Homework

Sorry it's been pretty silent on the homefront - my life has been fairly dull.

Well, I finally met with Rabbi Misha about properly beginning the conversion process.  He was quite hesitant, which...I'm not sure I was expecting.  He was very serious and very blunt with me about not wanting to waste his time with someone who converts and then disappears, and seemed to be most concerned about the fact that all of my close friends are evangelical Christians and I'm not friends with any Jewish people.  I think worried that I'll be a Messianic Jew or something like that, which...no thanks.

He said he wouldn't see me again until I've gone to four services and read at least one of the two books he recommended to me.  I bought three books on Amazon (take THAT you doubting Rabbi you!), and on Friday night, I went to services for the first time.  He told me to write down how I felt about it so that I remember, and I'm just now getting to it.

To be honest, I'm not sure how I feel.  The services themselves were fine - lots of singing and standing and sitting. and I was interested in what was going on the whole way through.  There was no Torah reading since it was Erev Shabbat, and I'm finding myself interested in how Saturday services are different. (No one goes to those though.  If I do go, it won't be until I feel solidly on my feet at Erev Shabbat.)  I was concerned about the age of the congregation - with the exception of the nice girl who sat next to me and helped me through, they were all extremely aged.  Emiy (the nice girl) mentioned something about a children's something going on in another room, but I'm not sure if that means all of their parents were there too, or if all of these children were being raised by their grandparents.

The congregation was also smaller than I expected.  I suppose having been raised in a mega-church, my concept of "normal" is a bit off, but there were definitely less than a hundred people there, maybe less than fifty. To be honest, that made me a little angry about the Rabbi's hesitation with me - dude needs all the congregants he can get.  (But then I realize that time spent with me is time not spent with trying to get all his current Jews into seats and engaged.)

As far as any spiritual feelings...I honestly can't say I had any real stirrings.  I enjoyed the service, and I didn't feel embarrassed to try and sing along with the prayers even though I didn't know them at all (as opposed to the way I've always felt at church, which is embarrassed all the time even though I know all the songs), and I definitely want to go again, but I wasn't moved in any particular way during it.  I'm not bothered by that though.

I do think that I'm going to go again this Friday, and then perhaps after that I'll try the other two Reform shuls in town, just to get a sense of what else there is.  He said I had to attend four services - he didn't say where.

Books

A small cut from one of the sections in Unscrolled

I'm currently reading two very good books, one which is very serious and one which is much more loose and interesting but still just as thought-provoking.

The first one was assigned for our Intro to Judaism class, and I mentioned it before - Finding God.  It is very serious but is still pretty interesting.  Basically, it takes a look at some of the great Jewish writers and philosophers - Maimonides, Buber, Philo, Fromm (who I think I'm related to!), etc - and the way they looked at God.  There's rationalist, humanist, mystic, everything in there.  It's really helping me define how I feel about God, and I wanted to write down those feelings before I forget them.  Forgive me if it gets a little awkward and/or cheesy.

God is indescribable, on purpose. God is the word on the tip of your tongue that you just can't get out.  God is that color blue that you want to paint the bathroom, but you can't find the color chip that matches what you're seeing in your head and there's no way to describe it properly.  God is the idea for a short story that you dreamt last night but can't nail down enough to put onto paper in a nonsensical way.  God the name of the song that you know you've heard before and if you could just remember enough of the lyrics you could figure it out but...no, it's gone. As soon as you try to put a picture and personality to God in your head in a way that makes logical sense, it twists and turns and you lose hold of it again. 

----------------

The second book is new and while still serious, is very creative and interesting too.  Unscrolled: 54 Writers and Artists Wrestle with the Torah.  There are a lot of famous names in this - Josh Radnor, Damon Lindhof, Joel Stein, etc.  The way each section is done (there's one essay/drawing/photograph/whatever for each weekly section of the Torah) is just fantastic.  There's a script where Abraham is questioned by police for trying to kill his son, there are photographs of an artist's grandmother, there are prayers written by authors...it's just so interesting.  I just can't decide if I want to read the whole thing now or read a section each week along with the Torah portion.  Decisions are the worst. 

That's mostly it.  I think I really just wrote this because I feel like Alex would find both of these books to be really interesting, but really really the second one.  So you should probably read them. 

Questioning

I don't really have anything interesting to say, but I came across this article through another article and it made me feel a lot more comfortable with this possible impending acceptance of religion:

"There is a risk in being guided by conscience, but no less a risk than following the voice of “commandedness.” Martin Buber once wrote, “Moloch [an idol to which children were sacrificed] imitates the voice of God.” How can we discern the voice of God knowing that Mephi­stopheles is a ventriloquist, skillfully projecting his voice onto others? A “slippery slope” is to be preferred to being cemented in the ground. On a slope I may be able to grasp a tree or rock. But in cement, I am immobilized and subject to the threats of the wilderness."

In discussing Judaism and religion in general, this question of doing something because you are commanded to and not because you want to seems to come up again and again. This article doesn't answer the central question of "Why does God care if I do [thing that doesn't hurt anyone and makes not logical sense NOT to do, aka eat a cheeseburger or use a light switch on Saturday]," but it does make me feel better about commandments that I don't particularly think are right.

Mainly the thing I'm thinking of here is forgiveness.  From what I'm reading, the Jews don't seem to be big on turning the other cheek, and frankly, I don't blame them.  When you've been persecuted for basically your entire existence, justice seems a lot more appropriate than "okay, just don't do it again..."  I've spent my entire life trying to be more forgiving of other people's flaws, and while the prospect of fully embracing a justice-oriented existence is great, I just don't think it's the right thing for me to do.  I have to try to keep being forgiving when people are jerks.

"I shall be what I shall be."

It's been pretty quiet on the homefront lately.  I just haven't had much to say.  But I feel like now maybe I do.

I started an Introduction to Judaism course on Sunday.  (Brian's taking it with me but really only because I begged him to.)  We're the only couple there that isn't half-Jewish.  I went into this wanting to find out more about Judaism with the option at the end to decide whether or not to convert, and it seems like this class is exactly that.  The Rabbi is funny and passionate and vegan, which I find particularly interesting because I wouldn't necessarily expect that from a Reform rabbi - going vegan seems to be more of an Orthodox approach.

Anyway, there are a lot of books to read for this course, and the one that is used the most is Jewish Literacy. I've read the assigned reading for this week and next week, and quite frankly, I find it so interesting that I've just started at the beginning and begun reading it straight through.  Last night I was reading about Moses, and this particular segment struck me:

"The three word name God gives Himself is not easy to translate.  The most precise rendering is 'I shall be what I shall be,' although it is sometimes translated as 'I am that I am.'  The 1962 JPS translation of the Torah despaired of coming up with an accurate rendition, and just left the words in their Hebrew original.  Although generations of Bible scholars have tried to decipher the name's precise meaning, it really did not seem to matter that much to Moses.  Rabbi Gunther Plaut has pointed out that though God gave Moses a new name to take to the Israelites, Moses never again refers to it.  Plaut deduces that 'the revelation was never meant for the people at all, nor did Moses really inquire for the sake of the people.  Moses had asked for himself, and the answer he receives is also meant for him.' In some way, God's answer is satisfactory to Moses, if not to us, implying perhaps that when one has a true experience of God, it is very private.  In other words, God shall be what God shall be to that person.  He cannot adequately be described to others."

 For some reason, this really struck me, and I think it's really at the heart of how I feel about God and religion in general.  I've never been able to justify the image of a man in a white robe looking down at all of us disapprovingly, and it reassures me that there are others who believe that each individual's perception of what God is is acceptable. In fact, the individual interpretation of what God is seems to be a running theme with Judaism and this class - the next book that's been assigned is about that very topic: Finding God.

Anyway, long story short, I really really like this class, and I really really like what I'm learning so far.  We'll see where this goes, but I suspect I already know the answer.

Style Cure Day 11

Day 11: Plan a get-together

Ha!  Hahahaha.  No.

As this Cure goes on, I'm definitely getting a lot more choosy about what days I do and what I'm ignoring, and that's okay.  I'm less discouraged than I was yesterday, which is good too. I think letting go of both the need to follow each day exactly and that feeling of "I'm behind I'm behind I'm behind" really helped.

Last night, I went to Home Depot and got a bunch of different colors that could possibly work together and started fiddling on the wall.  With a lot of discussion last night and this morning, I think we've decided to do grey on the bottom, blue on the trim, and white on top.  (This combination is the fourth from the left or third from the right.)  Brian is a bit hesitant because that's a LOT of blue all around the room - the trim is all along the ceiling and the floor, around all the windows, and around all the door frames.

BUT WAIT maybe I should be doing white on the trim, grey on the top, and blue on the bottom??? ARGH THIS IS THE WORST.


The task for this weekend is to shop, so we'll see.  I can't get past the painting part to even consider starting to style the room, so I think some stuff is going to have to be done out of order here.  Perhaps I'll paint this weekend and then shop and style next weekend.

ASSUMING I CAN PICK SOME PAINT COLORS THAT IS.

Days 7, 8, 9, and 10

I must own you, loveseat

Day 7: Clean your room and think about paint chips
Day 8: Choose your color and think about a "pairing"
Day 9: Research your pairing
Day 10: Make a shopping list

Ooomg I am failing so hard at this you guys.  It started this weekend, when our job was clean the room.  That didn't happen, at all.  Instead, Brian did a little bit of organizing, taking a lot of stuff off the green shelves and moving it to the shelves next to the fireplace...but that's all we did.  The rest of the weekend was spent looking for a chair for the living room, since we're switching the downstairs furniture with the upstairs furniture.  So instead of thinking about what color to paint the den, I've been obsessing over this loveseat for our upstairs.  We also bought a mount to put the TV (again, upstairs) on the wall.

So then we come to day 8, picking a color.  The farthest I've gotten on that is taping a bunch of paint chips on the wall.  Brian is worried that whatever we pick will darken the room too much, since it's a downstairs room with low ceilings, and I mean, he has a point, but the brown makes me so sad that I'm pushing forward with painting anyway.  I think we're going to end up with a blue, although grey is a strong contender, and I think it's going to be extremely light in color.

Because we haven't picked a color, it's basically impossible to do Days 8 and 9, because how do you pair something with a color that hasn't been selected yet?  And then a shopping list...I feel like this has gotten way more advanced than I'm capable of.  They're talking about lampshades and pillows and I don't even know how the room is going to be arranged or what color it's going to be. :(

I'm getting really discouraged.

Days 4, 5, and 6.

Day 4: Set up a one room outbox
Day 5: Make a floor plan
Day 6: Learn about color

I've been quiet the last few days because the tasks didn't really lend themselves much to blogging, with the exception of the floorplan fiasco.  I set up our outbox (which is just a box of things that you think you might want to get rid of, which you go through after a week and make a final decision about), put some of my stuff in, and realized there's no way Brian will put any of his in.  (He really likes his stuff.)

We worked on this floor plan last night, and we totally need help.  (I realize now I really should have made the floor brown, since, you know, that's the color of the floor, but I digress.)  The layout that's up there now is roughly the same as the layout is currently, except that there are two chairs instead of one+end table, and there are three bookshelves instead of two green ones. The little blue square is an ottoman, the colorful thing there is the pinball machine (which is cabinet-style, not giant machine style, and the light brown things are a DVD rack and the 9-cube thing.  Everything is proportional.

So HELP.  How do we lay out this room so that the pinball machine isn't neglected in a corner, and we're not splitting the room up so harshly into two pieces?  Keep in mind that there's a 3-4 inch ledge at about waist-height that goes around the length of the room, except on the wall where the bookshelves are now, and the red bit is another ledge where the fireplace is, but it's thankfully much lower.

Looking at the pictures in the previous entry and the layout, any suggestions for color are appreciated.  I realize we're going to have to do warm colors, which...ugh, and Brian has made it clear that he doesn't want anything too contrasty, which nixes my idea for super dark on the bottom and light on the top.  Possibly a green on the bottom? Maybe?

how i did i get here i'm no good with decorating

Day 3: Choose your room

Some of the video games.  A lot are still in storage.

Day 3: Choose your room and sit in it for 10 minutes

The task for yesterday was to pick the room that needs restyled. I puzzled over this for ages, honestly.  All our rooms could use a little sprucing, but I've also been working on them for months now, so there wasn't a ton of revamping that needed done in any room.

Except one.  The one that I was most sure I wouldn't be allowed to touch:  our den.

When we first moved in, I had originally pictured the room as a cozy place where we could watch TV and sit by the fireplace, and just generally be comfortable.  I thought maybe it would be our main hang-out room, where we would entertain most often, and had great ideas for it.

Then we moved in, and it became Brian's room.  Not that that's a bad thing, but just not what I had pictured.  Currently the room has a small TV, a couch, a couple of old chairs, a pinball, and aaaaallllll the video games.  The room is perfectly functional for him, and he likes the simplicity, which is great for him.

But it does make for a room that's really not particularly nice to be in if you're not Brian or one of his immediate friends. 

But really, the worst thing about the room to me is the poor use of space.  We have shelves that are basically empty, or have things on them that I set down literally the day we moved in and never moved. (See: the jar of peanuts on the mantle.) 

So, after talking to Brian, I think I can make some changes, as long as I don't go overboard and ruin the things he likes about the room, which is that he has a place to sit, he has a TV, and he has easy(ish) access to whatever game he wants to play at any particular time.  I need to find a way to spruce up the room and make better use of the space without completely disrupting his flow (OR spending a ton of money, haha.)

Pictures and to-do list below.  Suggestions are desperately wanted.  Required even.

UFYH

Picture discs from the 40's that we hung up last night.

Because we're having company over today, Brian and I have made really good progress towards unfucking our habitat this weekend.  Right now I'm really pleased with how at least our middle floor looks.

There are two problems with this:

1) Whenever the phrase "made really good progress" comes up in our house, suddenly Brian and I manage to completely stop whatever we're doing and give up.  It's a sign of the end whenever we get pleased with our progress.  So, crap.

2) Now that everything is neat again, I'm moving into that "oh there's so much to be fixed here" state.  I'm now painfully aware of how there really should be a houseplant on the cart in that corner, and how we need to make a firm decision on putting the TV on the wall or on a stand because the white space above the TV is driving me nuts, and how I'm going to have to rearrange my gallery wall soon because the empty spots are driving me crazy, and how I need to reupholster the wing-back chair, and on and on and on.

But overall, I'm happy right now. I'm able to look around right now and see things that are in my house not because they're functional, but because they're lovely. I have live flowers in a vase behind me.  (Okay, live is stretching it...they're a week old.) I got new throw pillows yesterday, and they are ORANGE.  I hate orange!  But I like these and they look nice with the sofa that's currently in our living room and the sofa that is soon to be in our living room.

I like being happy.

Style Cure: Day 2

Day 2: Go on a style treasure hunt

Well, this didn't go so well for me. I am terrible at window shopping. I have a tendency to see what I like, decide that I want to buy it, and I buy it. I'm not good at mulling things over or thinking about it over the weekend or "saving money" to buy things.

But, I tried.  Brian and I went into Uptown Westerville and looked in a couple of shops.  I fell in love with this long media table at Amish Originals, and I managed to take a picture of a lamp there too.  Brian and I did get the chance to talk about what we liked, and we realized we like wood furniture that's not too dark, and we're willing to spend more money on pieces that are well-made and will last for years. (This is a big deal, trust me.)

Then we went into Cinda Lou, and I found these dishes, and I absolutely fell in love.  Aaaaand I bought them. >_>  I read on the internet after I got home that this was estimated to be the most popular dish pattern in the country in 1957.  So basically it's perfect.  They're blue and brown and it's not a complete set but you can buy pieces online so I can get a complete set and I am just in love with it.

So that ended the actual window shopping portion of our day, wherein we liked one expensive thing that we didn't buy but probably will soon, and we liked another much less expensive thing that we did buy.  I am so bad at this!

Well, I suppose the point was to narrow down what I like.  And I spent some time in the Ikea catalog today and I think I have a pretty good idea, maybe.

- I like wing-back chairs
- I like color, especially blue.  I don't particularly care for red or yellow but I'm coming around to muted orange.
- I don't super like the country feel, but I definitely don't like modern either.  The only way I can describe it is "solid and comfortable".
- I like vintage, but not 70's.  Early 60's and before, but not too overboard.
- I like plants.  I want plants in our house. (But caaaaats.)
- I don't like clean, white, Scandinavian. I need the white to be broken up with color.

So there.  I succeeded even though I failed. =P

Style Cure: Day 1

My fledgling gallery wall, plus one unimpressed cat

Last time I did an Apartment Therapy Cure, I tried to blog it.  I ended up failing towards the end, but I shall try again!  If I write about it, I'm more accountable about it, which increases the odds of me actually finishing it.

Day 1: Complete the Style Cure interview

This Cure is going to be harder, because as bad as I am at organizing and cleaning, I'm even worse at decorating.

I've always felt like I have no particular sense of style, and I didn't grow up in a decorated home, so I didn't learn as I grew up.  Our apartment growing up had white walls without much on them.  There were a few pictures or art of some kind here and there, but not much, and there wasn't anything in the house that was just there to make things look nice.  (There might have been at one point, but then we kids probably broke it.  Like my grandfather's clock.  We were dancing, okay?)

Feeling like I don't have an innate knowledge of how to make things look nice made me leery about trying this, but I can't give up if I haven't begun, so let's get to it.

My answers to the interview are below the cut, in case you're interested.   What I got from it is this:

- I like actors, writers, movies, and TV shows that are funny and clever, and I've clearly been focusing on female writers more than male ones.
- I have a distinct bias towards British actors and cars.  I feel like this leads back to the enjoyment of things that are clever. 
 - I like things that are comfortable more than I like things that are beautiful.
- I like things that are vintage, either in actuality or just appear to be so.
- I'm really hungry. (Seriously, it's lunch time.)

So, whatever I do, it has to be comfortable and functional.  Having a really nice looking end table is all well and good, but if you can't find a pen or scissors or the remote when you need it, then there's no point.  I've found in the past when I try to organize especially that it all ends up getting undone because we leave out the things we use most often.  Putting them back becomes too much of a hassle.

Hm, it would appear that this interview was more helpful than I thought it'd be.  Bring on Day 2!

Fatass

Tonight, Brian asked me if I wanted to take a walk.  In the spirit of trying to make at least one healthy choice every day, I said yes.  (All I've had to eat today is bagels, and all I've done is watch romcoms on Netflix, so this literally was my one healthy choice for the day.)  As we walked, we determined that we'd try and find some kind of dinner before going home.

As we walked, something happened to me that, in all my years of being fat, has never, ever happened before: a van drove by, and some guys inside yelled "FATASS" at me.  It stung.  But, I tried to ignore it and not let it bother me and not completely ruin the nice time that Brian and I were having.  But of course, stupid is as stupid does, and the van swung back around for another go.  This time, it was a rousing "FAT WHORE".

At that point, I gave up and took a hard left towards home. I ended up crying basically the whole way home, while Brian walked along attempting the impossible task of making me feel better. (I very much appreciate his efforts.  He's a good husband.)  I took a shower after I got home, in an attempt to, I dunno, wash off the meanness?  So now I sit and try to process the feelings.

I hate that their hate got to me.  I hate that I no longer wanted to eat dinner after the incident, because I would have felt fat and ugly and disgusting doing so.  I hate that the rest of the way home, I jumped every time a car went past.  I hate that I don't want to take any more walks in my neighborhood because of one stupid idiot.  I want to find them and show them what my fat ass is capable of by beating the crap out of them.  (I have three brothers and grew up in a neighborhood with no girls. I could at least do a little damage.)

But most of all, I hate that so much of my self-esteem can be wiped out by a couple of words yelled out of a car.

In the end, I recognize that it wasn't me that caused those guys to yell out their window.  They would have yelled no matter what I looked like.  If I had been a person of color, it would have been a racial slur.  If I had been thin and pretty, it would have been a request to have sex with them, and then it would have been "slut" when I said no.  If I had been disabled, it would have been something else.  If I had been with a woman, it would have been "gay".  They wanted to yell, and I was just a target.

But it still hurts.

Becoming that which I hate

There has never been an image that more accurately describes me than this one. I am completely unable to handle someone saying or doing something stupid on the internet.  This includes advocating the Republican agenda, being racist, being sexist, being classist, or being any other kind of ist really.   

My husband is so good at rolling his eyes and not rocking the boat, and I think it frustrates him that I can't.  I have to respond to the post where someone said that Obamacare caused Bengazi to make Treyvon Martin have an abortion or whatever it is, and I'll get into real fights with people over things.  

I need to get better at it.  But my problem is that when people post things like this, other people read them, and believe them, and it propagates something that's either untrue or harmful to a group of people.  I try really really hard to only post comments when something is actually false, because I don't like it when Literally Unbelievable gets played out in real life.  Those idiotic false statements translate into votes, votes that take away rights.  I can't let that go.  

But what about the other things, the things that are someone's opinion?  If they post an opinion that abhorrent, how do I learn to scroll past it and not let them know that they are a terrible person have terrible beliefs? (Seriously, why would you post any status that includes the phrase "white panther party"?)  I can just unfriend them, but then I end up with a group of Facebook friends that just agree with me, and I like having my beliefs challenged every once in awhile.

So seriously, how do I do it?  I'm tired of being angry and sad all the time. 

On being fat but also not fat at the same time

I'm...I dunno, fat I guess? I technically weigh a lot of pounds and I wear a size that most stores don't carry, so that makes me categorically fat.  I think. 

The problem with that label is that I can't see it.  Almost ever.  I literally look in the mirror and do not see a fat person.  (The only time I can see it is when I'm sitting facing a mirror while wearing a tight shirt, or am naked looking at my profile.)  This isn't a matter of having great self-esteem or total body acceptance or anything like that - I'm usually painfully aware of the amount of space I occupy and am never comfortable with that.  It's just that my brain apparently doesn't equate "takes up a lot of space" with "fat". 

I'm really not explaining this well.  When I look in the mirror, or when I picture myself in my head, I see a normal sized person, and I'm pretty sure it's a person that wears like, a size 12.  It drives me nuts, because I want to have a proper mental picture of myself, and I can't find it. I stare at people on the street trying to find a person that's the same size as me, and I never can.

It seems like a good problem to have, to not focus on your flaws, but it's not.  It makes it easier to ignore huge (punny!) problems, and that's not good.  I'm aware that I need to weigh less pounds, for health reasons, but since I don't usually see problems when I look in the mirror, it's easier to ignore that fact and eat some more cookies.

The problem with my mental picture is - how do I fix this?  I mean, everything people say involves learning to accept yourself no matter what size you are.  My problem is that I'm too accepting of me, and I think I look completely fine even when I don't.  Maybe it's a matter of getting rid of some of my self-esteem...except I'm already painfully insecure about my size.  I just can't see that size in a mirror.

This entry is extremely babbly and doesn't make any sense and doesn't have a point.  I'm trying to remember what I was thinking about when I started it...oh, it had to do with the fact that the more I wear dresses, the more comfortable I am with shorter ones, and then I went off into body acceptance and then I started thinking about how I'm too accepting and then this happened.

But really what I was going for is: Look at my thighs, guys.  I don't care.

Cutting some slack

I suppose this should be Creativity, Part Two.

I haven't given up yet on making things, apparently.  I am currently in the process of attaching my quilt blocks together.  It looks pretty ridiculous.  My blocks are all different sizes, with crazy patterned fabric that maybe sort of coordinates if you squint a bit, and the seams are all wonky and all over the place, and clearly I didn't cut right to begin with because everything is so lopsided.

But I'm okay with all that.  I'm definitely not worried about perfection with this.  I tried to learn how to quilt once before just out of high school, and I gave up because no matter how hard I tried, I always cut something crooked, or made a wobbly seam, or otherwise horked it up.  Everyone always says how quilting is a math-based precision hobby, and they're right, it totally is.  So I gave up.

With this quilt that I'm apparently making though,  I'm not worried about any of that.  I'm making it, flaws and all, and it'll probably never lie flat because of all the weird angles.  When I see something hanging crooked, I leave it.  When I know I cut a weird angle, I leave it.  It's not that I'm not trying to cut and sew straight, it's that I'm not putting a ton of pressure on myself to get it perfect.

Brian doesn't get that - his philosophy is to do your absolute best and take pride in your work, which seems to say that you can't take pride in something that didn't take everything out of you.  The thing is, the pride I'll get from this quilt will come from the fact that I actually pushed through it and finished.  That's enough for me.  I don't even know if I like quilting - why beat myself up over it the first time through?

With knitting though, I can't seem to let perfection go.  I've completely ripped apart everything I've attempted to knit so far.  I haven't even gotten past a fifth row because I'll find some flaw (like the fact that I've randomly picked up 6 extra stitches) and start completely over. (Part of this is due to the fact that I haven't yet learned how to fix mistakes any other way.)  I just can't let myself make a lopsided, full of holes, weirdly-tensioned, clearly-first-time scarf or whatever.  It's ridiculous, because like quilting, I don't even know if I like knitting.  I'm certainly starting to hate it.

So what's the deal here?  Why am I totally cool with a terrible quilt but not a terrible scarf?  This is my second time picking up knitting, same as quilting, so it's not a need for first-time-perfection.

Fuck it, maybe I'll just switch to crochet.

Creativity

Recently apparently I decided to try and become more creative or something.  I was looking through my mother-in-law's student artwork, and I was so impressed by her ability to create something beautiful that lasts a long time.  (Seriously, look at these.)  Then my friend Alex wrote a play that's being performed, and I look at the video game controllers and consoles(!) that Brian has built, and I watch my father and my sister cook and bake these amazing things, and I look at Brian's afghan that his grandmother made for him, and I realize that I have nothing like that of my own.  I feel like I'm not creative at all.

So I decided to try and change that.  I told Brian I wanted a sewing machine for my birthday, a request which he obliged, and I have since made one small May Day pocket that I loved, two messenger bags that I like, a small purse which I absolutely do not like, and 23 quilt blocks that are poorly cut, badly sewn, and just generally look kind of weird.  But I still made them!   I also got a knitting set to learn how to knit (again), and I am very much going to attempt to not give it up again (again.)

So that's what I'm doing.  And maybe learning to do this will spark some kind of passion for creation in me, and I'll get better at it and then start to like it more and then I can say that I made lovely things too, and I'll feel like I contributed somehow to the world, even if it was just with a lopsided quilt.

Babies

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the act of child-rearing.  I'm starting to come to accept that if I have a child, it will be intentionally.  I'm just not going to be able to fall into it by accident.  I'm going to have to make the decision to take medicine and then be in close proximity to my husband, or I'm going to have to fill out paperwork to procure an existing child from somewhere in the world.

I've never been the girl who wants children, which I think makes this realization hard to accept.  I always thought, "Well, if it happens I'll do it but if it doesn't, I guess I just won't."  There have been years where I've been all "I should get my tubes tied.  There is no way."  There are still days when I feel that way.  Those days really only started to come less frequently when my nephew was born and my ovaries were all "LOOK AT THE BAAAAABYYYYYYY!!!"

So basically, I'm still on the fence, and I know that I'm going to actually have to hop off of it - I can't be pushed off by a sudden unexpected invasion of my uterus.  (Thanks a lot for not working, ovaries.)  This is terrifying. 

So I've been trying to mentally prepare myself for that leap, should I decide to make it.  And in that, I've been thinking about the various parts of having a child.  I spent a week or two thinking about bodily fluids, and how I totally puke when other people (or my cats) do, and how the smell of poo makes me gag horribly, and remembered that one time when the cat sharted on my chest while he was sleeping.  I spent another week pondering the concept of being pregnant, and how that would completely break my brain because I'm such a huge hypochondriac.

So this week, I'm on teaching, and its scarier even than sharting.  I've been trying in the past year or so to really open up my mind and expand my horizons and just generally be a better person to those around me and those I don't know. I feel like it's working?  I feel a lot more compassion and love than I used to.  But it's really bringing out the terror of trying to pass this openness on to someone else. 

How do you teach a child that they own their own person and no one can touch it without their permission, but then justify the kinds of touching that parents must do whether the child likes it or not (like bathing)?  How do you teach a girl to own her sexuality and express that in a way that she is comfortable with, but limit it in an age-appropriate way that doesn't teach her to be ashamed of herself and that boys can do what they want but she can't? How do you neutralize gendered toys in a way that doesn't accidentally push your kid too far the other direction?  How do you teach a child to be open and accepting of all religions and cultures without accidentally appropriating a culture that you're not a part of? And further, how do you teach a young person to be open and accepting of all people, regardless of what they look like, how they believe, and what they do, while still teaching them to stand up against people who believe in limiting the rights of others? Especially when some of those people are in their own extended family?

These are the ridiculous things that go through my head when I think about this.  I almost envy the people who can get unexpectedly pregnant.  It's hard to choose to have a child when there's so much that could go wrong, that will go wrong.  So much responsibility.  How do I decide to do that? 

You are not the center of the universe.

Normally I'm not telling anyone anything of any real importance, but when I actually am saying something that you'll need to know, pay attention for cripe's sake.

I'm complaining about my job here.  Now, don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Human Resources, and I really like where I work. (Although, would it kill someone to give me a real desk and not a small temporary one? It's been a year and a half.)  But I'm starting to feel the frustration and annoyance that comes with people not paying attention when I'm giving them information that's relevant to them.

There are two new hires that I did orientation for a while back.   Now, our orientations are no big thing.  Literally it's me sitting at a desk going over some packets with them, having them fill out some paperwork, set up their email address, and send them on their way.  But for my employees at the farther away stores, I'm sometimes driving almost an hour to do this little spiel for them on their first day, not to mention the fifteen minutes I spend standing in front of the copier making ONE of these stupid packets for them. (Fifteen minutes isn't a long time, but when you're making 20 packets at a time...)

So both of these guys, they were in sales.  Automotive sales, if that gives you any indication of how lovely they are to be around.  (Side note: I genuinely love a lot of my sales guys, but seriously, you have to have a certain personality to be in car sales, and there are extremes to every personality.  These guys are that extreme.)  I did these two orientations months apart, but I'm conflating them for ease of story.  The one spends most of the orientation leaning back in his chair, staring at the ceiling.  His chair isn't even facing the desk, it's parallel to it.  I wanted to freaking reach over and knock him over.  I told him to type something as part of an account I was setting up for him, and he reached over and punched some keys without looking at the screen.  "Nope, try again, YOU DIDN'T EVEN TYPE ANYTHING."

The other guy spent the entire time either staring at me like I was a moron or looking behind him at the sales floor like a dragon was going to fly out of a Cruze and start destroying things.  I seriously sometimes still wonder if he was on drugs or something.  As soon as I said I was done, he bolted out of the chair and disappeared.  I mean seriously, right?

Anyway, the point is that these two represent one of the Things I Hate Most About HR.  I was telling these guys when their checks would start being direct deposited, when they'd be eligible for insurance, HOW MUCH MONEY THEY'D BE MAKING, etc.  Shit that directly affects them.  (I mean, how can you not pay attention to how much your paycheck is and whether or not it's going to be live?)  They weren't even listening.  I know this because one shredded his first check because he's fucking stupid and didn't listen when I said he would get a live check for two pay cycles, causing me to have to cut him another one.  The other one missed two mandatory insurance meetings and took a month to get his paperwork back to me.

So they're dumb, and they cause me a lot of extra work.  Whatever, I'll get over it.  What I seem to be having trouble getting over (and what was originally the point of this) is that THEY DON'T CARE.  It drives me absolutely bonkers when people aren't cognizant of the problems they create for those around them.

- You start a new job, then leave a week later for a different one?  You just wasted over an hour of my time.  You decide to come back a week later because that dealership sucks?  FUCK YOU Oh wait here I'll set you back up ANOTHER HOUR GONE.

- You're trying to find a particular coupon while at the grocery store, and you're not really paying attention and you stop in the middle of an aisle?  I'M RIGHT BEHIND YOU TRYING TO GET SOME DAMN PEANUT BUTTER THESE AISLES ARE NARROW THANKS.

- You realize you need to turn left and not right?  Oh sure just stop your car while you wait for someone to let you cut across four lanes of traffic. No one behind you needs to go anywhere anyway.

It's just...I don't even know any more.  This became some long weird rant and I've lost the point, except that people piss me off and it pisses me off that they don't know I'm pissed off and I can't tell them I'm pissed off because damn it I try to be polite.

o/~ A long time ago, we used to be friends o/~

I read a book this morning (yes, I know, don't judge me) about how the little decisions you make can change your future and make it so that you marry some guy and not your best friend who lives next door, and then I remembered Daniel, the tall African boy who used to live next door to me, and I wonder what decisions I could have made that would make us be married right now, and what that would be like.  He was so tall!  I wish I could remember what country he was from.  BUT SPEAKING OF FRIENDS...

I've been listening to this song a lot more lately since the Veronica Mars soundtrack found its way back into my regular rotation (movie! yes! win!) and it makes me think about the people I'm not friends with anymore. Most of those I no longer speak with have just faded away, but some I don't talk to because of something one of us did (or in some cases, something I did that they chose to react a particular way about, which lead to a breaking of ties).  There are a few of the latter that I truly miss (seriously, why wouldn't you have just talked to me about it and then trusted me?) but mostly it's the Faders that I miss and wish I could get back.

But getting them back isn't easy, at least not when you're me. There's one person in particular that I'm Facebook friends with, and every time she updates something I want to message her and be like "let's hang out! Our lives could be similar and interesting together!" But then I remember that we haven't spoken in Jesus even knows how long, and that would be so awkward.  Mainly because I'm super awkward?

But I mean, how do you go to someone and be like "I would like to insert myself into your life please let's do this" without sounding like a creeper?  I had decided last year to make more friends (or renew old ties with), especially more girl friends, and I've increased my count by....two...in that time.  Two isn't bad!  Especially for me.  But I'm not good at maintaining that, so I end up floundering around feeling dumb all the time.

So basically, if you're reading this, LET'S BE FRIENDS!

Starting Fresh

I've been wanting to get back to writing daily(...ish)  about my life, not that it's interesting at all, but because sometimes I feel like I just think too much, and if I don't drain some of those thoughts out, my brain might drown in them. A certain someone yelling at me all the time about it finally gave me the push to start or something.

I have my LiveJournal that I've had since 2002, and I could (and sometimes do) use that, but I feel like there's just too much history over there. My poor little LJ has seen me through my Young Republican phase, my LJ Support phase, my fandom phase (wait, that one is still going on), and all the other phases of me growing up.  It's where I decided to break up with Brian, get back together with Brian, where I worked for LJ, where I quit LJ, and where I've put all the feelings that I've had that I didn't want other people to see, or I only wanted some people to see, or I wanted everyone I didn't know to see.  It's just too much, and I have to step away with it because I'm not that person anymore.

Or rather, I'm not entirely that person.  The Bethany from LJ spends all her time on the internet, and Bethany 2.0 does too, but...differently.  I can't put a pin exactly on what's different, but something is.  I'm just more real-life focused now, more zoomed in on the people and places I see everyday, and building and maintaining my relationships with them.  But I'll always be a little bit LJ Bethany, and I'll always love all my LJ friends and who they are and what they did to me, and there's no way I ever would have moved out of my Young Republican phase if it weren't for them. I'm forever grateful, believe me.

So what am I going to do with this thing?  Who knows.  Here's a picture of a cat.