a crucible

A crucible is for refining and purifying matter, using heat, not so that it is burned up and consumed, but rather purified and unadulterated. I have been in this crucible twice now. The walls of this vessel are composed of anxiety, dread, and horror. The first time was when I was 17, and this second time I am 45. I fear the final crucible will be at the end of my life, and in fact, annihilate me. Until then, I am being refined, redefined, purified, and tried. The anxiety is the looming unknown. I don't know what will happen next. I cannot guess, I don't know. Then the fear, the dread, the horror of something bad, something even worse than what has already occurred. First it got bad, then better, then bad, then worse, then laughably horrible. Each day is a fresh horror. Each phone call a reason to panic. Food is ashes in my mouth, sleep escapes me. I wake, thinking I have had a bad dream, and the reality that hits me is actually worse than the nightmare. I pace, like a big cat in a small barred cage. I jump at every sound. When will this crucible stop refining?

The Bitch is Back

The Bitch is back, and I'm not actually referring to myself. No. See, its my mother. She has had a nervous breakdown and many of my illusions about her have been shattered. Now I have new fears. Let me explain: Growing up, I was not a fighter, I didn't "start stuff". I followed directions, did as expected, and as soon as I got to college, reveled in my freedom. Of course I made mistakes, but I paid my consequences and learned, stretched, grew. I didn't question my upbringing until then. My mother was a boss. She was supreme, ultimate boss. Never to be questioned or denied boss. I did as I was told but mostly because the consequences of rebelling were too horrific. Once I got to boss myself, I really liked the new boss (me), and really started to resent the old boss. She is not happy unless she is bossing someone else around, and for years, other people have flocked to her...the ones who like to be bossed about, told what to do, and intervened with. I don't want anyone messing with me. I loathe interventions. We are very different, personality - wise, in this respect. I expect other people to boss themselves appropriately, and I admit I am appalled when they do not. But really, who cares about them? I don't - I only respect people who can appropriately manage themselves. So, I listened patiently when my mom nattered on about her latest "project" and the interventions she created. I swear she enjoys making people cry. I didn't care, because at least it wasn't me this time! Then, in this past decade or so, we have been getting along better. I didn't really reflect on why, just was happy that 90% of the time, we could have a phone conversation without me getting into a huff. She never gets huffy. I guess I am too sensitive. But I didn't question the improvement, I just really thought she was mellowing out, backing off, letting go...acting more like me in these situations. Then the nervous breakdown, manifested as non-stop talking, chattering, and ultimately, back to bossing. She is proud of being "back" to her old self. She acts like she has renewed energy and commitment to intervening with all of us. She is so hellishly proud of being a nurse, a clinician, a matriarch. She is 'shoulding' all over me. I'm pretty pissed about it, thank you for asking. I don't need help living my life. I want NO MORE interventions, I am improving myself at my own pace and to my satisfaction. In fact, my self satisfaction is surprisingly high at this point. I want no part of this new/old mom. Plus I hate change. And confrontation. God help me, really! I need patience, and I need to grow a spine when it comes to standing up to her. Mostly, I need to have enough time/space to step back when I am feeling angry, and analyze why. Then I can calm down and give an appropriate response. Huffiness helped neither of us. But damn, I am going to miss mellow mom.

I have to see how useful the app is for emailing from a cruise ship. The first thing to check is the keyboard. It is not perfect, but it is not too bad, either. The second thing is 'can I save the file and access it later' questions. Can I copy and paste, can I send it by email, and can I load it to the blog? And why will the 'L' not work half the time???

politicks

A word on the liberal vs. conservative In a political history class a conservative was defined as "the political belief of preserving traditional moral values by restricting personal freedoms and encouraging prosperity through economic freedom". Not too shabby a definition. Liberal was " the polical belief of equality and personal freedom for everyone, changing the current system to increase government protection of civil liberties" - wow, that sounds fun! And I guess that is why some traditional people are against this... it make liberalism sound so great, with no downside, right? I mean who would want the moral high ground when everybody can just share and get along. I probably used to feel that way, until I realized what hypocrites most liberals are... Its true that conservatism does restrict personal freedom, and that its moral foundation is exclusively religious. So you cannot kill, steal, rape, worship a different god, lie, envy or covet because they are morally wrong, and laws have been written around these moral tenets. It makes for a stable society, when these laws are enforced. However, not everyone is happy, and that is conservatism's main downside. To their credit, conservatives don't promise happiness for everyone, they just enforce a system that works for a majority of people the majority of the time. So its easy to see why there is rebellion against this system. The tenet of: like Santa, "be good and you'll get sugarplums, but if you're naughty, you get coal" doesn't work when bad things happen to good people, despite their best efforts. Or say, when women are systematically belittled and curtailed because that's in the religious texts, too, and therefore considered 'moral'. However, then we come to conservatism's opposite: liberalism. The morality of liberalism has nothing to do with the major religions, rather the ideal that all persons should be treated equally under the law. And they want to enforce this equality with laws to protect liberties. Basically, you can do anything you want to, unless and until it infringes on another's rights to do anything they want to, until it infriges on some other person's rights to do anything they want to...ad infinitum. What you get, is less stability, because there are the constant cries (from every direction) of "foul!" as rights are stomped right and left. Oh sure, it would be nice if we just all respected our little space and each other, but the reality is... well, just watch a group of preschoolers and you'll see. Its not practical. Everybody is suing everyone else over every little infringement, and the system is clogged with complicated and increasingly complicating laws in an effort to get back to every true liberal's ideal: the Plains Indian tribes that peacefully travel with the seasons, following their food sources, worshipping a divinity in their own way, not owning anything, working together in harmony, raising all children as their own, and never going to war. Its true...that is really what they think will happen. True liberals come grudgingly to the table of property rights, because they really don't believe anyone can 'own the land' (just use it for a while). They concede that some ownership must be allowed, but create tons of exceptions: you can't dam that river because it impacts other people using that water, you can't build that wind farm because turbines are an 'eyesore', you can't mine for that mineral, because you ruin the appearance of that ground for everyone else. So how does industry happen? How do people aquire stuff if you are not allowed to make stuff? So liberals back-track and concede: you can mine, but only over there, you can build a pipeline, just as long is it can never pollute a body of water. Are you starting to get the economic picture? Do you see why liberalism is at odds with capitalism? When you try to mix liberalism and capitalism you get arguments like: you HAVE to hire him even though he is unintelligent, lazy, and irresponsible because he has been victimized by someone else's morals! So what is the answer? the stuff you see every day: the political arguments, the vacilation between Republican and Democratic control, the push pull as both sides fight for their ideal one step at a time. No one is really winning. Neither side should 'win'. Maybe someone needs to define a third option...

You don't have to (be) Lily White to make good Biscuits

Hah! So there! Take that Mary B! You see, I am against hypocracy, and for truth. In advertising, I may as well be tilting at windmills...it won't help. However, in my own private corner, I can justify my truth, and call the corporate man (or woman) what they are: big, fat, dirty LIARS. Home made biscuits? Hey, you can't disparage my battlefronts, I didn't start this war. However, you can be a soldier, too, if you know what you are fighting for. You see, it all started over a hundred years ago, when some guy thought to himself, "Hey, I can make a buck by putting non-food items in food to make food easier to cook, with more consistently mediocre results, not only will people buy it over and over, they will eventually forget that food is better for you when its not contaminated with non-food, and they will forget that food is not all that hard to cook, and they will not even think to blame their heath problems on their food." Okay, so he didn't think all that, he just thought about making a buck, and really didn't give a shit about anything else. So we have Kellogg making our breakfast (instead of bug-eatin' chickens and slop-eatin' hogs and grannies wielding cast-iron frypans) and since processed grain cereals are so nutritionally vacuous that they must be fortified, we have changed one meal from natural to completely artificial. Then we had Kayser from P'n'G who 'crystalized' cottonseed oil and made Crisco and sold it with cookbooks, so that we could make our own baked good without harming a pig, plus the demonizing of lard by the government and we have another 30% of our food that completely adulterated. And then there are the frozen, boxed meals, and we have got the whole day covered. I know, I bought plenty of frozen meals in my day, eaten more than my share of Oreos, and I am still not completely clean in my shopping. The difference now, is, I am aware and becoming more so. I recently realized I was buying a certain brand of flour just to 'make sure' my buttermilk biscuits were as light and fluffy as they could be....why??? Why am I eating bleaching agents? And DH is no better, buying the above brand frozen biscuits, ostensibly to make it easier on me not to work a little bit to make them from scratch. Why? Why eat aluminum? Why eat partially hydrogenated anything for any reason? You can make biscuits from Butter Flour Baking Powder (go for the old brands, like Clabber Girl) and Buttermilk They come out great, and I like their lumpy non-uniform personalities as well. Why the fuck must biscuits be round? That wastes dough for what...prettiness? I made jam this past weekend, and all that was in it was : Berries, Pectin, Sugar so F U J. M. & Co.. I'm not saying everything is easy. But a lot of things are far easier to cook from whole, natural ingredients than I ever suspected, because I grew up with the mindset that all cooking is NOT easy. Once you cook a little (hey, it really is just chemistry), you can cook more, you can make better, and you can do it without the addition of NON-FOOD. It IS a revolution...join me!

Homeless People Suck

So this most recent Bible lesson was from James' second chapter and urged Christians to look at everyone as brothers (and sisters) as Jesus did. Also, to not show favoritism to the rich man who enters their (church//congregation) just because he has nice rings. The pastor exhorted us to do likewise, to not tell a smelly homeless person to sit in the back of the church, but welcome him as warmly and openly as any other, and offer to help him. Pastor also read from Acts about the people who sold land, but did not give all the proceeds to the church, and then fell dead on the spot when they were confronted (and they persisted in lying about the transaction). So am I to think that this church wants me to swallow my repugnance to obviously dysfunctional people, and sell my extra stuff so that I can support a church in helping them? Because that sounds like crap to me. My aunt assured me that pastor did not mean it to that extent, but that may just be her hypocrisy showing. Because, to show no favoritism is against nature. It is not natural to show NO favoritism to your own child over some other jerk's nasty brat. It is not natural to deliberately hang out with people who bug you rather than people who don't. It is not natural to not reject those who persistently refuse to live by laws that the rest of us seem to agree with. Biologically, we favor those with 'like' traits, and admonish our families to minimize difference. I'm not talking about purple hair, I'm talking about clean hair. If your kid suddenly decides to go counter-culture by not washing his hair, are you okay with that? No, because there is a level of acceptability below which you cannot go. It may be different for different families or groups, but there is a line which crossing over turns perilous. Homeless people go way over my line. Anyone who thinks it is easier to just live by the charitable acts of others than to earn the fruit of labor is way over my line. I am not against charity. I am not against people who need help now and then. I am not against random acts of kindness and paying things forward. I AM against laziness. I am against being anti-rule just to be anti-rule, even if they are unwritten rules. On some level, homeless people revel in the fact that they don't have to get up and work like the rest of us, that they are, in their own way, beating the system, and are free. They take pride in the fact that they scam you and me out of our hard-earned money, food, and shelter. I do mean the persistently homeless, the ones who have been given opportunity to get out and time and again, manage to fail spectacularly. Why should I give them any respect? They can't see that they hurt themselves the most. They really think they are winning. I can't condone that level of stupidity (or self-deception). I don't respect them. I cannot treat them as I would my friend. I can pity them. I don't like to help them. It does not make me feel good on any level. I don't get warm and fuzzy inside. I just feel like I have been 'had'. Homeless people (or destitute people) come to my door and beg for money on a somewhat regular basis. Why? because my house is the first on the block and right off the main road and near a bus stop. They don't even have to walk very far. Some just ask for work, but few mean to do it. Besides, the jobs are already taken. I do my own lawn. If I hire out, I don't take the first to offer, I find a reliable reference. So really, they just want something for nuthin'. Well so do young kids, but do you give it to them? NO. You don't get somethin' for nothin'. You have to work. You have to earn it.

Why I HATE modern Christian music

Okay, so my Aunt dragged me to church this Sunday. It was a Calvary Chapel...not to be confused with Calvary Baptist or Calgary anything, which is a name-brand. This CC denomination was started by hippies kicked out of other churches because of their polarizing looks and counter-culture attitudes. They are a Bible-studying church (which I like), but they like the modern music, with the guitar playing and the words, but not the melody up on the screen. So, I hate the modern music...that is strike one. Well, no actually, strike one is that I am tired of church-shopping. I have given up finding a church that I would like. So the crappy music is strike two. I like the traditional music - its more solemn, and also its smarter. I mean Mozart-genius smarter. Like when you listen to it, you can feel your brain cells growing. Sing "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" and tell me you don't feel smarter afterward!?! All these guitar-folk-soundy hymns all sound the same, and they are musically boring. The reason they don't put the melody up on the screen is that it would be a series of the same fuckin note over and over again, so why bother. They are hiding their musical mediocrity, or they figure their audience/congregation is so musically stupid they can't read music if it was given to them. But why should they figure that...are they just dumbing everything down? They don't bother with any of that fancy rhyming either. Or, even worse, they rhyme words with themselves. Seriously, you can't do any better? The only variety is the bridge (thank you, popular rock music, for giving them that idea). I honestly don't mind the words. The point of a Hymn is that it is to connect you with God, that it focuses your faith, and moves your spirit in ways that simple speech cannot. The words (lyrics) are the focusing points, the revelatory portion of the song. But, the melody is the soul-moving part, and without it, lyrics are just that much talk. You need both. I hate Christian Rock stations, too. They all sound the same, all the songs sound the same, formulaic. Sure there are exceptions, and they are usually SO good, so exceptional that they cross over into Mainstream (Creed, anyone?) So send me to a church with an organ and a proper choir. If I see an acoustic guitar on stage, I am going to bolt. And all you Christian Rockers, will you please study some damn music theory and quit listening to "Blowin' in the Wind", for the Love of GOD?