Be the change you want to see.

saw a very #relatable post on Tumblr (when do i not find relatable posts on Tumblr)
#i love tumblr

it said something like, "housebound, communicating by writing, not allowed to touch anyone not of your household. I've never related to Jane Austen's novels more."

so. that's a thing.

had my second Zoom meeting with my trainer, Etty. plagued with technical difficulties because my phone is four years old and the battery crashes like, all the time. Last time we started with the laptop, and shifted to the phone mid session because i hadn't charged up the laptop. LOL
Today the phone just straight up died after a half an hour video call. 75% charged, my right butt cheek. Ran inside, got a battery pack (thank gods for that one burning man art project we did, we have like 5 battery packs) and we finished the session okay.

my leg had started to hurt kind of a lot. no dancing, no workouts, minimal walking, not a lot of stretching. full body tension, you know what i mean if you have old injuries that still give you grief. and now instead my muscles are SORE but not tense in the same way.

i call it "fun-pain". when you cuss going up and down stairs because your inner hamstring is twanging from yesterday's workout. that's fun-pain.

okay now the cat has pinned my arm to the kitchen table while i type on the laptop, might as well make this a long post.

monday mar 16: Notified of Shelter-In-Place (SHIP). washed & folded a bunch of my damn laundry. we were already more or less Hobbiting in place (HIP) so i didn't think i'd mind too much. my thoughts about that have somewhat changed.

Tuesday mar 17: day 1 mandatory SHIP. walked outside w jeff. Met neighbor Jessica, talked about skillsharing and foodsharing, turns out she runs an email list for the local community. picked up dry cleaning (keepign 6' distance) and washed the hell out of our hands.
Video conference with therapist, our first couples counseling. went well, i think.
watched *your name* which totally fuckin deserved the awards it won.

Wednesday mar 18: finished writing "Would you...?" and posted to tumblr.
* did a color sketch of the red tulips on the verge of losing all their petals. Looks good on the black paper, and I think i did a decent job of getting the proportions right. posted photos to my art instagram, which you can see if we're FB friends.
* Started watching Legend of Korra and DAMN THE HAPPY PLACE FOR ME! woo!

Thursday mar 19. Jeff had discovered that the garbage disposal was leaking under the sink cabinet, so he took it out, found it's all rusted and pitted and the motor was... well. not healthy. he ordered a new one (five+/- days for delivery) and we set ourselves up to wash our dishes in the laundry sink. thank fuck we had the laundry sink, but ughhhhhhhhhhh handwashing all the dishes and pots and pans.
* Cut out 25 or so of two kinds of fabric to make medical masks from.
* Finished reading _REd, White, and Royal Blue_ which is SO GOOD that I'll try and put a link in the comments. everyone who like fanfiction and queer fiction will probably love this little AU. it made me so happy, i gasped more than once, laughed out loud, and literally felt my heart warm.

Friday mar 20. slept the hell in, got lost in Tumblr, and didnt get my breakfast till 1153.
* i insisted on us stripping and remaking the bed with fresh sheets because usually we would have had a wednesday visit from the cleaning folks, so we had to do it ourselves. Jeff was helpful when i explained.
* (looking back from the friday following this day, we have GOT to sweep and mop the floors because argh the dust is getting to me pretty good.)
* Jeff repaired the leak in the hot tub that has been costing us $ and gallons. I helped a little by lying on my face on the deck with a mirror so i could see the gasket that was leaking and was able to confirm that it was no longer leaking. perhaps that's not a little thing, can u imaging the PITA of being in the hot tub with tools, then having to climb out and lay down to try and see if you did it right? it's the context switch that's expensive, cognitively. I knew this, blogged about it in my election day post, but confirmation.

Digression: some hospital workers are working the long ass days like I worked on election day, only EVERY DAY. Try to find something you can do to support your hospital workers, your friends and family who are isolated, or people who are hungry.

Saturday mar 21: Jeff and i had sex, yay! it was nice.
* went for a walk around the neighborhood, met Carlos and Yvette on the corner, the house with the short chainlink fence and kids toys in the yard, across from the house with the lemon trees.
* had the idea of offering services to parents i know with short art lessons or reading lessons. should drop a note in carlos and yvette's mailbox to that effect, with my phone number for texting.
* got the idea to take a long drive. after some negotiation with Jeff we decided on santa cruz so we could see the ocean, and i said if we're there anyway we should get take out at Mobo Sushi, which is one of my top three sushi restaurants in the whole Bay Area. So we did. And then we found a bench overlooking a section of beach, watched people dog walking and some kids playing, but almost entirely deserted, relative to how i think of santa cruz beaches. People were all social distancing!
* (i havent talked much about this because a ton of people have been shit talking "stupid people going to beaches" but i feel we were quite responsible, and so was everyone else we saw, adhering to the established guidelines.)
* so we ate sushi and watched the sunset. I took a few photos, they're also on my instagram, it was a lovely ocean sunset. and then we drove home, and washed our hands washed our hands washed our hands.

Sunday mar 22: Jeff starts to set up the little blue office for video calls and working from home. We got my old desk out of the garage (it's a beautiful desk) and assembled it once we moved all the storage out of the blue room.
* Before the coronavirus blew up the world, he had been thinking of quitting his job. I wanted to support him, i know he's hella burned out, but fortunately GrlPurple convinced him that maybe quitting a well paying job with excellent medical insurance just as a pandemic is ramping up might not be the best choice.
* his work is not currently demanding that everyone work full 40 hour weeks. which is a relief.

***end of first week of SHIP

Monday mar 23: *facepalm* just realized that for maybe the first time since i was a teenager i completely failed to note the Ides of March.
* My mood tanked. had a very quiet day, not much social interaction.
* Did make myself get up, sort out the sewing machine, and sewed most of a dozen mask blanks together on three sides. Filmed part of the process and posted video to facebook. #covidclasses
* okay i guess in retrospect that was a fairly productive day.
* watched a video of the Northern Lights with Jeff. it had classical music and was incredibly restful, i felt my face relax while we watched it.
* watched more Korra, and started watching Sex Education on Netflix. I *really* like it, now that we're past the awkward high school pilot interactions. Definitely getting better the more of it I see.

Tuesday mar 24 Couples Therapy session on Zoom with Lara. NOtes: both feeling underappreciated, we need to talk more about chores and requests made of each other. I need better attention signals (my hearing and my ADHD) because Jeff feels disregarded when I miss his bids for attention. I mentioned needing more explicit versus implicit directions, which he didnt want to be responsible for, which is fair but i still need it. we talked about responding to one another with curiosity and patience vs reactivity and defensiveness.
* i wrote up the notes for the session into the google doc we are sharing with Lara (jeff wrote them up last time I think its a good idea if we alternate, both contributing, both taking responsibility)
* After therapy we took a drive out to get groceries. Jeff went in and I stayed in the car, listening to music and facebooking. He's healthier than i am and doesn't have the lung medical history I do.
* We made dinner together and ate, then went to the Tiny Blue Office for a virtual cocktail hour with the Duartes, Roger and Daniel, Mindy and Steve, Amy (GrlPurple), Rob and Laura (and their dogs). That was really nice, so nice it surprised me. I didn't realize that I missed the Duarte daughters!
* new insinkerator garbage disposal was delivered a day early! WOOOOOOOOt

Wednesday mar 25: had a morning Zoom workout with Etty. My first workout in a couple of weeks. I was tense as shit and my knee had been giving me pain from musculoskeletal tension.
* after the workout i had a mood crash, a sad/overwhelm.
* i need to eat more. i know, i KNOW that when i don't eat enough i have a mood crash, i've been hyperglycemic and then now formally diabetic for *years*
* Jeff installed the brand new insinkerator. It's very shiny and very quiet.
* I restored the undersink compartment to its previous storage-shelf self, and moved all the dishwashing infrastructure back into the kitchen.
* Jeff designed and 3d printed the components he needed to install the not-sodastream into the craft sink. Look! fizzy water in my house!
* I cooked salmon for dinner. it was yummy.

Thursday mar 26: Yesterday.
* sore as HELL from wednesday's workout. pectorals and ... i think theyre hamstrings, squatting and sideways moving muscles i need to look up the structure of the thigh because i need to be intentional about strengthening whatever they are. Because my knee doesn't hurt when that muscle is limber. #research goals #exercise goals
* reordered my Rx for levothroid and warfarin
* drove out to get more canned cat food, got curbside pickup at the vet. I paid verbally on the phone and they brought it out to the car when we arrived. also TIL that the Tesla control console screen will let you open the trunk while still in the car.
* Jeff made us a lovely LOVELY lamb dinner, and I enjoyed eating it BUT i must MUST REMEMBER to take my probiotics EVERY TIME i eat an unusual protein because my bowels HATED their job

which brings us up to today

Friday, mar 27. Had another workout with Etty, despite interruptions from phone-battery crash and digestive upset, I feel like it went really well. Since the gym is actually closing for the duration of this coronavirus epidemic, Etty and I need to work out a new payment method. She has two methods I don't have, and I have two methods SHE doesn't have, hahaha.
* leftover steak for lunch and one or two of those mcvities chocolate digestives that are just SO COMFORTING with the last of my tea
* my fingertips/cuticles are starting to crack and peel again. i have a couple of spots that are bleeding, and the manicure i got with Amy and Joanne before the SHIP started has been peeling off. I think I would like to spend a little time exfoliating my hands, trimming up my cuticles, shaping the nails, and painting them again. P sure i have some nail polish remover around here.
* I want to start composting again. I'll work on diverting my green waste and find out if the garden center near us has any of the red roundworms, start up my worm bin again.
* I found some art cards that I can color in and I want to start sending art randomly to friends, and family.
* god WHY AM I SO BAD AT PHONE CALLS i have a voicemail from my sister that's like four days old and short videos from my sisterinlaw that are nearly that old that i haven't watched. UGHHHHHH

Thanks for sticking with me through this long-ass post. I'm going to try again to subscribe to all-yall so i get notices when you post.

sending love and immunity-strengtheners,

Liz

Today is st. Patrick's Day. I came up with the term earlier today that suddenly Define for me what these sort of overly emphasized and made up holidays and American culture really are to me.

Plastic holidays.

My dad used to call Mother's Day, Father's Day, Valentine's Day, and a lot of other such holidays quote Hallmark holidays unquote. Because in his mind they seemed to exist only to sell more greeting cards. So that's where I'm coming from.

But St. Patrick's Day, it's not even a real holiday even in a Catholic calendar, not really a holiday in the same way that Cinco de Mayo isn't really an important historical date in Mexican history. And what I feel has happened is that these relatively innocuous holiday dates have somehow been glomped up on by American pop culture as an excuse to party, overindulge, and get drunk.

In that same vein, then this afternoon I was thinking about the Disney movie The Hunchback of Notre Dame. And remember their holiday of Topsy Turvy day? I read at some point *cough history nerd cough* that holidays like that exist in the same way that Mardi Gras exists; which is they are safety valves for the restlessness of the popular folk or the poor folk or the little guys.

The more authoritarian, the more controlling, the more class segregated, a culture is, or the more judgemental and repressed they are about sex (music, dancing, art), the greater the need for the kind of Festival that allows Dionysus to really come out.

That's how we put it in one of my Faith Traditions. It is the necessary Madness in Greek paganism. We call it the Lesser Madness, and we accept the Lesser Madness in order to prevent the greater Madness from taking over. The big problem right now, as I see it, is that the greater Madness is going to come and take control.

Our culture is fucked up in so many ways: the belief that the richer you are the more deserving/virtuous/admirable you are. The deliberate breaking of the education system so that only so many people really succeed in getting educated or in learning how to think clearly. The pervasive baked in sexism and racism that prevents so many people from achieving their dreams, their goals, or even, LITERALLY, continued existence.

The Lesser Madness is on the verge of no longer being able to function as a safety valve in American society. The Powers That Be are drowning us all, pissing us off to satisfy their endless horrific greed. Their disregard and cruelty towards "lesser mortals" endangers vulnerable lives in every walk of life, in every time of life from infancy through eldering.

Americans are learning to SEE. Americans are learning, again, to defend our rights. And the "safety valve" is going to blow CLEAN OFF. It already is, as those in the government making a power grab fail to understand that they have awoken the sleeping Leviathan with their unsubtle callous jerking back and forth at the reins.

It's probably better for us, actually, that they are so incompetent. And so disregarding of our agency, power, and willingness to Fuck Shit Up.

The steam engine of this experiment in democracy seems about ready to blow up because the conductor keeps shoveling coal in and disregarding the dials because he doesn't want to control himself.

You know *scratching chin* they probably could have kept fleecing us for a hell of a long time if they'd only gone about it in a moderate fashion. But I think between Flint, Michigan, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, so so many others, so many failures to protect the people, so many failures to look after us, the sheep are going to stampede and trample a bunch of shit, bring confusion to our enemies.

And some of the sheep ain't sheep at all. We're dragons with wings and roars and fire. We're manticores with poison fangs and lion's claws. We're fae, we're tiny enough to get between the gears of the machine and fuck shit up that way, or we're giant amazons, in seven league boots, bearing giant spiked bats made for smashing.

And those that think they control us and can harvest us at their liking will have another think coming.

Smash the Patriarchy.

further reading: Normal is coming unhinged. For the last eight years it has been possible for most people (at least in the relatively privileged classes) to believe that society is sound, that the system, though creaky, basically works, and that the progressive deterioration of everything from ecology to economy is a temporary deviation from the evolutionary imperative of progress...

Dang, you know its been six years since some of my friends IRL stopped posting over here on LJ, and I (mostly) can't beat to "unfriend" them.

Naetheless, just did a small amount of maintenance on my flist.
If you're a new friend, or changed the name of your journal, I may have removed you by mistake. If you're actively reading, but don't comment, now is a good time to let me know.

And! In the housekeeping spirit, hello new friends!
Still welcoming folk from ghost_light's friending friendzy, welcome to my space.
The kettle's over by the sink! The tea is in the pantry, the teacups live in the drawer at the left of the stove. Once you've visited once or twice, you can raid the fridge, (try to) pet the cats, and help fold the laundry.

Irish hospitality. :) I learned from the best (god rest her soul and grant her peace, she was and is deeply loved)

Oh, and if you love fanfic we should totally talk. :)

Funny how I can get sucked into an hour on Facebook and random page surfing and feel ill and confused, but an hour of hand-sewing leaves me peaceful, centered and focused.

Actually, it's not funny at all.
It feels to me as though there are forces in the world that draw us out of ourselves into confusion, that the goal of those forces is distraction and dismay and discouragement.

Feels as though these forces are trying to prevent us from accomplishing the wonder*full, important, world-changing tasks we are capable of accomplishing.


Someone I read recently was reflecting upon the results of introducing sugar and alcohol into the diet of the Inuit: addiction and obesity and other health issues resulted... along with the disintegration of the strong traditional society.

Sugar...
Alcohol...
Internet...

Don't get me wrong, I do my best to use my Internet Powers for good, and I know most of us do. I keep in contact with family and friends, both distant and near. I try to keep informed about political issues and problems close to my heart, and to use the internet to learn and grow.

But I do find there's thousands of ways to get distracted and lose focus.

(p.s. In the middle of writing this post, I got distracted, lost focus, wandered around other websites, and eventually left the computer, forgetting to finish this post and, well, POST it. One more data point for my hypothesis)

How many of us have to write down what we came to the computer to accomplish, because once we get online, it's "Oh, I'll just check email and facebook" and two hours later, dazed, go to turn off the screen, only to realize we totally spaced on the One Task we'd set out to finish?

*raises hand very high*

Right at this instance, I have two Chrome windows open, the first has 55 tabs open (I counted) and the second has sixteen. And I'm aggressively using ReadItLater to close tabs!

Why the holy FUCK do I need (or "need") SEVENTY-ONE windows open for websites?

*frustrated*

I think, among other motivations, I feel guilt about not-reading things which are Relevant to My Interests, or I want to respond to people, participate in conversations, try that writing assignment popfiend inspired, decide which events I will actually attend, find inspiration and support in changing my habits...

see?

is complicated.

There is just Too Much Crap out there.
I'm not "keeping up" with Facebook, OR Twitter, much less Google Plus.

Livejournal is where I come for substantial food-for-thought. It's where I come for a human experience.

Here is where people can think, discuss, collect.
Here is where posts *stay still* in their original place, so I can refer back to them easily, they don't get shuffled all around in my reading list.
Here I can bookmark, tag, save to Memories, useful or interesting posts, information, and art.

Honestly?

I hope LJ succeeds. Because for me, it's rather like a beacon on a dark and stormy ocean.
Livejournal (go ahead and laugh now) is a bastion of sanity in the craziness and you-should-buy-this-now, inadequate-creature-that-you-are culture of the Internets and the western, corporate commercialization of thought.

People here truly talk, think, reflect. People here share, comment, (hug), give good advice or smacks with the salmon-of-wisdom.

I'd pitch a lot of the internet out the window (defenestration practice anyone?) before giving up on this site.

Matter of fact, think I will for awhile.

*whew*

Guess I've been here a long time now.

Here's something I learned this weekend.

I grew up in Sacramento but have spent the last several years slagging it off and praising the Bay Area. Thing is, I don't have to slag off one place to love another place. And visiting family and friends this weekend has been good from the perspective of appreciating how much value-added Sacramento has in terms of old, vivid, meaningful memories. There are stories around every corner: there's where so and so used to live, I got my first tattoo there, Drat my favorite thrift store has gone out of business, there's my first apartment where I lived with Jeff for a little while, etc. Stories that go back so far that I remember distances in minutes-walked or bicycled because I was a kid and that's just how you got around.

Stories that shaped me.

In a similar vein, I found myself falling into old habits of snarkitude. I'm embarrassed to admit this. I took the easy shot, more than once in the last week or so, snarking or slagging people who are "easy targets", people who other people also make fun of, people who I used to make fun of myself. I don't need to do that either anymore. I don't like how I am when I do that. I want to be a person who speaks up when my cousin says something I object to, not wait till he's out of earshot and snark on him. I want to work on that level of courage. I want to have the courage of my convictions and the strength to hold them up.

Truth is more important than the easy laugh.
Integrity is more important than avoiding offense.

It's time to kick things up a notch. It's time to show up and take on more responsibility, take care with the details to make sure they are done properly. It's time to reach out and go get what I need for my life and my health and quit avoiding, best I can, the things that I don't want to have to do but that I know I need to do if I'm going to launch into the next phase of my development and my impact on the world.

I want to make an impact. I'm okay with it being subtle (though knowing me, I'll probably be a bit brash and loud about it instead) and I'm okay with being small-scale.
For now.

Taking care of business is what I can do right now. Bringing Quality and Commitment to whatever I choose to spend my energies on. What I realized this morning, is that means, if I'm being a housewife, to take care of things as best I can, and don't put it off till tomorrow. If I'm being a student, same thing. If I'm jobhunting, same thing. (sensing a trend here? Yes, I procrastinate)

I need to use available tools to help me stay on track, motivated, on top of things, and to complete quality work. To quote a certain famous Hindu, I need to be the change I wish to see in the world. And let what doesn't matter, fall away.

I think I better go. I have work to do.

How many geek points do I earn if I was mentally composing my Livejournal entry about a date within 5 minutes of starting to drive home from it?

*grinning*

if I haven't heard from you in a long time, if you never friended me back, or if seeing your name does not make me smile, I just cut you from my flist.

no hard feelings I hope, but then I think those I cut won't ever read this anyway.