But What About Me?

Cartoon rendition of me,
with brown-and-grey hair, fair skin,
green eyes, and a sarcastic expression

I have a half-formed thought, and I'm going to flesh it out here in my blog.

The people who want school back in person right now come hell or high water, and the people who get all bent out of shape because they didn't get X deal so why should anyone else, these groups seem to have a lot of overlap.

I'm sure there's a Venn diagram in this somewhere.

The folks who are upset about a proposed $15 minimum wage or the ones who are mad because they've already paid off their student loans so why should anyone else get a break? And the ones who seem to think that only their families' experiences count regarding online schooling? These are very often the same people.

Is it a lack of empathy? Some of these people are seriously being bullies by this point. Especially to teachers, whom they seem to think of as some sort of sacrificial lambs.

An inability to imagine other ways to do things? Sometimes things need to be done differently. Like hybrid schooling. Or in our house, lots and lots of art projects and baking, and taking the lessons that come with them. 

Unrestrained capitalism? The mindset of "our kids are falling behind" presumes that they're going to come out the other side of this into the same world, because falling behind whom? People competing for the same jobs in the same sectors doing the same things they always have? I think that's unlikely.

Or D: All of the above?

I mean, Abby is a senior in high school. She's doing fine academically with online schooling, but she loathes it, and she's a very social person. She is Not Happy, but she's also - despite her sometimes vague aspect and her indecisive nature - very pragmatic in many ways. She's more or less of the opinion that we'll get there eventually and everyone should just chill.

Liz is in seventh grade, not doing well academically or socially with distance learning, and still realizes she's safer at home, regardless of boredom and apathy and general teenage angst, pandemic edition. And I am honestly not that fussed about it. The requirements have been made very clear: she has to at least pass her classes. Anything more than passing, in seventh grade during a pandemic, is a bonus.

Many people are so caught up in the "normal" that they can't see that it's gone. They just want it back so desperately that they are actually torches-and-pitchforks about it.

Ah, I guess that means E is All of the Above. Evidently D: is Cannot Cope with Change.

I might not be great at change, but if there's one thing I learned during Laston's last illness and after his death, it's that Things Change. They just do.

Quit hanging onto the Old Normal. It's gone. Deal with what's going on now.

Drawing Lines

A cartoon of me, a chubby brunette-and-grey
woman wearing blue, with an angry
expression and her right hand up near her
forehead. There is a thermometer shaded
green to red, with the top broken and the 
caption "I've had it up to here."

I had a very interesting conversation with my middle-school baby-Social Justice Warrior daughter Lizzy yesterday. 

It started a few days earlier with her wanting an "Eat the Rich" hoodie and me not having the ready cash to buy it for her, because I'm, well... not rich. I explained the difference between a tax return and a tax refund that day, acknowledged that I knew the hoodie was a limited-availability item, and that when I got my tax refund, I would attempt to track one down on eBay for her, as I did one of her sister's Christmas gifts when that merch store closed down. (all together now - Unas Annas Unus Annus...)

Between that discussion, still more recent allegations that some Really Great Creators are Really Awful People, my complete horror at the attitude of 90% of Republicans in Congress during the impeachment hearings and a dishearteningly vocal number of parents in my school district, and one of Lizzy's current favorite political songs (WARNING: lots and lots of profane and obscene language), I started formulating a question... but I had to find the right time to pose it, and to be careful how I pose it; she's in that edgy-defensiveness stage of adolescence right now.

Lizzy is on the autism spectrum as well as ADHD (so am I, most likely, but my diagnosis of "hyperactive with learning difficulties" is from 1983 and the criteria and understanding have changed considerably), and a teenager to boot, and she tends to be very rigid in (most of) her thinking. There's little nuance much of the time, and often complete intolerance for anyone who doesn't grok that. She can also be very defensive on the behalf of anyone she feels is misunderstood/disenfranchised in any way, although she doesn't see this defensiveness as empathy for those people.

So on our usual Wednesday outing, I asked her: "So, I think it's fairly evident that some billionaires (I named a couple of the more obvious tech type billionaires) are neurodivergent in some way. Where do we draw the line between cutting them slack because of socially acceptable behavior deficits and the good some of them have done?"

"If they hurt people on purpose, or if they hurt people on accident and they're not sorry and trying to fix it, or even apologizing, that's the line."

She said, as though it's obvious. Or that simple.

"Okay, but what about ones who have done some really good stuff at first glance, and then turn out to be awful? Even if they aren't billionaires, but just regular rich folks (I mentioned another couple of public figures that she might know)."

"Same thing, mom." Impatiently.

"And what about liking their tech or art or writing, even when we know the creator is problematic?"

"Eh. I mean, I still liked the Encyclopedia Brown books, even though they used horrible stuff in them that we don't use now."

So simple, boiled down like that. Her take is that as long as you're aware, why fret?

She's always been so much fun to talk with, and now she can hold up her end of conversations about the real world. 

It's kind of awesome.

Sleeping Like a Baby

Cartoon of me, a chubby brunette,
clad in blue, asleep curled up
on a cloud, with a night sky
showing heart-shaped constellations

 Or... not, given that babies wake every couple of hours, crying, wet, and generally uncomfortable.

I'm not doing that, not anymore.

This is for several reasons. 

1. While things are Still Scary™ out there, the imminent danger of waking up dead because 45 has offended someone dangerous is considerably lessened.
2. We're all still basically healthy at Chez GamersBabes and Co, in spite of The Plague™.
3. Due to The Plague™, I am highly unlikely to have to go anywhere in the Potential Snopocalypse™ expected this week.
4. I am evidently breathing all night now. 

While the first three of these - and the lessened anxiety thereby - are factors, the biggest one is number four.

You see, I wasn't. Wasn't breathing all night, I mean. Or not well. The at-home sleep study I did was ah... not inconclusive; I definitely have sleep apnea (stopping breathing during sleep) and sleep hypopnea (breathing very shallowly during sleep). Not enough oxygen = all sorts of issues, from raising the blood pressure to making one excessively sleepy during the day to brain fog to... well, you get the idea. Right, Mr. Flibble? WOO.

So I got a CPAP machine - the Phillips Respironics DreamWear (thank you, Molina Healthcare). 

This is not your mother's CPAP. For one thing, the "mask" is more like a harness of silicon tubing that goes around your head, the hose comes out of the tube at the top of your head instead of looking like an elephant's trunk, and the part that goes over your mouth and nose... doesn't. It's just a little soft silicon shelf that your nose rests on. It's all connected to a humidifier and respirator doohickey.

The first night I struggled for a couple hours - too much sensory input! - and then put on my favorite Sleep Story from the Calm App and was out in minutes. I don't have the stats from that night's sleep (I hadn't set up the myAir app yet), but I felt decent in the morning, noticed that my nose wasn't as stuffy as usual, nor my lips as dry. 

That was five nights ago.

The stats on the app show that I've slept between eight and nine hours every night since. Now that I am sleeping with it on reliably, not waking myself up because of all the sensory stuff, I'm going to wear my Fitbit tonight and see if it agrees with how restful my sleep is now. Neither is super accurate on its own - the MyAir app just knows that I'm lying down and the mask is fitted well, and the Fitbit just knows I haven't moved a lot in the last hour - but it will be interesting to see how their numbers compare.

Not Karen

Cartoon rendering of green-eyed,
 dark-haired face peeking
through green blinds.

Yeah, I'm not calling them Karens anymore. I know too many decent people named Karen to lump them all together like that, even (gasp!) a Republican or two. The same goes for the term Republican, honestly; just because the GOP as a party has gone off the rails entirely doesn't mean individual people who still identify as Republicans are awful humans. 

So, yeah, I'm using the TV Tropes phrase for it - Obnoxious Entitled Housewife - even though housewives are not all like this either. The keyword here is entitled, with the qualifier obnoxious. I do encounter a lot of people who - according to their online profiles and behavior - are very definitely this.

You may have met them - the parents who are totally privileged, who have the money, and who are just too cheap to pay for the private education they’re always touting as so much better than what they have. These are the same people who try to suggest they know more than the people who do this for a living, whose apparent need for the (public) school to do it their way without ponying up any actual workable suggestions, who think that their child's 3rd-grade education is more important than the teachers' life and health (but not enough, apparently, to do anything about it; they just complain), and especially those who belatedly try to frame it as concern for the “less fortunate”.

That would be my kids, the less fortunate ones, who don't live in a McMansion, have a stay-at-home parent (or two parents, for that matter) and enough income to support that, as well as assorted neurodiversity issues that make distance schooling a really, really bad fit.

You may also have met them outside the school system. The people who think that they don't need to mask up or follow the rules because they're basically healthy, who will call names and sometimes actually threaten people because mask-wearers are sheep, and who will begrudgingly wear them when required and dramatically pull them off the instant they are outside. The ones who stalk the vaccination openings instead of waiting for their turns, but would be completely defensive at the mere suggestion that this is unfair. The ones who refuse to wear the mask over their nose until someone reminds them and then huffily pulls it up while rolling their eyes hard enough to sprain them. They may or may not believe that 45 is a good Christian who was unfairly abused by his country. 

• Common phrases:
• "I want to speak to the manager."
• "What do I even pay taxes for?"
• "I pay your salary."
• "The customer is always right."
• "I'm not X-ist; I have an X friend."
• "If you would just do it my way..."

These people are so tiresome. Passive-aggressive, tiresome, entitled, obnoxious bullies.

Just stop it. My God, don't you have anything better to do than to complain?

I'm Still Here

Don't worry about me; I'm still here. 

I took a break from here the day after the Capitol siege because it was just too much. I wasn't even on Facebook much for a few days after that; deliberately protecting myself by running for cover (aka playing video games instead of dealing with the real world) for several hours every day.

Then I started writing on Vocal, and while I intend to keep doing that as well, the GamersBabes space is my home. Vocal is for my opinion on the Outside World, except for the first post introducing me and the kids. I only have three posts over there so far, and I will put a link along the side here to click if you want to read those pieces as well.

But for now, I just wanted you all to know I'm good.

Just Stop with the False Equivalencies

Angry cartoon of me surrounded by flames

 Not that any of you* will listen, of course, but I have to get it down, get it out, let it out of my head.

1. No, breaking into the Capitol guns-a-blazing while congress is in session is not the same thing as property damage during actual protests or even riots. 
• No, not even if some sympathizer who a) should know better, and b) promised to protect people and property lets you in.
2. No, you are not being targeted by the press because you're straight, white, conservative, or male. You're being described by the press because of your violent actions. 
• Unlike, for instance, the folks actually being targeted by you for having the temerity to be not straight, white, conservative, and male.
• On that note, conservative is no longer the correct term. Reactionary or bigoted or even ridiculously immature might be more accurate. Actually conservative people try to - you know - conserve things (other than their own privileged status).
3. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's wrong. Change is not bad in and of itself (and there we go, back to reactionary).
• Good examples of this are gender expression, sexuality, and pronoun use.
4. Science and Religion both have good qualities, but they are not equivalent.
• Perhaps God is protecting you from Covid-19... by giving us the science and technology and tools to protect ourselves. 
• Or maybe you should use religion's most positive quality - a sense of community - to help others instead of judging them.
• The "masks don't work" and anti-vax arguments are specious. They do work - if everyone who is able to follow the guidelines follows them.
5. Your business is not more important than me breathing in and out.
• And if you had followed the guidelines immediately when they were given, there wouldn't be a question. But you're too 'rugged individualist' for that.
• There are no goddamn bootstraps. If there were, you still couldn't pull yourself up by them.
6. That sneering, sarcastic "So much for liberal tolerance" is bullshit. We are tolerant of things people are, but not tolerant of bad things people do. 
• Is your color, sexuality, gender, neurotype different from the most common ones? Cool, you get tolerance and acceptance and maybe even celebration!
• Are your behavior and attitude violent or unkind? Intolerance. 
• See how that works?

*Where "you" refers to people who don't even try to understand. I'm not talking about Actually Conservative and Decent™ people here.