Monday, December 28, 2009
Go Extend Your Friendly Reading!
I'm restarting my cooking blog, which has been on hiatus for a year. You can find it right here, and I'd love it if people would read and interact with me there!
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Wonderful Indie Sellers
There was a time, probably partly due to the economy, possibly partly due to the rise of Ravelry, that it seemed everyone was starting an Etsy shop. Hell, I've got a partial business plan and stock for my own, although I don't expect to make a big chunk of change from it when I finally get it all together and have some energy. Anyway. While I like to support independent shops as much as possible, in some cases, well to be blunt, the shops that are popping up are kind of crap. Look at how much fodder there is for Regretsy, after all. Some shops have good ideas but little talent, some have talent but no business sense, some have pretty much nothing going for them. The truth is that not everybody has a marketable skill in handmade goods.
This post is about three women who do.
Little Red Bicycle is an Etsy store focused mainly on handspun/handdyed yarns, but which also lists additional special items such as embroidery and knitting patterns. The shop has been open less than 3 months and already has a devoted following, a 100% positive feedback rating, collaborations with four other Etsy sellers, and is a member of the SF Etsy Street Team. The shop owner has been a driving force behind an event that's new this year in San Francisco, called the Handmade HoDown. This will be going on Thursday, December 3rd, and is no small rec center event. It's being sponsored by Yelp, the Bizarre Bazaar, the Museum of Craft and Folk Art, East Bay Express, and more. This urban craft show will have music, alcohol, free gifts, raffle prizes, the opportunity to buy local, and will be supporting a worthy charity all the way.
Based in Pacifica, just outside of San Francisco, the owner of Little Red Bicycle spins up yarns that are amazingly soft and dyes in colourways that are not just vibrant, they're unique.
This is "Quarrel," a fingering weight 3ply 80% superwash merino, 20% nylon sock yarn. She also packages her yarn well, wrapping it in tissue paper and providing an invoice in the delivery. Shipping has been reported to be quite fast for most customers, as well. To keep up with updates, follow the shop on Twitter.
Sweet Libertine is a mineral cosmetics company that began on Etsy but has since grown to its own site and amazing success. The owner, Sarah Waller, is based in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she does extensive research and testing to ensure not only the quality of her products, but that her cosmetics will be good for all skin types. The Sweet Libertine line, which began with mineral eyeshadows, has since expanded to include bronzes, blushers, pressed palettes, glitter eyeshadows, concealers, and more. There's even a special line, called Little Libertine, for younger faces. The buyer selects three colours, which will be blended down to a subtle tone that's appropriate for a young lady just starting to get into makeup. The colours can even be given a custom name that fits the recipient's hobbies or interests, so that the entire set is perfectly personalized, just for her.
Other special items available include a collection of colours inspired by Amanda Palmer (of Dresden Dolls fame), a colour that supports a cat rescue with every purchase, special limited edition colours at different seasons of the year, a customer rewards program, and a new Eyeshadow of the Month Club that, well, it has to be read to be believed.
This is a five gram sifter jar of Disco Butterfly eyeshadow. It's vegan, made from all natural crushed minerals and pigments, and is bismuth and paraben free. The prices at this shop are astoundingly low, especially considering all the support you get. You're not just being sent a jar of makeup and that's it, there are forums to discuss cosmetics and their use/application, customer-supplied photos, and a blog that has articles addressing all sorts of cosmetics questions and needs. Shipping is quite quick and even international shipping is very inexpensive. The shop does have a Twitter feed, which helps keep up with sales and special updates.
Paradoxicality is a brand new shop that has already gained a serious following. My discussion of it here will be very brief because I've been testing merchandise for the owner and have an entire review post that will be going up shortly. Let me just say that your hands have never known softness or delight until they've been pampered with Shea Mousse from this shop.
This is the 2oz bottle of the Shea Mousse, which contains Refined Shea Butter, Shea Oil, Avocado Oil, Jojoba Oil, & Tapioca Starch. Nothing that you'd fear to put against your skin. The shipping is unbelievably fast and the prices very low. There are a bunch of new products just ahead for this shop, and I've gotten to advance test several items, which I'm very excited to share the details of in an upcoming post, so keep an eye out here!
So what happens when you have three amazing shops run by three successful and hard-working women? A collaboration to die for. Right now, for a limited time only, you can purchase a set of specially dyed Little Red Bicycle Yarn that is perfectly matched by Sweet Libertine mineral eyeshadow, and which all comes with a sample pot of Paradoxicality Shea Mousse. There are three different colour sets available (the photo below is only one option, and the other two are just as gorgeous), and the pricing on these sets cannot be beat. You get yarn, eyeshadow, and lotion for what is literally the price of some indie dyers' single yarn skeins. Obviously, considering the current holiday season, these sets would also make wonderful gifts.
This is Mistletoe Grope, the yarn is 430 yard skein of fingering weight 80/20 superwash merino/nylon sock yarn, the eyeshadow is 5grams to each pot.
These are women who have talent, they have skills they've worked hard to hone, and they have the sense and intelligence to make their shops successful. I would happily give them my custom just based on the products, whether they were a booth at a fair or a counter at Neiman Marcus. Fortunately, whenever you purchase from any of these ladies, you're supporting individuals. You're encouraging boutique sellers in the purest and best sense of the term, and doing more with your money than just lining a corporation's pockets. These ladies live their products every day and they believe in what they do. And it definitely shows.
This post is about three women who do.
Little Red Bicycle is an Etsy store focused mainly on handspun/handdyed yarns, but which also lists additional special items such as embroidery and knitting patterns. The shop has been open less than 3 months and already has a devoted following, a 100% positive feedback rating, collaborations with four other Etsy sellers, and is a member of the SF Etsy Street Team. The shop owner has been a driving force behind an event that's new this year in San Francisco, called the Handmade HoDown. This will be going on Thursday, December 3rd, and is no small rec center event. It's being sponsored by Yelp, the Bizarre Bazaar, the Museum of Craft and Folk Art, East Bay Express, and more. This urban craft show will have music, alcohol, free gifts, raffle prizes, the opportunity to buy local, and will be supporting a worthy charity all the way.
Based in Pacifica, just outside of San Francisco, the owner of Little Red Bicycle spins up yarns that are amazingly soft and dyes in colourways that are not just vibrant, they're unique.
This is "Quarrel," a fingering weight 3ply 80% superwash merino, 20% nylon sock yarn. She also packages her yarn well, wrapping it in tissue paper and providing an invoice in the delivery. Shipping has been reported to be quite fast for most customers, as well. To keep up with updates, follow the shop on Twitter.
Sweet Libertine is a mineral cosmetics company that began on Etsy but has since grown to its own site and amazing success. The owner, Sarah Waller, is based in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she does extensive research and testing to ensure not only the quality of her products, but that her cosmetics will be good for all skin types. The Sweet Libertine line, which began with mineral eyeshadows, has since expanded to include bronzes, blushers, pressed palettes, glitter eyeshadows, concealers, and more. There's even a special line, called Little Libertine, for younger faces. The buyer selects three colours, which will be blended down to a subtle tone that's appropriate for a young lady just starting to get into makeup. The colours can even be given a custom name that fits the recipient's hobbies or interests, so that the entire set is perfectly personalized, just for her.
Other special items available include a collection of colours inspired by Amanda Palmer (of Dresden Dolls fame), a colour that supports a cat rescue with every purchase, special limited edition colours at different seasons of the year, a customer rewards program, and a new Eyeshadow of the Month Club that, well, it has to be read to be believed.
This is a five gram sifter jar of Disco Butterfly eyeshadow. It's vegan, made from all natural crushed minerals and pigments, and is bismuth and paraben free. The prices at this shop are astoundingly low, especially considering all the support you get. You're not just being sent a jar of makeup and that's it, there are forums to discuss cosmetics and their use/application, customer-supplied photos, and a blog that has articles addressing all sorts of cosmetics questions and needs. Shipping is quite quick and even international shipping is very inexpensive. The shop does have a Twitter feed, which helps keep up with sales and special updates.
Paradoxicality is a brand new shop that has already gained a serious following. My discussion of it here will be very brief because I've been testing merchandise for the owner and have an entire review post that will be going up shortly. Let me just say that your hands have never known softness or delight until they've been pampered with Shea Mousse from this shop.
This is the 2oz bottle of the Shea Mousse, which contains Refined Shea Butter, Shea Oil, Avocado Oil, Jojoba Oil, & Tapioca Starch. Nothing that you'd fear to put against your skin. The shipping is unbelievably fast and the prices very low. There are a bunch of new products just ahead for this shop, and I've gotten to advance test several items, which I'm very excited to share the details of in an upcoming post, so keep an eye out here!
So what happens when you have three amazing shops run by three successful and hard-working women? A collaboration to die for. Right now, for a limited time only, you can purchase a set of specially dyed Little Red Bicycle Yarn that is perfectly matched by Sweet Libertine mineral eyeshadow, and which all comes with a sample pot of Paradoxicality Shea Mousse. There are three different colour sets available (the photo below is only one option, and the other two are just as gorgeous), and the pricing on these sets cannot be beat. You get yarn, eyeshadow, and lotion for what is literally the price of some indie dyers' single yarn skeins. Obviously, considering the current holiday season, these sets would also make wonderful gifts.
This is Mistletoe Grope, the yarn is 430 yard skein of fingering weight 80/20 superwash merino/nylon sock yarn, the eyeshadow is 5grams to each pot.
These are women who have talent, they have skills they've worked hard to hone, and they have the sense and intelligence to make their shops successful. I would happily give them my custom just based on the products, whether they were a booth at a fair or a counter at Neiman Marcus. Fortunately, whenever you purchase from any of these ladies, you're supporting individuals. You're encouraging boutique sellers in the purest and best sense of the term, and doing more with your money than just lining a corporation's pockets. These ladies live their products every day and they believe in what they do. And it definitely shows.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Accept. Except...
Yeah, I have no choice but to accept this day because there's no undoing it, but right now I think if I opened my mouth I'd start sobbing and never stop.
Today was my medical exam with the Social Security doctor. Actually, to be fully clear, Social Security contracts with a medical clinic, so the clinic has patients that aren't SSA patients, and SSA is not their boss or anything similar. I had a rough night last night, as was probably obvious from my last post, I was feeling like no matter how I tried to open people up to the idea that there are other possibilities than the ones they're clinging to, I was just getting shot down. That makes me feel like 'what's the point' and am I really doing any good by continuing to try? Then I woke up not feeling great physically, and the panic attacks I've been pushing back for the last few days about this appointment kept threatening to overwhelm me.
Like many people, the holidays are an especially hard time for me, and I was thinking ahead to xmas and New Year's and trying to think of ways to improve them. This led to me realizing something I ought to have realized last week, and deciding that no, I didn't need to worry about that this year (ambiguity, I haz it, sorry can't be more clear). Took a nap to try to calm down, my sweetheart got home to pick me up and take me to my appointment (he'd taken the afternoon off the day job), and pow! Discovered that, yes, I did need to worry about that thing this year. Like a fucking punch to the gut. I couldn't breathe and I couldn't think... anyway, as we were driving to the appointment I was trying to explain to him just why the holidays are hard for so many people, and kept getting a little hitch in my voice but thought I could push past it, and then couldn't, and I was crying. Great way to start, having not even arrived at the clinic yet.
Arrived, filled out my form (one side of one sheet of paper) about medical history, and was very shortly called back by the medical assistant. She did the vision test and took my height and weight, my pulse and blood pressure. Then I was taken to an exam room, given a gown, and left to change. The doctor, when she came in, was in her mid-50s, about my height, lean/skinny (hard to tell with the white coat on). Since I was wearing a paper gown and underwear, I was sitting on the exam table (if my bare skin is going to touch furniture in a busy clinic, I like it to be furniture covered by those paper sheets), so she told me to sit in the chair. I started to climb down, using my cane for support, and she reached out and took it away from me, saying "the exam must be done without the cane". I'd have reacted better to that if I hadn't been leaning on the goddamned thing at the time, but fortunately my left hand was resting on the table so I shifted my weight as quickly as possible. Then she said "why would you need a cane, anyway, you have no injuries to your back or legs". This is what I'll call Clue One that this was not going to be a fantastic exam.
I sat and she looked at my form and said "ok, I see you have Crohn's. The depression and anxiety are not my problem, and the ovarian cysts and tumor well you'll just have to learn to live with the pain of that, that's not disabling. And we can ignore the thyroid because it's just low." Here I did speak up and say "no, actually, I put "thyroid malfunction" because it's not just a low thyroid. It ought to be, since I had the partial thyroidectomy, but my labwork shows that it's up and down constantly, they've changed the level of my synthroid 4 times." She just looked at me for a moment, then I swear to god she rolled her eyes. (woo hoo, Clue Two!) She looked over my form and asked me if I'd driven myself to the clinic--yeah, bitch, that's why the form that you're looking at says "driven by family" after that question--and I explained how I'd arrived, and she went back to my form. She asked about my Crohn's meds, and why I wasn't taking what she thought I should take, so I explained that the pred is basically no longer helping, that the mercaptopurine seems to have plateau'd and I can't afford it, that the last two Remicade treatments put me into anaphylactic shock, and that my gastroenterologist wanted to put me on a new medication that we were going to have to jump through some hoops to get, but that since my health insurance had been cancelled, I couldn't do that right now. She snapped at me "you need to get your health insurance back, then. This stuff is $4,000 to $5,000 a pop." and she fucking glared at me. I explained that I knew this, that I'd had to purchase my medications without insurance before, which was why I couldn't afford to take the expensive ones now, regardless. She repeated again that I needed to get the health insurance back, sneering this time. Clue Three! Somewhere in here she also asked what I was doing on Thanksgiving, not in a friendly smalltalk sort of way but in an inquisitorial manner, so I said that I was going to be eating comfort food at home because my family lives a distance away and I'm not up for that drive. I wasn't about to explain that in fact it's that the money isn't there, since she'd had such a fit about me not buying my health insurance. She told me that was unacceptable and that I needed to find a church that was having a Thanksgiving meal. She asked what my sweetheart does for a living. Why? Why is that any of her fucking business? That has nothing to do with my health or whether I'm disabled. I gave her a vague answer. Fortunately she didn't push it.
She still looked at my form--look, cunt, there were only about 10 questions on that form, I don't know what you think you're looking at now--and then she said "good to see you're doing so well with your Crohn's." Excuse me?! I'm doing "so well"?! Yeah, I'll tell you what, we'll give you a huge massive amount of pain in your abdomen, rip all energy out of your body, so that the best you can do on 85% of your days is to lay in bed, and see if you still define it as "doing so well". Clue Four! Asked if I had any problems with malabsorption, etc., I said yes, that I have short bowel syndrome due to having had 9 surgeries that included resections (among other things) and she said "well that's surprising, since you're carrying so much extra weight." I managed to keep my mouth from dropping open, although I admit my eyes got pretty watery, and I tried to laugh it off by saying "well my doctor told me to hold onto an extra 10 pounds or so for when I get sick, since I lost 30 pounds in a month back in January 1998" and I smiled. She looked me right in the eye and laughed and said "well, you're carrying an extra 30-50 pounds so I don't think there's any worry there." Clue Fucking Five. Telling your patient that she's overweight when she's 5'8" and has just been weighed in your office at 147 pounds (which is actually below what my doctor wants me at), especially since we've weighed my breasts at home, carefully. (it was fun) Each one is right at 9lbs (the slightly bigger one is like 9.2 or something), so 18 pounds of my weight is tits.
Next she had me stand in one corner of the room with my back to her and walk away from her normally. I was shaking so badly at this point that I'm surprised she didn't think it was an earthquake. I walked away, she told me to walk back heel to toe as if I were "walking the line for a police officer". Yeah, because I've had so much experience with that, having never driven drunk or been pulled over on suspicion. As soon as I started to take the first step, since I didn't have my cane or anything nearby to help, I started to lose my balance, my foot flailed out to the side, I waved my arms around, and was able to get the foot down solidly. She said "come on!" impatiently. I did the rest, shaking like a leaf now, as best I could. Then she had me walk away from her on my tiptoes. I'll just say that was horrible for me and leave it at that. She had me come back and said "bend over and touch your toes". Ok, there's a problem there. First, all my height is in my legs. Even when I was healthy (long time ago) I couldn't touch my toes because my inseam is approx 35". Secondly, bending over, especially straight over, hurts my stomach... a lot. Thirdly, that's a balance issue for me, I'm just not that stable. So I started to bend over, stopped, said "what if I fall?" and she replied "well I'm not gonna help you, you've got 55 pounds on me." By the way, little note here, if this woman thinks she weighs less than 100 pounds, she's got another think coming. She's skinny/lean/whatever, but she ain't that thin. So I did as best as I could, and she told me to sit on the exam table.
She did the eye exam and then went to do the ears and said "are you a natural blonde?" I said "yeah. I put lemon juice in it at the root every month because the root is usually a shade darker until it gets to about an inch long, but it's natural". She said "hmm. It would be pretty, if it weren't such a rat's nest." Again I tried to laugh it off and said "yeah, I forgot to braid my hair before bed last night, so it's a little tangled". She replied "yeah, basically dreadlocks now". It's not, actually. It was tangled, because I did forget to braid my hair last night and with all the tossing and turning it got all fubar'd. So I started to untangle it and then took my nap, which made it worse, and didn't have time to finish. My hair is really elastic, so it has to be untangled, not brushed through. Can't take a brush to it until it's been untangled by hand. But that's not the same as what she was saying. She looked in my mouth, then said "show me your teeth" and I did, and she said "do you ever brush your teeth?" Bite me. I explained that I brush twice a day and that I'd just had a root canal, and that my teeth were basically see through in the front because of the disintegrating enamel from my meds. She said "hmm. Well, expect to lose all your teeth soon if you're not going to bother to take care of them." Shit, what Clue am I on now?
After listening to my lungs she had me lay back, and pressed on my tummy (fucking ouch!), then she took the gown (I was told to wear it opening in the back) in two hands and ripped a hole in it, saying afterward "let's look at these scars". She pulled my panties down several inches without warning, said "railroad tracks, huh?" started to laugh, and then said "they must've gone through this one several times, it's pretty wide!". Yeah, they have gone in through that incision site 3 times and used it for a laparoscopy entry point once. Thanks for that, I'm uncomfortable enough about having had 10 fucking surgeries and being criss-crossed with scars.
Then she told me to sit up, put my clothes back on, and leave. She walked out of the room, turned and stuck her head back in and said "start eating better, you're probably just eating pre-processed food full of sodium, fat, starch, all that". Then she closed the sliding door and I slowly got dressed and got my purse and got back to the car where my sweetie was having a nap, and got in, and he started driving, looking at me every few seconds as I tried to stay calm, and then holding my hand when I started to sob.
I don't know how much weight her opinion has. She didn't have any of my medical records, she specifically mentioned that they hadn't sent her anything, so whatever she says will only be based on today's visit. My sweetie said, when he was holding me back at home, that at least my part is done. I just have to wait. It's out of my hands. There's nothing more that I could do or not do to affect it. And he's right. It's just a matter of waiting now and hoping for the best but being prepared for the worst. But I just feel like it would've been easier and faster for her to take a mallet and beat me down into the ground over and over until I was a mushed up speck in the dirt. I feel that my options have been taken away from me. I also feel humiliated and dumb and, yes, fat. Something about having a medical professional look at the numbers for your height and weight and tell you that you're carrying an extra 30-50 pounds that really makes it feel true. I'm so depressed, I just want to stay in bed forever.
Today was my medical exam with the Social Security doctor. Actually, to be fully clear, Social Security contracts with a medical clinic, so the clinic has patients that aren't SSA patients, and SSA is not their boss or anything similar. I had a rough night last night, as was probably obvious from my last post, I was feeling like no matter how I tried to open people up to the idea that there are other possibilities than the ones they're clinging to, I was just getting shot down. That makes me feel like 'what's the point' and am I really doing any good by continuing to try? Then I woke up not feeling great physically, and the panic attacks I've been pushing back for the last few days about this appointment kept threatening to overwhelm me.
Like many people, the holidays are an especially hard time for me, and I was thinking ahead to xmas and New Year's and trying to think of ways to improve them. This led to me realizing something I ought to have realized last week, and deciding that no, I didn't need to worry about that this year (ambiguity, I haz it, sorry can't be more clear). Took a nap to try to calm down, my sweetheart got home to pick me up and take me to my appointment (he'd taken the afternoon off the day job), and pow! Discovered that, yes, I did need to worry about that thing this year. Like a fucking punch to the gut. I couldn't breathe and I couldn't think... anyway, as we were driving to the appointment I was trying to explain to him just why the holidays are hard for so many people, and kept getting a little hitch in my voice but thought I could push past it, and then couldn't, and I was crying. Great way to start, having not even arrived at the clinic yet.
Arrived, filled out my form (one side of one sheet of paper) about medical history, and was very shortly called back by the medical assistant. She did the vision test and took my height and weight, my pulse and blood pressure. Then I was taken to an exam room, given a gown, and left to change. The doctor, when she came in, was in her mid-50s, about my height, lean/skinny (hard to tell with the white coat on). Since I was wearing a paper gown and underwear, I was sitting on the exam table (if my bare skin is going to touch furniture in a busy clinic, I like it to be furniture covered by those paper sheets), so she told me to sit in the chair. I started to climb down, using my cane for support, and she reached out and took it away from me, saying "the exam must be done without the cane". I'd have reacted better to that if I hadn't been leaning on the goddamned thing at the time, but fortunately my left hand was resting on the table so I shifted my weight as quickly as possible. Then she said "why would you need a cane, anyway, you have no injuries to your back or legs". This is what I'll call Clue One that this was not going to be a fantastic exam.
I sat and she looked at my form and said "ok, I see you have Crohn's. The depression and anxiety are not my problem, and the ovarian cysts and tumor well you'll just have to learn to live with the pain of that, that's not disabling. And we can ignore the thyroid because it's just low." Here I did speak up and say "no, actually, I put "thyroid malfunction" because it's not just a low thyroid. It ought to be, since I had the partial thyroidectomy, but my labwork shows that it's up and down constantly, they've changed the level of my synthroid 4 times." She just looked at me for a moment, then I swear to god she rolled her eyes. (woo hoo, Clue Two!) She looked over my form and asked me if I'd driven myself to the clinic--yeah, bitch, that's why the form that you're looking at says "driven by family" after that question--and I explained how I'd arrived, and she went back to my form. She asked about my Crohn's meds, and why I wasn't taking what she thought I should take, so I explained that the pred is basically no longer helping, that the mercaptopurine seems to have plateau'd and I can't afford it, that the last two Remicade treatments put me into anaphylactic shock, and that my gastroenterologist wanted to put me on a new medication that we were going to have to jump through some hoops to get, but that since my health insurance had been cancelled, I couldn't do that right now. She snapped at me "you need to get your health insurance back, then. This stuff is $4,000 to $5,000 a pop." and she fucking glared at me. I explained that I knew this, that I'd had to purchase my medications without insurance before, which was why I couldn't afford to take the expensive ones now, regardless. She repeated again that I needed to get the health insurance back, sneering this time. Clue Three! Somewhere in here she also asked what I was doing on Thanksgiving, not in a friendly smalltalk sort of way but in an inquisitorial manner, so I said that I was going to be eating comfort food at home because my family lives a distance away and I'm not up for that drive. I wasn't about to explain that in fact it's that the money isn't there, since she'd had such a fit about me not buying my health insurance. She told me that was unacceptable and that I needed to find a church that was having a Thanksgiving meal. She asked what my sweetheart does for a living. Why? Why is that any of her fucking business? That has nothing to do with my health or whether I'm disabled. I gave her a vague answer. Fortunately she didn't push it.
She still looked at my form--look, cunt, there were only about 10 questions on that form, I don't know what you think you're looking at now--and then she said "good to see you're doing so well with your Crohn's." Excuse me?! I'm doing "so well"?! Yeah, I'll tell you what, we'll give you a huge massive amount of pain in your abdomen, rip all energy out of your body, so that the best you can do on 85% of your days is to lay in bed, and see if you still define it as "doing so well". Clue Four! Asked if I had any problems with malabsorption, etc., I said yes, that I have short bowel syndrome due to having had 9 surgeries that included resections (among other things) and she said "well that's surprising, since you're carrying so much extra weight." I managed to keep my mouth from dropping open, although I admit my eyes got pretty watery, and I tried to laugh it off by saying "well my doctor told me to hold onto an extra 10 pounds or so for when I get sick, since I lost 30 pounds in a month back in January 1998" and I smiled. She looked me right in the eye and laughed and said "well, you're carrying an extra 30-50 pounds so I don't think there's any worry there." Clue Fucking Five. Telling your patient that she's overweight when she's 5'8" and has just been weighed in your office at 147 pounds (which is actually below what my doctor wants me at), especially since we've weighed my breasts at home, carefully. (it was fun) Each one is right at 9lbs (the slightly bigger one is like 9.2 or something), so 18 pounds of my weight is tits.
Next she had me stand in one corner of the room with my back to her and walk away from her normally. I was shaking so badly at this point that I'm surprised she didn't think it was an earthquake. I walked away, she told me to walk back heel to toe as if I were "walking the line for a police officer". Yeah, because I've had so much experience with that, having never driven drunk or been pulled over on suspicion. As soon as I started to take the first step, since I didn't have my cane or anything nearby to help, I started to lose my balance, my foot flailed out to the side, I waved my arms around, and was able to get the foot down solidly. She said "come on!" impatiently. I did the rest, shaking like a leaf now, as best I could. Then she had me walk away from her on my tiptoes. I'll just say that was horrible for me and leave it at that. She had me come back and said "bend over and touch your toes". Ok, there's a problem there. First, all my height is in my legs. Even when I was healthy (long time ago) I couldn't touch my toes because my inseam is approx 35". Secondly, bending over, especially straight over, hurts my stomach... a lot. Thirdly, that's a balance issue for me, I'm just not that stable. So I started to bend over, stopped, said "what if I fall?" and she replied "well I'm not gonna help you, you've got 55 pounds on me." By the way, little note here, if this woman thinks she weighs less than 100 pounds, she's got another think coming. She's skinny/lean/whatever, but she ain't that thin. So I did as best as I could, and she told me to sit on the exam table.
She did the eye exam and then went to do the ears and said "are you a natural blonde?" I said "yeah. I put lemon juice in it at the root every month because the root is usually a shade darker until it gets to about an inch long, but it's natural". She said "hmm. It would be pretty, if it weren't such a rat's nest." Again I tried to laugh it off and said "yeah, I forgot to braid my hair before bed last night, so it's a little tangled". She replied "yeah, basically dreadlocks now". It's not, actually. It was tangled, because I did forget to braid my hair last night and with all the tossing and turning it got all fubar'd. So I started to untangle it and then took my nap, which made it worse, and didn't have time to finish. My hair is really elastic, so it has to be untangled, not brushed through. Can't take a brush to it until it's been untangled by hand. But that's not the same as what she was saying. She looked in my mouth, then said "show me your teeth" and I did, and she said "do you ever brush your teeth?" Bite me. I explained that I brush twice a day and that I'd just had a root canal, and that my teeth were basically see through in the front because of the disintegrating enamel from my meds. She said "hmm. Well, expect to lose all your teeth soon if you're not going to bother to take care of them." Shit, what Clue am I on now?
After listening to my lungs she had me lay back, and pressed on my tummy (fucking ouch!), then she took the gown (I was told to wear it opening in the back) in two hands and ripped a hole in it, saying afterward "let's look at these scars". She pulled my panties down several inches without warning, said "railroad tracks, huh?" started to laugh, and then said "they must've gone through this one several times, it's pretty wide!". Yeah, they have gone in through that incision site 3 times and used it for a laparoscopy entry point once. Thanks for that, I'm uncomfortable enough about having had 10 fucking surgeries and being criss-crossed with scars.
Then she told me to sit up, put my clothes back on, and leave. She walked out of the room, turned and stuck her head back in and said "start eating better, you're probably just eating pre-processed food full of sodium, fat, starch, all that". Then she closed the sliding door and I slowly got dressed and got my purse and got back to the car where my sweetie was having a nap, and got in, and he started driving, looking at me every few seconds as I tried to stay calm, and then holding my hand when I started to sob.
I don't know how much weight her opinion has. She didn't have any of my medical records, she specifically mentioned that they hadn't sent her anything, so whatever she says will only be based on today's visit. My sweetie said, when he was holding me back at home, that at least my part is done. I just have to wait. It's out of my hands. There's nothing more that I could do or not do to affect it. And he's right. It's just a matter of waiting now and hoping for the best but being prepared for the worst. But I just feel like it would've been easier and faster for her to take a mallet and beat me down into the ground over and over until I was a mushed up speck in the dirt. I feel that my options have been taken away from me. I also feel humiliated and dumb and, yes, fat. Something about having a medical professional look at the numbers for your height and weight and tell you that you're carrying an extra 30-50 pounds that really makes it feel true. I'm so depressed, I just want to stay in bed forever.
Talking to Myself
It has nothing to do with whether someone agrees with me or not. It's not like I need to be right all the time...every year or two I'm wrong about something (kidding!).
It's about having a completely closed mind. It's about sitting in judgment of others. It's about not recognizing the damage your words can cause. It's about not bothering to think about the people who might read what you're saying and take it to heart about themselves. It's about perpetuating the problem just because you only care about previous incidents involving yourself. It's about being unwilling to concede that there might possibly be another way to look at it other than your way.
How can you not see the damage you can cause this way? Just because you insist on keeping tight hold of your anger and resentment of someone long ago who is no longer a part of your life, and then projecting that onto somebody else's situation, you could be hurting so many people.
The whole point is that you don't know. You don't know, you have no way of knowing, you will never know. You're not inside that person's head. And so your assumptions about motive and reason and mental state are worse than useless. Every time someone makes bald statements like yours, several things happen. 1) People who have never been in the situation or any one like it accept your statement as truth, because "you've been there" so you "must" know what you're talking about. This causes them to take on your prejudice, and then parrot it and pass it on to others. 2) People who have been in the situation on the other side get reinforcement that this is how the world views them. They become afraid to voice their feelings. They become afraid to admit to past instances. They become even more alone.
Worse, your speculations are not necessary or helpful, even if you phrased them differently. "I once knew someone who did xyz" or "there are times that people do xyz" would be more accurate than "all people who do xyz in the following way are manipulative" (oh and abusive, can't forget abusive!), but it's still not useful. What is the person you're talking to going to take from that? You're very careful to cover yourself and say "when people do xyz in the following way, they're manipulating you... but of course you should take them seriously anyway, just in case". Then why say it?!? Is it really helpful to tell somebody who is in emotional distress "hey, heads up, you're being used and played. But go ahead and respond and act as if you aren't, just in case"? And what about the others? The 592 other people who are reading what you've said and haven't said anything themselves? Do you have any idea what you could be doing to them?
It's not advice, it's not commiserating, it's not support, it's not sympathy, it's not useful, it's not suggestions, it does not belong in the conversation! Just, shut up, and accept that your experience was probably more complex than even you realize, and it's not the only way things happen.
It's about having a completely closed mind. It's about sitting in judgment of others. It's about not recognizing the damage your words can cause. It's about not bothering to think about the people who might read what you're saying and take it to heart about themselves. It's about perpetuating the problem just because you only care about previous incidents involving yourself. It's about being unwilling to concede that there might possibly be another way to look at it other than your way.
How can you not see the damage you can cause this way? Just because you insist on keeping tight hold of your anger and resentment of someone long ago who is no longer a part of your life, and then projecting that onto somebody else's situation, you could be hurting so many people.
The whole point is that you don't know. You don't know, you have no way of knowing, you will never know. You're not inside that person's head. And so your assumptions about motive and reason and mental state are worse than useless. Every time someone makes bald statements like yours, several things happen. 1) People who have never been in the situation or any one like it accept your statement as truth, because "you've been there" so you "must" know what you're talking about. This causes them to take on your prejudice, and then parrot it and pass it on to others. 2) People who have been in the situation on the other side get reinforcement that this is how the world views them. They become afraid to voice their feelings. They become afraid to admit to past instances. They become even more alone.
Worse, your speculations are not necessary or helpful, even if you phrased them differently. "I once knew someone who did xyz" or "there are times that people do xyz" would be more accurate than "all people who do xyz in the following way are manipulative" (oh and abusive, can't forget abusive!), but it's still not useful. What is the person you're talking to going to take from that? You're very careful to cover yourself and say "when people do xyz in the following way, they're manipulating you... but of course you should take them seriously anyway, just in case". Then why say it?!? Is it really helpful to tell somebody who is in emotional distress "hey, heads up, you're being used and played. But go ahead and respond and act as if you aren't, just in case"? And what about the others? The 592 other people who are reading what you've said and haven't said anything themselves? Do you have any idea what you could be doing to them?
It's not advice, it's not commiserating, it's not support, it's not sympathy, it's not useful, it's not suggestions, it does not belong in the conversation! Just, shut up, and accept that your experience was probably more complex than even you realize, and it's not the only way things happen.
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Pathways
The title of this blog is "A Deviant's Deviation", and beneath that in the header I've put the definition of the word aberrant: "deviating from the proper or expected course. 2. Deviating from what is normal; untrue to type." The URL is "aberranterrare" etc.
The whole thing is kind of a word game in my own head. The URL is very simple, actually. The word aberrant comes from the Latin errare 'to wander'. Errare can have both the literal meaning "to wander" and the transferred meaning "to wander off the path, to make a mistake" or "to stray".
Two more definitions before the explanation. Deviant: adj. Differing from a norm or from the accepted standards of a society. n. One that differs from a norm, especially a person whose behavior and attitudes differ from accepted social standards. Deviation: an act or instance of diverging from an established way or in a new direction.
So a deviant is someone different from the normal or accepted standards, which could be metaphorically said to be someone walking a different path from most. If that deviant then deviates from that path, branching out in a new direction, they are deviating from their deviant behavior and possibly returning to "normality". That's what many would see my knitting and my cats as: the way in which someone who prefers to march to a different drummer still remains in step with everyone else.
Aberrant meaning to deviate from the expected course or the normal is sort of a reinforcing of being the one referred to as Deviant. Not taking the 'proper' course. Errare's dual meaning of "to wander" and "to stray" gives that Deviant the option of not just taking a different course, but taking no path at all, thus not returning to "normality".
I can be a deviant, aberrant in some of my choices and decisions, and that does not stop me from also being normal and enjoying things like knitting and reading and baking bread. Which in turn does not stop me from being or doing anything else. I can be agnostic and go to church, which doesn't stop me from following some Buddhist principles. I can love tattoos and wear modest dresses, which doesn't stop me from owning fishnet thigh highs.
In other, simpler words, I don't need to fit in one box or another. I can be two things at once, or three, or ten. I can enjoy and respect things that may seem to some to be paradoxical. So can you, so can anybody. I love being a social deviant and I love being in some ways very traditional and I love being neither, all at the same time.
The whole thing is kind of a word game in my own head. The URL is very simple, actually. The word aberrant comes from the Latin errare 'to wander'. Errare can have both the literal meaning "to wander" and the transferred meaning "to wander off the path, to make a mistake" or "to stray".
Two more definitions before the explanation. Deviant: adj. Differing from a norm or from the accepted standards of a society. n. One that differs from a norm, especially a person whose behavior and attitudes differ from accepted social standards. Deviation: an act or instance of diverging from an established way or in a new direction.
So a deviant is someone different from the normal or accepted standards, which could be metaphorically said to be someone walking a different path from most. If that deviant then deviates from that path, branching out in a new direction, they are deviating from their deviant behavior and possibly returning to "normality". That's what many would see my knitting and my cats as: the way in which someone who prefers to march to a different drummer still remains in step with everyone else.
Aberrant meaning to deviate from the expected course or the normal is sort of a reinforcing of being the one referred to as Deviant. Not taking the 'proper' course. Errare's dual meaning of "to wander" and "to stray" gives that Deviant the option of not just taking a different course, but taking no path at all, thus not returning to "normality".
I can be a deviant, aberrant in some of my choices and decisions, and that does not stop me from also being normal and enjoying things like knitting and reading and baking bread. Which in turn does not stop me from being or doing anything else. I can be agnostic and go to church, which doesn't stop me from following some Buddhist principles. I can love tattoos and wear modest dresses, which doesn't stop me from owning fishnet thigh highs.
In other, simpler words, I don't need to fit in one box or another. I can be two things at once, or three, or ten. I can enjoy and respect things that may seem to some to be paradoxical. So can you, so can anybody. I love being a social deviant and I love being in some ways very traditional and I love being neither, all at the same time.
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Grumpy Pants
Just a small note, because I've been saying this for literally over 10 years, and I don't get why this is such a widespread thing.
If I say "I'm sorry?" or "What was that?" or something indicating that I didn't hear what you said, don't repeat only the last word of your sentence.
If you do that, and I say "no, I'm sorry, I didn't catch any of it, what did you say?", don't explain to me the meaning of the last few words of your original sentence.
Just repeat the whole goddamned sentence!
For example: "mumble miffin flursh mumble" "I'm sorry?" "3 feet" "No, I'm sorry, I didn't catch any of it, what did you say?" "About a yard. 3 feet. Like this [holding out hands]." "I didn't hear any of what you said in the first place, can you repeat your entire first sentence?" "You see it has to be 3 feet or it won't work."
"REPEAT THE FUCKING SENTENCE! THE WHOLE FUCKING SENTENCE!"
"The length of the line from tie to base needs to be 3 feet, geeze."
Because think about it. You started talking and I didn't know you were going to say something, so the first few words at the beginning of your sentence were before I was paying complete attention, or while I was turned away, or was thinking about something else, or was scratching my ear, or was clearing my throat to say something myself, or whatever. I'm much more likely to have missed the first part of what you said than the last part. And if I missed the last part, wouldn't I say "I'm sorry, how long again?" or "you said the line should be how many feet?" or whatever? Why, why would I have listened to the first part of your sentence and then tuned out the end so that only that last word needed repeating? How could I have been able to clearly understand everything... except that last word?
Seriously. If you aren't sure what I need repeated? Just ask! "Which part didn't you hear?" Thank you, and have a nice day.
If I say "I'm sorry?" or "What was that?" or something indicating that I didn't hear what you said, don't repeat only the last word of your sentence.
If you do that, and I say "no, I'm sorry, I didn't catch any of it, what did you say?", don't explain to me the meaning of the last few words of your original sentence.
Just repeat the whole goddamned sentence!
For example: "mumble miffin flursh mumble" "I'm sorry?" "3 feet" "No, I'm sorry, I didn't catch any of it, what did you say?" "About a yard. 3 feet. Like this [holding out hands]." "I didn't hear any of what you said in the first place, can you repeat your entire first sentence?" "You see it has to be 3 feet or it won't work."
"REPEAT THE FUCKING SENTENCE! THE WHOLE FUCKING SENTENCE!"
"The length of the line from tie to base needs to be 3 feet, geeze."
Because think about it. You started talking and I didn't know you were going to say something, so the first few words at the beginning of your sentence were before I was paying complete attention, or while I was turned away, or was thinking about something else, or was scratching my ear, or was clearing my throat to say something myself, or whatever. I'm much more likely to have missed the first part of what you said than the last part. And if I missed the last part, wouldn't I say "I'm sorry, how long again?" or "you said the line should be how many feet?" or whatever? Why, why would I have listened to the first part of your sentence and then tuned out the end so that only that last word needed repeating? How could I have been able to clearly understand everything... except that last word?
Seriously. If you aren't sure what I need repeated? Just ask! "Which part didn't you hear?" Thank you, and have a nice day.
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Ah, the High Ground
This post going up right now is due to a discussion that has come up in LSG twice in the past, what, 6 weeks? But it's not specifically about that issue. I have a problem with people who participate in groups that encourage acceptance and who themselves claim to be open-minded, but who are judgmental and self-righteous. Thus, this post, to clear it out of my head.
The way I see it, there are approximately 3 moral or ethical (human) absolutes that are always wrong. Murder, rape, abuse. Those are the only issues that have no grey area and are always morally wrong, with no excusing or explaining them away. Notice that I specifically say "murder", not taking the life of another person or killing, because those things are not always wrong. Soldiers in war are not immoral for doing their duty as they have sworn to, the state kills in areas that have the death penalty, doctors are the ones who actually disconnect life support systems, etc. Those are different from murder. Some people might argue with me about rape, in the sense that in our society a 21 year old who sleeps with his 17 year old girlfriend is guilty of statutory rape even when it's consensual, but I count sex with an underage party as a form of abuse because the younger partner does not have, cannot have, the full ability to make an informed decision. They don't know what the emotional, mental, and physical impacts will be on themselves. I say that as someone who was having plenty of sex while underage and who had a college-aged boyfriend when in high school.
Now, with those three things set aside, there are plenty of people who think that they are the keepers of what is and is not "wrong". These people insist that there is no grey area in those particular issues, that circumstances never matter, that nothing needs to be taken into account in order to decide, simply that anyone who engages in those things is immoral and 'ethically bankrupt'. So let's take a look at some of these unbendable rules, shall we?
Stealing. Stealing is wrong. In a general way, I think this is a lesson that kids should be taught, and it's ok to leave it in those terms... when you're discussing it with kids. But as adults we can take into account the motivation behind the act. Smashing a stranger's window and making off with their tv because you don't want to work to earn the money to purchase your own and you have no respect for the space and privacy of other people, that's immoral. A 10 year old boy shoplifting to feed his hungry little sister, is that immoral? Of course there are often options for kids who are living in poverty. But I'm not talking about whether that little boy should tell a teacher and hope for the best, I'm saying is that child individually immoral because he is guilty of theft?
Another theft example that closes the gap between those two extremes: a teenager takes money out of her dad's wallet while he's sleeping downstairs. Eesh, that combines several things that are wrong. Stealing, deception, dishonesty. It also brings up concerns about the use the money will be put to, is the teen going to use it to compound the act through drugs? But what if the dad is an alcoholic sleeping off a binge, and when he wakes up he'll go to the store for more booze and spend whatever is in his wallet? What if the teenager is taking the money surreptitiously on a regular basis in order to pay utility bills? There are many things that could make a teen feel that there is no safe place to go for help. Sometimes foster parents aren't what we would wish them to be and the household is still better than being removed from it. Some teens with scholarships know that they only have to get through another few months and it'll be behind them. Some have tried to get help before and not gotten it, making their home life worse. Is that teenager ethically bankrupt for taking that cash?
Here's a good one: adultery. Infidelity. It's wrong, isn't it? Pretty straightforward to lots of people. We'll start with a pretty obvious case. My divorce took 2 years to complete. I filed 3 months after moving out, and 2 years after that I finally got the decree. I had not voluntarily seen my ex during those 2 years, and the times I had seen him were due to his stalking me. During those 2 years I was a married woman. I was honest with the guys that I dated in that time, because if someone was uncomfortable dating someone who was going through a divorce, I didn't want to date them. Was I cheating? Were those guys assisting me in cheating? How about my sweetheart? He and I met before the divorce was final, we were already in a serious committed relationship when the decree finally arrived (we actually got it out of the mailbox together after having gone out to dinner one night). Was he the "other man"? Some people say yes, that as long as there was any legal tie, any paperwork not completed, that I was a married woman and should not have had romantic or intimate contact with other men. I feel that once my paperwork was filed, once I had made the public declaration that my marriage was over, that our union was dissolved, my ability to have happiness and love with someone new did not rely on the backlog at the court.
A more ambiguous case, then. A woman, married for 16 years, in her 40s, meets a younger man. He falls for her, tells her how intelligent and beautiful and amazing she is. She is flattered and spends more and more time with him, eventually sleeping with him, obviously keeping all of this strictly secret from her husband. Wow. How is that ambiguous, some would ask. Well, add one more piece of information to that story. The woman's husband has been emotionally abusing her for the entire length of their marriage. He has convinced her that she is ugly, worthless, stupid, and completely reliant on him. She has been living a slow-moving hell for 16 years, and has never tried to get out because she's been so destroyed by her husband. Meeting this other man makes her aware that she is none of the things her husband said she was, that she has strength and abilities. After sleeping with this younger man, she packs a bag while her husband is at work one day and leaves, not to go to the younger man, but to live the rest of her life. Is she still an immoral hussy? Should the young man be labelled as a homewrecker and forever made to feel ashamed of his actions when he fell in love with an older woman?
I could literally go on for days giving examples of different actions that people label with the blanket statements of "wrong" "bad" "immoral" "unethical", etc. Vandalism, drug use, fraud, etc. But my point is that the only absolute there is in morality is that there are no absolutes. Everything has bits and pieces that factor in, circumstances and personalities and backgrounds and details that we can never know from the outside. We cannot judge other people based on these things, not accurately. It's completely acceptable to say that we ourselves would not perform these acts. Those are decisions we make for ourselves, they're how we determine who we are and where our own boundaries are. But it's not my place to make those decisions for other people, people with different lives. And anybody who attempts to label another person as "immoral", "ethically bankrupt", "a bad person", just because they make different choices and have different boundaries? They are intolerant, closed-minded, cruel, and in many cases creating the situations and circumstances that cause people to need to perform those very acts.
It will never be up to me how my neighbor lives his life, any more than it's up to him how you live yours, as long as he doesn't murder, rape, or abuse another person. It's only up to me to do my best to live up to my own morals.
The way I see it, there are approximately 3 moral or ethical (human) absolutes that are always wrong. Murder, rape, abuse. Those are the only issues that have no grey area and are always morally wrong, with no excusing or explaining them away. Notice that I specifically say "murder", not taking the life of another person or killing, because those things are not always wrong. Soldiers in war are not immoral for doing their duty as they have sworn to, the state kills in areas that have the death penalty, doctors are the ones who actually disconnect life support systems, etc. Those are different from murder. Some people might argue with me about rape, in the sense that in our society a 21 year old who sleeps with his 17 year old girlfriend is guilty of statutory rape even when it's consensual, but I count sex with an underage party as a form of abuse because the younger partner does not have, cannot have, the full ability to make an informed decision. They don't know what the emotional, mental, and physical impacts will be on themselves. I say that as someone who was having plenty of sex while underage and who had a college-aged boyfriend when in high school.
Now, with those three things set aside, there are plenty of people who think that they are the keepers of what is and is not "wrong". These people insist that there is no grey area in those particular issues, that circumstances never matter, that nothing needs to be taken into account in order to decide, simply that anyone who engages in those things is immoral and 'ethically bankrupt'. So let's take a look at some of these unbendable rules, shall we?
Stealing. Stealing is wrong. In a general way, I think this is a lesson that kids should be taught, and it's ok to leave it in those terms... when you're discussing it with kids. But as adults we can take into account the motivation behind the act. Smashing a stranger's window and making off with their tv because you don't want to work to earn the money to purchase your own and you have no respect for the space and privacy of other people, that's immoral. A 10 year old boy shoplifting to feed his hungry little sister, is that immoral? Of course there are often options for kids who are living in poverty. But I'm not talking about whether that little boy should tell a teacher and hope for the best, I'm saying is that child individually immoral because he is guilty of theft?
Another theft example that closes the gap between those two extremes: a teenager takes money out of her dad's wallet while he's sleeping downstairs. Eesh, that combines several things that are wrong. Stealing, deception, dishonesty. It also brings up concerns about the use the money will be put to, is the teen going to use it to compound the act through drugs? But what if the dad is an alcoholic sleeping off a binge, and when he wakes up he'll go to the store for more booze and spend whatever is in his wallet? What if the teenager is taking the money surreptitiously on a regular basis in order to pay utility bills? There are many things that could make a teen feel that there is no safe place to go for help. Sometimes foster parents aren't what we would wish them to be and the household is still better than being removed from it. Some teens with scholarships know that they only have to get through another few months and it'll be behind them. Some have tried to get help before and not gotten it, making their home life worse. Is that teenager ethically bankrupt for taking that cash?
Here's a good one: adultery. Infidelity. It's wrong, isn't it? Pretty straightforward to lots of people. We'll start with a pretty obvious case. My divorce took 2 years to complete. I filed 3 months after moving out, and 2 years after that I finally got the decree. I had not voluntarily seen my ex during those 2 years, and the times I had seen him were due to his stalking me. During those 2 years I was a married woman. I was honest with the guys that I dated in that time, because if someone was uncomfortable dating someone who was going through a divorce, I didn't want to date them. Was I cheating? Were those guys assisting me in cheating? How about my sweetheart? He and I met before the divorce was final, we were already in a serious committed relationship when the decree finally arrived (we actually got it out of the mailbox together after having gone out to dinner one night). Was he the "other man"? Some people say yes, that as long as there was any legal tie, any paperwork not completed, that I was a married woman and should not have had romantic or intimate contact with other men. I feel that once my paperwork was filed, once I had made the public declaration that my marriage was over, that our union was dissolved, my ability to have happiness and love with someone new did not rely on the backlog at the court.
A more ambiguous case, then. A woman, married for 16 years, in her 40s, meets a younger man. He falls for her, tells her how intelligent and beautiful and amazing she is. She is flattered and spends more and more time with him, eventually sleeping with him, obviously keeping all of this strictly secret from her husband. Wow. How is that ambiguous, some would ask. Well, add one more piece of information to that story. The woman's husband has been emotionally abusing her for the entire length of their marriage. He has convinced her that she is ugly, worthless, stupid, and completely reliant on him. She has been living a slow-moving hell for 16 years, and has never tried to get out because she's been so destroyed by her husband. Meeting this other man makes her aware that she is none of the things her husband said she was, that she has strength and abilities. After sleeping with this younger man, she packs a bag while her husband is at work one day and leaves, not to go to the younger man, but to live the rest of her life. Is she still an immoral hussy? Should the young man be labelled as a homewrecker and forever made to feel ashamed of his actions when he fell in love with an older woman?
I could literally go on for days giving examples of different actions that people label with the blanket statements of "wrong" "bad" "immoral" "unethical", etc. Vandalism, drug use, fraud, etc. But my point is that the only absolute there is in morality is that there are no absolutes. Everything has bits and pieces that factor in, circumstances and personalities and backgrounds and details that we can never know from the outside. We cannot judge other people based on these things, not accurately. It's completely acceptable to say that we ourselves would not perform these acts. Those are decisions we make for ourselves, they're how we determine who we are and where our own boundaries are. But it's not my place to make those decisions for other people, people with different lives. And anybody who attempts to label another person as "immoral", "ethically bankrupt", "a bad person", just because they make different choices and have different boundaries? They are intolerant, closed-minded, cruel, and in many cases creating the situations and circumstances that cause people to need to perform those very acts.
It will never be up to me how my neighbor lives his life, any more than it's up to him how you live yours, as long as he doesn't murder, rape, or abuse another person. It's only up to me to do my best to live up to my own morals.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Shopping Makes Me Curmudgeonly
Wow, look at that! No posts for months and suddenly a plethora of them in just a couple days. Weird.
I spent the last three days trying to convince myself to go grocery shopping. My list was made (not a long one), the items were needed (we haven't had food in so long), the store is a half mile away (or 3 miles if I'm up for a trip to the organic market). But somehow I just couldn't make myself go. Having reached the bottom of the bag of cat food, however, today I had no choice. Here's a couple brief thoughts that this trip left me with:
Apparently when vacuum cleaners break, we're supposed to toss them and buy new ones. I've been looking for a replacement belt for our vacuum for 3 weeks without success. Amazon is sold out, the grocery store no longer carries them, Target sells exactly one belt for one model by one company, etc. There is a vacuum/sewing machine repair shop downtown, so I'll probably end up there, but it's so skeevy looking from the outside, I've been trying everywhere else first.
I miss the "Three's a Crowd" days of the old Albertson's stores, where they'd open a new checkstand whenever there were more than 3 people in any line. My grocery had only the two express lanes open, and I was the 7th person in line for the one I chose.
25year old boys should not be allowed to pester people for petition signatures outside stores. I used to sell Camp Fire candy in front of KMart, I have some experience in this area. First rule: stand at the EXIT door, not the entrance. If you ask people as they go in, they are more likely to turn you down because they're focusing on the shopping they need to do. Also, if they've said no on the way in, and you ask them again on the way out because you can't remember every person who has said no, they'll be annoyed. If you ask only on the way out, they are more likely to take the time and if it's something to buy they may have just gotten change from their groceries that they can use to buy your item. Also, having seen you on the way in, they will have had the length of their shopping to have you in the back of their mind and maybe ask for cash back just so they can buy something. Second rule: if someone says "no", don't continue to harass them. For example, when I say "no, I'm an absentee voter in another county", don't chase me into the store and continue to argue with me about it until I threaten to call security.
Grocery store baggers who are under 18, moving slower than I am (that's an achievement), while chewing gum and mumbling under their breath? Should be retrained on how to bag groceries. As in, don't put a ten pound bag of flour and a ten pound bag of sugar into the same single plastic bag. Don't put food and laundry detergent in the same bag. Don't put produce underneath a half gallon carton of soymilk. Don't roll over my foot with the grocery cart while I'm standing perfectly still-behind the cart-by pushing it away from yourself. And if you do all of that and I still make eye contact with you and smile and tell you to have a nice day? At least grunt or something in return.
Don't buy a large truck unless you can park a large truck. If you get out of your truck and find that you are so slanted diagonally in your parking space that the person in the space next to yours can't back out because your truck is behind their car? You need to get back in your truck and try again. Fortunately this time it was someone else who was blocked in, but I did have a day a few months ago where I was so blocked in this way that I had to have the driver paged in the store.
In happier notes... the elderly couple that had only 8 items in their cart when I offered to let them go ahead of me with my 21 items, were very polite and also very sweet with the way they were treating each other. Gobie seems to think that the best hiding place for his mouse toy is underneath his fat belly, which makes him look like he's trying to hatch it. Tomorrow I get to make bread (scratch, not bread maker), which will make the house smell good. I got 3 separate coupons for money off my next grocery trip, for a total of $2 (every little bit helps).
I spent the last three days trying to convince myself to go grocery shopping. My list was made (not a long one), the items were needed (we haven't had food in so long), the store is a half mile away (or 3 miles if I'm up for a trip to the organic market). But somehow I just couldn't make myself go. Having reached the bottom of the bag of cat food, however, today I had no choice. Here's a couple brief thoughts that this trip left me with:
Apparently when vacuum cleaners break, we're supposed to toss them and buy new ones. I've been looking for a replacement belt for our vacuum for 3 weeks without success. Amazon is sold out, the grocery store no longer carries them, Target sells exactly one belt for one model by one company, etc. There is a vacuum/sewing machine repair shop downtown, so I'll probably end up there, but it's so skeevy looking from the outside, I've been trying everywhere else first.
I miss the "Three's a Crowd" days of the old Albertson's stores, where they'd open a new checkstand whenever there were more than 3 people in any line. My grocery had only the two express lanes open, and I was the 7th person in line for the one I chose.
25year old boys should not be allowed to pester people for petition signatures outside stores. I used to sell Camp Fire candy in front of KMart, I have some experience in this area. First rule: stand at the EXIT door, not the entrance. If you ask people as they go in, they are more likely to turn you down because they're focusing on the shopping they need to do. Also, if they've said no on the way in, and you ask them again on the way out because you can't remember every person who has said no, they'll be annoyed. If you ask only on the way out, they are more likely to take the time and if it's something to buy they may have just gotten change from their groceries that they can use to buy your item. Also, having seen you on the way in, they will have had the length of their shopping to have you in the back of their mind and maybe ask for cash back just so they can buy something. Second rule: if someone says "no", don't continue to harass them. For example, when I say "no, I'm an absentee voter in another county", don't chase me into the store and continue to argue with me about it until I threaten to call security.
Grocery store baggers who are under 18, moving slower than I am (that's an achievement), while chewing gum and mumbling under their breath? Should be retrained on how to bag groceries. As in, don't put a ten pound bag of flour and a ten pound bag of sugar into the same single plastic bag. Don't put food and laundry detergent in the same bag. Don't put produce underneath a half gallon carton of soymilk. Don't roll over my foot with the grocery cart while I'm standing perfectly still-behind the cart-by pushing it away from yourself. And if you do all of that and I still make eye contact with you and smile and tell you to have a nice day? At least grunt or something in return.
Don't buy a large truck unless you can park a large truck. If you get out of your truck and find that you are so slanted diagonally in your parking space that the person in the space next to yours can't back out because your truck is behind their car? You need to get back in your truck and try again. Fortunately this time it was someone else who was blocked in, but I did have a day a few months ago where I was so blocked in this way that I had to have the driver paged in the store.
In happier notes... the elderly couple that had only 8 items in their cart when I offered to let them go ahead of me with my 21 items, were very polite and also very sweet with the way they were treating each other. Gobie seems to think that the best hiding place for his mouse toy is underneath his fat belly, which makes him look like he's trying to hatch it. Tomorrow I get to make bread (scratch, not bread maker), which will make the house smell good. I got 3 separate coupons for money off my next grocery trip, for a total of $2 (every little bit helps).
Finding the Right View
I had not worked on my Great 8 Sock Plan for literally months. I had started the first sock happily and got through the twisted rib of the cuff fairly easily. At the very least, the Plan was working to the extent that it gave me a chance to sit quietly and try to be in the moment, even if I couldn't find a good podcast or article to read while I knit. When I finished the cuff and began working on the patterned leg, however, I had problems. I did the first row and ended up with the wrong number of stitches. I tinked back and tried again, and again had the wrong number of stitches. Again and again I messed up on the very first pattern row! And I wasn't even being consistent enough for me to know what my error was. I'd end up with one extra stitch on the first needle, two extra on the second, and one too few on the third. Or some other combination, but never the same. I decided, considering the frustration and self-abuse I was going through as regards the sock, that I was not achieving my purpose with it. Mindfulness and annoyance/irritation do not go hand in hand. So I set the project aside and moved on to other things.
In September I made a quick trip north to see my folks for a couple days. I really hate checking luggage, and only do it when absolutely necessary, so I was trying to arrange my carry-on so that I'd have all I needed on the plane with me. Therefore I needed a knitting project that could fit in my purse, which is not large. The other main project I have on the needles at the moment is two-at-a-time socks on dpns (double knitting style), and doing that requires two separate skeins, so I decided that project was too large. Long story short (too late!), I packed my Right View socks into my purse and headed for the airport.
For some reason, as soon as I got settled at the gate and started knitting, the pattern went just fine. I tinked the row that I'd stepped away from in April with the awareness that it was wrong, and then started fresh, and had no problems. I simply went smoothly around, again and again, as travelers moved around me and planes came and went. Since I move more slowly these days and the route to the airport is a major commute corridor, I ended up arriving at the airport several hours before my flight. I know they now ask us to allow a couple hours for security, but I'm not a first-time traveler, it only takes me 2 minutes to get through the checkpoint. Before I get to the metal detector my shoes are off, my purse in one tray laid flat and my carry-on in another. I always wear slip-on shoes to make it easier to get them off and back on again, never have anything in my pockets, never wear jewelry (well except my collar, but that takes only a moment to remove, and my ring, which doesn't set off metal detectors), and wear comfortable, loose cotton clothing that has no metal studs and won't show wrinkles after sitting in a plane for awhile. So I get to go through the special security line for those who are regular fliers, and get through more quickly. Therefore I was at my gate and ready to get on the plane, with my disabled early-boarding pass in hand, over 2 hours before my flight. Oh, well, better than being late and rushing!
But the time just flew by. At one point I realized I'd been knitting steadily for about 45 minutes, and when I stopped to think about what had been going through my mind, I realized that I hadn't been thinking about anything. I had vaguely been repeating the stitches in my head as I knit them, but other than that it was all clear. I hadn't been planning or anticipating or worrying about the future, I hadn't been looking back on prior events, I hadn't even been thinking about how long it was until the plane arrived, or anything about my flight. Yet I wasn't “zoned out” or in a tired sort of trance, I was simply thinking only of the thing I was doing at that moment. Each stitch as it came, then when that stitch was completed, the next. Usually in airports I people-watch, I enjoy speculating about where those around me are going and why. But this time, although I registered each person's presence, it was just the immediately apparent facts about them.
I think I'm far from mastering the first step of the Eightfold Path, but I do think that I've at least found a way of being in myself that will allow me to continue to do the work I want to do. The Hedera pattern was a very good one for this step, because there were only 3 row patterns to memorize, and no two in a row were alike. Therefore it required focus to know where in the pattern I was, but not so much attention that I had to continuously anticipate the next step or jerk myself out of myself to repeatedly check my papers. It held my interest but wasn't so complicated that it frustrated or distracted me.
I'm taking a break from socks for a short time, even though I want to just keep knitting more and more socks and continue working on the Middle Way. But I don't know yet which pattern to go to next. I have a pair that I know I want to make, and the yarn set aside to make them, but I don't feel them right now and they wouldn't be a part of this project anyway (my Lolita Socks). I have another skein of sock yarn that I would very much enjoy working with, but I don't know yet what pattern that skein wants to become. I have two more Cookie A patterns printed off as well as her Sock Innovation book, and considering how well her Hedera pattern went, I'm likely to use a pattern of hers for at least one more Eightfold Path sock pair, but I won't just rush in haphazardly for the sake of it. I need to feel that the pattern is the right one for the next step. Until I figure that out, I'm working on my Golden Gate Hoodie, which is the oft-knit Central Park Hoodie (CPH) pattern, very popular. It's my first cable project (although I did do a mini sweater with a mini cable that I used a toothpick to make) and so far it's going pretty well. It's also my first real garment, my first sweater, so it's taking some courage to do it. The ladies from TSG Group 4 gifted me the yarn via WEBS gift certificate over 18 months ago, it's taken me this long to believe I can do it! :)
In September I made a quick trip north to see my folks for a couple days. I really hate checking luggage, and only do it when absolutely necessary, so I was trying to arrange my carry-on so that I'd have all I needed on the plane with me. Therefore I needed a knitting project that could fit in my purse, which is not large. The other main project I have on the needles at the moment is two-at-a-time socks on dpns (double knitting style), and doing that requires two separate skeins, so I decided that project was too large. Long story short (too late!), I packed my Right View socks into my purse and headed for the airport.
For some reason, as soon as I got settled at the gate and started knitting, the pattern went just fine. I tinked the row that I'd stepped away from in April with the awareness that it was wrong, and then started fresh, and had no problems. I simply went smoothly around, again and again, as travelers moved around me and planes came and went. Since I move more slowly these days and the route to the airport is a major commute corridor, I ended up arriving at the airport several hours before my flight. I know they now ask us to allow a couple hours for security, but I'm not a first-time traveler, it only takes me 2 minutes to get through the checkpoint. Before I get to the metal detector my shoes are off, my purse in one tray laid flat and my carry-on in another. I always wear slip-on shoes to make it easier to get them off and back on again, never have anything in my pockets, never wear jewelry (well except my collar, but that takes only a moment to remove, and my ring, which doesn't set off metal detectors), and wear comfortable, loose cotton clothing that has no metal studs and won't show wrinkles after sitting in a plane for awhile. So I get to go through the special security line for those who are regular fliers, and get through more quickly. Therefore I was at my gate and ready to get on the plane, with my disabled early-boarding pass in hand, over 2 hours before my flight. Oh, well, better than being late and rushing!
But the time just flew by. At one point I realized I'd been knitting steadily for about 45 minutes, and when I stopped to think about what had been going through my mind, I realized that I hadn't been thinking about anything. I had vaguely been repeating the stitches in my head as I knit them, but other than that it was all clear. I hadn't been planning or anticipating or worrying about the future, I hadn't been looking back on prior events, I hadn't even been thinking about how long it was until the plane arrived, or anything about my flight. Yet I wasn't “zoned out” or in a tired sort of trance, I was simply thinking only of the thing I was doing at that moment. Each stitch as it came, then when that stitch was completed, the next. Usually in airports I people-watch, I enjoy speculating about where those around me are going and why. But this time, although I registered each person's presence, it was just the immediately apparent facts about them.
I think I'm far from mastering the first step of the Eightfold Path, but I do think that I've at least found a way of being in myself that will allow me to continue to do the work I want to do. The Hedera pattern was a very good one for this step, because there were only 3 row patterns to memorize, and no two in a row were alike. Therefore it required focus to know where in the pattern I was, but not so much attention that I had to continuously anticipate the next step or jerk myself out of myself to repeatedly check my papers. It held my interest but wasn't so complicated that it frustrated or distracted me.
I'm taking a break from socks for a short time, even though I want to just keep knitting more and more socks and continue working on the Middle Way. But I don't know yet which pattern to go to next. I have a pair that I know I want to make, and the yarn set aside to make them, but I don't feel them right now and they wouldn't be a part of this project anyway (my Lolita Socks). I have another skein of sock yarn that I would very much enjoy working with, but I don't know yet what pattern that skein wants to become. I have two more Cookie A patterns printed off as well as her Sock Innovation book, and considering how well her Hedera pattern went, I'm likely to use a pattern of hers for at least one more Eightfold Path sock pair, but I won't just rush in haphazardly for the sake of it. I need to feel that the pattern is the right one for the next step. Until I figure that out, I'm working on my Golden Gate Hoodie, which is the oft-knit Central Park Hoodie (CPH) pattern, very popular. It's my first cable project (although I did do a mini sweater with a mini cable that I used a toothpick to make) and so far it's going pretty well. It's also my first real garment, my first sweater, so it's taking some courage to do it. The ladies from TSG Group 4 gifted me the yarn via WEBS gift certificate over 18 months ago, it's taken me this long to believe I can do it! :)
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