Hey, here's something to make the majority of readers break out in hives and gnash their teeth:
I like Ayn Rand.
Okay, now here's something to make Ayn Rand roll over in her grave while breaking out in hives and gnashing her teeth:
I don't think you have to accept all of her ideas to find value in some of them.
I read Anthem in 7th grade, which would have made me, say, 12. By the end of 8th grade, I'd plowed through the twin giants The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and by high school I was making my way through the non-fiction like it was my job. No, seriously, it was like a part-time job. It was a laborious slog through a forest of "epistemological" this and "metaphysical" that, and required some crash-coursing in works by Kant and Nietschze, plus economic theory, soviet history, etc. Looking back I can say with some certainty that I wasn't fully equipped to absorb Thus Spake Zarathustra at 14 but man, did I try. It was weird times.
But anyway, like many a teenager before me, I got my knickers all in a twist about Ayn Rand. I won a couple of scholarship essay contests through the Ayn Rand Institute, then promptly used the money to pay for housing while I attended a tuition-free school whose founder promoted the very un-Objectivist notion that "education should be as free as air and water." Oh irony, you devil.
In my experience, a lot of people loved Ayn Rand in their youth, and why not? She's just the thing for your teenagedly rebellious nerd. The conviction, the autonomy, the suave condescension, and oh man, the selfishness. You know, all the things you explore as a teenager, but tidy and controlled and attractively intellectual for kids who don't get off on piercings and Mad Dog 20/20.
Usually it ends one of two ways: You get metaphorically punched in the face by real life, realize that the world is a nuanced and amazing and sometimes grossly unfair place, swing way to the left politically, and only admit to your Rand obsession as a sort of embarrassing folly of youth, or you're blessed with smooth sailing in life, vote for people who want to create a flat tax and keep a picture of yourself shaking hands with Alan Greenspan over your desk like some kind of Libertarian-leaning Bat Signal. (For the record, I enrolled as a Libertarian when I first registered to vote at 18. I did not, however, vote for Harry Brown that year).
For my part, I still make a point of reading Atlas Shrugged every year, and it functions for me now in a lot of the same ways it did then as delicious, delicious brain porn. In the world of Dagny and Hank, and yes, John Galt, there is nothing sexier than being smart, talented, proficient. Well, actually, several passages suggest that a little light S&M might be sexier to them, but that's neither here nor there.
In all seriousness, here are a couple of lessons that stuck with me, albeit somewhat altered or expanded, from those days:
1. There is a value in selfishness. It's a particularly Rand-ish idea, but I think she had a fairly myopic view of what that means, or at the very least described it in such a cartoonishly flattened way that a lot of people did it wrong. We need to think critically about what that means. I'm talking real selfishness, the kind where you take the time to understand who you are, what you value, and what you need, both in the immediate sense and the bigger picture. We think of selfishness as inherently anti-other-people, but that's a pretty terrible piece of logic unless you're capable of compartmentalizing so severely that you barely have a concept of cause and effect. Here's an example: During the first snowstorm of the season, the city didn't call a parking ban because it was supposed to be a minor storm. It ended up being pretty significant. I depend on street parking, and live in an area where it's very limited. When snow doesn't get cleared, there's less parking. So while it's inconvenient to find a place to park off-street and conventional selfishness means not inconveniencing myself, in the big picture, doing right by everyone and moving my car benefits me the most. Here's a broader example: I'm not a sociopath, so I dislike seeing or making other people suffer. I have a selfish interest in living in a just world where people are well treated. Women who vote Republican, people on Medicare who vote for politicians who promise cuts to entitlement programs, people who claim they love their children who deny climate change: these are people who could stand to be a little more selfish.
Which would require...
2. Valuing thinking. No joke, the false dichotomy of being a critical thinker/educated/smart or being a "regular person" needs to be killed with fire. In the past year, the number of letters to the editor in which someone has bragged that they don't have some stupid education has exploded, and it's a real crazy-maker. You don't have to be a super-genius to be a thinker, but remember this gem from the NYT Magazine quoting Karl Rove?:
[Rove] said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN REGULAR PEOPLE ABDICATE THE RESPONSIBILITY TO THINK. Evil geniuses decide they can literally hijack reality. I think that's grossly optimistic, but it's been proven a bazillion times that they can hijack the popular perception of reality which is dangerously close. And if you think for even a second that someone who thinks like this is remotely interested in what happens to your life, you're not a "regular joe" you're a numbskull.
I'm going to create a feedback loop here and suggest that you read this, a blog entry by a friend and delightful thinker. It links back to here, but I promise it's not quid pro quo -- I just don't feel like doubling up the good work he's already done.
I'm a traitor by real Objectivist standards. It is, after all, an ideology that insists you take it whole or leave it, but I still credit Ayn Rand with sparking a lot of the big picture thinking that informs who I am now and giving me permission to have enough ego to survive my early teens with my self-esteem in tact.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Saturday, February 18, 2012
War of the Worlds
I submit for your consideration that not every disagreement is a war.
Yes, for a lot of people their faith informs their ethics, but when you start applying your ethical guidelines to public policy, you best make sure you have a better reason for espousing them than, "Because a bunch of long-dead or possibly never-living guys wrote a book that told me so."
As I watch the slow-motion trainwreck that is the Republican nominating process, it strikes me that the figureheads crying "War on Faith!" are purportedly acting on faith-based ethics, yet their positions are pretty wildly out of step with the ethics of many of the self-described faithful among the electorate. The question of whether that portion of the electorate is apostate is for that community to decide, but it's more likely that they find it reasonable to understand their faith in a contemporary context instead of blindly applying standards dictated thousands of years and half a world away.
So what to do when you're a politician who's such a wackadoo that you're alienating even your usually conservative and agreeable base? Find a scapegoat and try to convince everybody to circle the wagons. Doctor up a false choice. Equate examined and thoughtful moral stances with godlessness. Make sure they have to choose between their identity as a believer and their dirty, dirty modern ideas. If possible, try to get people less polarizing than you to promote this idea so it has a patina of credibility and the debate winds up such a muck of hate and accusation that everyone's too tired to suss out who the real enemy is.
But let's indulge a little parable: One of the most adorable couples in my little burg we'll call Hank and Betsy. They're autistic and met while working in a hospital cafeteria. They've been married for roughly 20 years now and on their anniversary Betsy wears a taffeta prom dress for the day. Every morning at 4 a.m. they go to a popular local diner for breakfast.
Ten years ago, they'd come in every morning and order coffee, then Hank would order a full breakfast. He'd eat in silence while Betsy lustfully watched every forkful go from the plate to his mouth.
One day the owner of the diner asked, "How come Betsy doesn't get breakfast? Aren't you hungry, Betsy?"
Hank looked up. "We can only afford one."
Hank looked up. "We can only afford one."
"So why do you always get to eat but Betsy doesn't?" asked the owner.
"Because I'm the man," answered Hank, and continued munching away. It was clear that in his mind, this was a perfectly reasonable, logical answer.
"That's not very fair, Hank," said the owner. "Both of you work to get the money but only one of you gets breakfast. Next time, how about I make two plates and split the food so you both get to eat?"
This was an arrangement that hadn't occurred to Hank before. In his literal world, informed by the traditional culture he was raised in, the breakfast inequity issue was simply a non-starter. He wasn't crazy about the proposed arrangement, even though he rarely finished the whole meal. When quizzed, he liked the idea of being nice to Betsy, but the prospect of changing the established dynamic was unsettling just on the face of it.
The million dollar question, then: Did the diner owner's proposal constitute a war on Hank's worldview?
For those of you on the fence, the answer is no. Come on, now.
Likewise, there is no war on faith in this country despite indignant cries to the contrary. This bears repeating: There is no war on faith in this country.
People of faith are largely unaware of the extent to which their worldview dominates the discourse. God casually saturates everything: our money, our oaths, our sneezes. On the national "war on faith" stage (with "faith," by the way being code for "Judeo-Christian faith, preferably less Judeo but at least that Old Testament was a page turner") they like to point this out as though the rest of us haven't noticed, as though not complaining abut the little stuff somehow means that speaking up about the big issues is hypocritical. We have, and it isn't.
People of faith are largely unaware of the extent to which their worldview dominates the discourse. God casually saturates everything: our money, our oaths, our sneezes. On the national "war on faith" stage (with "faith," by the way being code for "Judeo-Christian faith, preferably less Judeo but at least that Old Testament was a page turner") they like to point this out as though the rest of us haven't noticed, as though not complaining abut the little stuff somehow means that speaking up about the big issues is hypocritical. We have, and it isn't.
I am generally a laissez faire atheist. I don't believe in god and I find it difficult to understand how and why other people do. But they do, so okay. My grandparents were exceptionally devout and it brought them a measure of comfort, something I don't begrudge anyone. Where things start to get problematic for
me is when religious dogma creeps into public policy. Thing is, it's been creeping (and occasionally crashing around like a bull in a china shop) for years and is currently manifesting in a particularly unsavory way. Protesting this is very different than executing an unprovoked assault. In fact, unlike, say, evangelical Christians, the opposition voices aren't arguing that people abandon their beliefs, they're asking them not to use their beliefs as a bludgeoning tool in the service of ulterior motives.
Let's think of it in fun, retro-marketing terms: God-drunk politicians are all, "Hey, stop trying to get your peanut butter in my chocolate!" but everyone who doesn't share their faith is like, "Dude, your chocolate's been all up in my peanut butter for years now and I've tried to be accommodating, but dang!"
Let's think of it in fun, retro-marketing terms: God-drunk politicians are all, "Hey, stop trying to get your peanut butter in my chocolate!" but everyone who doesn't share their faith is like, "Dude, your chocolate's been all up in my peanut butter for years now and I've tried to be accommodating, but dang!"
Yes, for a lot of people their faith informs their ethics, but when you start applying your ethical guidelines to public policy, you best make sure you have a better reason for espousing them than, "Because a bunch of long-dead or possibly never-living guys wrote a book that told me so."
As I watch the slow-motion trainwreck that is the Republican nominating process, it strikes me that the figureheads crying "War on Faith!" are purportedly acting on faith-based ethics, yet their positions are pretty wildly out of step with the ethics of many of the self-described faithful among the electorate. The question of whether that portion of the electorate is apostate is for that community to decide, but it's more likely that they find it reasonable to understand their faith in a contemporary context instead of blindly applying standards dictated thousands of years and half a world away.
So what to do when you're a politician who's such a wackadoo that you're alienating even your usually conservative and agreeable base? Find a scapegoat and try to convince everybody to circle the wagons. Doctor up a false choice. Equate examined and thoughtful moral stances with godlessness. Make sure they have to choose between their identity as a believer and their dirty, dirty modern ideas. If possible, try to get people less polarizing than you to promote this idea so it has a patina of credibility and the debate winds up such a muck of hate and accusation that everyone's too tired to suss out who the real enemy is.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
I Don't Want To Hurt You, But It's An Election Year
This one's gonna be quick and dirty, folks.
Even before I got political and drifted so far left I fell off the map, I hated election years. I hate them. They are hateful. The are horrible and hateful and over long and I hate them. HATE THEM. But as I think of it, it actually has very little to do with the candidates themselves, who I just generally assume are disingenuous at best and dangerous at worst. No, I hate election years because of the plague of outrageous stupidity the sweeps the nation, infecting even people I generally respect.
If you would prefer that I don't lose my shit on you (at least not from a talking-about-the-election standpoint), keep these things in mind:
1. Party loyalty is for the weak (minded). This is one of those things that I say from the bottom of my heart, and while I want badly to pull punches where dear friends who are party activists are concerned, I just can't.
If you want to be an enrolled voter because you find yourself mostly aligned with their viewpoints, fine. But you have a responsibility to speak up when you disagree, and if you find yourself torturing logic to excuse the sketchy shenanigans of some slimy douchebag just because he's "on your team," you suck.
By the same token, there are some parties that have more unpalatable platforms and attract a disproportionate number of bottom feeders, but they are not always evil, and they're not always wrong.
Elections result in people literally controlling our lives. We're not picking the homecoming queen. Think a little harder than that, 'kay?
2. There's tons of egregious shit to criticize. Don't be petty. You know how when people argue on the internet and one of them has a typo, the opponent inevitably responds, "Oh, you 'knoe' it's true? Guess you don't 'knoe' how to spell, though, huh?" This is not meaningful debate, this is elementary school. If you must bicker, even knowing that political debate NEVER results in people changing their minds, own your opponent on logical fallacies, factual errors and dishonesty. Otherwise you look weak and cheap and too poorly informed to win the debate on substance. Also, you make people who share your views look like morons, so stop. Please.
3. Single-issue voters can suck it. Single issue voters love Ron Paul. I'm against U.S. military involvement overseas. Bam, Ron Paul. I'm a hardcore pro-lifer. Bam, Ron Paul. I don't think about issues beyond things that affect me in my dorm room and I'm a wicked stoner who wants to legalize. Bam, Ron Paul. I'm racist, sexist, and homophobic and want to see any protections for minorities thrown out the window. Bam, Ron motherfucking Paul. Ron Paul could get elected by single-issue voters, but I'm guessing that the hippies that wanted to end war and legalize pot are probably not really into the whole pro-life anti-already existing humans agenda. Dear Otherwise Sane People: Stop saying things like, "I like that Ron Paul is anti-war, but I don't agree with a lot of his other ideas," as though you're still weighing out whether he might be an okay choice. Thanks, The World.
4. Consistency is not necessarily a virtue. Okay. Pandering is a bad thing. This is when someone says that they believe whatever will get them the most support in a given situation. This means they might be inconsistent in what they say about their position on a topic from campaign stop to campaign stop. Pandering is a bad thing. This person probably has a consistent opinion, but "flip-flops" out of political expedience.
Open-mindedness is a good thing. That's when you espouse a belief in something, but you listen to other people talk about that thing and, when presented with compelling evidence, change your mind. Suppose you believe that car engines are powered by magical sprites on exercise bicycles, but then someone shows you the interior of an internal combustion engine and you now declare that you firmly believe the scientific community's position on what makes cars go. Your new opinion is inconsistent with your previous position, but the change represents new wisdom and growth as opposed to deceit.
Suppose a candidate also believes in car engine sprites, and after being shown the same information you were, proclaims that the tenuous internal combustion "theory" is just some mumbo jumbo that scientists like to throw around and that he still believes in the sprites and furthermore thinks we need to spend more money on researching engine sprites. He's consistent, but he's fucking crazy.
Alright, I'll stop now, but please. Don't let the internets and televisions whip you into the kind of berserker state that makes these behaviors and beliefs happen. Be sane. Be rational. Be skeptical. Of all of them. Groucho Marx famously wouldn't join any club that would have him as a member. To be honest, I don't really want to give the job of president, or congressman, or senator to anyone who would want it. Question motives and don't be an asshole.
xo,
Meghan
Even before I got political and drifted so far left I fell off the map, I hated election years. I hate them. They are hateful. The are horrible and hateful and over long and I hate them. HATE THEM. But as I think of it, it actually has very little to do with the candidates themselves, who I just generally assume are disingenuous at best and dangerous at worst. No, I hate election years because of the plague of outrageous stupidity the sweeps the nation, infecting even people I generally respect.
If you would prefer that I don't lose my shit on you (at least not from a talking-about-the-election standpoint), keep these things in mind:
1. Party loyalty is for the weak (minded). This is one of those things that I say from the bottom of my heart, and while I want badly to pull punches where dear friends who are party activists are concerned, I just can't.
If you want to be an enrolled voter because you find yourself mostly aligned with their viewpoints, fine. But you have a responsibility to speak up when you disagree, and if you find yourself torturing logic to excuse the sketchy shenanigans of some slimy douchebag just because he's "on your team," you suck.
By the same token, there are some parties that have more unpalatable platforms and attract a disproportionate number of bottom feeders, but they are not always evil, and they're not always wrong.
Elections result in people literally controlling our lives. We're not picking the homecoming queen. Think a little harder than that, 'kay?
2. There's tons of egregious shit to criticize. Don't be petty. You know how when people argue on the internet and one of them has a typo, the opponent inevitably responds, "Oh, you 'knoe' it's true? Guess you don't 'knoe' how to spell, though, huh?" This is not meaningful debate, this is elementary school. If you must bicker, even knowing that political debate NEVER results in people changing their minds, own your opponent on logical fallacies, factual errors and dishonesty. Otherwise you look weak and cheap and too poorly informed to win the debate on substance. Also, you make people who share your views look like morons, so stop. Please.
3. Single-issue voters can suck it. Single issue voters love Ron Paul. I'm against U.S. military involvement overseas. Bam, Ron Paul. I'm a hardcore pro-lifer. Bam, Ron Paul. I don't think about issues beyond things that affect me in my dorm room and I'm a wicked stoner who wants to legalize. Bam, Ron Paul. I'm racist, sexist, and homophobic and want to see any protections for minorities thrown out the window. Bam, Ron motherfucking Paul. Ron Paul could get elected by single-issue voters, but I'm guessing that the hippies that wanted to end war and legalize pot are probably not really into the whole pro-life anti-already existing humans agenda. Dear Otherwise Sane People: Stop saying things like, "I like that Ron Paul is anti-war, but I don't agree with a lot of his other ideas," as though you're still weighing out whether he might be an okay choice. Thanks, The World.
4. Consistency is not necessarily a virtue. Okay. Pandering is a bad thing. This is when someone says that they believe whatever will get them the most support in a given situation. This means they might be inconsistent in what they say about their position on a topic from campaign stop to campaign stop. Pandering is a bad thing. This person probably has a consistent opinion, but "flip-flops" out of political expedience.
Open-mindedness is a good thing. That's when you espouse a belief in something, but you listen to other people talk about that thing and, when presented with compelling evidence, change your mind. Suppose you believe that car engines are powered by magical sprites on exercise bicycles, but then someone shows you the interior of an internal combustion engine and you now declare that you firmly believe the scientific community's position on what makes cars go. Your new opinion is inconsistent with your previous position, but the change represents new wisdom and growth as opposed to deceit.
Suppose a candidate also believes in car engine sprites, and after being shown the same information you were, proclaims that the tenuous internal combustion "theory" is just some mumbo jumbo that scientists like to throw around and that he still believes in the sprites and furthermore thinks we need to spend more money on researching engine sprites. He's consistent, but he's fucking crazy.
Alright, I'll stop now, but please. Don't let the internets and televisions whip you into the kind of berserker state that makes these behaviors and beliefs happen. Be sane. Be rational. Be skeptical. Of all of them. Groucho Marx famously wouldn't join any club that would have him as a member. To be honest, I don't really want to give the job of president, or congressman, or senator to anyone who would want it. Question motives and don't be an asshole.
xo,
Meghan
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
My New Year Comes Late
I'm not much for celebrating the change of calendar years, but I do like to take a quick inventory of the past year when I've successfully lived another 365 days. In other words, it's my birthday and amid the fun times with my awesome friends and family, I like to sprinkle in some thinkin'.
Yesterday evening I had a lengthy and fairly intense conversation with one of my favorite people about depression, empathy, and general philosophy. Specifically, we talked about what it means to be smart and depressed, what it feels like to be "over" empathic in a culture that doesn't, despite its best intentions and platitudes, value empathy (and how it's often perceived as kind of creepy), the relative insignificance/importance of a single human being on macro- and microcosmic scales, and how we understand our personal context and the larger human historical context in the world within an atheist framework. And contrary to how that probably sounds, it was one of the most engaging, funny, uplifting conversations I've had in a while.
I will mark this year as the year I got happy and the beginning of my radicalization (it's short way to radical in these gross political times, by the way). Strange conceptual bedfellows, a bit, but definitely symbiotic . Being happy means I have the luxury of engaging with the world outside in way that is vigorous and positive. Even when I'm seething with indignation about this or that injustice or ranting about letters to the editor, I know it's because I like life and it matters to me that this world is good. For the record, I recognize the nearly unbearable earnestness of statements like that and even that feels like a triumph, even if it makes you, dear reader, barf just a little. Take that, increasingly-marginalized cynical Meg!
What cropped up over and over again in the conversation last night was the idea that being responsible for your own happiness is maybe the defining responsibility of a person's life. Complaining that things are terrible and vaguely hoping they spontaneously get better is a miserably inefficient solution, and one that has ripple effects through other people's lives. Prayer is complaining and really hoping things will spontaneously get better. Next week or next month or next year are not more magical than right now. Your future is happening by seconds, now, now, now, now, now, again now. Be kind now. Appreciate the good things now. I'd cite the Serenity Prayer, but I don't want anyone to wait for a god to give them serenity or courage or wisdom: Accept the things you can't change, change the things you can, take yourself off autopilot and figure out which are which. It sounds incredibly simple, to the point of being meaningless, but in practice those three tasks are very, very difficult. A lot of terrible things happen. A lot of frustrating things happen. Sometimes those things will happen continuously for kind of a long time and there's nothing you can do about it. I've let that stuff own me plenty and all it got me was a double dose of misery. Sometimes the bright spots to focus on belong to a friend or a stranger in a news story, but being happy for those bright spots beats wallowing, defeated, in a dungeon of suffering. It's easy to let yourself off the hook. Sometimes I have to remind myself out loud.
Here's a useful object lesson: I started writing this post this morning before I met friends for lunch. I was supposed to go visit my father afterwards. I thought he was being impatient and calling me at 1 and again a half-hour later, but as it turns out it was his neighbor calling to tell me that Medcu was taking my dad to the hospital. I got to the building as they were leaving, gave them his basic info and told them I'd meet them at the hospital. The facts aren't in yet, but he probably had another in a series of seizures following a stroke more than 8 years ago. It's not serious in the sense that it's unlikely to be fatal, but it will quite possibly mean the end of his independence, something he's fought tooth and nail for over the years. We think this every time, though, and every time he manages a miraculous recovery, just slightly more impaired than before the latest event.
What I've learned from doing this over and over and over again is that I can start fretting now about how this might all turn out, or I can take the simple steps necessary to ensure his care, check in with the hospital, maybe revisit some of the information from last time. I can go hold his hand and let him try to communicate using one or two words, which is usually what he's left with after these events. I can laugh at the very funny two-way text exchange I'm having with friends, take care of a couple of tasks for the part-time job I recently took on, be grateful for the flurry of birthday wishes on facebook, go to dinner with my boyfriend and consider what a really rich, loving, mutually respectful life we lead together and how excited I am about the plans we've put in action.
I can't make my dad not sick, the best I can do is...well, the best I can do and falling down a rabbit hole of negative speculation won't do anything good for anybody.
It's not quite where I thought I was going with this when I started, but I guess it's actually pretty close.
This new year's off to a rousing start!
I will mark this year as the year I got happy and the beginning of my radicalization (it's short way to radical in these gross political times, by the way). Strange conceptual bedfellows, a bit, but definitely symbiotic . Being happy means I have the luxury of engaging with the world outside in way that is vigorous and positive. Even when I'm seething with indignation about this or that injustice or ranting about letters to the editor, I know it's because I like life and it matters to me that this world is good. For the record, I recognize the nearly unbearable earnestness of statements like that and even that feels like a triumph, even if it makes you, dear reader, barf just a little. Take that, increasingly-marginalized cynical Meg!
What cropped up over and over again in the conversation last night was the idea that being responsible for your own happiness is maybe the defining responsibility of a person's life. Complaining that things are terrible and vaguely hoping they spontaneously get better is a miserably inefficient solution, and one that has ripple effects through other people's lives. Prayer is complaining and really hoping things will spontaneously get better. Next week or next month or next year are not more magical than right now. Your future is happening by seconds, now, now, now, now, now, again now. Be kind now. Appreciate the good things now. I'd cite the Serenity Prayer, but I don't want anyone to wait for a god to give them serenity or courage or wisdom: Accept the things you can't change, change the things you can, take yourself off autopilot and figure out which are which. It sounds incredibly simple, to the point of being meaningless, but in practice those three tasks are very, very difficult. A lot of terrible things happen. A lot of frustrating things happen. Sometimes those things will happen continuously for kind of a long time and there's nothing you can do about it. I've let that stuff own me plenty and all it got me was a double dose of misery. Sometimes the bright spots to focus on belong to a friend or a stranger in a news story, but being happy for those bright spots beats wallowing, defeated, in a dungeon of suffering. It's easy to let yourself off the hook. Sometimes I have to remind myself out loud.
Here's a useful object lesson: I started writing this post this morning before I met friends for lunch. I was supposed to go visit my father afterwards. I thought he was being impatient and calling me at 1 and again a half-hour later, but as it turns out it was his neighbor calling to tell me that Medcu was taking my dad to the hospital. I got to the building as they were leaving, gave them his basic info and told them I'd meet them at the hospital. The facts aren't in yet, but he probably had another in a series of seizures following a stroke more than 8 years ago. It's not serious in the sense that it's unlikely to be fatal, but it will quite possibly mean the end of his independence, something he's fought tooth and nail for over the years. We think this every time, though, and every time he manages a miraculous recovery, just slightly more impaired than before the latest event.
What I've learned from doing this over and over and over again is that I can start fretting now about how this might all turn out, or I can take the simple steps necessary to ensure his care, check in with the hospital, maybe revisit some of the information from last time. I can go hold his hand and let him try to communicate using one or two words, which is usually what he's left with after these events. I can laugh at the very funny two-way text exchange I'm having with friends, take care of a couple of tasks for the part-time job I recently took on, be grateful for the flurry of birthday wishes on facebook, go to dinner with my boyfriend and consider what a really rich, loving, mutually respectful life we lead together and how excited I am about the plans we've put in action.
I can't make my dad not sick, the best I can do is...well, the best I can do and falling down a rabbit hole of negative speculation won't do anything good for anybody.
It's not quite where I thought I was going with this when I started, but I guess it's actually pretty close.
This new year's off to a rousing start!
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Giant Marshmallow Pillow -- Yeah!
When I started this blog I was like, "Hey, everything's so awesome! I can't wait to see what awesome stuff's obviously just about to happen every second from now until forever! I'm going to document all that awesome here in this space, just watch! Yay!"
Well, yeah. I meant to, and I really do, actually, experience the majority of my life as a series of awesome events. The things is that I'm also a little bit hermit-y and if I were to write about the things that make me the happiest and most excited on any kind of regular basis, what we'd have here would be a collection of adorable cat pictures and stories and a series of groaningly punny dialogues between me and my boyfriend and/or one or both of us talking to the cat.
Also, for all the fist shaking and righteous indignation on the page, having the energy to invest in larger social issues is a luxury that depressed-me couldn't afford (or was too miserly to budget for). Despite appearances, it's a sign of mental health. But, depending on your taste, maybe less fun than the rainbows and unicorns I seemed to be promising in the beginning.
And I like it. I like my over-long and thinky entries. I like my old smart friends who leave comments and the new friends I've acquired because they're smart and leave comments. I like that even though there aren't a ton of readers, at least some portion of my stats are actual human beings and not click-back bots.
Now you say, "Get to the point, Ramblin' Rose!"
And I say, "Right. Anyway, I'm leaving this business just the way it is, but for those of you with a taste for fly-by-night animation and the disassociative short fiction of dreams, I made a fun blog."
Go now, my pretties.
Well, yeah. I meant to, and I really do, actually, experience the majority of my life as a series of awesome events. The things is that I'm also a little bit hermit-y and if I were to write about the things that make me the happiest and most excited on any kind of regular basis, what we'd have here would be a collection of adorable cat pictures and stories and a series of groaningly punny dialogues between me and my boyfriend and/or one or both of us talking to the cat.
Also, for all the fist shaking and righteous indignation on the page, having the energy to invest in larger social issues is a luxury that depressed-me couldn't afford (or was too miserly to budget for). Despite appearances, it's a sign of mental health. But, depending on your taste, maybe less fun than the rainbows and unicorns I seemed to be promising in the beginning.
And I like it. I like my over-long and thinky entries. I like my old smart friends who leave comments and the new friends I've acquired because they're smart and leave comments. I like that even though there aren't a ton of readers, at least some portion of my stats are actual human beings and not click-back bots.
Now you say, "Get to the point, Ramblin' Rose!"
And I say, "Right. Anyway, I'm leaving this business just the way it is, but for those of you with a taste for fly-by-night animation and the disassociative short fiction of dreams, I made a fun blog."
Go now, my pretties.
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| Seriously, though, how awesome is he? |
Saturday, December 24, 2011
I'm In Love With the USPS And I Don't Care Who Knows It
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| One of several boxes of cherished letters. |
When my grandfather (himself a USPS veteran) suggested I take the civil service exam and go into the family business, my father told me he's never let me "work on the floor with those animals." I was willing to take his word on that. When a man who is himself crass, sexist and somewhat racist tells you it's a rough crowd, well, that's good enough for me.
Ironically, one of the hats I wear in my current job is USPS contract employee, picking up and delivering island mail from the processing and distribution center in Scarborough. I love it there. The plant itself has a Rube Goldberg quality that I enjoy, and I've developed a jovial, affectionate relationship with most of the people who work there. At this point, starting pay as a carrier would be a significant pay cut and the grousing of my buddies there confirms that I'm better off where I am in a workplace where the culture is more like a family than a business, but there's a part of me that wishes I'd taken my grandfather's advice way back when.
Of course these days the postal service is considered a sinking ship. Facing an enormous budget shortfall, there's talk of cutting Saturday service and smaller branches exist under perpetual threat of closure. I can't even count the number of times I've heard the phrase, "No wonder the postal office is going under..." recently. This bothers me. A lot.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
I Enjoy Being a Girl
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| Facial hair=competent, right? |
You know how sometimes you bump into someone and apologize and back up and knock something over and apologize and lean over to pick it up and hip check someone and pretty soon you're in this sort semi-comic nightmare vortex of apology? I think that might happen in a second. Bear with me.
Some people will read this and think I'm an insult to feminism and its hard-won gains. Some people will think I'm being simultaneously a boring scold and a whiny, selfish baby and, on the whole, too sensitive feministy altogether. Some people will probably just think I'm a frivolous nincompoop who spends an awful lot of time pontificating on things that really don't deserve it. Oh, and let's not forget that I'll be using broad strokes and will undoubtedly be accused of stereotyping. As far as what I actually am, well, probably most of it's at least partially true. Except for the stereotype thing, where I hope you'll accept that I'm not speaking for all women, about all men in all circumstances. Call me out if I really hit a nerve, but I can almost guarantee it'll be something I'm shorthanding for the purpose of the discussion. So then: sorry for not being a credit to my gender, sorry for being so tetchy, sorry I'm a nitwit, sorry for extrapolating generalized scenarios from shallow experience pools. Sorry for apologizing in advance. I hate when people do that. Welcome to the nightmare vortex.
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