Am I Happy? Do I Know It?

I've been feeling odd. I think maybe those menopausal hormones that have left me alone for nearly 51 years are a-comin' to get me or something. For the past week or so I have often been moved to happy tears, but also easily upset (I thought I was going to vomit trying to watch The Dark Knight), and easily irritated.

Some of the Presidential inauguration things have truly moved me. Obama has posted some messages on his website that are very inspiring to me, and the concert they had today made me tear up for joy. We had a lovely church service today focusing on Odetta, the late folk singer, and it reminded me of all the really wonderful progress we have made toward civil rights. A church member of very mixed race spoke eloquently about discrimination she has dealt with in her life, and her hopes for her and her children's future. I had on my "Hope" button. Sometimes I do have hope, even though it is often a small spark. But...

The First Thing That Has Bugged Me

But some things have made me really sad and/or hormonally pissed off. I saw the following as the status message of a freshman boy, a child whose parents I have known a long time:

Well all you democrats, you're about to get what you wanted. An earth-destroying, pro-gay and abortion terrorist who'll be assassinated before the months' end.

Oh my. That manages to offend me and my personal beliefs in so many ways that mental bells rang and every personal button I have was bushed. Then another kid (one who is smart, and nice but strongly buys into everything his church says which leads him to occasional insensitivity) piped in that he agreed with everything but the killing part.

I was relieved when other students said they thought that what he said wasn't good. But I kept thinking. I realize this kid is young. But, wow, he needs to learn that there are ways to express an opinion that don't totally alienate friends and family, and that there are ways to share a thought that don't put down others or make yourself look ignorant and bigoted. The other thing the poor lad needs to know is that Facebook is not just a thing for people with ill-thought-out opinions to air them. Adults sometimes see what you write. Worse, potential employers may. At the least sharing racist, homophobic and unreasonably violent thoughts can alienate you from people you might need help from later (a favor, a recommendation, a ride to a band performance, say...). So, even though I don't usually do such things, I wrote a little note. I pointed these things out, as nicely as I could.

The second kid immediately realized I was right, said a couple of reasonable "agree to disagree" things and went away. The first kid's GIRLFRIEND thanked me (I thought that was pretty funny). In fact, I think I got the point across to everyone except the original kid, who deleted all the comments and informed us that he wasn't asking for advice.

I feel sad for this boy, who is parroting something her heard and has not thought through. I feel sad for a few others whose similar postings I have read in the past and not said anything (the son of a former friend lost a lot of friends by posting total ravings about Obama that weren't based on every close to reasonable conjecture). I'm sad mostly because I know there are a number of adults out there whose thought processes don't go much further than this high school freshman's either. When there are people who just reacting and not thinking, and lots of them, the chances for reconciliation are slim.

Sigh. I have a fair number of friends who are conservative. One who is very far to the right, even, about whom I care a great deal. But all of these people have thought carefully about why they believe what they do, and feel secure enough in their beliefs that they don't feel compelled to put me down because I think differently. We can talk about things, share our viewpoints, learn from each other. I am very glad to have these friends, because by knowing them well, I am reminded that "right-wing evangelical conservatives" or "Catholic Anti-abortionists" or "Mormons who are against gay marriage" are a great deal more than these one-dimensional stereotypes imply. They are parents, teachers, crafters, great cooks, people with great senses of humor, confused people, confident people, loving friends. They are humans with good and bad points, just like us crazy pro-choice liberals (or whatever stereotype you wish to apply to me). You just can't hate a group if you know the "human-ness" of the group's members. So no, I don't hate conservatives, self-defined rednecks, blah blah blah. I just disagree on some points.

And while I'm on a roll, here's what I wrote earlier on Facebook about something else I am hormonally jacked up about (please go directly to the comments if you already read this; once is plenty).

If I'm Happy and I Know It, Why Can't I Clap My Hands?

Something's been bugging me for a while. It's about the recent elections. The candidate I supported won. That had not happened in a really long time. I was happy. I had reason to have a wee bit of hope for the future (bearing in mind I have lost a lot of jobs in the last few years and things aren't looking too good for my current contract turning permanent, any hope is good). The majority of US voters agreed to choose a leader who shares a lot of my views (not all, but someone with all my views would NEVER get elected!).

Then I started reading odd things. People who voted for the other candidate expressed sincere indignation that voters for the winning side were so darned happy. They had the nerve to say they were happy in emails, or on their Facebook status, or in their blogs. How dare they be so happy when there were other people who were darned unhappy?

Well. Hmm. I noticed a lot of jubilation. But very little in the way of put-downs of the other candidate (I grant that there are liberal jerks, of course--jerkiness knows no boundaries). In fact, many people respect the losing candidate greatly for his many contributions to the country, but simply disagreed with him on some important issues. I respect that man, myself, and might have chosen him over some Democrats, even. What on earth is wrong with being happy that you won, as long as you don't defame the people who lost?

Now, let's go back 8 years. The candidate I did not vote for won. I really, really, really didn't like this guy, who happened to have been the governor of my own state, so I had experienced his true disregard for "the little people" and his love for multinational corporations, oil conglomerates and the very rich. This fellow was declared the winner without winning a majority of votes and in fact, there's a lot of evidence that one state's votes were tampered with so that he'd win. Yet, I heard a great deal of gloating that this inarticulate fellow had a "mandate from the people." I did not see people who agreed with me wailing and gnashing their teeth--in fact they were pretty darned wimpy, and chalked it up to the democratic process and moved on to quietly work for peace and change in the middle of wars for made-up reasons and horrible financial decisions. We let the winners be happy that they won, in that election and the next. We kept low, since the word "liberal" had been turned into an insult, and wondered why our beliefs were suddenly "bad."

So, things changed. People got tired of the big-business first, regular people last philosophy, and voted differently. That made some of us happy enough to actually say, tentatively, "Yeah, I'm a progressive," or "I'm against that war," etc. Our candidate won. Why can't we say we are happy?

You know, only one team wins the Super Bowl. That team's city has a big parade. They make a lot of t-shirts and bumper stickers. People are proud their team won. No one suggests that they really shouldn't express their joy because it makes the team that didn't win feel bad. Everyone knows the other team played hard and did their best, and deserves respect. Everyone knows that team will go back and work hard to win next time. But, the winner gets to be happy.

So hey, let me be happy and clap my hands this week. I know plenty of bad stuff is ahead--no one can work a miracle and fix things right now. No, the only way things can get fixed is if we all work together, and with the divisive, hate-filled and ignorant things I have been reading lately, I don't have a lot of hope that we'll work together. Too many people get a thrill out of demonizing people with different faces, places of worship, political leanings or fiscal philosophies.

I don't think anyone I know is a demon intent on destroying the world. I respect people's rights to make informed decisions and realize that through their families, life experiences or choice of religion, their beliefs might differ from mine. I do, though, find it really sad when people I care about put me and people with beliefs like mine down or make wildly exaggerated conjectures about our future actions, just because we are different.

Look, I don't honestly think Bush set out to cause the financial downfall of Western society as part of some big plan to fund the Rapture. So don't tell me Obama is going to pry all your precious guns away, either. The truth is usually way closer to the middle.

I'm going to go clap my hands and be happy for a couple of days, then get back to trying to figure out ways to keep my family safe in the upcoming scary times. Me being happy and saying so doesn't mean I think you didn't fight a good fight or that your beliefs don't count, conservative friends. I respect and care for you, just like I always did, and realize that this country will always have people in it with a wide spectrum of beliefs--we'll never turn into your Utopia, nor mine. I think we're all going to have to compromise in order to get along--always.

Your mileage may, naturally, vary. I expect it will.

In Conclusion

I hope that by writing this all out and walking away from it, I'll feel marginally better. Thanks for reading, all ten of you! Comments are welcome. Even dissenting ones (respectful, of course, puh-leeze).

I Keep Thinking about that Poor Lady

A rant.

I keep thinking about that poor teacher who went to the Sudan to teach and now is in jail for naming a teddy bear the wrong thing. She asked the students what to name it, and they voted on Mohammed. Yeah, she did that all right. Heretic!

You know, Anglo Christians in the US don't like to name children or other representational objects after their Lord and Savior, but no one gets threatened with a public beating if they do. If someone from another culture showed up and named their dog or chia pet Jesus Christ or something, someone would probably just let them know, "We don't do that here--perhaps you could choose another name." And the person would regret the faux pas, but not be scarred for life.

Heck, one reason I hesitated to ever actually visit Japan after all those years of nihongo o benkyoo shimasu (studying Japanese) was that I worried that I would make a cultural slip and be embarrassed. Now, no Japanese person would run go find a whip or a katana and whack me--they'd probably bow and say something at the wrong politeness level, so I'd know I did something I shouldn't do. But, I wouldn't want to insult their culture. I am a well educated person who knows more about other cultures than the average American, yet I can't know all the rules--it's impossible.

And I have no doubt that poor British woman set out to offend Islam. Look, I have been in classrooms my own self, right here in Yee Haw Texas, with multiple students named Jesus and Mohammed (spelled more than one way). It might just give one the impression that people in some cultures name their children after deities. And since in most cultures, children name their toys with the same kinds of names they give themselves, I'd probably be guilty of thinking I could name a class toy Jesus or Mohammed--they are very common names that children are familiar with. It would be to me like naming a teddy bear John or Kamal (only nobody was named Kamal when I was a kid--the black kids and white kids had similar names until a bit after I showed up on earth).

This is what scares me. I could easily have made the same mistake as that lady in the Sudan, even if I had tried to learn the customs where I was, and was doing my best to memorize extremist interpretations of Islam. I guess I could have a cheat sheet under my burka (or whatever you wear to cover your lady-ness in the Sudan--I only knew frightened Sudanese Christians back in grad school).

We are all gonna make a cultural faux pas as the world becomes smaller and different cultures become more prominent. We will all be trying to learn the cultural taboos and lore of the new-to-us cultures the best we can. I think it's my duty to cut people from outside the US some slack if they mess up. Wouldn't it be nice if they could do the same? What is it with the intense drive to whip people in public? Scary. Scary. And ooh, if you get raped, well, you should not have let yourself get alone with a man, missy, never mind that he forced himself on you. 500 lashes!

As sorry as I feel for that lady who tried to do a teaching job outside her native country, I also feel sorry for moderate Muslims. I read on the CNN article a couple of comments from Muslims begging others like themselves to show that Islam is a compassionate and kind religion, to let others know that in most parts of the Islamic world people aren't treated like that (note to self: avoid Saudi Arabia and the Sudan). I know how they feel, when I hear people around the world denouncing the US and acting as if all Americans are power-hungry war-mongers like Bush and his cronies. I, too, want to get all my friends to yell at others, "We are not all like him! Lots of us disagree!"

Too bad all of us moderates seem to be slipping into powerlessness as we watch all kinds of extremists gain control of institutions and try to re-make society in their narrow-minded image.

PS: I am actually feeling a little better today, honest. No job leads, but I had such a nice time last night at the yarn shop and choir rehearsal (where Beccano helped us do music and we laughed a lot) that the cheeriness went all the way into today!

This Explains a Lot (Political Rant Ahead)

This morning Lee pointed me to a comment on global warming made by Our President's Press Secretary.

“Look, this is an issue where I’m sure lots of people would love to ridicule me
when I say this, but it is true that many people die from cold-related deaths
every winter,” she said. “And there are studies that say that climate change in
certain areas of the world would help those individuals. There are also concerns
that it would increase tropical diseases and … I’m not an expert in that.”

No, it's not just that she was having a blond moment. She believes this crap. You do realize, don't you, that the people Our President hangs out with are among those who truly believe the earth is here for us to use up, and whatever happens is just fine and dandy because their deity is going to pop up real soon anyhow and transport them all away to Happy Land. (That is when the rest of us will get their fine, gas guzzling cars.) That's probably why Our President won't spend money to care for young children's health but implores us to help out the young people he has sent over to die in a foreign country to his cronies' oil money is protected. Heck, we're all gonna die shortly anyway--those kids won't get to grow up.

WHY aren't more people up in arms with alarm that people who think this way, make policy decisions based on these beliefs, and spend OUR tax money on an agenda based on this way of thinking. They keep telling us that fundamentalist Islamist extremists are nutsos. Um, well, sorry, but so are fundamentalist Christian extremists. (Note that I think moderate to liberal Muslims and Christians tend to be fine people and ought to be as concerned as I am about the radicals.)

And My Friend Bill thinks I am way too pessimistic for stockpiling headscarves for when we become the United States of Iranica. That's also why I have so much yarn. So I'll have something to do while I am stuck in my house the rest of my life. That's assuming I haven't died from radiation sickness. We aren't THAT far from all those bases in San Antonio and Killeen.

Gee, I had a choice of a meme about me me me or this, and I blogged about this. Hmm. I am taking things one day at a time, and trying to enjoy my crazed liberal lifestyle while I have it. And I AM voting, and I AM talking about things, trying to keep people aware.

I will post happy things about the kids and knitting later.

Just a Sinner, That's Me

Remember that nice post about how much we enjoyed the football game last Friday, and how nice it was to chaperone together? Well, scratch that. We live in sin, so we are not welcome on the bus.

Here is my original pissed off email, which I am not actually gonna send, of course. I will engage in a reasonable dialogue and make my points calmly, and appear to "not take it personally." Because, of course, it turns out someone else's past behavior is why we are being singled out.


Dear Band Directors and Band Boosters,

Today I was informed by email that my Domestic Partner, Lee [surname deleted], was not welcome to chaperone band students or travel with them to and from events. The insinuation was that because we are not legally married, he is not their guardian and thus unqualified to sit on the bus. I listed Lee as guardian on the forms I turned in to the band and to the school. My children’s biological father lives out of state and very rarely is in town when a band event is occurring, so Lee does the day-to-day parenting. You can scratch Lee’s name off, however, if you also deem that listing inappropriate.

I am sure that whoever complained about Lee chaperoning will rest much easier now, knowing that neither of my children’s guardians will be at future band events, nor serving on the scholarship committee—how could unmarried adults with a lifetime personal commitment competently judge the character of middle school students, anyway?

Seriously, though, I suggest that basing qualifications for chaperoning our children on marital status alone might not be the ideal practice.

For example, the church we are members of allows domestic partners and even single people with no children to teach religious education classes. However, they run a background check to make sure these people are not registered sex offenders, convicted felons, or whatever. I feel good knowing that the teachers have been checked out. You could be a sex offender, a convicted felon, a drug addict or who knows what, but as long as you have that marriage license in your hot little hand, you can ride the bus for [deleted] High School.

I’d feel much safer knowing my children were being taken care of by people whose character and qualifications had been checked, not by people who qualified merely by giving birth or entering into a legal contract with someone who gave birth to a student in band. Could you please consider something like this in addition to the legal qualifications you now have, since they seem important enough to alienate potential long-term volunteers and former dedicated band boosters?

And here are some interesting facts. Lee has passed many drug tests as conditions for employment, and since he is looking for work right now, is passing background checks right and left right. No convictions, tickets, warrants or anything are on his record. He is also qualified to drive a school bus or semi truck. Wow, wouldn’t that come in handy some day? Too bad he isn’t MARRIED!!

While being treated as second-class citizens means you have lost me and Lee as band volunteers, you may wish to consider more appropriate criteria for determining future chaperon qualifications. I know we’re in Williamson County and all that, but I find it hard to believe that there are not others in the area served by [deleted] High School who aren’t fans of marriage but are committed partners. Heck, I think we even have a couple of gay families hiding somewhere. I hear they care about their kids, too, but our state doesn’t allow them to marry.

Thank you for considering my suggestion.

Sadly,

[my name and address deleted]

PS: Maybe you’d better ask other band parents to show their marriage licenses—you wouldn’t want any other unmarried couples sneaking on buses!

I Have an Opinion

I often read CNN's website while I am eating lunch. Sometimes that is not a good idea, like today, when I got pretty sick of what I was reading. It was this article here, about that horrid Football man who killed all those dogs and such. In this article, some brilliant rep for the NAACP actually said the following ignorant things:

"'In some instances, I believe [Mr. Football] has received more negative press than if he would've killed a human being,' [Mr. NAACP] said. 'The way he is being persecuted, he wouldn't have been persecuted that much had he killed somebody.'

"[Mr. NAACP] said he believes [Mr. Football] will cut a deal rather than roll the dice on a trial and take a chance on being found guilty, but 'whatever he's done wrongly, he needs to pay for it.'

[Mr. NAACP] also said he didn't understand the uproar over dogfighting, when hunting deer and other animals is perfectly acceptable."

Well, if ignorance is bliss, Mr. NAACP must be a really happy fellow.

First, killing just for the fun you get from torture is nasty. Killing anything just to watch it die a painful death shows there is something deeply wrong with you. And you know I think killing people is bad. But, bad enough to train an animal to do something against its nature, bad enough to torture the animals when they are alive, but then to torture them to death? That is completely sick. And, Mr. NAACP, people DO differentiate between things that were accidents and brutally torturous murderers of humans, too.

And let me count the ways in which torturing dogs to death differs from hunting a deer:

1. Hunters do their utmost to quickly kill animals and not let them suffer. They don't douse them with gasoline and laugh as they die.

2. Hunting originated as a way to feed families. Humans are omnivorous, and to eat meat, something must die. But there is more than one way to do that. Many, if not most, hunters give the animals they shoot to the needy or eat them themselves. I doubt Mr. Football man ate any dead pit bulls. But, I guess he could have. He seems inhuman enough.

3. Deer are prey animals. They were put here to be food for something. Domestic dogs were put here to be companions to humans and help them (herding, protecting, keeping warm).

4. When you are hunting, the animals have a chance to escape--a "sporting" chance. They aren't tied up and brutally killed (yeah yeah, there are some counterexamples to this--I am not for that kind of hunting--well, actually, I am not big on hunting, period, but I don't think it's on par with dog torture).

I could go on, but am sick to my stomach. And when the sports dudes on Monday Night Football went on and on about how the gambling was worse than the dog fighting, they lost all my respect, too. Gambling at least just hurts people who gamble. (Note, I don't gamble, at all, either.) I hope Mr. NAACP never hears the end of it for what he said. And I fantasize that Mr. Football gets sentenced to the job in his high security prison of scooping the guard dogs' poop. With the dogs loose and HIM chained up. Sigh, but I wouldn't do that to a fellow human being, because I am not cruel and vindictive. Lucky Mr. Football.

This is the kind of stuff I try to dwell on so I don't worry about Lee all day. How'm I doin'?

Making Joyful Noises, Gratitude Amid Stress

I am glad I went to the first rehearsal of the Round Rock Community Choir last night, even though I was having some big ole stress issues from Lee's job going away. Flashback to last year, sigh. Singing really helped take my mind off troubles, and made me feel better (just like the choir director said it would). The music was neither too easy nor too hard, and though it is incredibly Xtian, that's OK--it's for a Christmas concert. Now, the show tunes they want us to do for Sun City, ick. The director seems excellent, and I am looking forward to learning a lot from her. And my voice mostly worked all right. Only cut out a couple of times. I think it's getting better.

Last night, sitting with Lee and trying to comfort him, I realized that I felt a familiar way. I just looked up one of my favorite posts from just over a year ago, June 2006, when I had just been laid off. It is where I counted my anxiety symptoms. Ooh, they came back for a visit!

Rant On: Now, this post nearly got me fired as a knitting teacher because someone who didn't bother to talk to ME about it, called the LYS owner to say that they thought maybe I was too much of a mess to teach. I laugh about it now. That's one reason I de-linked this blog from the LYS site, my friends' blogs and such. Just so random do-gooders would have less success finding it. It's bad enough so many people who don't speak to me directly continue to read this all the time. It's worse when it's people I don't even know.

(Still not sure why someone would keep up with my daily ups and downs so obsessively but not ever tell me hello in person or at least leave a comment...but I guess we're all different, huh! So, hello to Sherwood, Jacksonville, Cedar Park and beyond!) Rant Off. I just need to make this point every couple of months, I guess.

Back to my main point--I can really see that job stress gets to me more than a lot of other stuff. Even Lee's. I am doing a lot better today, mainly because I have a lot more confidence in his marketability than mine. There's no 15-year gap filled only by a questional nonprofit organization gig to have to explain, for one thing. He's done some great stuff, and really deserves a better place to do more good work.

So, goodbye to my symptoms and hello to the positive outlook I eventually get to anyway. Doors closing means others open, and all those cliches.

Gratitude Tuesday (I was a bit stressed to say what I was grateful for yesterday):

I am grateful to you, my friends. Thanks to everyone who's emailed me and given suggestions and support to both me and Lee. They are both always welcome and very much apppreciated. Now I'll go sing something, at least in my head! It does one's spirit a world of good.

I am also so very grateful that Lee and I have each other now, so when the poop rains on our heads, we have someone holding a newspaper to deflect it.

One Less Frightening Influence

Well, Jerry Falwell died. I never could figure out how so many people could buy his line of bullshit, hook line and sinker. He was such a fake! And a liar! And really more of a con man than anything else, not some fellow Jesus was great pals with. I do wish he'd had less influence on US culture. But, Americans can be so gullible. Some of them.

Diana found this today on Newsweek's website. Read it! A real, accurate biography of this person who did very little to better the world in which he lived.

Here's my favorite excerpt:

"On September 13, 2001, Falwell said this on Pat Robertson’s show, “The 700 Club”: “The enemies of America give us probably what we deserve.” When asked to elaborate, Falwell added, “When we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way—all of them who have tried to secularize America—I point the finger in their face and say, ‘you helped this happen.’” Robertson replied, “Well, I totally concur.” Falwell later apologized, unconvincingly, for offending anyone."

This is the best quote I saw on cnn.com:

"He should be erased from every history book and media story," wrote Brian Pippinger of St. Petersburg, Florida.

If I believed in a specific afterlife (who knows? I am a pagan agnostic after all!) I bet he'd not be in a fun one. Or maybe I'll just hope his next life is one as a gay woman of color. Maybe a muslim one. Yeah. He needs to see how the rest of the world perceives things, so he can get some better karma.

I am enjoying my imaginary future for ole Jerry now.

Hmm, there are very few people I truly dislike enough to write stuff like this about.

What is it with people?

It's my last day in California, and I had a good time here! Even the work part has been great so far. I don't look forward to getting home at 3:30 am only to have to teach knitting to many small children at 8:30 am but am prepared to crash.

But, what is it with some people? Email seems to make folks feel free to write just about anything about people they don't know--making things up, calling them names...isn't it still slander when you do it by email for hundreds of people to read? I see so many of the volunteers at my organization engaging in this behavior, over and over, with no consequences, that I seriously am considering becoming just an employee and not a member as well. I don't want to be associated with this type of behavior--I feel guilty by association.

Just a little vent. Really, I know everyone has good intentions. They just don't realize people they don't know are human beings, too. And that they don't have the facts (or choose to ignore it).