There Will be ZERO Woo-Pitching

A flaming orange ball of gas

Even if I had a baby with whom to pitch it.

In fact, I would probably pitch them... into a separate room.

But not outside; I'm not a monster.

My neighbor is a weatherman. Weatherwoman? (No, wait...) Weatherperson? Ooo, I know: Weather Nerd! So I asked her what the temperature is in our neighborhood, as I was getting a variance of several degrees Fahrenheit, depending on which nearby weather station I was pinging. She didn't answer my question. She just sent me a link to her weather page. Stand up and take a bow - if you can stand to move at all - because this web page has awesome up-to-the-minute data. When I started writing this post, the temp was down to 98F (from a high of 101). Now it's something like 97.1 and falling. 

In any case, as with everything else in life, I cope with the stress of X - in this case, a completely unreasonable heatwave - by a) writing about it, and b) assigning music to it.

It is possible that this is a weird little neuro-quirk. The assigning-music part of it, anyway. Writing about it is a pretty widely accepted mainstream journaling mental health kind of coping mechanism thing.

So I spent all day yesterday being Extra Anxious™ about the upcoming heatwave. I think. At least I was simultaneously twitchy and wiped out, in that lovely state I call Wired and Tired, and there was no other immediately obvious reason for same. Just me fretting about the state of the planet, the state of my country, friends and family, etc. Anxiety is like that sometimes.

You know, the usual.

But this morning, I was fine. I suspect this is because the heatwave has arrived, and while it's fairly awful, the world did not immediately stop turning.

It is, however, still Too Darn Hot.

And with that tune in my head, I enlisted Liz to help me think up songs to associate with this 100F nonsense we're expecting for a couple more days at least. 

My first go-to, is, naturally, Star Trek. In this case, a Next Generation episode called The Inner Light, one of the best episodes in my opinion, and evidently many critics and fans think alike. It's no Darmok, but that's another post entirely; entire linguistics curricula have been written about that one. Season five had a lot of awesomeness. 

Anyway, back to The Inner Light - for those of you who did not click the link, it's an episode where the Enterprise comes across a probe, Picard collapses, and the rest of the episode is him living out the memories of a man's life on a planet that is nearing the end of its habitability due to heat.

One would think this would not be a comfort for me, but here we are. 

So... for the You Have Got To Be Joking - Some Still Think Climate Change is a Hoax playlist...

• The tin whistle tune from The Inner Light
• The aforementioned Too Darn Hot
• Sesame Street's Hace Calor - always a favorite
• Again Sesame Street, from the Fiesta! album - Hot Hot Hot
• Foreigner's Hot-Blooded

There are a few others but we're going to move on to the counteracting-the-heat playlist:

• It wouldn't be a proper playlist without Dr. Horrible and his Freeze Ray
• And more musical theater with Heathers: The Musical
• Foreigner's Cold as Ice, just for balance
• Ha! We found Sesame Street's Hace Frio

And now, guess what?

I feel better.

Neurotype is Not the Same as Mental Health

A cartoon of me, a chubby fair-skinned
brunette with grey, wearing a blue top,
cuffed jeans, and bunny slippers,
balancing on a ball while juggling three
balls of assorted colors. 

Well, that sounds very heavy, doesn't it? 

But here lately I've seen a number of people attempting to excuse famous (rich, (usually) white, and (usually) male) people for their racism or transphobia or general assholery on the grounds that they are autistic or traumatized and essentially saying "they can't help it, the poor dears; it's a mental health issue." 

I dunno - I'm autistic and ADHD and certainly traumatized, and I'm able to not be a raging jerk most of the time. My younger daughter is diagnosed as autistic - of the flavor they used to call Aspergers but don't anymore - and ADHD and while she is often a jerk, she's also an adolescent. And a traumatized one at that, given that her father died when she was eight and she's lived through this mess of a pandemic year boots on the ground, so to speak. Certain tech giant types or famous authors are grown adults who have the resources to insulate themselves from that stuff and should've learned better by now.

Trauma is a mental health issue.

Neurodiversity is not.

Oh, don't get me wrong, they're intertwined and hard to separate. But they are not the same thing. My mental health is pretty okay at the moment - so sayeth my therapist - and so when my mom asks me if I'm okay because I seem "a little agitated or blue," I don't immediately jump to the conclusion that I'm being attacked and get all defensive. Because my mental health isn't bad at the moment. And so when mom texted me with that question, I realized immediately that it was a "honey, your ADHD is acting up" kind of message, rather than a "what the hell are you thinking?!" kind of message.

Thanks, Mom.

And when my mom says my ADHD is acting up, it means I need to make a list. Of which she reminded me, because it's a coping strategy so I don't get even more overwhelmed and activate the mental health issue of anxiety overmuch. 

Now, I make lists all the time; as I said, it's a coping strategy. But they're usually pretty basic - like  Monday: Abby school, Lizzy school, mom work, garbage day, pay bills.

When my momma texts me with Concerns, I know I need to be more specific, with times as well as dates, more details as to what I'm doing when, etc. Especially right now, because the end of the school year is nigh for Liz, and Abby graduates high school (!) on Wednesday, and there are just SO MANY THINGS going on, most of which are not the usual round of Abby school, Lizzy school, mom work, garbage day, pay bills.

So yes, between all that up there, my late husband's birthday last week, Fathers' Day coming up for the same reason, etc., yes, I am a wee bit "agitated and blue."

But my mental health is good enough right now that I can override the executive dysfunction involved in making a more detailed list; I'm not depressed on top of the usual issues caused by ADHD and so forth. 

This does not mean, for instance, that I have the executive function required to properly clean my house from top to bottom (and there's another thing to thank Mom for - she's hosting Abby's tiny graduation party consisting of vaxxed relatives except the one kid too young for it), but I do have the executive function to put small housecleaning tasks on the list. Because - again - not depressed on top of All The Things going on right now.

(Evidently, I also lack the executive function to shut up when I've said the same thing three different ways in the last two paragraphs. I'll just leave this here to remind myself).

Anyway, back to the Neuro vs. Mental Health thing.

Being autistic - or any other number of neurodivergent quirks - does not automatically doom one to a life of unfeeling asshattery. It may be harder for autistics to "read" people, or to empathize with strangers, but that's not the same thing. And as with most stereotypes, the stereotype is super harmful, inaccurate to the vast majority of us, and often used to excuse abject asshattery, especially in people with power. 

I mean, if I started, say, repeatedly poking you in the arm with a sharp fingernail, would you excuse me with "she can't help it, poor thing," because I'm female? Widowed? Fat? White?

No, you probably wouldn't. Although you might try to ascertain if any of those things were affecting me in the moment, especially the widowed one. That's a mental health issue.

So why would you excuse my behavior because I'm autistic?

Or would you not bother to investigate at all - just brush me off as an asshole - because I'm not the head of a tech giant, with more money than God? Or a famous author or actor or celebrity?

Food for thought.

Now, please excuse me, while I go add "Costco run for the grad party with Mom" to 8:40 AM Monday to my list.

You Can't Always Get What You Want

Some of my peers are hugely dissatisfied. 

With everything, really.

And if they aren't currently dissatisfied with something, you can be sure they will find something to be dissatisfied with. Like private businesses enforcing mask-wearing on their premises even though the governor has been bullied into saying it's okay now. Or the fact that healthcare and schools and public transit still require them. Or that we don't have in-building learning for as many hours a week as our neighboring districts. As though butts in seats in a school building is the only useful criterion for learning.

Look, folks, my kids hated distance learning, too, and they aren't particularly good at it, either. As per their usual, Abby coped and Liz complained, but they both made it this far. And although Liz is having issues even during hybrid - she has gone a bit (more) feral, lol - they are still doing okay. I like to think that this is because I was focused on how to help them cope (see below) more than I was on who to complain to and about to get things "back to normal." Normal wasn't great either.

They will get through this.

They have been through worse.

But there are a number of my peers who are so focused on their kids not having The Perfect High School Experience (or Perfect Middle School Experience, or whatever) that they are behaving poorly to other people. This is, of course, their perception of The Perfect School Experience, which is probably only loosely connected to reality even when we were not in the midst of a global pandemic.

I didn't have The Perfect School Experience.

Did you?

And if not (and I understand wanting your kids to have it easier and better than you did) why on earth do you think that the usual round of sports and dances and teenage drama as seen in the movies is The Perfect School Experience?

These people have actually threatened people, doxxed people, and tried to get people fired for not providing (their expectation of what should be) The Perfect School Experience during a global pandemic.

This is not how rational people behave.

Nor is it how ethical, moral, or reasonable people behave.

I mean, I understand vaccine hesitancy, especially when people have been bombarded with incorrect (and also correct-but-rapidly-changing) information. It's too new, or it's a different kind of vaccine, or it has a scary acronym in it that sounds vaguely like DNA, or they didn't test it long enough... these reactions I understand. I don't agree, but I can understand. Change is hard and scary and real. And that's okay.

But the people who will use those scary bits of misinformation and combine them with reluctance to mask up? Or count heads and determine acceptable losses in their own minds? Or think that death is the only bad outcome? Or even lie about their vaccination status? Those people scare me.

I've heard horror stories, too.

There are people who claim to be vaccinated so they don't have to wear masks in public spaces. They are liars.

There are people who claim to be vaccinated so they don't have to wear masks in private spaces, like their clients' homes and businesses. They are liars.

There are people who proudly say that they are not vaccinated, they won't wear a mask, and you can't make them, nanny nanny boo boo. At least they are honest.

There are somewhat more reasonable people, of course, who are uncomfortable with vaccination but are willing to mask, stay out of public spaces, and stay away from people as needed.

The thing is, though, our governor saying, "You don't have to wear the mask in most public spaces (excluding healthcare, schools, and public transit) if you have been fully vaccinated plus two weeks waiting period," is not the same thing as "Masks off, everyone!" 

And yes, I do still trust the science. I don't trust people who grasp every opportunity to willfully misinterpret it as "I do what I want."

And most businesses where people (usually other customers, not business owners) are being assholes about those of us playing it safe and wearing our masks are not public spaces in any case. The majority of them are private businesses that can still kick you out if you refuse to mask up.

And that is their right.

And honestly, their responsibility.

Maybe that's what it comes down to; people want their rights but are unwilling to behave responsibly. Duty is a thing too.

Me?

A picrew cartoon of me, a pale woman with green
eyes, brown hair with grey streaks, and 
a blue shirt & grey cardigan, wearing a
neurodivergent rainbow infinity button.

I'll be here at home when I'm not working, helping my kids with their homework, keeping them occupied by indulging their arts and crafts and online interests (Lizzy taught me to use Picrew today!), and staying away from people when I can.

And when I can't stay away? Like when I go to Abby's high school graduation ceremony? I'm going to wear the mask my friend Sharon is making me. 

I trust science.

I don't trust YOU.

It's Not Always About That

A cartoon of me, a fair-skinned, brunette-with-grey
person, wearing blue and sitting at a table with
a microphone and a coffee cup. The caption reads,
"HEAR ME OUT."

This post may cost me if I don't phrase it just right. So if I don't, and you feel defensive, take a break, take a breath, and try again later.

Because this may come across as controversial. 

Not that I'm any stranger to that in the past several years.

So here goes...

~~~~~~~~~~

It's not always about your pet thing.

Is it often about your pet thing? Yes. If your pet thing is racism, or misogyny, or transphobia, or ableism, or some other injustice in the world, then yes. It is often about your pet thing.

Maybe even usually.

But not always.

Certainly not always, or usually or even often if your pet thing is about some random conspiracy that has been disproven time and time again but you still believe. :cough:takingourguns:cough:

You may have heard a phrase something like, "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail..." and I think that's a common cognitive bias in play for a lot of us. I include myself; I'm not immune.

And of course, we can try to be intersectional (more about that in the link below) but we all still have our pet priorities. Not to mention that with as much injustice as we see and/or experience, especially as interconnected as we are these days, sometimes we need a break from the constant unrelenting outrageous things happening for our own mental health. And that's okay, as long as we get back in there and fight the good fight once we've regrouped.

All the pet things are different, of course. All the -isms and -phobias and miso- this and that... I've talked about this before, just over four years ago, but I like to think that I've refined my views somewhat, grown, and gained more perspective. And I've gotten an inkling into how this seems to other people, especially when speaking with 13yo Liz, because she's, well, thirteen. 

So when she makes a blanket statement, like "My teachers should know this thing because they're teachers," she isn't always taking into account that a) teachers are human and therefore fallible, and b) they may have been taught differently themselves and don't know the latest research... it's developmentally appropriate for her to think that way. 

When full-grown adults do it, notsomuch.

This is how we get conspiracy theories of the type that suggest - say - that Apollo 11 never landed on the moon and if you show evidence then they say it was planted by shadowy figures whose sole purpose is to confuse the general populace. For an equally shadowy unknown reason, I suppose.

In any case, I'm really really tired of the assertion that all things are a spectrum, except for this one thing which is inviolate (and may change over time to an equally inviolate thing) and if you argue the point you're somehow the enemy. 

There is a reason I keep my mouth shut on certain subjects; it's so I don't alienate people with whom I agree on most issues, but I have a more moderate stance on their one pet topic, about which they are often rabid. 

There's that protecting-my-own-mental-health thing again, I suppose. I value my relationships with these people overall more than I do "being right."

But it sure is tiring.

Country Roads

Cartoon of a fair-skinned, green-eyed,
brunette-and-grey-haired smiling
woman wearing a blue top and bunny
slippers, playing a black grand piano
with a single rose in a bud vase.

So Miz Liz has been doing the Take Care of Mom thing all day (Abby, too, but she was also doing her and my mom's usual Sunday afternoon TV-together thing).

Liz wanted to go for a drive after dinner, to listen to The Devil Went Down to Georgia on the surround sound I have in my van, it being one of the few "countryesque" songs she likes, "like, unironically, Mom."

So we did so, after she made a playlist called "Those countryesque songs I like, plus a few parody ones I'll add later."

These consisted of the aforementioned The Devil Went Down to Georgia, Honey I'm Good, Grandma's Feather Bed, Timber (Featuring Ke$ha), and Faster Car. 

Naturally, I have a rather larger repertoire of country-songs-I-enjoy-unironically than Liz does; I'm 52 to her 13. So after we were done with this playlist, still several songs away from home, we tried Kenny Rogers' The Gambler (which she pronounced to be "a bop" and was suitably impressed that The Gambler had gone out in his sleep as he'd wished) and Ghost Riders in the Sky (which I explained that a character of mine in a Mage: The Ascension game had once used to summon The Wild Hunt).

So we're much closer to home now, and we have time for one more song. I ask her if she's heard about the meme going around Tumblr (and therefore Reddit and Pinterest and so forth) about the titular character from Piano Man playing in a gay bar, primarily because of Paul the Real Estate Novelist and Davy who's still in the Navy. She hasn't, but she's interested, so we listen to that.

Those last three have now been (unironically) added to her playlist. Achy Breaky Heart didn't make the cut.

It was a nice, chill sort of weekend for this Mom.

A Handy Friend is a Friend Indeed

Okay, folks, buckle up. This is a picture-heavy post and you may want to view it on something that's not a mobile device. Also, it's about a local company but they're so great I want to share them far and wide.

They're that awesome.

So you may know that I live in what is popularly called a mobile home, although the correct term is manufactured home. Most of these are made - that is to say, manufactured - in a factory somewhere and then moved (hence "mobile") to wherever they're going to spend their lives. So they are typically made with lighter weight materials than "stick-built" homes so they can be moved after manufacture.

One of these lighter materials is pressboard subflooring. Which consists of sawdust and glue pressed into sheets.

Now, pressboard subflooring is fine, as long as it stays dry, no termites, etc. It's not ideal for building, but it's a lot lighter weight to move than 1400 square feet of one-inch plywood. So as mentioned, it's typical in manufactured homes, and up to code.

But then you get a leak (we're not sure from what, as it evidently started well before Laston's death in 2016), and that pressboard... just disintegrates. And then you have what is essentially linoleum over bare support joists - no subflooring.

This is dangerous.

So the floor needs replacing, and as quickly as can be easily managed at that. 

Mind you, this work started the same day as my first day back to (close-to) full-time, in-person work in over a year, the girls' first day of in-person school in over a year, and in the middle of allergy season. Because adding sawdust to the pollen is a great idea! <giggle> Got a bunch of masks available, though, so we're good. Silver linings.

I seem to have misplaced my Before photo, but just know that it's a darker and dingier off-white than the new floor. You can see bits of it here as they are trying to get it off the joists and the little bits of pressboard that were still hanging onto the joists. The guys were great at explaining the basics of construction and the hows and whys and wherefores of what they're doing. I imagine I'm not the savviest homeowner they've ever had, but I'm not the least savvy, either.

Then here is where they've gotten most of the linoleum up (and tools and a work boot). I had to go to work, but these guys are bonded and insured and I've spent most of the morning with them; they're decent, so it's all good.

I enjoyed interacting with these two people working on my floor and the one who runs the company; they are responsive, helpful, and informative. Also they never once gave the impression that they were tired of explaining things to this clueless homeowner, which is an awesome trait in a craftsperson!

When I got back from work, both kids were home from their respective first days back to in-person school, and full of stories about the first day - they each made friends (they've been in class with these people all year, but neither of them is great at connecting with people they don't already know online), Liz got to (do a simulation of) light a battery on fire, and it was all kind of great, although masking inside the house because workers and dust is a bit of an issue for us all. Temporary, though, so that's okay.

And this picture is what I came home to. 

Yes, a slab of plywood over the gaping hole in my kitchen floor, which is the next pic. After they took up the plywood Tuesday morning, this is what we could see - a rectangular hole with wooden support joists and pink insulation. Also yellowish insulation. And under the insulation is... cardboard. This is not a sturdy and safe floor, hence the project at hand. 

But back to Monday night; oh, well... hmm... I hadn't thought of the difficulty in cooking. I mean, I knew that the oven and stove would be off-limits (as well as the dishwasher), but I had assumed I would just use the toaster oven or the microwave for a few days. I hadn't considered the dust everywhere and the difficulty in getting to the microwave and the toaster oven, though. (Don't worry; the fridge was plugged in (in the dining room) so we were food safe... although we couldn't make ice).

There was quite a lot of takeout in our home this week. 

And then there were a number of short stages involving various levels of, well, leveling. They cut new plywood and put it down to fill up the holes. They put some cement stuff over that and let it cure overnight, then added thin sheets to level it, put more cement stuff over, and glued down the new linoleum (and put the trim back on the wall). And on the fourth day (that sounds very Genesis, but nothing so dramatic), they reconnected all our appliances, tested them to make sure they a) don't leak, and b) they function properly. 

All in all, it's a very good thing. The only casualties were a single broken egg (while moving the fridge) and a single broken plate (the plastic cup Lizzy pitched into the sink from the other side of the kitchen to avoid the drying floor should not have broken a plate in the said sink!). And possibly to our arteries and pocketbook due to all the takeout. Oh, we tried to get "good" takeout - it was mostly not fried crap - but also not home-cooked fresh food. 

These are acceptable losses. And none of them was their fault in any case.

But regardless, Handy Friend, LLC is an awesome company with awesome people who do awesome work. And that's the important thing.