Category: rant

“There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment about the nature of sin, for example,” said Oats. “And what do they think? Against it, are they?” said Granny Weatherwax. “It’s not as simple as that. It’s not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray.”

“Nope.”

“Pardon?”

“There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.

“It’s a lot more complicated than that –”

“No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”

“Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes –”

“But they starts with thinking about people as things …”

— Carpe Jugulum, Terry Pratchett

 

I love this passage. Actually read Carpe Jugulum. There are several Weatherwax passages that have me grinning triumphantly and crying at the same time.

I live in New Hampshire.

It’s a Presidential election year.

I can tell you that none of the candidates have found a friend in Noël Figart. I get knocks on my door, I get phone calls.  I get phone calls from people. I get phone calls from machines with carefully-worded recordings that make it impossible to give my real views on a given subject.  I get junk mail.

One phone call?  Okay, fine.  You gotta get your message out to the poor saps who don’t watch the news.  (I don’t.  I’m an avid blogger and reader of blogs.  Something interesting comes by, someone’ll link to it).

But calling me three times in one day is excessive, after having someone knock on my door the day before.  If I didn’t already dislike the politics of the Junior Sentator from New York, I’d be guarendamnteed to vote against Clinton after today.

I have one question to any candidate:  Did you vote against the war in Iraq?  No?

Ya don’t have my vote.  Abstentions don’t count.  If you voted for a war, please have the courtesy not to claim to be peace-loving and all tender hearted about the people.  KTHXBYE.

How often do we hear an apology accompanied by:

“but I was PMSing.”
“but I’d been drinking.”
“but I’ve had a rough day.”
“but I was distracted.”

I was thinking of it because of course, I’m vain enough to do that — to make excuses for myself and why a behavior I didn’t like in myself wasn’t “really so bad”.

What would things look like, I wonder, if we developed the courage to face our choices in behavior to the point where we can say, “Yes, I did X thing. I don’t like it that I did it, and I’m sorry I did it. I’ll try in the future to correct that behavior and not do it again.”? (If we’re really sorry about our behavior, of course!)

In doing that though, I don’t mean saying, “I’m an awful person and I did X”. I mean facing it without self recrimination, but simple acknowledgment, accompanied by any apology you feel necessary and a sincere desire to correct it.

Serenely accepting imperfection and still trying without slacking, I think, can be hard.

There’s a meme running around about how “neurotypical v. asperger’s syndrome” you might be.

It drives me up a motherfucking wall. I know it looks like I’m holding back and all, but please understand that my sweet smile and gentle speech covers a boiling, seething rage at this one.

Why?

Autism spectrum illnesses are complex, involved, multi-layered and not completely understood. I know a lot of people want to lay a certain level of social cluelessness at the feet of a neurological issue, but it’s a lot more complex than that. A self-diagnosis won’t work.

Autism, while on the rise¹, is rare. It is a spectrum disorder that is amazingly complex and difficult to diagnose except in the most extreme and obvious of cases, but even then, don’t be too sure. There are other issues that you have to rule out, first.

Asperger’s is also a very specific diagnosis within the range of autism spectrum disorders. It is not a synonym for, “Your kid might be a high-functioning autistic.”² If you have a preschool teacher tell you that your kid has Asperger’s, for instance, find an expert in these disorders. I promise you that unless that person did more than take a semester’s worth of abnormal childhood development courses, or has worked for many, many years with a large range of children with these issues, he doesn’t know. A quick way to stop punch that sort of nonsense is to demand that they list the diagnostic criteria for Asperger’s according to the DSM-IV. If they cannot do that, they’re not qualified to give an opinion. Get an expert.

If you suspect you might have Asperger’s, and you think a diagnosis and training in coping would be useful to you, find more than one expert. Explain your problems. Get multiple opinions. Yes, this is difficult and will be insanely expensive. Unless you’re experiencing serious quality of life issues, it might not be profitable to bother. I can’t choose for someone else’s life. Only you can decide that one.

But by whatever you hold holy, don’t judge it from a damn internet meme!

¹It is also on the rise because the diagnostic criteria have changed in the last fifteen years or so!
²For instance, if there is a speech delay issue, and you’re told your kid has Asperger’s, you can chuck that opinion in the trash. One of the hallmarks of Asperger’s and one that makes it tragically difficult to diagnose early, is that the kid is hyperverbal.

I’ve been looking up pictures and articles on kimono, sewing, and costuming just ’cause… Well, dammit, the Internet can be worse than M&Ms!  You know how it is, you go to find one bit of information, and that leads you to another, and before long, while you started out trying to figure out whether or not you wanted a lined kimono, you’re checking out the effects of Asian trade routes on the settlement of the New World.1

Anyway, I wound up checking out a lot of pictures of people modeling their kimono and other sewing projects and I have a request to make, especially the wonderful, creative women who knit and sew and model their creations on the Internet.

Stop fucking slouching!

Yes, I can see you have a flat bust and a big belly.  Slouching won’t hide that.  It just makes you look sloppy.  And you, Madam with the unfashionably large boobs?  Honey, we full figured gals only have one answer to that.  Lift the chest, my dear, otherwise you look dumpy and beaten down.  And you, the chick who is taller than your friends?  Rounding the shoulders like that makes you look ashamed and awkward.  Stoppit!  Stand tall, darlin’.

It’s a bit of a peeve, because it seems to me the message is, “I’m trying to hide and diminish myself.” (Barring injury.  I cannot imagine one can stand up straight easily when the back is thrown out, or some such!).

It does bring up an interesting thought, though.  I recall my Nanny2 in her oh-so-gracious way at the beach commenting on a woman walking in front of us who was slouching.  Between puffs of her unfiltered Chesterfields, she a red-laquered fingernail at the woman, scowled, and said, “Goddammit, why don’t people show any pride in themselves?  I look like an old sea witch3, myself, but you’ll never catch me walking along like I’m expecting a kick!”

I do associate slouching with a lack of personal pride.  <grin> So much so, that I don’t permit feeling unconfident to show in my posture.

1 I’ve heard rumors that there are people who actually can restrict a search only to the information for which they were looking. I’ve often wondered if I should start a support organization to help them get over it.

2 Maternal grandmother, not hired caretaker.

3She did, and not in a good way. Smoking and a lifetime of tanning dark doesn’t do much for your looks, and bless her heart, she didn’t have much to work with, anyway.  I loved Nanny for her utter refusal to let the fact that she was not pretty in a culture that valued it stand in the way of her enjoying life.  Much moxie, that lady.

I’ve had it up to my eyeballs with people over the age of 18 not held as accountable adults.

Do I think that there’s any magic age at which someone is an adult and that 18 is such an age?

No, not at all. As long it is stuck to socially, holding someone accountable as an adult at any age over puberty won’t get any real argument out of me. But this pretend stuff has got to stop. If you’re a kid at 18, then dammit, change the laws!

When I was in my mid-teens, the drinking age in Washington, DC was 18. I lived about 50 miles from there, and it was common among people between the ages of 18 and 21 to go to Georgetown to party.

The law changed around my 18th birthday. No grandfather clause. Like many young adults, I grumbled the famous cliche, “I’m old enough to die for my country, but not old enough to take a drink.”

Some “older and wiser heads”¹ told me that I’d feel differently when I got older.

Well, I think as old as my parents were at the time is “older” enough. I still don’t feel differently about it.

I grumbled once that they oughta just raise the age of majority to 21 and be done with it. pointed out to me that the credit card companies would freak. They make a lot of money out of the 18-21 age demographic. If the age of majority is raised, you won’t be able to extend that age group credit at very high rates and with all those wonderful fees.

Yes, between the credit and drinking bad judgement, you might think I am in favor of an older age of adulthood.

I’m not. I’m in favor of a culture that teaches accountability, that stops calling a 19 year old college student a “kid” (which I do. I’m a product of my culture, but this I intend to try to stop), a culture that could somehow have real opportunities for youngster rather than forcing them to play at life for years and years after they’re biologically adults. It’s the rare teenager who feels of any use at all in society. Sure some do, and that’s awesome. But it’s rare, because for the most part they’re in a holding pattern. That holding pattern is lousy training for adulthood.

¹Not my parents. I’d been allowed to drink on special occasions en famille since strangers started addressing me as “ma’am”. Call it sixteen.

Someone on my LJ friends list is in favor of having a sort of compulsory public service instituted in the US.

As a rational anarchist¹, I’m against that.

This is not to say I am against public service projects. Not in the least. What I do say is that they should be voluntary.

I challenge anyone in favor of compulsory public service: If you haven’t done so (and perhaps many of you have. Good for you if you do!), pick a public service project and donate ten hours a month of your time to it.

Volunteerism on a regular basis doesn’t happen as often as it could. There are a lot of reasons for this. Housewives used to be the big volunteer base in the US, and between high taxation and a higher perceived “minimum” standard of living², the stay at home mom is a rare bird. (For good or for bad. Me? I prefer to support myself, but that’s a personal taste thing). Government services have increased to the point where we genuinely believe that it is the Government’s job to take care of social needs, and we seem willing to pay for charity to be a highly specialized profession. We have a mental blind spot about it.

I’m not saying this as someone who spends a lot of her time volunteering. Maybe you count Polyfamilies as a community building volunteer type project. If so, I don’t do it any more, and that’s five years out of 37, ya know? And I don’t really count it. I’m neither proud nor ashamed of the fact I haven’t spent much time on community service, but I did want the facts straight.

I do think community service is a good and worthy thing. I just don’t think we should use our young adults as slave labor because we can’t be arsed to get off our butts ourselves! We’d be setting ourselves up for another fiasco like Social Security! I’m all for setting an example. You think community service is important? Go do it! Yes, many readers do. And good for you! Talk it up on your LJs, cause people should see a good example to follow.

¹ “A rational anarchist believes that concepts such as ‘state’ and ‘society’ and ‘government’ have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame . . . as blame, guilt, responsibility are matters taking place inside human beings singly and nowhere else. But being rational, he knows that not all individuals hold his evaluations, so he tries to live perfectly in an imperfect world . . . aware that his effort will be less than perfect yet undismayed by self-knowledge of self-failure.” — The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert A. Heinlein

² House size has increased threefold since the 1950s. — http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/1088198054084680

I had a glorious swim today. I checked out a whiteboard that had a workout for a swim team on it, and I figured I’d try to do as much of it as I could in 20 minutes.

It felt great, slicing through the water, feeling my limbs extend and pull as I tried strokes I don’t often use, doing the intervals and just having a deliciously wonderful time getting all hot and out of breath.

After he workout, I bounded out of the pool, and pulled off my cap, feeling the hot slap of my wet hair hit my back.¹. I went to get my towel, ID and my workout record sheet.². One of the lifeguards caught my eye and went over to a table to sign off on the sheet.

“Good job,” he said as he took the sheet, and signed it, then said Very Seriously again, “Good job.”

I had been flying up until then. While my mouth smiled, I thanked and I left the pool area normally, I cringed into a little ball inside.

Why?

It embarrassed me that a boy young enough to be my son said such a thing. Now, I have accepted similar compliments from boys that much younger than I am before and wiggled with satisfaction and accomplishment. Granted, they usually wore white pajamas and had black belts around their waists, but they were still that young.

I got to thinking about it as I showered the chlorine out of my hair and tried to pull jeans onto my slightly damp body.

That boy, a lifeguard and I suspect at least a junior swimming coach, did not mean the slightest harm or condescension in what he said. Far from it. For the last eight weeks, he’s seen me several times a week go to the pool. He’s watched my improvements in speed and form in the pool, and while I doubt he’s paid that much attention, my general shape change as well. I would bet a fair amount of money he thinks seeing improvement in anyone jumping in that pool is cool.

I’ve been called “as proud as Lucifer” more than once. I always kinda liked it. Damn’ right I’m proud! I’d think to myself. I did not get that this is not a compliment.

The classic story of Lucifer goes something like this:

Lucifer was the most beautiful of the angels and the closest Being to God, whom he loved with all his heart, soul and angelic might.

He watched with interest and excitement when God made the earth, separated the heavens from the earth, filled the sea with fish, and the land with animals. Then He made a Being in His own image — a being he loved and wanted His angels to love as well.

But then He asked for one thing more.

“I want you angels to bow down to this new Being.”

Lucifer was shocked. He was crushed. He was horrified. “But Lord, you cannot ask me to bow to any but you. I won’t do it!”

God, who could hardly believe anyone, much less His beloved Lucifer would defy Him, cast Lucifer from His sight.

Now…. That’s usually where the story ends.

But there’s more to it.

You see, God repented of His anger³ and reached out his hand to Lucifer, who by this time had decided he needed neither love nor kindness any more, he’d been too hurt and no longer trusted kindness or love. The angel turned his face from from his former Beloved to live in solitude with is own thoughts.⁴

You can draw many conclusions from the story and take many lessons⁵. For me, in this moment, the lesson of the story is not to close myself off from kindness, or be so proud that I’m embarrassed rather than pleased at it.

¹ You can imagine how hard I was going for my hair to be hot in a pool!

²My insurance company will reimburse an amount that actually covers a basic gym membership at the college for employees if you get it documented that you worked out 2 times a week for 12 weeks out of 20. A sweet and easy deal.

³Don’t get shocked at the idea of God repenting of anger or judgment. God repents of many things in the Bible. Look it up!

⁴YOU HAVE PERHAPS HEARD THE PHRASE THAT HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE?
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
Death nodded. IN TIME, he said, YOU WILL LEARN THAT IT IS WRONG.
— (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)

⁵You could actually make a pretty good case for the fact that the One True Love idea is a serious sin.