Back on the Blogosphere?

Maybe, maybe not. I'm currently working nights, which leaves me with some extremely anti-social awake times. You'd think that would inspire me to new heights of intellectual brilliance and blog-posting but it has in fact done the opposite and I seem to spend most of my free time wishing I was inspired and doing nothing to inspire myself very much. This should change. A lot has happened since April. I have gone places and done stuff. I have learned things and taught others, I have had some ups and some downs. I keep coming back to this blog and thinking I should update more often. And in the past I have said I would. I've said that so often that I'm pretty sure my handful of readers don't believe me! :) And today I am not going to say anything incredibly ambitious like 'I'll post once a week from here on out', because it's not fair or true. One day at a time, one post at a time, time will pass. I tried giving myself what I hoped was a multi-part project with the Partisans article, but after I posted the first post I felt I may have said too much of what I was thinking, and maybe the world at large didn't need part two. I'm considering posting some pics from some of my travels on here, because with a visual cue I think it might be easier to write. I've considered writing seven posts on one day and robo-posting them. I still might try that some time. We'll see...

On Religion and Partisans (Part One)

So, I'm working on a class project about the partisan movements of the Baltic countries during and directly after WWII. It's both fascinating and incredibly depressing. Many (but not all) of the people I'm reading about had a deep and abiding love of their country, despite the incredible dangers and hardships they faced. Not all of them shared the same ideas as to how things should be done. The best of them protected their weaker neighbours and harassed the enemy invaders of both sides who tried to eradicate them at every turn. The worst of them were violent and sometimes bigoted individuals who shot whoever they felt like or didn't like under the auspices of patriotism or while collaborating with the occupiers dejour. The best and the worst are worlds apart, yet they both get considered as partisans by the outside world. And now I'm going to make an imperfect analogy, but one that feels very natural to me. When I was ten, my parents started attending the Tridentine Mass. I will be the first to admit that ten-year-old me did not appreciate it as much as I perhaps ought to have. At the very beginning, I was actively hostile to the idea, insofar as a ten year old could be actively hostile. I didn't want to go. It took forever, it was in Foreign, it did not feel the least bit edifying and the old ladies pinched my cheeks. After Mass, there were sometimes, but not always, social gatherings in the parish hall. And these were more interesting to ten year old me, because they were in English, for one. And for two, the people at these social gatherings were always interesting. They were mostly older, some the terrifying old ladies who pinched my cheeks, some the cranky grandfatherly type, some people my parents' age who always seemed a bit peculiar, a handful of older teens, most of whom didn't ever stay very long or talk to ten year old me. But there were books to read, some of a 'usually out of print' nature and some of an 'out of print for a good reason' nature. These books intrigued ten year old me at least a little bit and I read some of them and I listened to the conversations of various grownups. From these books and from those conversations I came to the following nearly inescapable conclusions: 1. Once upon a time, this is what everyone did. Everyone prayed in Foreign and went to the church hall to speak in Local (and sometimes the Other Foreign, as appropriate to the ethnicity of the majority of the congregation). 2. Something Bad Happened in the 60s and everyone stopped doing what they had been doing. 3. Those who objected were ruthlessly kicked out of their home parishes which were then wreckovated to oblivion. Many of them were forced to attend Masses in hotel conference rooms, without the knowledge of their bishops, who were almost universally Bad Guys, or if not bad, then intimidated by pant-suit wearing nuns. 4. We, the attendees of this liturgy, were a small group of faithful people who were going against the larger group of people who had either tamely accepted everything the bishops had said and done as Word of God, or had left the church for various Protestant denominations. From ages 10 through about 14 these ideas merely percolated. I still didn't particularly like the TLM, but the thoughts were there. Around age 14, I started to feel that even though I didn't _like_ the TLM, it was more spiritually beneficial for me to attend it. At age 16, I read the Silmarillion, which made a profound impression on me and to this day I don't know exactly how my brain tied the Silmarillion and the TLM together but it did. I actually started to enjoy attending and tried to puzzle out the Latin with varying degrees of success. Around 16 or 17, I started flirting with the ideas of sedevacantism, a sort of back-burner thought process that continued up through freshman year of college. To Be Continued...

On having many great ideas...

Right up until the point that I have internet access for a significant period of time. All week (sometimes all fortnight), I have great, clever ideas rushing through my brain, some of which are actually fit to be posted for general consumption of friends/allies. And then I have a period of time imposed upon me (in this case, getting my car's oil changed) when I have FREE internet access- and a sudden total lack of ideas. Argh. It seems unavoidable, but I realise that there are probably some good/easy workarounds, like keeping a list somewhere on my computer of the things that I think of when I don't have internet. Or of setting myself a challenge to write something every day for a week even if I don't have internet access and then posting it back-dated once a week. Or, if I'm really stumped for ideas, just write about the last movie I saw (The Tunnel, it was pretty good but I liked Max Manus (last-but-one movie) better). Or I could talk about future plans and projects, like my prospective Nano in November (provided of course, that I am still here in November and not in Parts Unknown). I have a beta reader who is poking me in the direction of a sequel to last year's nano but I'm not sure I'm up for that yet... it'll depend how many edits must be made to last year's... Incidentally, writing historical fiction requires a LOT of research and I don't recommend writing stuff that will require you to do research in languages you don't speak. Not that this has ever stopped me... >.< I suppose I could always ask the Readership what they would like to see on my blog, so consider yourselves asked, people! ;) What do you want to read about? Daily life down here, my con-lang, future plans, fan/original fic, whatever comes into my brain at random? Other things to write about... I suppose I could write about past travels. I might do that. It depends on how much effort it'll be for me to upload all of my Lithuania or Switzerland pics. So yes. For now, that is all. If I'm still online in another hour or so, maybe I'll start something...

4 Year Anniversary (Approximately)

So I was feeling a little out of sorts recently, nothing big just a nagging feeling of depression/anxiety/ick. And it occurs to me that maybe I shouldn't be blogging this. But I'm going to keep Auntie Seraphic's maxim in mind, this will be something that could be read at my funeral with hopefully the minimum of embarrassment to the living. And then I remembered. Approximately four years ago I graduated (better people than I can remember the exact date- I'm going with 'it was June'). That seems like a million years ago and no time at all, all at once. It's very, very strange. And of course when I started thinking about graduation a wealth of memories came up. It's so strange to think that one of the happiest days of my life was followed by one of the saddest/most frustrating (NB: I realise that this is not THE saddest day of my life and nor is it likely to ever be among the top five. I'm reserving those spots for the death of loved ones etc, but take it from me, it was/will be probably in my top ten). I felt like my world had bottomed out and there was nothing I could do. I went from having a plan and direction and a sense that I was doing what I was supposed to be doing to 'world-bottomed-out' in less than 24 hours, with a longer term and indirect result in my current career path. I'm trying to think of what I can take away from this that's profound, but I'm having trouble. I suppose the simplest and most obvious take-away is that the world didn't end. It was lousy for a little while, I was semi-homeless for a little while, and it took me about 6 months from world-bottomed-out to swearing-in. My second take-away from the whole mess is that I have very good friends. When I needed it most, I had friends who gave me sound advice, friends who gave me a place to stay or a lead on a place to stay, and friends who prayed for me that I might figure out what the heck I was supposed to do with my life. Four years later, I still can't thank all of you enough. I don't know what I would have done without you all. I don't want this post to be anything more or less than a sort of placeholder. I remember what happened. I try to remember it as objectively as possible which isn't ever easy. But this post isn't meant to be a sad/angry rant OR a 'Everything's Great Now' post. It's just a post.

Red Curtains and Falling off the Internet

So... instead of waiting for something profound to come to me in perfectly formatted and amazing blogworthy awesomeness, I have decided to just write about random stuff which is what I seem to do best. Right, so on the title... My dear readers (all 3-5 of you) probably already know as I have alluded to previously that I have had my working hours switched to what normal mortals term anything from 'pretty odd' to 'downright ungodly'. This has afforded me some unique opportunities, not all of which I have taken advantage of. But I have learned a thing that I am posting on here because I am quite pleased with myself about it, even though it wasn't my own idea and was in fact suggested to me by someone else but hey, it worked and it's awesome so I'm blogging about it. I'm talking about red curtains. I had a brief look around, not at all comprehensive, looking for when and where red curtains were first used by people who had to work odd hours and sleep during the day but I struck out. Svenska reliably informs me that this is a done thing in Scandawhovia, although she also is striking out on the historicity of it. Anyway. When you're on a ship the lighting in berthing (except for during clampdown/inspection) is red instead of white because there's always a day sleeper or two (trying to catch forty winks despite said clampdown noise, inspection noise, flight quarters/man overboard/general quarters being called). Your eyes don't process red light and white light in the same way. So at a tip from a saltier sailor than myself, I invested 20 dollars into red sheets that completely and utterly clash with the rest of my decor (which tends to be refrigerator white, haze grey and navy blue- and the saddest thing about that is that it's _voluntary_). These delightfully clashing red sheets screen my windows and permit me to sleep during the day without the aid of an eyemask/my pillow/pulling the sheets over my head and boiling. It's amazing. I cannot recommend it highly enough. I put them up with a quantity of packing tape which I figured would annoy my landlady less than nails although I've decided in the interests of keeping it up I will have to alternate packing tape and a few carefully placed tacks. So yes. That was not at all profound. The second half of my post title is not the same as the first. I am not referring to myself when I mention falling off the internet although I have done that in the recent past... I'm referring to a writer whose work I thoroughly enjoyed years ago when I followed every update s/he (it's the internet- I'm pretty sure it's a 'she' but not certain) made with bated breath. This author had read something I'd written and liked it, and then went on to write a long, incredibly awesome play and credited me with partial inspiration for it. I was amazed. And then I got too busy for many things that once held my attention on the internet and even though their project wasn't finished, I stopped checking for updates. About a year ago, I remembered this project and I had to check again. I did and I found that nothing had been updated, _and_ I found the link to the author's blog and started reading. I don't really know what to say. Their blog was a compelling, incredibly painful read. As I read it I felt as though I was reading something that I myself could have written had my life taken a different turn in my teens. I felt I had so much in common with this person who had a deep love for Tolkien's Silmarillion, and then that there was this enormous gulf between us where I'd chosen to keep the faith I'd been raised in _despite_ my parents, and this person had suffered incredibly and not been able to keep his/her faith. Not only had they not been able to keep it, they were going around attacking it for good measure. It was such a strange read. Anyway. Today I checked again for updates, no luck. Worse, the site that had originally hosted the project was not in good repair/recently updated. I found a mirror and was able to get some of the project and I'll be checking back until I can get everything that was up. And I thought about how you don't know what happens when people stop posting where you're used to seeing them. Sure they might be somewhere else, or using a different screen name or something. They might be just fine but no longer have the same interests. But not knowing and silence on the line can be a bit worrying. Why should I worry about this total stranger? I've read their writing, and that's more than I've done with the majority of people I work with or see eery day. It's a little different somehow than a total stranger. Even if the ideas I have about this person are completely wrong, I feel like I should pray for them and I hope they're all right (now would be a good time to point out that the artificial invention of single pronouns for persons of unknown gender is irritating to me yet I do wish that like some languages we had a nongendered way of referring to one person.. it would be handy in rare situations like this because saying 'they' and 'them' when I really mean just one person rather than more than one is driving me nuts). I know, I know how many people in Real Life who I'm praying for already, or should be praying for and haven't thought of it yet, and I'm going to add one more person to the list? Well. Yeah. And, dear readers, I would like to ask you to pray for this person too. We might never know who they are or what if anything happened with them, but that's life. That's something I'm working on, trying to realize that the small things count, and that it's all right if we don't know how or why that works in this lifetime.

Watch This Space

I will post something intelligent this year.
Eventually.
I should have a lot of free time in which to do little but write since there will be nothing open. I'm slightly concerned that I will spend all that free time playing spider solitaire. I hope I'm wrong though. I don't want to end up being told on the Last Day, "You would have written a great novel or two if you hadn't been distracted by cheap computer games."
...
Later, all.

Merry Christmas!

.... I'm not late. I have until at least 6 January to celebrate Christmas and if I'm feeling _very_ energetic or very behind on the sending of Christmas presents, I have until February 2nd. So there.
December has gone by in a bit of a blur due to scheduling demands. Nightshift does weird things to your brain. For me it gave me very, very vivid and strange dreams when I slept during daylight hours. It also contributed a bit to my uncharitable thoughts about my neighbors (yelling during hours of daylight) and apartment maintenance (leafblowing in the afternoon...seriously not cool).
I spent my nights off awake and a little bored. A lot of things that I think should be open are closed at night, such as shops, museums, aquariums, movie theaters, and restaurants. I discovered the handful of 24 hour places, mainly 2 Walmarts, 2 IHOPs, a Subway and a Denny's. I know some people can do 'extra long days' and switch to daytime hours for their off time but I knew that wouldn't work for me. Once I switched to nights I had to make a serious commitment and I did. It worked pretty well. I was blessed to have Christmas off and was able to go to my favourie local liturgy. Looks like I'll also have New Year's off, and my glorious plan for that day is to pack like someone who's forgotten how to pack smart in anticipation of visiting Tbro and sister-in-law. It occurs to me that I either don't have a nickname for her or I have forgotten it... either way, I shall have to come up with something.

In other news, I have (sort of) come to terms with the fact that I have curly hair. This isn't exactly a revelation, but since my earliest days I have had difficulty coping with what Nature has seen fit to bless me with. I have only saved myself from years of heat-damage from straightening irons because I have been afraid of burning my ears. I have only saved myself from damaging my hair with scary, industrial strength chemicals because I am cheap and couldn't justify paying THAT MUCH for something that might result in my hair becoming brittle and breaking like...graham crackers. Or something. Graham crackers doesn't seem to be quite apt but it'll do for now.
Anyway, point being, my hair is relatively healthy and quite definitely curly. I've decided to start respecting it more. To this end, I'm experimenting with a better way to clean and condition it than the products I'm currently using. I'm just starting to think though how drastically different my life might have been if I'd figured this out as a teenager instead of going around with poofy, dried-out and unhappy hair. Well, you live and you learn. Thinking about going with a dramatically shorter haircut that respects my curls. Not sure if I can pull this off properly considering uniform requirements. Just read the regs governing hair again and I think the biggest problem might be the two inch rule plus the fact that curls are no symmetrical.
Still thinking.
Anyway... Things to clean, stuff to make ready, etc. Literally 24 hours left of work until leave!

Nanowrimo Ate My November...

Which is why I haven't posted on here at all, all month.
Anyway.
Happy feast of St. Andrew to my several friends named Andrew. St. Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland and also apparently of reformed prostitutes. Who knew?

So, novel. No, I'm not going to post it here... I think most of it will never see the light of day in its current form. It needs several years of research and I need to learn German, Hungarian and Slovak... Or at least two out of the three.
Anyway, to make up for no posts all month, I will post the haikus from my novel. These haikus were found using a haiku finder. For a novel of this length (just over 50k), there are a fair number of haikus. For a while I had one about every ten pages. And then at about the same time that the plot went alternate universe, most of the haikus dried up. Oh well.
Haikus below!

“What happened?” I asked.
I didn’t like the way everyone
was staring at me.

He looked miserable,
but I had no idea
what he was saying.

When the last notes had
died away, we all sat still
for a few minutes.

"Nothing but an itch,"
he muttered, scratching his back
where it bothered him.

E-even with all
the propaganda, the truth
will out by what isn’t said!

I could see nothing.
Complete and total darkness
obscured my vision.

Haiku finder here-http://mrfeinberg.com/haikufinder/

Another year older...

not sure how much wiser and not really feeling older yet. Ten years ago I couldn't imagine I'd be where I am now so I'm not going to try to figure out where I'll be ten years from now! Younger selves, whether from just last year or from half a lifetime ago, seem so much younger and sillier than our present clever selves.
So, every year is a gift from God. It's like a new notebook or blank canvas. It's meant to be filled, and I'm looking forward to that in the months ahead. No idea what it's going to be like really, I'm not even going to try to guess.

Not Alone

Sometimes I feel like God is tapping me upside the head, very gently. “Hey. I’m here. I’m listening. You can talk to me, you know…”
And then sometimes suddenly, unexpectedly He taps me upside the heart, when I’m definitely not expecting it, and all of a sudden I fall apart during a particularly sappy/charismatic song. Yes, me of the Gregorian chant and the mysteries of the East and the Great Doxology and etc. “Do not be afraid I am with you” suddenly hits me. I cried to the point that I was reaching for tissues but realised I didn’t have any. So, I ducked out to fix myself, which took a few minutes and I ended up missing the Consecration in the process as I was still pulling myself together in the bathroom… oops. That was decidedly not cool, but I had seriously hit the point where I was a distraction to myself and others and I did HAVE to leave. But I sorted myself out to the point that I could go back up to the church directly after the Consecration and receive etc. At which point I almost had another meltdown. Sometimes I hate being me. I really don’t have any kind of nervous hysteria usually and I am firmly resolved to never cry in uniform but I honestly don’t know what brought all of that on.
Maybe I do. “Do not be afraid I AM with you”. Intellectually it’s possible to know that God is everywhere- present in all places and filling all things as the liturgy says. But how often do we think about that? When I’m having a bad moment it almost _never_ occurs to me that God is right there with me. Because I tend to think of God the Father as a stern judge etc. sometimes I think I’d rather not have Him right there with me. And when something awful is happening it’s hard to see how a loving Father could let that happen, so I tend to assume I’m alone without even examining the thought. And even when I do take time and think “You know, I’m not really alone. God’s with me even in this” all I can think about is how insubstantial He seems to be at the moment in question when I could really do with a hug. But every so often, He’ll surprise me with a reminder that reduces me to tears of relief, I think, that I am not alone. I’m used to tears of sadness, frustration, anger, disappointment and very rarely exhaustion. I am not at all used to tears of relief that I am not on my own.

Cheap Historical Reenactment

(Written in the Atlanta airport after a half-day of braindraining classes and barely edited, so you can't say you weren't warned...)

So you want to be a reenactor, but don’t want to spend a lot of money on your outfit or equipment, or worry that you can’t get the look right? I have discovered an awesome budget option! In a few easy steps, you too can re-enact!
Step One- Go to the thrift store to find your outfit. Find a cheap, badly-made suit in a dark colour and clunky, uncomfortable looking shoes. If you’re feeling more blue-collar, find coveralls or very well-used jeans and a denim jacket. Make sure everything you’re wearing is either two sizes too big or two sizes too small.
Step Two- Men: Grow some facial hair. Women: Wear either no makeup at all or something that does not go with your complexion.
Step Three- Stand in line at airport security in Atlanta, keeping a tight hold on your ID and boarding pass. Wait, wait, and wait some more. Get harangued by a security guard for the very-nearly-capital-offense of sneezing but watch someone else cut through three lines of people with no consequences. Hear everyone around you talk about how 1. It could be worse and 2. They feel safer even if this extra screening is a little annoying.
Step Four- Despite all your careful packing/forethought either get pulled out of line for extra-personal screening or have your bag opened and your life analysed by someone who is convinced that you are an enemy of the state.
Step Five- Declare loudly that you too, feel very safe because of all this extra screening which is sure to stop those who wish to do our glorious country harm. Address the screeners as ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’ at every possible opportunity and thank them for the work they do keeping us safe.
Step Six- Get where you’re going and unpack the luggage you weren’t allowed to lock. Discover stuff is missing. Profess horror or irritation but no shock at the loss.
Congrats! You’ve re-enacted life as a citizen of a police state! Depending on how much time and effort you put in to your thrift-store costume you can be from any time between 1940-1990 in one of many different countries!

***
I thought of some more stuff to put in there too but the time has passed and I'm just going to leave it as is...

Rant Warning

Maybe I should give up FB…
So this was going to start out as an injunction to others to be careful what they post on FB, and not just in the mundane security senses ie, never post “I’m going on vacation for the next three weeks and I’m leaving the key under the mat so that the person who waters my exotic plants and feeds my expensive cat can get in” unless you want someone to nick both your plants and the cat… and the more I started thinking the more I began to think that maybe the problem wasn’t the other people it was me. Or FB. Or something. Probably mainly me and a bit FB too.
On a tangentially related topic- related because I saw it on FB- I followed a link from a FB-friend to an article talking about how even nominal Christians were engaging in premarital ‘relations’ at a rate pretty much on par with their secular counterparts of the same age and gender. What my FB-friend had commented on it (on FB not on the post which had a hilariously flame-filled comments section btw) was ‘Get married earlier. Seriously. What’s the worst that could happen, you’d be poor?’ I felt as though someone had prodded me in the stomach with the ‘it’s-all-your-fault-western-civilization-is-failing’ stick…

What.

The.

Hell.

Really?? Obviously, that’s the answer, get married younger! You! Lovey-dovey young people! Get your rears in gear and get yourselves properly wedded! Quick! Better to marry than to burn! You must be afraid of poverty but DON’T worry, God will provide! And if He doesn’t at least there’s WIC so you won’t starve!

The fb-friend in question is someone I’ve never met in real life. She’s married to a guy I went to college with. I felt like posting back words to the effect of “I’d love to get married but I’m just not as fortunate at getting a guy as you are, Mrs. Jones.”

One of her other friends shortly thereafter did post something like ‘Takes two to tango’ and I had to like that instead of posting what I wanted to…

I would _happily_ have accepted poverty, a crappy place to live, no car and a stack of student loans if it meant marrying Mr. RightForMe (Writing it all down like that though looks a bit wrong-headed…). Unfortunately he hasn’t turned up yet and I am assuming he must either be somewhere with lousy GPS reception or he’s got his map the wrong way around… so until he does show up, I will *gaspshockhorror* have to manage on my own. Which, by the way, means having student loans steadily getting paid off, living in a decent place and working a decent job which is practically a vocation. I’m getting debt-free and sorting my life out. There are worse places and ways to do it than this.

It was a kind of flippant comment for the woman in question to make but she underlined it by saying ‘no seriously’… seriously… Okay lady. Seriously. You go out there and find some eligible guys for me, club them over the head a few times and convince them that they have to marry me in order to save western civilization... Because I’m not going to be chasing anyone. Goes against my everything.

Oh, and I read the linked article, I found it hilarious in its unimaginativeness. There was a line in there that said something about ‘People waiting into their twenties and thirties- what do we tell them, keep waiting?’… Duh.
Ooh…and my other favourite line was a quote from a subject matter expert who was talking about how in biblical times people married young and didn’t really play the field prior to marriage due to that.

So…marry young hm? Setting aside for a moment the (for some poor unfortunates) insurmountable obstacle of NOT KNOWING MR/MS RIGHT, at what age should people be getting married?

And this is what really gets under my skin and burrows around like a creepy horrible bug… This line of thought ‘Better to marry than to burn, quick marry ‘em off before they disgrace themselves/us’ is unpleasantly familiar sounding. Now where have I heard that before? Oh right. From crazed ayatollahs. From people who say it’s okay to marry an eight year old as long as you promise not to consummate the marriage until she’s 12….

Now, no Christians would do something crazy like that, right? … Right? …

I feel as though there is a distant but shrill and hysterical chorus of people chanting an angry chant at ‘heretical’ successful young single women of the faith. “Misguided Women with Feminist Leanings! Marriage and babies! Western Civilisation depends on YOU! Marriage and babies! Repent and be married and have lots of babies!”
Not quite as distant/shrill/hysterical is the burbling of newly-marrieds “We’re pregnant! Life is awesome when you’re married! We’re awesome and happily married! Did we mention we’re pregnant? Life! Maternity! We’re pregnant again!”

And realistically I know that these women are artfully leaving out the messy/squick moments of marriage/pregnancy/childrearing. And I know that. But they are in the enviable position where the segments of society that we actually care about- ie friends/family/Church-at-Large approve of them. The working single women are looked upon by the same segments as a bit unfortunate and secular coworkers are apt to mistake ‘doesn’t do casual relationships’ for ‘never gets out and don’t bother trying to get to know her’.

Marginalized by one and ignored by the other. Lovely.

Thankfully I know some sane marrieds with sweet kid/s and they are awesome. There aren’t as many of them as there are of the other type, but nonetheless, they are awesome.

End Rant...

So, me not posting anything for a long time isn't AT ALL unusual, although I have a rather better than usual excuse for this particular six months of absolutely nothing on this blog. And I was going to write this awesome post because I just got inspired standing in line at Panera but unfortunately I didn't manage to pack MacAlister's powercord... go me... I packed _sunscreen_ and not the power cord. But seriously if it's the only thing I forget this weekend, I'm doing pretty darn outstanding!

So right, inspiration in line at Panera. A post elsewhere entitled 'Can't Even Go to the Park' by a homeschooling mom talking about PDA in the park has been ticking over in the back of my brain. I was trying to think of where I was on the spectrum. I don't have kids yet so obviously my POV on PDA levels is quite different. And the PDA I couldn't help but see in line at Panera was obviously het. It still made me throw up in my mouth a little, which, right before a good meal is seriously suboptimal.

It wasn't gropey making-out or anything terribly obnoxious but it still provoked a reaction from me. It was hand holding, body holding, hand kissing, shoulder-kissing(??) and it made me think about what was and what wasn't acceptable PDA in public. Prior to this evening I had thought that I was pretty much okay with everything up to kissing in public. A peck on the cheek, okay. And these were just pecks but there were a LOT of them. And before I get any accusations of being some kind of voyuer I will repeat, I really couldn't help but see them. I did eventually stare at the sign over their head and roll my eyes theatrically. I did manage to stop myself from sighing audibly but it was a near run thing.

I realise acceptable PDA levels are different in different cultures, but sometimes I think it's just incredibly insensitive of couples to be so wrapped up in themselves and expressing their LURVE for each other at all times and in all places. I'm starting to think I've been in uniform for too long- if you SHOULDN'T do it in uniform you probably SHOULDN'T do it in public at all....

And on that, note that I said 'shouldn't' not 'can't' because I realise there are dumb people out there who 'do' anyway... and at least in my tiny corner of the world they can get masted for it.

Am I an evil grumpy single? Yup. Don't inflict your coupleness on the world, couples of the world!

(Sidenote: Would I be happy in an Islamic theocracy that prohibits PDA on pain of pain? Hell no. Because I believe that being able to choose to do the right thing is far superior to being FORCED to do the right thing...)
(Additional sidenote- link to the homeschooling mom's post will be provided at a later date and time when I have a powercord...)
Dedicated to: The couple in front of me in line at Panera that I will quite likely never, ever see again.
Coming soon! Catholic-bashing conversation overheard at Panera! Praying for infidels instead of overturning their soup bowls on their heads! (Why is it that the correct thing and the thing that would be entertaining are rarely the same?)

With Proper Precautions

So no pics as of yet, I still haven't betaken myself over to Best Buy to acquire the necessary cable but I REALLY have to because this 'entire memory card is full' thing is getting very old. And I have at least one friend who is patiently waiting for photos from over a year ago...
But back to the title of this post. Auntie Seraphic, of Seraphic Singles fame (buy her book, read her book, read her blog, she is awesome), recently posted about her experience of being locked out in the cold and the dark in a foreign country without means of contacting her husband. She brought up some very good points about preparedness and how she was more prepared as a Single than as a Married, or perhaps that her preparedness skills were slipping due to complacency.
I'm thinking about my ideas of preparedness and trying to see if they could use work. You see, I'm feeling very proud of myself due to a recent solo accomplishment. Can I get more cryptic? Yes. Will I? Maybe.
At any rate though, while on the whole I think I did well on this solo jaunt there were a few things that I would of course change if I had unlimited resources etc. For one, if I had any way to avoid it, I wouldn't go alone again. I know now that I _can_ go alone. Bad, terrible, horrible and nasty things will not happen to me simply BECAUSE I'm alone. They might, but my venturing out alone would probably not be the sole factor in it. Well, maybe.
At any rate, I found that by myself- and I mean, completely by myself, out of earshot and eyesight of strangers with an open and empty world around me- I talk to myself. Out loud. I'm pretty sure that's not great. I don't think it's a sign of the 'lock me up now' crazies, but I started to get irritated by my own need for constant audio commentary. It's just that even with signs of civilization around, and not _too_ far away, some part of me needs to be reassured that I'm still connected with the world at large or with some kind of society.
Occasionally, when I wanted to take a picture of a cool place with myself in the picture, I would get depressed because I have realised the misery that is taking a picture of oneself. It really isn't easy. You tend to end up either taking a picture of yourself blinking, or a picture that largely features scenery with half of your face in the picture on an edge.
All in all though, I only had a few really bad moments, the worst of which was once when I got a bit disorientated. I knew where I was when I started off, and I knew where I wanted to go, but somewhere along the way I missed a turn and ended up somewhere unfamiliar and more than a little scary. It was getting dark too, and that was the worst part of it. In daylight, I know the exact same place wouldn't have been nearly as frightening, but at night, on my own, I was really scared. I was especially scared because I had been doing so well. It was like... like riding a bike when you're still a bit wobbily. I'd been doing really well on straight bits and got the hang of corners, but all of a sudden I was pelting down a steep hill (ala Monterey) fraught with intersections with other streets, streetlamps and pedestrians.
Actually if there had been some more people it wouldn't have been so bad. I just had the feeling that I'd fallen off the edge and there was nothing. Finally though I came across some help- and found out that I'd been going pretty much exactly 180 degrees the wrong way. So I had to go back the way I'd come, and that was something I didn't like very much. I was so relieved when I found my landmark again and headed off in the correct direction, watching vigilantly- making sure I wouldn't make a similar mistake again.
So what are the proper precautions I'm talking about? Hmm... Still not really sure myself. I mean, the ones I took were 'blend in in every way possible', 'research' and 'stick to well-travelled areas'. What would I do differently? I honestly don't know. Did I have a wonderful time? Yes. Would I do it again? In a heartbeat. Would I recommend it? Yup. What would I change? I still have to come back to the fact that 'alone' is not my preferred mode, for all that I'm capable of doing it. I've learned some very valuable things about myself and the world at large, but in the future... who knows?

About February...

I blame it for being a short month containing way too many interesting things and way too little internet. But what's done is done and what hasn't been updated, hasn't been updated. Argh. Oh well.
What does the future hold? Massive uncertainty. I already thought I'd be somewhere else right now, if that makes any sense. But the advice 'Semper Gumbi' is very good and I'm trying to just keep that in mind as I feel like I'm swimming in an interminable sea of paperwork and 'training'.
But enough about me.
Pictures, for your entertainment, will follow at some point in the probably distant but not impossibly distant future. I need to find a cord for my camera. When I manage that, things will be different. I'm also considering buying a crappy little netbook type thing so I can keep doing the whole wordprocessing thing whilest in unusual and unpleasant places so that hopefully even if I have to backdate all entries, I will at least be able to give a once monthly update of life, the universe and everything else according to me.

Dear Myself,

You still haven't learned that you are to 'Never Again Volunteer Yourself'?! I know the offer was couched in terms of a 'safe, fun, learning experience' but are you out of your mind? You have tests next week! You're not feeling so great! You have a roommate moving in this weekend! Your room is a disaster area! Besides which, your stuff isn't ready and you'll probably spend all weekend in a haze of confusion, only to come back in time for PT bright and early. What are you thinking?
...
I see.
....
Argh. Fine. Whatever. But I told you here first that it wasn't a brilliant idea.
.....

Sincerely,
Me, Myself and I.

Anonymous Internet and Politics

I was listening to the radio yesterday and the man being interviewed was talking about that horrible crime committed by the insane young man in Arizona. The interviewee laid the blame less at the feet of the man who pulled the trigger, and more at the feet of those who 'used inflammatory language' and 'the anonymous internet hate-machine' saying tings like "I hope the zombie armies aren't about to come out of the woodwork.'
While I agree with him that teen pop culture has an unhealthy taste for zombies, vampires and gang violence, I was worried by his take on the internet- specifically anonymity on the internet.
Regarding the shooting in Arizona. I'm pretty sure the guy who did it was either off
his meds or undiagnosed and not taking meds. That being said I can return to the issue of anonymity.
I am part of a generation that has grown up with personal computers and the internet. It is not news to me. My brother is more technologically adept than I am, but I am still able to do everything I need/want to on the internet and I can make it look relatively easy. The man who was being interviews was from what is being called the 'technology immigrant' generation. He's like the guy who comes over from the mother country and learns just enough English to do simple transactions- buy groceries, find the restroom, say please/thank you.

I'm like someone whose parents came over from the mother country when I was still tiny and said parents were rich enough to get me into a good (non-bilingual) school, and I'm conversant in both languages. I can talk to the old people at my church and we understand each other 90% of the time (they lose me for a bit when they talk about things like canning fruit at home). I can also talk to people my age who've grown up in this country and I can understand them 90% of the time (though they lose me when they start talking about pop culture references from their own childhood).

The point of this rather over-extended analogy is that I have grown up with a different expectation of what the internet should be like. My friends and I were pissed as all get out when youtube started taking down videos with copyrighted material in them. We were used to being able to share media like that freely. Whether or not we should be able to is a topic for a different post. More to the point right now is the anonymity. People have many personas online, legitimate, deliberately cultivated personas. For example- you log onto your professional email and your personal email in the morning and you read your emails. After that, you sign in with a different screen name to your blog and write a post. After that, you go on Amazon to do some shopping, with a different screen name. Maybe you belong to a gaming forum or two and you have a screen name for each. That's easily six different screen names. Your professional one will probably be your right name or some clever play on your right name. Your personal one might be more flippant- perhaps referring to some hobby you have. Your blog screen name will probably be significant to you in some other way. While your Amazon screen name might be the same as your professional email address, Amazon studies what you buy and tailors its suggestions to you. It could be said that the website gets an idea of who you are- and that can be pretty amusing when you buy some really unrelated things! The gaming forums are the ones where I think it is most likely that who people think you are will have the least resemblance to who you really are. This, at least when it has happened to me, has been a combination of vagueness on my own part and a tendency of my fellow gamers to make assumptions based on who they are.
Is this wrong? No. My fellow gamers don't need to know my age, gender, profession, state of residence or anything else personal about me. All they need to know is that I like the same kinds of games that they do and that I'll be on at more-or-less this time a few days a week.
And I can't help it if they make assumptions about my age, gender, profession, state of residence or anything else personal about me based on stuff like "I enjoy reading history and historical fiction, I love cold weather and sudoku."

Sorry this post is a bit rambly, but I left to do other things and I can't seem to find the thread of it again... Anyway. Two more things I'll add, then I'll quit for the day.
First, I recently saw a video of an attack on a WoW funeral. No, it wasn't someone's character who had died, it was the player. Her friends decided to hold a memorial service for her online and it was attacked by a bunch of idiots. I know those people who were responsible later said things like "We wouldn't do something like that in real life" but the fact that they would do it _online_ because that makes it okay is not right. I also feel that was a failure on the part of the game designers to not have some kind of safe-zone or weapons/magic-free sanctuary where people could peacefully gather. Conduct online matters, if we don't all want to be labeled as part of the 'zombie army'.

Second, I have a confession to make. Once, years ago, I did use my internet anonymity 'for evil' as it were. Someone I knew had screwed up their own life considerably and was making great strides to screwing up the life of one my acquaintances. I was fed up with this person and I found their live journal. I read it, and I saw exactly how much of a mess their life was. If I'd been older I hope I would have been able to see that this person needed professional help. As it was, I was still so angry with the individual in question, that between what I knew from the lj and what I knew from real life, I had ammunition. So I commented anonymously on their live journal. I said some very hurtful and perfectly true things. I dug my nails into half-healed wounds and I ripped.
I shouldn't have done that. I know that now. I have no excuse.

Don't blame 'the internet hate machine' or 'the zombie army'. Blame people, poor decision making and human nature.

Nota bene: I hate the grammatical corkscrews that keeping someone gender-anonymous has caused but deal with it. For the record, I haven't seen or heard from the person in question for seven years and I hope I never will. I am praying for this person.

Resa-whatnow?

No. I'm not going to do it and you can't make me.
No resolutions will be posted on this blog. I won't say that there is no point in resolutions because they tend to fall apart after the first month (if it even takes that long). Resolutions work for some people and not for others. And some resolutions don't work for anyone. Anything incredibly drastic or life-altering is pretty unlikely to end up fulfilled at the end of a year. Anything vague enough can be wiggled out of. And honestly, when you don't even know if you're going to wake up in the morning, it seems a bit presumptuous to go around making resolutions.

Okay. Those are my thoughts on resolutions. I realise I'm probably in the minority on all of that. But whatever.

I hereby resolve one thing though- before I go on any transatlantic jaunts, I will make damn sure my room is clean. I am coming back to a clean, orderly, well-put-together room. This will happen if it kills me getting there and sometimes it feels like it just might.

In other news, I saw Tron tonight. It wasn't spectacular. It was very flashy and I believe that was 95% of the point.... so much for the other 5%. I wish someone would pay me to write a movie script...

Merry-Christmas-and-Happy-Feast-of-St-Steven-the-Protomartyr!

There, now I'm not behind! Hurrah!
So what can I write about that hasn't been written about regarding Christmas? Pretty much nothing. So, in the absence of new subject material, I will go after some older material, after I air one grievance-
The lyrics of 'In Dulci Jubilo' are FAR superior to 'Good Christian Friends Rejoice'. It is NOT 'hard Latin' and it has substance, where 'Good Christian Friends Rejoice' is a fuzzy bit of marshmallow fluff. Only not even that because marshmallow fluff is kind of tasty (while being simultaneously disgusting- think of how much sugar that is!!). I don't think it's a huge stretch to say that lame hymns are a contributing factor to people leaving the church. Why? Because I've found people remember bits of songs far more easily than say, the Eucharistic prayers. I've found myself randomly humming bits of the Divine Liturgy and I've quoted parts of it (sometimes while singing it) to people who ask me about 'my faith and what it means to me'. If you have good solid doctrine in your hymns and not just fluff, people may find it easier to understand aspects of their faith. What a thought, right?
Okay, rant over. Promise.
So Christmas in the vicinity of Ft. SINYF. It's SNOWING! What the heck? Not complaining, just shocked! I thought it wasn't supposed to snow here! The locals seem for the most part to have taken the smart course of action for them which is to stay indoors and cower. This strange precipitation from the sky might be a harbinger of nuclear winter or something. I mean, it's sooo weird... It's like rain but not!
Seriously people? It's not even accumulating. You don't get to complain about snow unless there's two feet of it outside, you are completely snowed in with intermittent power, and your mom decides to make 'colonial herb bread' with the last of the food in the pantry. Then and only then may you complain that said bread tastes like sand and was probably the sole reason for a high mortality rate in the colonies.
Yesterday and Christmas Eve, I had people over for food/games/socializing. The food was good if I do say so myself as the person who bought and prepared almost all of it. The exception was a strange sort of salmon quiche made by one of my guests with the salmon I bought but didn't have time to prepare. The rest of said salmon will probably be my dinner tonight. Yum!
So what else... we played a rather outdated game of Outburst which was still fun, even though we had to remove from play cards like "Famous Baseball Pitchers 1960-1990", and "College Football Team Nicknames". This second was more due to the guests than the age of the game. On the whole, we are not sports fans. That would be far, far too normal. What is normal anyway? Why should I care about sports? I don't know any of the athletes personally. I feel a sort of... not quite patriotism, but I guess a sort of back-yard nationalism... ooh that sound bad too. Um... micronation-sentimentality... No, that won't do either. Regional pride sounds daft. Er...
You know, that feeling about a geographic region that you either currently inhabit or have inhabited or have relatives from, that you feel a sort of fondness for. You'd like to go back and vacation there, maybe even live there, but you can't say truthfully that you're FROM there. Whatever.
Anyway. When did this get to be about sports? Sorry... back to party stuff. I think everyone had a good time. I'm not much for hosting parties. I mean, there was a housewarming party ages ago, and then this. And I forgot so many things that I meant to do or get before it started. Planning a party is complicated. I think it requires more free time and energy than I actually had. But all things considered, it was not bad. I think people enjoyed themselves and that's really the main thing.
All right, now I'll turn to a more serious thing. Today is the feast of St. Stephen the Protomartyr, and according to the New Rite, also the feast of the Holy Family, more on that later.
St. Stephen was the first martyr, hence the title protomartyr. It struck me today that this is pretty interesting. I mean, there were twelve apostles and St. Stephen was 'just' a deacon. You'd think that one of the apostles would be the protomartyr- maybe St. Peter because he had a history of doing rash things (hacking off an ear?) and saying rash things ("I'll never deny you!"). You could just picture St. Peter saying the wrong thing to the wrong person at the right time and getting martyred for it. But it was this other guy, St. Stephen instead. So what do we know about him? Not a whole lot, I don't think. He understood that Jesus was the son of God, he was a deacon, he was tried by the Jewish religious court and sentenced to death for blasphemy ("God forbid that God should have a son..."). St. Paul acted as a coat-stand at his martyrdom, not actually getting his hands dirty in this instance but complicit. Did the memories of that stoning come back to haunt him during his conversion experience? Did St. Paul's temporarily sightless eyes see a young man dying a terrible death for the truth?
Looking a little further ahead on the calendar, we can see the feast of Holy Innocents. I love to think of them as Jesus's honor guard, his _comitatus_ (the Old English sense of the word, nothing to do with Hungarian counties or Bulgarian administrative units).

People want to celebrate the joy of Christmas and Christ's birth, but if you leaf ahead a little, as it were, you can see that it's not going to be all eggnog and presents. It's going to get very, very bad. Innocent people will die for the crimes of existing and telling the truth. But when it's bad, think about Christmas and Christ's birth. He was the only one who was ever born to die, to set us free, to open the gates of Heaven for us. With Him, our suffering and even our deaths will not be in vain.

NB: Yes, I know, some people move St. Stephen's feast to the 27th. I still say it's the 26th, because I think Boxing Day is lame. All right?

Additional NB: Perhaps this should have been several posts instead of one large post? Thoughts?

DADT Repeal: Rant

So much to say, so little inclination to actually write....argh. Okay, here goes...

Regarding DADT, its recent repeal and the implications of aforementioned repeal

I wish I could give some people at the highest levels of my chain of command a small piece of my mind. I wish I could give them a deck-plate view (I used deck-plate therefore I am steeped in Navy traditions..), but they clearly aren't interested in getting it. Not once in all the media hype and coverage surrounding this 'historic' event that I have seen, has anyone interviewed a literate, currently-serving member of the armed forces who is opposed to the repeal of DADT.
On the whole, the armed forces have been portrayed as anywhere from apathetic to whole-heartedly enthusiastic about an instant repeal of DADT...
To my fellow servicemembers who approve of the repeal: think of the GMTs, people. If NOTHING else, think of the hours of your life that you will never get back doing GMTs (sensitivity training/annual training/'awareness' training for you civilian readers). Don't we already have enough GMTs to do?
If that doesn't motivate you, little will.

Here's a thought, Washington and Assorted Brass- the reason why you didn't get most of those surveys you sent out back is because the vast majority of us are too damn busy doing our jobs to fill out anything that won't directly affect our pay, housing or access to food. You think I'm joking but I'm not. If you REALLY wanted to know what everyone thought, you'd send that damn survey to every single servicemember out there and make it MANDATORY to return it. 100% contact. We do that with NMCRS donation forms every year. It can be done. You won't do it though, because the news will be depressing. I heard somewhere that about forty percent of Marines surveyed said they won't re-up. I'd say probably half that number are not in a financial position to decide that- but that their numbers will be made up for by people who haven't yet realized the full impact that the repeal of DADT will have.

Here's what I want and what I won't get- I want to get out and keep my bonus money and my GI bill because I signed up for a different Navy. People who disagree with my point of view may say "Get out, we can't get rid of your bigoted kind fast enough."
My answer? I have some very specialized skills that I'm taking with me as I leave. To train up my replacement will take you two years, minimum. My departure will impact mission readiness. But if it was free pass to get out, I know I wouldn't be the only one to take it.

But that won't happen. I'll grind my teeth and fulfill my contractual obligation. I'll be damned if I re-up though.

Now I'm done shooting my mouth off.
Bring it on.