Category Archives: Thoughts

Connection…

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Nearly every day as I am walking back from leaving Adam at his school, I pass a young lady heading to the college that’s just past it.

The first time I passed her, I admired her head-scarf, in my mind, which was just beautiful. I realized I was staring as she came towards me as she glared, I’m sure expecting censure, obviously not being Christian and proud of it in this oh so Christian country. We both had headsets in so I didn’t speak, but I smiled at her and probably blushed a bit for being caught staring. She smiled back and visibly relaxed.

Every time I see her now we smile at each other. And mouth ‘good morning’, since we both are still listening to music.

I hope some day to see her around our little part of Belfast when she isn’t in a hurry to get to school and I’m not already thinking of what I have to do for the rest of the day. Because I want to say “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable that first time. I really was just admiring your gorgeous head-scarf. All of your head-scarves are gorgeous, actually.”

So before you get your back up by someone staring at you, try smiling. And if something attracts your attention on someone, smile.

Make a connection.

Be Better Than That

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So there’s been a lot of talk, all over the place, about what Mike Jeffries, the CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch said about not liking or selling to fat and unattractive people.

Which makes him an ass and probably sexist and definitely not someone I would want to have a coffee with.

However, that does not give everyone else the right to make fun of the way he looks.

Yes, he is not an average looking person, it’s true. He’s either had an accident or some sort of condition that has damaged his face. Or perhaps not and he’s was just born that way. I have no idea and I don’t really care.

But calling him a freak or Frankenstein’s Monster is stooping to his level.

Be better than that.

Prayers For Boston

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Yesterday I was logging in to Skype with my sister in law in California when Twitter started reporting the explosions at the Boston Marathon.

She and I kept one eye on the news sites and one eye on each other as Twitter’s feeds became impossible to follow due to the refresh speed and the legitimate news sites began reporting the story.

My family origins are Bostonian. My parents grew up there, all of my biological cousins did as well. I have been there many many times. I still have a few members of my family and some friends not far from where the explosions occurred. All had reported, via Facebook, within the hour and all were, thank god, fine.

My sister in law pointed out that we had done the exact same thing not quite 12 years ago, only we were in the same timezone, in the San Francisco Bay Area. I was off work because my grandmother had died the day before and I heard on the radio about the Twin Towers, turned on the TV, rang her and we sat on the phone for about an hour watching with horror as the Towers fell.

Last night we had about the same amount of time because it was lunchtime in Berkeley and nearly my bed time here in Belfast. And we chatted and exchanged websites to check and watch online video.

And sent up prayers for Boston.

You’re Damn Right Their Lives Are Ruined

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and it’s no one’s fault but their own.

Oh wait…and their parents.

And their teachers.

And coaches.

And anyone else who influenced their lives and never said to them “silence does not equal consent” and “drunk is not a free pass” and “so you can throw a freakin’ ball, so what?”

You know who else’s life is ruined? That girl’s. And any other girl they may have done this too that has never been found out.

I am not and have never been a radical feminist and I never will be.

But I am fucking sick and tired of rape culture and victim blaming.

I am fucking sick and tired of the belief that being able to throw or kick or whatever a fucking ball makes you a hero.

It doesn’t. It makes you someone who can kick or throw or whatever a fucking ball.

Real heroes don’t rape girls and post the pictures on the internet.

Real heroes stop the people doing what those boys did.

I wonder where that poor girl’s heroes where that night. Apparently that town doesn’t have even one.

Hey, Look! A Change!

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Except, you know, not really.

I am talking about, of course, the new Pope. Pope Francis I.

There being a new Pope is about a meaningful for me as who the President of Latvia is, but it was still interesting to watch it happen. Just as it was in 2005.

What has me chortling is the cries of ‘but he’s against abortion!’

‘He won’t approve condoms and save millions of African lives!’

‘He won’t approve gay marriage!’

No shit Sherlock.

No matter his background or how ‘liberal’ he may appear or that he’s a Jesuit? He’s still the leader of the Catholic church.

And there are certain things that will never change within that organization.

Don’t kid yourself they ever will.

The Times? They Don’t Change At All.

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So I was thinking more on how I don’t think things change, no matter who is in power, or how things change and then go straight back when the ‘other guys’ get in power.

And I can hear a voice in the back of my head saying ‘what about gay rights and feminism and racial relations?’

Well, what about them?

It’s been 44 years since the Stonewall Riots in New York began the gay rights movement. A number I can easily remember as it is the same year I was born, 1969. And we are still fighting for gay rights. Right to marry. To adopt. To just have the same rights as someone who is born with the ability and desire to love the opposite rather than the same sex.

And feminism. It’s been about 50 years since that started. Do women get equal pay? How many female members of Congress are there? Members of Parliament? CEOs? Presidents of the United States  have there been?

Race? It was 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of that bus. Has Dr King’s dream come true? Do ‘…all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics,…’ ‘…join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”‘

Do they?

Or did I have to find an alternate route to my son’s school on Monday because the road was closed due to a Security Alert triggered by a suspicious package on a railway bridge between our house and his school?

So don’t tell me change happens or stays or keeps. Don’t tell me, as I read in an article where New York Irish Pub owners defended the name of a drink called an Irish Car Bomb because ‘the troubles were so long ago, they are practically forgotten’, that the world is better or safer or evener or equalier than it was before.

Tell it to the gang rape victim in Delhi. Or the teenager who was raped by footballers, where that the whole town tried to cover it up in the US.

The world is unequal and uneven and unfair. And how will we know it no longer is?

People won’t know or need the term ‘White Privilege.’ We won ‘t need International Women’s Day. We won’t need Gay Pride. Or Black Pride Month. Or a million other things that we need to do, and do loudly, to be heard.

It’s been half a century since most of this stuff started.

When is going to end?

Be The Change, Not The Whinging About the Need For Change

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I am so so tired of the whinging.

All over FB and MN and Twitter and probably Google+ and every where else.

They are destroying our NHS. They are taking away our benefits. They are lying about social security, benefits users, my next door neighbour, their own policies.

Well, what are you doing about it, other than bitching on Social Media? Have you signed a petition? Gone to a protest? Written your MP/Congress Person?

Or are you sitting behind your computer whinging on the internet hoping someone else is going to be the change?

What am I doing? Not a blessed thing. Why? Because I honestly think it does no good. This government will pass things (both US and UK). The next government will pass things to put things back the way they were before the last government passed things. And vice versa. Over and over again, until the end of the earth. Everything resets back to zero at some point. It always has and it always will.

So I am not being the change. But I am also not whinging about the change. Or only rarely and briefly.

Also, I have no electoral voice in the UK and never will. And I have no local electoral voice in the US, even though I am registered to vote in California. As a US Citizen who has declared they will never return to the US, my voting power is limited. I am allowed to vote for Senators and Congressmen. I am not allowed to vote for State Senators or Congressmen or whatever they have in California. Quite right too.

But honestly, the rest of you are exhausting. Either shut up or put up.

Be the change or stop whinging about the need for change.

Or tell me to fuck off.

Your choice.

You May Have Notice A Change…

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If you read my last 9 posts you’ll notice something. There are no tags.

Why? Because tagging stopped working sometime around 9 posts ago. Sometime between WordPress 3.5.whatever and Arunja (my theme) 1.5.something, tags went bye bye.

So I gave up trying to fix it today and switched to this other theme. It’s a nice clean easy theme. And I’ll be changing everything again soon anyway since I’m doing a custom one.

So enjoy the clean theme.

Or not. You’re choice.

Hearing What They Are Saying, Not What You Think They Are Saying

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As I was doing my usual Sunday clean of my kitchen yesterday I flashed back to a conversation I had with my step-dad when he was here last.

He said “I moved the dish drainer and cleaned under it for you.”

What I heard “Because it’s obvious you never do and it was gross.”

What he meant “To help you out so you didn’t have to do it at some later point, especially with the extra dishes being washed with Mom and I here.” (We don’t have a dishwasher.)

It took me probably a month or two to realize I had heard one thing and he had meant another. At the time? I got defensive. “Well, I do clean it every week!” I protested. His reply? “Well, now you can clean it a few days later.”

Even his additional comment didn’t register with me as non-critical but informative and helpful.

How often do we all do that? Do we hear something someone has said to us and missed the “I’m helping message” in our own internal dialogue?

I know I do it all the time. Not just with my step-dad, although doing that goes way back in our relationship for a variety of reasons, but with my mom (that one goes back oh, about 44 years), my husband, even my son sometimes.

So I am working on becoming more aware of it. So I can change the “But I…” words to “Thanks for the help!”

So thanks for the help, Step-Dad! 😀 (Better late than never…I hope.)

Why I Really Want To Go Home

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So we are heading off to Berkeley in July for 2 weeks.

My family think I’m dying to see them. Oh how wrong they are. 😀

Okay, I am, but I also have a long, and getting longer, list of things I really, really need to do while there: –

  • Shop at Target. Twice.
  • Eat my weight in summer fruit.
  • Ditto vegetables.
  • California Pizza Kitchen.
  • Black Angus Steak House.
  • Cold Stone Creamery.

I’m sensing a theme here

  • Shop at a real mall.
  • Eat real Chinese.
  • Peets!!!! (I almost forgot! My brother will faint.)
  • Applebees.
  • Real bagels. Well, more real than Tesco’s own. Sort of.
  • Fuddruckers

Okay, mostly food related. But it really is the stuff I miss as much as I miss my family. My food.

Five months to go.