This is me just running my mind, so bear with...

I think the biggest political issue, in the US, right now is what we might call the "threat to the status quo." For many, many years the people making all the decisions were men of similar educational/religious/financial background, with similar values and desires, and they were mostly legislating from those values and desires, without considering the values and desires of others (because, let's be honest, we only really notice other people's when they come into conflict with our own, and if the other person has no power behind them, they don't come into conflict with us.)

So we've got the Old White Guy majority in the political arena, and all of a sudden people of different background start Getting Ideas!

Women's Rights!

Segregation!

Now it's voting and immigration and gays, all at once, and the Old White Guys have been bleeding from a million tiny cuts and they're determined to hang on to their political majority (even if it's largely contrived and they're clinging by their fingernails to the edge of the cliff). They're losing, and they know they're losing, but they're not ready to lose yet, so as more cuts come, they are trying to close up some of the old ones.

That's why abortion and reproductive issues are back in the spotlight, and why every legislative "focus group" is comprised of older men with a religious background that opposes anything that puts a hold on procreation.

In the backs of their minds, they're thinking "We gave you this, and we thought we were done with you and now you're back, wanting MORE, so in return you're going to have to give this back to us."

It may take us a few more years yet, but eventually, it will become apparent that there are more of US than there are of THEM, and even some of them are becoming disillusioned. Once you've seen the vocal minority as a group of people, with thoughts and feelings and opinions, it's difficult to unsee that. I think the problem I have with the Old White Guys is that they tend to look at women, children -- really, anyone Not Like Them -- as intellectually like a sort of superior (by which I mean "with opposable thumbs and therefor capable of following more sophisticated direction) domesticated animal, rather than as individuals with the ability to reason and consider and question and, y'know, have Free Will (but that's a rant for another place and time, honestly). 

Which is why I think homophobia IS, in fact, a fear -- a ridiculous one, perhaps, but not necessarily unreasonable. The Rainbow Flag (and all its allies) stand to acquire a fair amount of power, and when they do, they will be prying it from the hands of the Old White Guys who just want to maintain the status quo. And once they lose that power, it's GONE, and many of them will have nothing left, because if they can't have political power, what's the rest of it all FOR, after all...

Giant....sex?

Oh, dear. It's just no good.

I'm in the middle of a reread of the Harry Potter books (including a rewatch of all the movies) because DinoBoy (the 9YO) started reading them, and...

Well, I mean, I *knew* Hagrid was half-Giant, since the first time I read...whichever book it was. Goblet of Fire? Anyway...

It's just that now, for some reason, it's occurred to me to actually, y'know... think about that. You know. Giant sex. Or, rather, HALF Giant sex.

Or, well, to be completely accurate, Human + Giant sex.

So, yeah.

Giants are, on average, in the Potter-verse, around 20 feet tall, right? And the average human between 5'6" and 6', depending on whether they're male or female, which is still, at best, just over 1/3 the size.

SO, yeah.

I mean, the idea of a human male with a Giant female is a bit... well. Rather like a terrier humping a Rottweiler, honestly.

However, a male Giant with whatever human? What kind of a size queen would you have to BE???

(So, yeah, apparently my imagination is even more twisted than *I* gave it credit for being.

Also, I am NOT going to Google Giant sex. I am not, I am not, I am NOT!)

Edible Flower Gardening?

It's no secret to my friends that I can be a bit...weird, and even hobbyist sometimes. I get on these weird hobbyhorses and ride them straight into the ground. Sometimes I let them recover for a few years and hop right back on. Right now, I'm being maybe a tiny bit obsessive about gardens. Odd because I'm not really an outdoors-y type, but, well, I like flowers and I like fresh vegetables, and the bugs and dirt and sunburns are kind of a necessary part of all that. So.

A couple of years back, my husband got me a couple of bare root roses for a birthday present -- one a climber called Zephirine Drouhin, the other a... I don't know. Hybrid tea? Floribunda? Grandiflora? Not a clue, but I do know she's named "Sweetness." Lovely, delicately pale purple blossoms, lemony fragrance. & Zephirine has some very very PINK blossoms and a gorgeous fragrance. Anyway. After several years of judicious pruning, Zephirine is an explosion of blossoms this year, so I've been wondering what to do with the petals -- our climate is such that I've gotten 2-3 or sometimes 4 blooming periods from my roses.

So I started looking into things like rosewater. Rosewater is a great thing for cosmetic use, but it's also used as flavor in recipes (like for delicate clear soups, for pastries, etc.). Of course, for either use, you want to use rose petals that are free of pesticides, and the only way to truly control that is by growing your own. The two methods of creating rosewater are to create a small stovetop still (which is actually pretty cool; gonna try that sometime!) or to steep rose petals in boiling water, rather like making tea. The steeping version requires rather less volume of fresh petals, although you can also use dried; but I really REALLY want to try the still, which means kind of a lot of petals. Which means more roses. Therefore... I've been researching methods of propagation.

SO, this year, I am going to be trying a couple of different methods of propagation. If one of them works for me, I may use it on my mom's roses; I've wanted to do that for years because they're lovely -- a white and a red -- but I've never really tried to figure out HOW. Additionally, I'm considering learning how to preserve the rose petals by drying so that I can use them in the future (or, y'know... make a sachet to throw in my lingerie drawer).

Part of my rambling through Teh Interwebz landed me on a list of edible flowers, so now I'm also kind of taken with the idea of planting my flower garden full of edible blossoms -- marigold, nasturtium, pansy, etc. -- and other edibles -- sunflowers might be nice, along with herbs and a few veggies. The biggest problems are that in the already semi-cleared garden section in front of the house there seems to be an underground nest of wasps which must be removed (in an ecologically sound way so that I can plant edibles there) and the fact that I'm going to have to dig up more yard. And probably there will be soil amendment necessary, as well.

Gonna be a task!

(Also, eventually, there will be pictures!)

Religion and Reading and a LOT of Rambling

So, I was chatting with a friend over Twitter about religion -- specifically regarding interpretation of the Bible/Torah/Your Holy Book of Choice -- and how that can damage people. And then I read an article somewhere about the movie (or TV miniseries? I don't know) called The Bible, wherein Satan was deliberately portrayed as Barack Obama (which just disgusts me on levels I don't feel up to getting into here and now) and THAT article discussed the whitewashing of the Bible in terms of artistic portrayals -- Jesus is Westernized as a very toned, pale-skinned, nearly-blonde man, instead of the medium- to dark-skinned Middle Eastern Jew he actually was. [ETA: here is the article] And then TODAY, I was chatting briefly with someone else about some of the defining books of our teens -- books like Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams -- and when it's appropriate to start indoctrinating my little Minions by reading them aloud at bedtime. My oldest, the Girl-child, at Very Nearly 13, is probably old enough to read them on her own, but sometimes I have difficulties getting her to actually, y'know, ACCEPT my suggestions. The boys are 7 and 9, and I think they *might* be a little young, but DinoBoy, the elder of the two, is pretty precocious and sophisticated in some ways, so I could be wrong about him. And I think he might enjoy some of the humor, even if he won't get a lot of the references for years yet, if ever.

And we mentioned, in passing, on Twitter, that we're only just now, as adults, starting to realize the number of those references and subtleties that we missed as kids, and how much deeper and richer certain narratives are when approached from this new, grown-up perspective.

So this little ramble today is probably going to be about those things -- books, particularly the ones I read as a teenager for the first time; how they affected me then; how they affect me now that I'm starting to share them more and more with my own kids; and, of course, though to a lesser extent, religion.

I think there are actually a LOT of books that I read in my teens which affected me profoundly then, but which I continue to be amazed and enthralled by (in new and exciting ways!) now that I'm an adult -- and more pertinently, perhaps, now that I'm married and a parent. Because I can't deny that those two things probably have more to do with the new sight than simple age. Just a few of those books, offhand, are the Anne of Green Gables series, Little Women, Good Omens, Hitchhiker's Guide, and most of Mercedes Lackey. I don't think I'm going to touch on ALL of them here today; it's been a while since I've read some of them, and I'm not too clear on some of the details, but suffice it to say that between Louisa May Alcott, Lucy Maud Montgomery, and the combination of Pratchett and Gaiman, I had *quite* a religious awakening as a teen.

I mean, I'd had a basic religious "education" as a kid. We went reasonably regularly to a surprisingly non-judgmental Baptist church in TN until I was 10, where I was completely miserable because I just could not make friends with any of the other kids in the youth group. I suspected then, and still do, that it was (as it sometimes still continues to be) the fact that I not only read, but I asked questions about what I read. And I expected logical, consistent answers, which religion is usually hard-pressed to provide. When I was 10, we moved to Ohio. We stopped going to church regularly, but when we did it was to services at a nearby Presbyterian church, and that was when I fell in love with the more formal service, and the music of religion, but still, most of the logic managed to elude me. At 12, we moved to a small town outside of Atlanta, and the nearest church was another Baptist Church -- a HUGE one, comparatively -- where the pastor preached about the Evils of Women in the Work Place, and about tithing. This went over like a lead weight with us, because at the time, my mom was the sole earner. A year later, we moved again, to Virginia, where my parents still live, and, again, had a bad Baptist experience, at which point, my parents pretty much gave up. They figured we had the basics of how to behave as socially responsible, polite little people, and the rest would work itself out on its own. And Mom made sure to leave various books lying around for our education and amusement.

So, Faith (of the kind that can, theoretically move mountains) wasn't exactly a high priority, nor was it mashed and stuffed down our throat like some kind of baby food for the toothless. We were given a basic road map, and the tools to navigate, and allowed to find our own way there, or not. And honestly, a lot of what passes for my faith was built on the backs of Anne Shirley and the March girls. They had what now seems like a simplistic but logical view based largely on the tenet "Do Unto Others" and they still struggled with that, in a way that I struggled with it. But they really tried to simply be kind to others, generous with those in need, and honest and non-judgmental with themselves and others. The "Thou Shalt Not" stuff was rarely, if ever, an issue, and, while I know it's probably more a sign of their times than a deliberate event, things like women bringing in a paycheck were not looked down on. Yes, there was a bit of racism/bigotry in some attitudes, and some classism, but those tended to be confined to the group of "older and set in their ways," rather than condoned by the characters the stories were really about.

However, I had issues with religion as it was presented to me in Real Life, particularly relating to things like the Old Testament's attitudes toward anything and everything, and how nobody seemed really interested in the Love & Kindness stuff unless it was directed toward them personally, and I really had trouble reconciling the omniscient/omnipotent God with the whole Garden of Eden and Fall of Lucifer, as well as the whole issue of free will, who has it, who doesn't, and why on Earth we would be told it was a huge gift from God in one breath while the next breath told us not to question what we were being told. There were just too many contradictions for me in all of that, and then World History started getting into the evolution of religion in the Western world, and there was fracturing and schisms and latching on to established Holy/Ritualistic/Spiritual days and just... I was spinning.

And then, my best friend and I were at the library together (as you do) and she handed me this book: hardback, black cover with white writing, nattily-suited angel and devil. "This is the funniest, smartest book I've ever read. You'll love it, I promise. I mean, listen to this list of characters!" and I was hooked when she got to the bit about Crowley: An angel who didn't so much fall as saunter vaguely downward.

So I read it. And read it again. And a third time, just to be sure. And it addressed -- and seemed to be just as bewildered by -- many of the same issues that had been bothering me, in that nebulous, can't-really-put-my-finger-on-it way, with humor and gentleness and sometimes harshness and... I was completely blown away. It wasn't me -- or wasn't JUST me. Some of this stuff didn't really make any sense!

And then, I passed it on to my mom, who also loved it. And my brother and sister...

And now, I've finally been able to reconcile my spiritual side with my skeptical side. Religion is all about interpretation, and doing the best you can. You can choose to believe blindly, thoughtlessly, the interpretation of others, or you can exercise free will and choose your own interpretation. I think the most important -- the ONLY important -- part of the Bible or any other religious work that I've studied (however cursorily) boils down to what we call the Golden Rule: "Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You."

In the end, if there is a God, I think I will be judged based on my intentions, not my slavish adherence to another's need to Be In Charge and Tell Others What To Do. I think He'll be a more generous judge than many "more religious" people seem to believe.

And if there's not? Well, by that point maybe I won't be aware. But either way, I'll have the personal satisfaction of know that I'm trying, as hard as I can, to be kind, generous, honest, loving, and non-judgmental.

What more can we really ask?

Roe v Wade

I just wanna post this here, because, honestly, I can't say what I want to say in Twitter's character limit, and I don't think that the bulk of my FB "audience" would be appreciative (scary how many uber-conservative friends I have -- they're otherwise decent people, but. Just. Scary.)

SO anyway, earlier today, my mom shared this link on FB: Lizz Winstead on Roe v Wade. She included this personal bit along with it:

The first person i ever knew who had an abortion was a 17 year old, older sister of a friend of mine. She performed it on herself, in the bathroom of her parent's home, using her mother's vacuum cleaner. She almost died. We all need to remember that the goal of the anti-choice crowd is to ensure that girls like her bleed out on the bathroom floor. Roe v. Wade did not make abortion possible-every woman with access to a vacuum cleaner or a coat hanger can perform an abortion on herself. The point of Roe v. Wade was to make it safe.

I can't really argue with any of it.

Women's physical safety and mental health are at stake. I can, in fact, kind of imagine what kind of desperation this young woman my mother knew must have felt. I managed to get pregnant just months into a brand-new relationship with a guy 11 years my senior, and, yeah, when I knew, I was pretty panicked! And I was 20, by then; I had a job, and I was pretty sure that my family would support me no matter what happened between me & the daddy, or whatever decision I made regarding the baby. As it turns out, we're still together, some 13 years later, but there are so many horrible ways that could have gone. I know just exactly how lucky I was, and am.

There is NO safe way to force your own body to abort in a bathroom... a back alley... any place other than a sterile environment with trained professionals making it happen and overseeing the process. The more restrictions we are weighed down with -- restrictions on when and how we can seek abortions, what we have to go through to get one, restrictions on contraceptives -- only make a DIY job seem more possible. And, frankly, if you're at that point, where that starts to look attractive... well, I can only imagine that you're that much closer to the suicide attempt it may well prove to be.

And now, I've procrastinated FAR too long, and must away, to the never-ending mountain of laundry and dishes.

Happy New Year's Eve!

I feel like the blogs I read are full of looking back at the past year, and looking forward to the next, and part of me wants to do that, but part of me... well, let's just say that there was a lot of crap that went down over the past year that doesn't bear looking back on -- partly because I didn't really share a lot of it with many people, and so it would require too much backstory, and I refuse to infodump on my blog, but mostly because I'm afraid if I bring it all back up again, it'll just upset me and mess up the things that are going right right now.

Which is a most awkward sentence, I'm aware.

I have a couple of things I want to write about, like VelcroBoy's social studies project (we made a wattle-and-daub roundhouse with a thatched roof and I have a TON of pictures) and Christmas presents, and things like that. And I don't really *do* New Year's resolutions -- I have a tendency to kind of overdo and then completely fail before the end of January. So let's just say we're counting a promise to the DH as one (we've got a 3-times-a-week lunch date at the gym for the ellipticals, God help me...) and I really want to make more of an effort to have people over for dinner every once in a while. We had our neighbor and her 18-month old son over the Friday before Christmas for pizza night. I gave kidlet a box of jingle bells to play with and he spent the better part of the evening hanging them off the ears of this cat statue I have, while singing "Jingie bews, jingie bews!" to himself. We cracked up, and I have pictures of the statue on my phone. And later this week, we're having a guy from DH's old unit & his wife & 2YO son over. They're getting the boys' Thomas the Tank Engine stuff that I finally talked DinoBoy & VelcroBoy into getting rid of. I may keep a piece or two around just for old-time's sake, and I like to have a few things around for when we have guests with kids littler than my own, but we don't have space for a LOT of stuff like that, so the trains get to find a new home.

Also, I have some bloggy-ness percolating in my brain on two topics -- both of them are sort-of book reviews, but one is also, and more largely, on the general topic of teacher/student relationships, and all the ways they can go wrong. I'm pretty passionate about this one, since my mom is a professor, and there are plenty of pitfalls in that type of relationship, but there are (surprisingly enough, or not-so-surprisingly, depending on how much attention you pay to little details) other issues that get completely overlooked. Like, for instance, relative ages of the two parties involved. The other one is just mostly about little details that really make a story *work* or not -- even when they're mostly peripheral details (for example, describing a house as "modest" and "average" but then filling the living room with enough furniture for three or four normal living rooms -- or a good-sized furniture showroom -- can really mess with an "average" reader's head. Just sayin'.)

Also, I have NO IDEA when my Christmas stuff is going to get packed away. I need to get one more storage container this year, and before I do anything else I want to work on the boys' bedroom (which will probably require *several* new storage containers) and honestly, I would *LOVE* to keep my houses out year-round. I just don't think that the hearth is the best place for that. Maybe I'll keep the Victorian house out; it's not all snowy or Dickensian, and kind of looks like it was made for year-round admiration. I'll have to do some furniture juggling and/or get a console table for my record player. Oh, and after 2 years, I'm finally going to break down and see about getting my dishwasher either fixed or replaced. Either one works for me, I'm not really all in to "features" or whatever. I'm just a little overwhelmed by the volume of dishes that generally need washing, and I want to wash my pretties but can't because day-to-day dishes take up so much room in my sink and on my counter.

And I love my Mommy and my Daddy. They are the absolute BEST. *blows kisses in their direction*

Thank GOD the election crap is almost over....

I will be voting for Obama. Mostly because the alternatives are WORSE, but there it is. I'd prefer it if there were an even remotely viable third-party candidate, but there isn't (that I know of). And when I vote, I'm going to err on the side of compassion, love, and your basic Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

Some stuff has happened under Obama that I'm not too thrilled about (but I'm not naive enough to believe that he's solely responsible for any of them). People make bad judgement calls every day. It's just that most of them aren't at the head of a government.

But the biggest reasons why I'm voting for Obama actually have MORE to do with Mitt Romney:

Dear (or rather, Not So Dear) Sir,

I am a woman. I am educated enough to know many many things that you seem determined to deny. Among these are the capability for self-determination, self-examination, and the ability to make decisions based on something other than hormone levels and blood flow south. I can decide for myself whether contraceptives are right for me, whether or not I believe personhood begins at conception, whether or not abortion is the right choice for me. I do not need you to tell me what I believe because, newsflash, I don't buy into your personal religion.

I am educated enough to look at reams -- REAMS -- of written words explaining, even in very very small words you might possibly understand, that being anywhere on the Rainbow spectrum is not, in fact, a matter of choice. Nor does it, surprisingly, make one different from a straight person, in the essentials of personhood. In fact, I personally fall somewhere on that arc. No, I'm not telling you where; you'd either be actually offended, or you'd pretend to be offended while secretly getting off on the idea of two college-age girls getting off together (alternatively, you'd be as squicked out as a pre-teenaged boy, which pretty much means either you're a pre-teenaged boy, or you might be hiding somewhere under the Rainbow yourself. I prefer not to speculate -- because, honestly, the thought of you anywhere near sex squicks ME out).

Republican obstructionist policies in DC a couple of years back made headlines when they messed with the federal budget. Democrats were trying to compromise. Republicans refused. Republicans were responsible for many many government employees -- including my husband, and the husbands of many women I've come to see as friends (or at least friendly acquaintances) -- worrying about their paychecks. Really, dude, it's not smart to mess with the people who know where the big guns *AND* their bullets are kept. Additionally, I think it's rankest, grossest hypocrisy to claim to support the military while actually attempting to not only cut their budget, but also expressing a desire to completely cut certain social assistance programs that are inordinately relied on by military families. That's right, far too many of those "lazy bums" on food stamps/WIC assistance are lower enlisted soldiers and their families, because they are paid LESS than a living wage, but are required to work too many hours to be able to take on second jobs to help make ends meet. And childcare is so prohibitively expensive that for many families, it's actually TOO COSTLY for Mom to work, so she's being forced to be a stay-at-home mom, even if she feels like her family would be better served by her going to work.

And then there's Medicare/Medicaid: how many of our veterans rely on this for healthcare? I know my grandfather does. Your so-called "voucher" program, how exactly is that going to work? Is my grandfather going to have sufficient vouchers to cover his current care? Is he going to have enough over to cover any major medical incidents that might happen unexpectedly beyond that? Or is my family going to be stuck trying to come up with extra money where none exists to get him care if he has another stroke, or gets pneumonia?

If my husband is, God forbid, killed while still in the military, will you see to it that our children and myself get his life insurance? Or will you have found a way around that, too? Will we be eligible for medical care, or will I have to scramble to try to find a job that might possibly offer that at something less than half my take-home pay?

Regarding your views on "bringing God back into the White House," you do realize that there are a LOT of people in the US who are not, in fact Mormons, right? There are, in fact, a lot of people in the US who aren't even Christians. Many of us were raised Christian, but for whatever reason have felt the Church has failed us, and we no longer feel affiliated with it. To those of us who believe in the separation of Church and State, that statement is a huge slap in the face; a message telling us that we better at least start paying lip service to your God or we're liable to be in trouble...

Anyway, Mr. Romney, my point is, YOU SCARE ME.

No love,
Me