I CanNOT Understand This

A bitmoji cartoon of a brunette-with-grey
woman dressed in blue pinching her nose
with incipient headache.

Yes, today's topic is the same old same old.

Again.

Or at least a variation on a theme.

Immediately after the shooting death of Charlie Kirk, the usual suspects (in this case, primarily the man sitting in the White House and the inner circle of his fan club) started saying that the <spins wheel> "transgender libt*rd antifa" was the cause. Dogwhistle terms were flying fast and furious, "the demon-rats" were being called domestic terrorists, and the larger fan club started threatening historically black universities. Because that makes sense to them, I guess.

Less than 48 hours later, we find out that no, he was a Good Mormon Boy. None of these people has retracted their statements. Some are doubling down by either doing "la la la I can't hear you" with their fingers in their ears, or by outright fabricating statements that 90% of mass shooters are from the "party that wants to take my guns."

I can only assume that this makes sense to them, too.

Look, I'm not sorry that Chirlie Kirk is no longer on this earth, but I'm not glad about it either. I am sorry (in spite of the massive irony of a superficially civil gun nut being shot in public) that it happened this way, partly because of those people described up there. And partly because in my country's twisted love affair with guns, this somehow justifies more guns. I don't believe in the death penalty; I think it's barbaric. But I do believe that actions have consequences, whether you call it Karma or something else. 

"Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows," (Galatians 6:7) is another way to put it, and that one is repeated several times in other ways in the same holy book that CK and all those folks up there in that earlier paragraph purport to believe.

I do know several reasonable Christians (a family member or two, a few friends both online and off-) who try their best to actually follow Christ's teachings instead of the weirdly ass-backwards Christian-Nationalist version. I treasure these people. They are, however, as a group, neither powerful nor loud enough to drown out the bullshit giving them a bad name.

The other groups I do not grok are those whose faces are likely to be eaten by leopards at any moment, but don't think they will be the victims of the face-eating-leopards party. MAGA people of color, MAGA LGBTQ+, MAGA immigrants, etc. Oh, honey, they hate you too. They just hate you slightly less than their current scapegoats. Don't worry; they will eventually get around to eating your face too, if you're a good sycophant and lackey.

Other shootings - those of more than just one MAGA media darling - happened this week, too, but we don't hear nearly as much about those, of course. The Epstein files are still out there as well, and CKs death has served as a handy distraction from that. I have heard some people say that it was deliberate for that purpose. Whether or not that is true, it's still a distraction. Weirdly, some of these same MAGA folks seem to think that, "What if <insert democrat> person is on the list? Huh, bet you never thought of that!" is some kind of gotcha, but honestly, if there is (and I can certainly think of a few who might be) then they should go down too.

I'm finding this timeline to be very stressful, in spite of my self-induced social media restrictions.

Ridiculous

EDIT: this Social Security issue worked itself out the day before the cut off. It sure would’ve been great if they had let me know in the interim that things were in process, but at least it’s OK now.

I'm still only on social media for around an hour a day (for me, that means Meta for the most part; I tend to use YouTube for DIY or game hints or a handful of cutesy things I follow, not news, and TikTok only when my kids send me something). So I'm on enough, and reading electronic newspapers and so forth, to know what's going on in the world, while still protecting my own psyche.

Reading Agatha Christie's thrillers (as opposed to her mysteries; the thrillers are all very International Intrigue) has convinced me that either a) nothing changes, or b) the woman had the gift of prophecy, because there's a lot of Rise of Fascism stuff there. 

But even with All That Out There™, life has to go on. Bills have to be paid, kids must go to school, laundry must be folded... you get what I mean.

So, about those things. 

• Bills paid up-to-date, but I didn't work at the district during the summer, so I have no end-of-August paycheck. 
• A benefit we receive from our state may have been lost in the mail. We're on Day 11 of the 7-10 business days, and the phone rep says if I haven't gotten it by Friday to let them know and they'll issue another.
• I've done all the paperwork, jumped through all the hoops, and tried calling 3-4 times a week all summer to get Lizzy's survivor benefits extended to when she graduates high school next June. I tried again today but now they won't let me represent her. She's not 18 yet, but she will be this month, so I guess that the SSA considers her to be close enough. That means that we don't know whether we will be getting a direct deposit (to my account) as we have been, or whether it will be a paper check, and we still don't know whether it will continue through June.
• We are ready for school! Lizzy has an outfit picked out for school tomorrow, Abby is getting her stuff together for her senior year of college, and I have at least my morning route tomorrow!
• The new washer/dryer we got from the power company (it was a great deal intended to assist with power efficiency is terrific. Small, and a little finicky (I have to vacuum the lint traps to get them clear enough to do another load), but as long as I'm on top of it, they work great!

So, yeah, 2025 Life sucks. My personal 2025 life has a lot of headaches and (as always) financial woes, but it's pretty balanced out.

Vent or Rant or Rave or... Whatever

I need to write.

A bitmoji of a chubby brunette-with-grey
 woman in blue and rainbow tie-dye, writing
using a pencil that is taller than she is.

It's been over a month since I last wrote in on this page, mostly because I'm severely limiting social media for my own mental health. I have set an hour-per-day limit on my iPhone's Facebook app, and although I can certainly browse on my desktop, this computer is quite slow, even with its new RAM.

I planned it that way when my old PC went Tango Uniform, because then I am more likely to use it for work and writing, and also do less doomscrolling. 

Again, for my mental health.

It's pretty good right now, especially considering the existential dread acquired from living in the USA these days (even though I have a lot of US Citizen English-speaking CisHet White Privilege) and Fucking August. My doctor says I have moved from Survival Mode into Living Mode. My therapist says I have reached mental health milestones regarding things like parenting and boundaries.

These are Good Things.

But they won't stay that way unless I keep working at them. One of my favorite ways to do this is to write, and I have had little success in finding a writing gig this summer.

So here we are.

Now, mind you, I have said all these things on Facebook, but generally in a post-and-run format once a day, in order to avoid doomscrolling. Lots of this post may be repeat stuff. You have been warned.

Shut up, Grammarly; this is basically my diary and does not have to sound professional or confident. It's for me, and you need to calm tf down.

So, aside from writing, what am I doing?

I'm planning (or helping plan) Lizzy's 18th birthday party. It involves a lot of homemade decorations and food, a cake ordered from a local grocery, and a few very close friends at an Airbnb a few cities away.

I'm playing video games.

I'm still applying to side gigs, even though there are a lot of people with way more technical knowledge and experience than I have getting laid off from tech companies this summer. Some of these folks can write well, too, and so they are getting the jobs. I don't begrudge them this; it's not their fault that their employers care more about money than people. I just wish that someone would hire me for what amounts to remote entry-level data entry or something. Just so I have something to do that can earn a little money, as it would be better than nothing. And it has to be legit, please. Most of the hits I've gotten are either entirely sketchy or the people (or bots) have clearly not read my requirements. I don't do sales, I will not train AI to sound more human, and there are a half-dozen companies I refuse to work for due to Capitalist Hellscape Reasons.

Speaking of income, it sure would be nice if I could get hold of the SSA to find out whether they received the extension paperwork (children on survivor benefits can receive these benefits after they turn 18, as long as they're still in K-12) the second time I filed it (because they didn't get the first batch). I can look it up on the website, but that only shows the next payment, not whether the extension was approved.

I'm learning to bead. Lizzy taught me the method she uses for what she calls "flat panels," and I have been calling them "those little beaded tapestries." She made me a TARDIS one for Mother's Day. It's fun, and it's kind of meditative, and if I'm not great at finishing rows (she helps), I'll get there eventually.

I'm working on physical fitness/weight loss by ramping up my assorted apps to more intense and longer workouts (I never moved up from the beginner sessions I was doing) and by working on portion control and sleep hygiene. I've been doing this on and off for decades, and I know what to do, what works for me, and what doesn't, but I've never kept to it long enough to see more than the quick results one gets at the beginning. But now that I'm in Living Mode instead of Surviving Mode, maybe it will be easier. I have also (with the doc's approval) stopped certain medications for which one of the side effects is weight gain.

I've been reading a lot of old favorites (as long as I don't remember whodunnit) and I'm finding some of the Agatha Christie written between 1914 and 1950 more than a little prophetic as regards things like creeping fascism and the tendency of some people to believe that they and they alone can save their country. Usually by being fascist pricks, demonizing people with differences of any kind, and believing alllll the propaganda.

Gotta remember that "meet them where they are" is not only a motto for special education or parenting, but also for things like my knees and my mental health. Knowing that should help. As an example, if my arthritic left knee is being a literal pain, I can meet that where it is by going easy on the weight-bearing exercise and heavy on the analgesic cream, you know? It doesn't mean I have to avoid exercise entirely, get out of the habit, and have to start over.. 

Anyway, as writing-to-distract goes, this one has been fruitful, even with assorted references to the awfulness going on right now. Mission accomplished, I guess. 

I Don't Even Know Where to Start

This Bigly Ugly Bilge is insupportable, as in, I don't understand how anyone can support it, much less

A bitmoji cartoon of a chubby
woman on a pink couch, patting
the seat next to her, with the
caption, "We need to talk.
This is serious."

people who a) claim to follow Jesus Christ, b) are a member of one of the many groups (and they are legion) that are currently considered undesirable by the asshats in power, or c) both a and b.

Yeah, yeah, racism, sexism, homophobia, prejudice, whatever. Those aren't reasons. They're symptoms.

Lack of empathy. We know all this. God knows I've certainly been over it dozens of times in this blog and on other social media, and I'm not even loud or well-known or particularly outspoken. There are many good people out there explaining this, but they're ignored by hundreds of thousands because what? Those hundreds of thousands might feel a twinge of guilt or shame, I guess?

Can't have that. Might be uncomfortable. And as we learned ad nauseum during the pandemic, powerful privileged people's comfort trumps (used deliberately) everyone else's life and health and safety.

If this post makes you feel defensive, or inclined to not-all, or ready to well-actually me, don't bother. Just take yourself the fuck off my page, block me, whatever. I'm no purist, and I'm certainly not one to let perfection get in the way of progress (or even not backsliding into fascism), but if you are, get out.

I don't feel safe in my own country right now, and I'm a cishet white American-English-speaking citizen born to citizens in a family that has been citizens for generations. Sure, I have a few of the "undesirable" traits; I'm female, for one, and fat, and poor, and ethnically if not religiously Jewish, and neurodivergent, and chronically ill (if you count asthma and bad knees), and mentally ill (although how anybody is not depressed and/or anxious right now I'd love to know their secrets) and I <gasp> think people are more important than money in this hypercapitalist hellscape.

But I can't even imagine how people who don't have my advantages feel right now. 

I mean, folks who "look like" whatever the most-hated group of the day™ is, whether they are or not?

I do not feel like celebrating independence today, because what independence, exactly, are we talking about? I see very little of it around here these days.

I'm willing to entertain hope, though, and multiculturalism, and empathy, and basically trying to be a decent human. So that's what I'm doing today. Yes, I'm setting off (legal) fireworks (according to the legal limits of time and place) with my neighbors because this is a tradition of over a decade in my neighborhood. It was one of my late husband's favorite holidays. It's still a friendly and well-loved summer thing for me and my neighbors. 

But I'm not celebrating. I'm coping at best.

Oh For F*ck's Sake

A Bitmoji cartoon of a pale hand in a blue sleeve giving a Thumbs Down

My government has me dropping F-bombs in the title now.

I saw a link to one of my old posts this week that was very apologetic because it was a "quarterly political rant" that might "not be rated as PG as usual."

Yeah, that changed when my husband got sick and again when "the mean, shouty one" (per my then 8yo daughter) was elected.

Let me clear things up for you (where "you" means the asshats-allegedly-in-charge of this bullshit, and their supporters).

I am autistic, and I work and pay taxes.

Everyone uses pronouns, unless you speak a language without any personal pronouns (which I did write into a fanfic story once and it was a pain in the ass).

Even the President is supposed to follow the rules.

Doctor Who, Star Trek, superhero comics and their associated media, and a huge chunk of speculative fiction in general have always been "woke." Just because you don't like it doesn't make it a bad thing. You're just not that important, sorry.

Freedom of Speech does not apply to Facebook.

It absolutely does not matter that people online are "just looking for attention." Why do you care so much that you feel the need to comment (and then complain that they're still in your feed, since that's what engaging with the content does)? Perhaps you're just looking for attention.

"Autistic" may mean "has trouble with social cues." It is not a catch-all for excusing behavior like Nazi salutes.

The Paradox of Tolerance is real.

Many of those you call "demoncraps" or "libt**ds" are waaaayyyyyy further left than that.

From all reports, Jesus was woke af.

LGBTQIA2S+ people are not hurting you. The vast majority of them are not hurting anyone. They're just trying to live their lives, and God forbid some of it might be in public.

Vaccines work.

Yes, I do think it's ridiculous that you call liberal types "snowflakes" for wearing masks or vaccinating children when you feel the need to wear an arsenal to a grocery store.

The list of this kind of horsecrap goes on (and on and on). It would be laughably stupid if it wasn't so damn scary.

Why So Mean?

I don't like it when people disagree, online or off; I tend to avoid conflict. And people who know me (or read this blog regularly) know this. I'm getting better at setting (and keeping) boundaries, but I still avoid conflict when I can.

My usual snarky picture for the FAFO crowd;
it shows a Bitmoji cartoon version of me,
a fair-skinned brunette woman looking embarrassed
with the caption OOPSIE WOOPSIE.

Oh, I've gotten into my share of Internet arguments, but I try really hard not to be an asshat, not call names, avoid bringing families (especially children) into it, only fight about the important things rather than whatever randomly irks me, etc. I don't even indulge my grammar notsee tendencies anymore (unless it's actually my job to do so, such as for work or in proofreading my kids' essays). I will freely admit to a certain amount of Schadenfreude regarding people Finding Out after Fucking Around, but I generally limit that to a single snarky remark or meme and then let it go.

So in addition to the people who can't believe that the metaphorical leopard is eating their face after voting for the face-eating leopard party, I really do not understand hate followers/people who think their pet peeve is holy writ/those whiners who complain about stuff appearing in their feed when they have just interacted with it with said complaint.

I've talked about that before too, ad nauseum, so right now I'm diving a little deeper into those folks who feel the need to dictate to/complain at completely harmless vloggers. I mean, I don't understand it, exactly, but I at least have a glimmering of why someone would be annoyed/offended by, say, local politicians or comedians who are punching them when punching up. The truth hurts, after all, and if a stand-up comedian has just punctured your self-satisfied, self-righteous balloon with a well-aimed remark, it's at least comprehensible that you could be upset. Even Mrs Frazzled, as much as I adore her posts, I can understand why folks might not like them. It still doesn't explain hate-following, but maybe she appreciates the views, since her posts are clearly political snark.

But the irritating habit of, say, holding a random New York-based Jewish woman responsible for the crap going down in Palestine? Her vlog isn't even about politics. Or people calling folks like this guy (he makes amazing meals for his wife and daughter and speaks in a very calm kinda ASMR voice) a "beta cuck" because he's making fancy food rather than working a 9-to-5 and a "pedo" because they think his voice is creepy, constantly asserting that "kids won't eat that" because their kids wouldn't, etc etc... those people really annoy me. 

Just scroll on if you don't like his voice or his serving food with chopsticks or his kid eating sushi. Don't yuck other people's yum; there's no call for that. 

Those Tarnished Silver Linings

Bitmoji rendition of a thumbs-up

I've been listening to (and introducing my teenager to) Tom Lehrer's more politically satirical songs. This has given me glimmers of hope because, well, a lot of this stuff has gone down before. The details are different, to be sure, and we hear more about it more quickly (thanks, Internet), but still, a lot of it is SSDD. So a (somewhat tarnished) silver lining of this ridiculous situation that my country is in is that my teenager is - sometimes in spite of herself - more interested in twentieth-century history.

Her thoughts on Wernher von Braun are priceless, but not quoted here without her permission, which I can't ask her for because she is at school. Which is another silver lining; she is enjoying school for the first time in about nine years... but that took almost nine years of massive anxiety and testing and stress and therapy and angst to find the right fit.

I am usually pretty good at finding that silver lining (no matter how tarnished) in any given situation (no matter how grim) and these days it's pretty much a requirement for sanity if one is not an off-grid hermit on a remote mountaintop or something. It's not always big, and it often takes a while, but I can usually manage eventually. Sometimes there's even guilt attached, because I'm the sort who feels guilty about almost everything, just as I worry about almost everything. That's what therapy is for, after all.

I fail to see the silver lining for most of what's going on in the world these days, but little things - like Lizzy enjoying Tom Lehrer and learning from it, or the situation with certain companies giving me that push to order my favorite goodies directly from the manufacturer and benefiting thereby - these things are the silver linings I speak of.

I'm Sorry...

Sorry to break it to you, that is.

A cartoon of a thumbs-down
emerging from a blue sleeve

I have news; you are not the be-all and end-all, your opinion is not fact, and other people/skin tones/genders/sexualities/belief systems/opinions have a right to exist.

Shocking, I know, and I'm probably screaming into the void, but here we are.

Again.

So I'm putting on my mommy-lecture hat here, because I know that many of you in the US were brought up similarly to me. But some of you seem to have forgotten the lessons from Sesame Street and Star Trek and Mr Rogers, and that's not even including the houses of worship and their lessons. When did "Love thy Neighbor" become "shame the needy?" That's rhetorical. I know when; it's when money outweighed everything else in our so-called society. God forbid we have a civilization where people are kind to one another.

Do you not remember the oh-so-subtle Let That Be Your Last Battlefield when you decry how "woke" and "obvious" Star Trek has become? Or that Doctor Who is actually about change and transformation when you complain that we have (heaven forbid) a Black Doctor who cries when he's enraged and despairing, or when he kisses other characters? I know there were a few people who objected to "hanky-panky on the TARDIS" but it was nothing like this violent dislike. And again, these dislikes are opinions, so please state them as such; they are not facts.

But I digress.

For some of you, it seems to be sour grapes. If you don't enjoy something, whether it be children's books with families different from yours or Black Time Lords who show emotions other than rage or the mere thought of people getting something you didn't get when you were a kid, then no one should enjoy these things, and you will do your damndest to make sure no one does.

Even if it means supporting people who go against everything you say you believe in. Even if it means just being chill or even defensive about folks you did not - could not - vote for being in unregulated positions of power. Even if it means considering people who have lived here their whole lives but were not born here as "the enemy." Even if it means being awful to children. Even if it means people are hurt by it, as long as they're not your people.

They're not hurting you. It's not about you. They're just trying to survive.

Example 1: Someone writes a children's book where one of the many families has two parents of the same gender. You don't want your kid to see that and that's fine. I think it's a little misguided of you, but they're your kid; it's your call. But trying to get that book banned, even from the school library? Not your call. Not about you, and you don't get to decide what other people's kids can see.

Example 2: A dear family friend died last week. Of course I want to know the details; I loved them too, and they were there for me and mine when my own husband died eight and a half years ago. But their immediate family is not ready to talk to the world yet, so it's not my business or my call, and I'm not going to nag them about it.

I said above that we were brought up in similar ways. I thought that was true. But a lot of you don't seem to care about basic decency to others anymore; you're hung up on money (in an "I've got mine, so fuck 'em" sense) and sex or disability or gender (in an, "ew, that makes me uncomfy so it must be eeeevil" sense). I'm sure there are other categories, but those seem to be the main two. Unless you count a complete lack of critical thinking.

In addition to the horrors some are turning a blind eye to, that just makes me sad. Sad for my people, my country, my generation. Just sad.

This is the first time ever that writing it out in my blog hasn't helped, even a little bit.

Nothing Ever Changes...

A bitmoji cartoon of a hand emerging
from a blue sleeve and giving a thumbs-up

...until it does.

The basics of the world I live in are the same. Fantastic creators who do terrible things, half of my country voting for the awful folks, the other half not stopping it because of... I dunno for sure, but I suspect it was that perfection is the enemy of progress, the horrible week I had last week (nothing really happened that was bad, but it was just an exhausting week - the death of a thousand papercuts), and then we came to my first therapy session of the year.

Which is on Mondays now instead of Tuesdays, and that's a change. I got used to Tuesdays. But my therapist is a human too, and she needed to change it away from Tuesdays. She gave me plenty of lead time, so that was fine, although I had to keep reminding myself that it wasn't Tuesday.

And then she dropped a bomb on me. "Okay, Jenn," she said, "Abby is basically an adult now, since she is legally one, living away at school. Lizzy's not but she is much less childlike and dependent than she used to be (editor's note: Lizzy is 17, a junior in high school, and a pretty capable kid, especially now that she's in a school situation that she likes). Now is probably a good time to start thinking about what you want to do with yourself once they're grown."

Well, shit, that's a lot to think about. I mean, she's right, of course, but still.

So let's just break it down. What do I want to do with my life (she asks herself, at 56)?

I need to get more work (my job with the school district is one I love, but it's part-time); a good third of my household's income vanishes when Lizzy graduates high school (if not before, given the political situation, but that may be pure cynicism on my part). I have a list of things I want to do to my house (I own a mobile home and rent the land) from replacing an outdoor faucet and some flooring and appliances to getting the inside painted and having blinds professionally installed. I would like to travel some (although that is something I'd like to do with Lizzy as well... and my therapist said that this exercise isn't meant to exclude the kids; it's just what I want to do when neither of them needs so much hands-on parenting).

I said that I'd been thinking about pursuing an actual up-to-date diagnosis of whatever it is that was classed as "hyperactive with learning disabilities and short-term memory/sequencing deficits" (or something like that) in the early 1980s. Lizzy calls it "Mom's half an autism diagnosis" and she's not really wrong; when you look at hers (2017) and mine side-by-side they are nearly identical. The problem with that - at my age - is that it doesn't really get me anything. If I were still a kid it could get me some official accommodations in school and even as it is, "learning disabled" counts as an ADA thing for the purposes of higher education. 

Assessments as an adult are very seldom covered by insurance, and goodness knows I have decades of coping mechanisms that serve me in good stead so I don't really need things like ADHD meds. So basically, to look into this in depth would be a prohibitive out-of-pocket cost with no real gain but a piece of paper from a neurologist saying that I have what I already have. Seems silly. So I probably won't be doing that unless there's a phenomenal influx of cash and I can do it just for fun. 

My main goals end up being to "get better pay, improve the house, and travel." That seems pretty good.