are a drama queen to a level that becomes tedious, so… pretty stereotypical teenager there, actually.

What I am finding funny to consider is how a lot of women my age were afraid that this book was going to warp young girls, when we grew up reading Flowers in the Attic and lots of other fiction where the “hero” takes the heroine by force, but it’s ok and great and super sexy actually because she likes it? I mean, I guess we know what it is to have been warped, but I don’t feel like Twilight is worse in that particular.

Social Media Break 2024

 Does blogging count as social media? 

Does blogging count as my "at least 10 minutes of writing" today? 

Oh gosh who knows? I think it's supposedly my call either way. 

I frequently take a break from FB in January. The intent has never been to turn that into a full quit. It's always been more of a breathing room thing. Less noise giving my brain room to assess stuff. This year the urge to take a break had extra mustard on it. 

I've been aware that FB makes me less happy for a long time. My therapist pointed me to a study that demonstrated that even scrolling through positive posts lowers the scroller's level of happiness, and I've been hyper aware of that working on me ever since. I told myself I'd take the opportunity of finally stepping down as president of my local puppet guild as a chance to delete my FB account. 

The problem is the pandemic. And the problem also is the pandemic.

It's hard to want to leave social media behind when that's my only casual socializing available right now.

But it's also very hard to be on social media right now when it shoves the fact that 90% or more of my friends are absolutely la la la-ing their way through this part of the pandemic up in my face in living color every single day. I kind of hate almost everyone right now because of that. (I tried eating. It didn't help.) And it's an active choice every single day that I'm on there to not burn most of my friendships into the ground with a good solid angry rant or 12. Which steals a lot of energy, and I don't have much of that right now anyway. (The rant would also steal energy; there's no good answer here.) ((Except perhaps The Break.))

Anyway.

With one thing and another, I'm finding this break is much harder than any previous break. I keep catching myself loading the home page. (Just realized i could log out to make that harder. Helpful!) Yesterday I actually managed to realize I'm missing the dopamine hits. I found myself fantasizing about a post I could write and how many responses it would definitely get and I got a small rush - social media dopamine by proxy? - and then I realized what was up. Yay brain. Or yay wise mind or whatever. I've been allowing myself to continue twitter in this FB break, but am finding it less satisfying. Why? Because I get monumentally less engagement there, ie. less dopamine.

So I think the break is good for multiple reasons now, yay, but I'm not sure what to do with this information. But clearly I wanted to get it out somewhere. Good ol' blog! Thanks for being here. Have a biscuit.

Day 3

Social media

Time out day three unforeseen

FOMO freak out time

Buff and Buffier

This is Michael Landon. He was an actor and a television star. Here he is sometime between 1975-85.

This is Matt James. He is a broker and the star of the new season of The Bachelor (2021).

Entry level buff-ness to appear shirtless on television has gone way the heck up.

Shopping the Patriarchy

~ in which our hero pops into her new friendly neighborhood hardware store to find a very specific type of lightbulb ~

Me: (standing in aisle, contemplating lightbulbs. sees what are decorative globes called vanity lights. softly to self) Grrrr.
Counter Guy: (comes down the aisle with a lightly put upon air. sighs.) Alright, what are we looking for?
Me: (pauses. shrugs.) A decorative globe LED.
Counter Guy: Yeah, we don't have any of those I don't think.
Me: Yeah, I just see the incandescents.
Counter Guy: Yeah, it's taking a while to get...moved over...everything into LEDs.
Me: Ok, thanks.
(Counter Guy leaves. I move one foot further down the aisle and find a decorative globe LED.)
VICTORY!

Flying Monsters

I don't think I'll ever really get over the notion that reclining my seat 2.5 inches on an airplane makes me a monster, but someone can bring their tiny uncontrollable screaming meat sack along for the ride and that's supposedly just fine and dandy.

(Nor the fact that we all pay hundreds upon hundreds of dollars to be squished into a metal zoom tube together so close that "familiarity breeds contempt" becomes an inevitability, but that's another issue.)

As Awkward As An Englishman

Had myself a real life Arthur Dent moment after an audition today.

I walked off the stage back to where I had left my (beige tote) bag to find the bag the other lady in my audition group had brought sitting on top of it. I thought this was lightly odd, but not a huge deal, so I picked up her purse by its strap and handed it to her.

Then I reached for my bag.
And she reached for my bag.
I stopped. She didn't.
Then I looked over to the next aisle back to behold another beige tote bag sitting alone in a chair.
That one was mine.

Unlike Arther Dent, I went ahead and acknowledged the situation, so the lady probably doesn't think I'm a total flake. Probably.

But hey, the audition was for a British themed show, so it's all very apropos.  

Crafting for Crafting's Sake

It is definitely weird to go to the store and see wooden clothes pins in the crafting aisle, but not in the laundry detergent aisle or the laundry-doing-accessories home goods aisle.

I could be wrong, but I was under the impression crafts that use wooden clothes pins only came to be because there were so many sitting around. This does not, however, explain popsicle stick based crafts: I just don't believe anyone ever ate that many popsicles.

Seems to me it might be time to create crafts for modern overages: grocery receipts, promotional jump drives, coffee mugs, that sort of stuff.

No Promises. Also: Mountain Lion Tips!

(overheard at a restaurant)

him: ...when I hear someone has gotten killed by a mountain lion, I just have to laugh.
her: (indistinct, but definitely questioning)
him: because mountain lions are so easy to deal with.
her: (indistinct, but definitely questioning)
him: all you have to do is is punch your fist down their throat.
her: oh! or you could grab them around the neck!
him: no, that wouldn't work. their backs are really strong. but if you have your fist down their throat, see, they'll have trouble breathing, and like, yeah it'll hurt a little but it's just your hand, and that'll keep them busy long enough for you to get away and.....
my husband: why are you laughing so hard?

All Signs Point to Normal

After Lord Dampnut's speech last night, I'm disappointed but not shocked by people's rush to grasp any little straw of normal-ish human behavior as a relief.

This is one of the big problems I always had with The Walking Dead universe's theory of human nature (though it didn't keep me from watching and enjoying it for six seasons). The idea that once "society" is taken away, the majority of people will become aggressive and creative hunter psycho/sociopaths just doesn't jive with human nature. Most people wish to focus on their little circle of life and get through it as pleasantly and effortlessly as possible. And, yes, thinking counts as effort. *sigh*

The one community I found believable was The Alexandrites. What did they do during the zombie apocalypse? The built walls around their comfy houses and tons of supplies and then carried on as if Everything Was Normal.

That is what people do. That is what people are doing today. Practically tripping over their feet in their rush to do so.

Tolerant Intolerance

I wish liberals had picked some other word besides "tolerance" to describe their world view.

Not just because conservatives have latched onto it as a conversation flipper, though that's a big piece of my problem, since I am thoroughly sick of that action: "I thought you were all for tolerance, but as son as I say something you disagree with I'm a bigot!" etc all over any social media comment section you care to unwisely wade into.

Clearly libs and cons have very different notions of what it means to tolerate something. As I learned waaay back in high school, there are few things more boring than a definition debate, but this one is pretty key. It's not only different definitions at play, but whole different forms of the word.

Cons seem to take to "tolerate," the verb form, the one that involves "allowing" the thing to happen/exist....."endure in silence something hated" is how I would sum up their approach.

Libs seem to be aiming more for "tolerance," the noun, a state of being....."a willingness to accept things you disagree with that don't hurt anyone."

Obviously my heart is with the libs here, as it usually is. Oddly, I find even more comfort in embracing the more scientific definition: "the capacity to endure continued subjection to something.....without adverse reaction." Same sex couples are able to marry. Does that adversely affect your life in any way? No? Then you literally can tolerate it. Does having an African-American museum remove a single exhibit from any other museum? No? Then you can (and should) tolerate it.

My objection to the word overall has more to do with its being so cold. It's weak tea. It's a low bar. It seems just another way that libs give up half of the field before we get to the negotiating table. "We know you hate these people, but can't you at least tolerate them?" Screw that.

I was leaning towards acceptance as a good replacement that at gets to what we want more directly. But it's unfortunately flippable the same way tolerance is, in the low-rent crucible that is online debate.

Turning to our old friend Ms. Thesaurus, I've found a rather old fashioned word that might fit the bill:
countenance
noun: support
verb: admit as acceptable or possible

The One With The Black Person

I was hanging out in the greenroom with my cast, waiting for our performance slot in the cabaret, when somehow the conversation turned to late night cable and the fact that Friends seems to always be on. One of the actors (a PoC) noted what a very white show it was.

And my response was full brain stop, followed by a wince, followed by a "Yep, yes it is. Jesus."

Obviously, this fact had never occurred to me before but, like the Disney Princess thing*, you can't un-see it once you've seen it. And if your knowledge in the field is extensive enough, you can validify the observation pretty quickly.

Or so I thought.

Since then, I have brought up this fact (#FriendsSoWhite) three different times to fellow white people when the topic of Friends comes around. Each and Every Time, this has been the response:

"Weeeellllll, but! Ross had that one girlfriend! And she was a professor and everything."

I would (and do) suggest this rather proves the point, but the tone of the person saying it is always as if it disproves it. There was one black actor in the show! So everything was balanced and fine!

Oh us. We need to do better. It would start with being able to see the problem. And then admitting it's there.

It's Just My Guess I Can't Have An Opinion

Waaay back in college, there was a public speaking class I had to take because it was required. This wasn't a problem, mind you, as I don't fear public speaking. It was more "Seriously? You want to encourage me to talk more in public? Okaaay." because I'd been a debate brat for all four years of high school.

One of the speeches bounced into my head this morning. It was about opinions and not apologizing for them. They chewed on the apology phrase "This is just my opinion, but....." and urged us all to own and embrace our opinions because we have a right to them, after all, as humans and, as United States Citizens, a right to express them.

I can only imagine that person, if they're still alive, is overjoyed by the world we currently live in, particularly internet discourse, where the statement It's My Opinion is supposedly a charm to defeat all comers.

I just watched an exchange in a protest event on FB where someone expressed disdain over the spelling of a word in the event's title*. When pushed back against for being rude, her defense (and the defense of the friend who jumped into the fray on her behalf) was "I'm just expressing my opinion." As if that statement by itself was an actual argument. When pushed back against further (in a polite and patient yet persistent way. a solid good piece of work done by someone who used to be a regular reader of this blog. "Hello!" if you're here now.) they signed off of the fray (multiple times. of course) with "I guess I just can't share my opinion around here!" As if that was a damning statement, as if the person speaking it was now magically changed into the vicim of the piece by simply uttering that phrase.

To a certain segment of the population (mostly white, mostly male) Opinion is somehow sacrosanct. As far as I've been able to glean, these are their tenants:
Thou shalt not speak against the Opinion. IT IS OPINION and thus there is no counterargument.
Thou shalt not speak against the tone or the timing of the Opinion. IT IS OPINION and thus it came out when and as it had to.
Thou shalt not ever ever ever suggest the Opinion is not welcome. IT IS OPINION and thus it must always come forth.

So I have to conclude that either all of these people think they've become Supreme Court Justices, or all of these people somehow think the word "opinion" is synonymous with the word "feeling." Given "That's just how I feel" is a defense often employed by the Opinionites, I'd have to give it in for the second notion.

And that right there may be the crux of the conflict. You have people who have gained their opinions by looking at facts versus people who have gained their opinions by examining their feelings. The twain shall meet frequently on FaceBook, but they're going to find it hard to come to any common understanding.

Sometimes Tarot Cards Are Jerks

I did a Celtic Spread tonight in honor of the New Year. Didn't ask a specific question, kept my mind to general "Just, you know, what's up?" channels. But on my mind from earlier in the evening was trying to live with less fear*. And behold, that's what the tarot spread decided to force me to answer for myself.

I have a deck that I chose because I was drawn to the artwork. Upon digging in to the set and the book that came with it, I discovered that there were no reverse meanings and many of the traditionally negative meanings were softened or respun or flat out changed. Not all, but many.

At first I rejected this shiny happy hippie interp of things. Life has negative stuff! I said to myself. That is a Truth that must be Accepted! To do otherwise is Dumb!

And yet.....there's a reason I chose this deck. (If you believe in this sort of stuff. If not, this entry is a total loss for you. Run along and read a newspaper or do some math before you hurt your eyes with all the rolling, there's a dear.)

And it could certainly be pointed out that I come with enough negativity naturally that I don't need help finding that sort of stuff.

So tonight's reading has two extraordinarily different meanings depending on whether I go with the meanings that came with the deck or the traditional meanings. One reading fills me with hope, the other fills me with fear. They're pretty unreconcilable. I have to choose. Hope or fear?

Fucking tarot reading. Asshole.

*There are fears you should run towards. I don't mean those. These are the bad kind.

Path to Glory

More and more these days, I'm wondering if writing is going to wind up being my thing. I mean, the main thing, the thing I'm "known" for (if there's ever anything I'll be able to point to legitimately in that category. maybe there won't be). I've resisted it for a long time. Because. Because writing is hard. Because it isn't fun. I enjoy the process of almost everything else i do more.

But.

It's been dawning on me that most of what I do gets going because I write something first. And the stuff that tends to do better, go farther (further?) involves my writing something first. And, honestly, I feel more pride in projects where I've written something than those where I haven't. Heck even my side-line, marketing/pr, has a really large writing component.

And yet, I don't feel I necessarily have a book in me. Never mind a whole series. I tried NaNoWriMo last year and dropped it after three days because I hated it so much. So if I have a path to glory, that's not it. But it may still be writing.

Improv Oil Can

Last night I went to one of those walk-in classes that most improv schools have. I did this because I have a couple of auditions for improv shows coming up and thought my skills could use some brushing, since it has been quite a while since I did any real improv*. I was predictably rusty and so last night and today I am predictably annoyed with myself. Yay. I'm trying to get me to stop beating myself up about it, so I thought it would be useful, maybe, to write down my fears/hang-ups/observations of the thing. Whee.

0) I'm realizing now that I didn't much chat with anyone before the class. I'm doing this in my tai chi class as well: hiding in plain site, not talking to people. This is unusual for me and I wonder what the heck is up.

1) Hesitation
A big no-no in improv, of course. Did this a bit, because I didn't know the group at all, but I think I got better at it as the evening went on.

2) I'm afraid I spent too much time on stage.
This probably isn't true. It could be, but I suspect it it's more my reluctance to take over the thing at work beating me down. I remind myself that I never worried about this ever with my old improv group; I just put myself on the stage when I needed to be there to help the scene and/or my team mates. So, this one is probably self-hatred bullshit.

3) Lack of Objective
My real sin, I think. I'd pop on-stage with a character choice or a clever idea, but nothing I as the character wanted to accomplish. You run out of steam pretty quick when this is the case.

4) Jumped Off the Line
This was what Mr. D asked when I got home unhappy with myself. And I have to say I did. I did jump off the line. And I made big choices and interacted with strangers physically and stuff. I stuck to my ideas. These things I feel all represent some level of progress for me, as when I used to improv with people (outside my old improv group) I'd very much latch onto whatever they wanted to do in the scene and abandon my own ideas.

5) Was I a Crazy Out of Control Monster?
Maybe? Can't really tell. Didn't feel connected to people, which I think is the real take-away from this feeling. Unless I am enjoying torturing myself about it which, let's face it, is obviously kind of my jam.

So, next time, I need to focus on What I Want and My Relationship With My Scene Partner(s). I have my marching orders and now it is time to move on.

*I took a break from most other types of theatre for the past couple years to focus on my puppetry. It was super fun getting to tell someone this at last night's jam.

Don't Let Them Eat Cake

Me: Fuck Oliver Cromwell.
Mr. D: Why?
Me: Do I need a specific reason*?
Mr. D: (brief brief pause) Not really, no.

*for the record, he wanted to outlaw cake.

An Open Letter to My Family and Friends Who Might Be Voting For the GOP Nominee

Dear Loved Ones,

It's an election year and boy howdy is it a weird one.

On one side we have an extremely smart, experienced and qualified candidate who many people hate for her sin of being, apparently, the first imperfect person ever to run for the office of President of the United States.

On the other side we have a bankrupt grifter strong armed into his slot by the media and the extreme fringe of the GOP.

Coming as I do from a very conservative midwestern state, it seems likely that some of you will be voting for this second person. I have two requests for you, one reasonable and one that seems reasonable to me.

First, don't vote for him. Seriously. It isn't just that he won't do the country any good. And it isn't just that he would likely do us and the whole world a great deal of harm, though either of those ought to be enough. It's that he isn't a real candidate. No responsible serious person should actually be considering handing him the highest elected office in our country. He is not qualified for it by any metric.

But if you must, my second request is as follows: Please don't tell me.

The thing is, right now I like and esteem you. Knowing that you voted for the Republican Presidential candidate this time would make me think less of either your heart or your head. If your heart can let you vote for a man who has expressed hatred for anyone who is not an able bodied white Christian "conservative" male, there is something wrong with it. If your head can let you vote for a man whose only successful life ventures have been tricking people into thinking he's mega-rich and shredding the self esteem of souls more desperate than his on television, then there is something wrong with it.

I enjoy thinking well of you as a fellow human. I would like to continue to do so. Perhaps it is cowardly of me...yes, it definitely is...but forgive me that if you can. This has been a long and exhausting year politically and my heart is already suffering the multiple compound fractures of discovering how wide spread and insidious low level sexism is among the Liberal. I fear a blow of this sort would leave me with nothing but dust.

So please, if you plan to vote for Trump, keep it to yourself. It's the only kind part of what you'd be doing there.

Thanks,
- Raej

Channel Your Raej

I have this thing I do with FaceBook.....

.....actually, I've been avoiding casual FB use lately. I started taking a medicine that had anxiety as a (not-quite-rare-but-slightly-uncommon) side effect. Fortunately it's reported to wear off after a few weeks, the same as the other, more common, side effects. Yay! In the meantime, to weather the Two Weeks of Anxiety, I decided to reduce external stressors in my life. And FaceBook is most definitely one of those. I'm past the two weeks now and feeling better mentally, which must be why I did some FB browsing for the first time in a bit.....

.....I read my newsfeed only until something enrages me. Enrages me so much I can feel it physically. Then I do ten rage burpees and get the eff off FB for at least an hour.

This is a practice I started back before the primaries were over. A lot of my friends were Bernie worshipping multiple times a day, and since that involved spouting a lot of idiotic voter fraud conspiracy (now in new Sour Grape flavour!) and insulting my girl Hillary (#ImWithHer), I was feeling a lot of rage in my daily FB wanders.

I think this has been very good for me, honestly. Definitely good for my physical health, because burpees are effin hard. Good for my productivity, because FB eats that for breakfast (and lunch, aaand dinner). And even good for my mental health, as rage is one of those things that shuts off your brain, yes?

Today I took the actual step of telling someone that, congratulations, they were the thing* that had driven me offline.....

.....as may be inferred from my last post, said people are almost never my direct friends these days. They're friends of friends commenting on our mutual friend's page/post.....

.....and I feel weird about it, which is why I'm writing this now.

My brain says fuck that noise. Fuck my feeling bad for calling someone's comment horrible when they clearly flit about spewing horribleness at the approximate same rate they shed hair. I could say that I don't want to sink to their level, but I don't really think that's my problem; sometimes I rather crave going the low road.

But yeah, my gut still feels uncomfy. I assume it's mostly because I've gone against my internalized Prime Directive: You Must Be Liked, Well Liked, And At All Times. That's a big ol' mole mountain I need to demolish.

Also I called him a sexual assault apologist when I meant rape apologist. I'm not going back there, but I wish I hadn't granted the semantic hairsplitting ground like that.

Ah well, as I wrote to myself right after Prince died, nothing I write on FaceBook will make people dance in the streets the day I die.

Time to get back to work.

*The Thing: a friend had posted that "when a black person does a crime, all we hear about are all the horrible things they've been. when a white person does a crime, all we hear about are all the wonderful things they might become" meme (i'm paraphrasing; not going back to check). in his prologue to it he mentioned the rapist swimmer in cali who got such an insultingly light sentence. and he drew a well actually cat who threw down, in three separate comments, about how it wasn't really rape it was sexual assault and the sentencing was totally within the parameters for sentencing within the law and the media has fed us these lies and we shouldn't buy into them and blah de blah de blah bloopity bloo. that's right, of all the horrible things one could step up to champion against on the internet today (and the protests in NC were last night, so there's plenty of horrible on the ground), the Most Important Battle was making sure little priveleged swimmy prick is called a Sexual Assaultist and not a Rapist. just writing about it makes me mad enough that I think it may be burpee time again. excuse me...

My Echo Chamber

On FaceBook, I read a lot of posts and comments against the practice of UnFriending. "I guess if all you want is to live in an echo chamber..." they say, as if they've somehow gained a moral victory.

Here's the thing. Sure, hearing other points of view, those that differ from yours, can, indeed broaden your mind and your worldview. Not comfortable with voters being able to oust judges before their tenure is up and thus want to take issue with the slacktivist petition I just shared? Feel like term limits for Congress are problematic and complicated? Think the article I just posted about the Sportsball Team kneeling during the national anthem is poorly researched? These are things we can debate. We'll both learn stuff. Yay for us in our adulting!

However, there are opinions that don't deserve the complement of rational opposition. Racism, sexism, homophobia, climate change denial: These are not valid positions. And I gain nothing by reading, over and over again, the myriad ways in which people attempt to justify their wrongness. Rather, I feel my brain cells self defenestrating, perhaps never to return. I feel my rage rise and rise and, frankly, I have enough rage of my own without fueling it from other people's willfully entrenched stupidity.

When Ferguson was happening, I quietly unfriended some family members who came to my page to pick a fight. Since then I've also quietly* unfriended others when they reveal themselves to not just hold opinions I have zero tolerance for, but to post about them frequently enough to make me want to punch my computer. (This second group specifically contains one each of a Libertarian, a pro-Lifer, and an anti-vaxxer. Hold your crazy ass opinion if you must, but making it show up in my newsfeed 5 times a day is just gratuitous.)

And except for some hard feelings in the couple of family members who noticed I'd unfriended them, I don't regret it. My FaceBook page is a happier, less bigoted place. And you know what? People still manage to post articles and opinions I disagree with Every Single Day. My newsfeed is not just a big vat of soothing pink Tubby Custard. My brain has plenty of stuff to bash up against, when the need arises.

So yeah, FaceBook Unfriending: Ich habe das gern!

*Doing it quietly is key for me. I don't announce it; I find that practice passive aggressive and weird.

Not Here for the Stories, Thanks

Dear Producers of Reality Competition Shows,

I don't need the stories. That's not what I'm here for.

Or, rather, you seem to have forgotten the activity is the story. I'm here for the game. Remember the game? The thing the contestants have to do for a shot at the prize purse and the feature in Parade magazine? That's why I tuned in. I want to see that.

I get it. You have to pad your content so the show is a certain length so you can sell ads. You want us to feel invested emotionally in these contestants so we care more so we are more likely to watch regularly so you can sell more ads.

In fact, you want everyone watching your show (no matter how impossible that is); the graph must always go up and to the right, hopefully more and more steeply all the time (no matter how impossible that is). So you give these "characters" backstories, the more epic the better, the more tragic the better. And really? Though slightly tedious, that's actually fine.

What I mind is when you sacrifice showing me the activity I have tuned in to see. I mind when a contestant who doesn't have enough story for your taste (or maybe isn't playing ball with you backstage re: PR and such? just a guess) gets shorted on the show: lack of screen time, a summary of their run instead of showing the whole thing, etc.

All of your research numbers must be showing you that this is the way to more viewer numbers, because you're doing it across the board. There's a general trend away from the game and towards the stories of the players. I just find it hard to believe, when I personally feel such rage watching a 15 second truncated version of someone's 4 minute run at The Gauntlet, in favor of a 3 minute package about how two of the players are buddies in the off-season.

If I wanted this much backstory I'd have kept watching Real Housewives. Please get back to focusing on the game.

Respectfully Submitted,
Raej

Auditions, Round 5,832

And now I know the difference between not getting cast in something when you're 25 and not getting cast in something when you're 40.

It's not that it doesn't hurt. It's still rejection after all.

It's that you legitimately have a dozen other things you'd like to do. Art things. So there's also a tiny bit of relief that wasn't there ever before.

The sting becomes less of a wound and more of a spur.

"Ok. What's next?"

No Really, I Don't Like Football

I live in Seattle. If you live in the continental US you may possibly have heard one of the city's sporting teams is participating in a Big Deal Sport Thing this upcoming weekend (sarcasm), so naturally my FaceBook feed is full of sportsball talk.

FaceBook is both why I'm writing this and why I'm writing it here; I don't see the point in being a killjoy to a large chunk of my friends, but a couple guys have taken today to ripping on people who "claim" not to be excited about the whole thing. "Get on the bandwagon!" "Stop calling it sportsball, hipsters!" etc, which is moving me to Say Something:

I don't like football.

I don't feel superior to anyone for not liking it. There are other sports I enjoy. And I'm all too aware that my reason for not liking football is rather stupid and sad.

In early college, I dated a guy who loved football. He was a lovely human being. He taught me a lot about the football. We're still friends.

In late college, I dated/lived with a different guy who loved football. Early in our courtship, he taped a football game that his favourite team was playing in and stayed up very late one night watching it. At the time, I thought this was cute. After all, I have two sports teams I follow pretty avidly, and he went out of his way to tell me about the game. These were early days; I was more tolerant and he was more inclusive.

Fast forward about a year. Maybe a little less. Mr. Football and I are living together. Football season kicks in. During football games, I am not allowed to speak.....

.....and I know, I know, I know: It is Utter Bullshit that I was told I was not allowed to do, pretty much anything, in a home where I was an adult paying half the rent. And I very much hope the woman I am today would not have put up with that. But at the time, I was a very young woman, dating a man almost twice my age, and my father had died 18 months before. So there were Issues and I had them in spades.....

.....not allowed to speak during the games, no, not even the commercials. Because, during the commercials, he was busy thinking about what was going to happen next and didn't want to be distracted. Yeah.

If you're not a fan you may not know that during the first part of the football season, there are both college and professional games. Many of them. They pretty much happen all day, all weekend. This made for some very quiet (for me) Saturdays and Sundays, so I would frequently bail out and hang around the mall for several hours.

Not coincidentally, this is when I got into a bit of credit card debt.

Eventually, this guy would come to describe my wearing lingerie as "dressing up the meatloaf" and cheat on me with a 20 year old (I was an ancient edifice of 22, so I guess we can't blame him). We broke up nastily and he's one of three people I would punch in the face if I ever ran into them again in real life. (Actually, one of the others just died, so I guess I'm down to two now.)

Now, is any of this football's fault? No. And I know that. It's asshole's fault. And it is my fault. But there's no escaping the fact that football takes me back to a dark time. And I don't like going there.

So, I'm happy for my friends who are happy, but I won't be jumping on this sportsball bandwagon anytime soon. In fact, I'm teaching a puppet class during the first part of the game. I think I win.

jeez, grief is lame, yo...

randomly:

- It's only been two months.

I say that to try and keep me from being hard on myself about still being pretty damn sad. After all, if he were a person and not a cat, no one would wonder. At my still being sad. Even me.

- My sister asked how I was doing the other day and I had to say "Better." By which I specifically mean, day-to-day, I'm not feeling it as much. I've been busy, I've been out, I've been pre-occupied. However, when it does hit, it's still pretty heavy, the Sad. And I don't feel like I'm at all back to myself yet, generally speaking.

- The annoying part of grief is that nothing pleases it. In the first month, the pain was from remembering much too clearly, the physical presence, the there-ness of my cat friend. Approaching the second month marker, I noticed I was definitely starting to forget those things. Which hurt.

A Non Vicious Circle

(here. I'm going to talk about something besides my cat for a moment.)

If you've been following this blog for a very long time indeed, you know that I left my last pre-becoming a professional puppeteer job under circumstances of massive suck.

A few weeks ago, one of the board members from that job (friendly person; not involved in the suck) contacted me interested in ordering one of my Singing PuppetGrams (yes, really).

"Neat!" I thought. And: "Glad I stayed in touch." And then it got better:

She decided to have me deliver the song in the lobby of the old job.

So, 4 years and three months after being driven away from a job I liked a lot by the shenanigans of assholes, they have both been fired and I return to the place 100% on my own awesome terms, doing a gig that I love.

The Wheel, sometimes she is slower than we'd like, but she does keep turning.

Like a New Vocabulary Word

I'd never noticed before Arthur died how many main characters in books have a cat.
Or maybe it's just the books I read.
In any case, it's a lot.

One Month

Yeah, I don't think you could say that I'm ok right now. I'm trying. I'm more or less functional. But I'm not really ok.

A Bit Over Three Weeks

Well, obviously I'm feeling somewhat better, because you can see my blogging has slacked off.

Certainly The Sad is a little less active. Part of this is time passing, part of it is that I've been pretty darn busy. As I observed last week, the most pervasive symptom (still) is feeling overwhelmed. I also find it hard to split my focus; multi-tasking is not a do-able thing for me right now.

And then sometimes it sneaks up on me and gets bigger again:

- A friend's cat came over to me at the end of a rehearsal at their house. So, of course I pet him. And realized I hadn't pet a cat since Arthur died. And teared up. Hell, I'm teary just typing that.

- Fiction is a little dicey for me right now unless I know it's safe. For instance, did you know that the "Fun Run" episode of "The Office" (US version) has Dwight euthanizing one of Angela's cats as a B-plot? Whee.

- I've had a monthly recurring gig in my Standardized Patient-ing world where I play a woman in her 30s experiencing end stage cancer. I hadn't had a session of this since he died, so I was naturally braced for things to potentially get hairy this past Monday when I had to do it.

Surprisingly, everything was totally fine. Until we got to the bit about my character being afraid of having breathing problems at the end of her life, because her grandmother had. I was launching into the description of this, when it occurred to me that Arthur's breathing had been labored his entire last day. And then I had to work really, really hard, not only to hang onto my composure, but also to not show in any way that I was doing so. Because a big goal of this particular class just happens to be: learning to pick up on and follow emotional cues from your patient.

Fortunately, I succeeded. If they had pressed me at all, I think I would've lost it. And I had the feeling that if I lost it, I wasn't going to get it back again. Not useful.

Two Weeks Out

In general, I would say every day I feel a little better that the day before. Except on the days that I don't. It's not linear. Balls to its not being linear.

My biggest personal indicator that all is not well, when everything else seems fairly equal, is that I start feeling overwhelmed very very easily these days. Checking my email, for instance, tends to be an anxiety inducing activity.

Beyond that, I had the good fortune of almost nine full days of grace (two activities in there that couldn't be canceled, but that was all). Super rare.

And then life kicked back in. Which is good, because it distracts me. But there's also the first encounter with each friend who I haven't seen since he died, which leads to some tears.

But I managed to have a genuinely nice evening for the first time last Friday. That gives me some hope that, though I will always miss him, I may be eventually able to achieve some peace with my sadness.

Readings for My Cat Friend

these are the things I chose to read at the funeral of Arthur, King of the Kittons:

Stop All the Clocks
by W. H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone.
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling in the sky the message He is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever, I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

(it's the one from Four Weddings and a Funeral; I've always liked it)

The Passing of Arthur
Tennyson

...But now farewell. I am going a long way

With these thou seëst--if indeed I go

(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)--

To the island-valley of Avilion;

Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,

Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies

Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns

And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea,

Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.

(appropriate for obvious reasons)

In Memoriam A.H.H.
Tennyson

V
I sometimes hold it half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel;
For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.

But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
A use in measured language lies;
The sad mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.

In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er,
Like coarsest clothes against the cold:
But that large grief which these enfold
Is given in outline and no more.

VI
One writes, that `Other friends remain,'
That `Loss is common to the race'—
And common is the commonplace,
And vacant chaff well meant for grain.

That loss is common would not make
My own less bitter, rather more:
Too common! Never morning wore
To evening, but some heart did break…

XXVII

…I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

(also an obvious connection. however, Tennyson was also right to read for another reason: my copy of his collected poems has no cover, because Arthur peed on it once, and it was the only way to save the book.)

i also said a few words, as did Mr. D, but I couldn't tell you what any of them were now.
and we sang him one of his cat songs, which you don't need to know.
and then we went and bought some tiger-lily bulbs to plant over him.

I Think My Body is Rejecting the Sadness

After the third hardest day, of the hardest week, in the hardest month of my life, my psyche has apparently redlined on misery. It is running around like a toddler screaming "NONONONONONONONONONONO!!!" if my brain gets anywhere near thinking about Mr. Cat today.

I am doing my solid best to accept this as I am the other parts of my grieving process. But it's weird.

The difficult bit is, I don't have a Fun Thing I'm currently obsessed with to slack off and attend to instead. So, giving into it is hard. And, I can't throw myself into work, because Screaming Toddler Brain is not Focused Brain. Not even close.