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Retreating from Face Book posting back to interactive journaling. Mainly to get away from opinionated family members and church folks. Many of whom do not appreciate my sense of humor, which admittedly is rather dry.

They are busy doing something today - that is rather noisy in the hallway. The hallways of the apartment complex echo...reverberating sound back at you with hollow glee.

Last night on the phone to my mother, who is nearing 75, and I talk to daily via phone, I'm ranting about my boss, then half-way through my rant, as I tend to do, I switch gears and start to defend him.

Mother: You have an interesting way of handling things.
Me: How so?
Mother: You're telling me how horrible your boss is, and how much you hate the work assignment he gave you, then you suddenly switch gears and start to break down how what he did made total sense,
was reasonable and you understand why he gave you the assignment...
Me: Well, he had to give it to someone and I do have the background for it..
Mother: You did the same thing recently in regards to your brother, you were upset with him, really angry, then all of a sudden you started to defend him to me. It's fascinating. And when you were a little girl and your friend Cathan treated you horribly, you defended her actions to me and still do.

Also, possibly makes me look a bit nuts to the outside observer. I don't know if it is the writer or the lawyer in me or not, but I have this knack of jumping back from a situation, looking at it objectively, observing everything, analyzing it, and understanding everyone's position -- not only understanding their position but arguing it. I've always done it. Even when I was a small child.
I did it in fandom. I could see both sides, really clearly. It can get confusing at times. It's also really hard to understand why others don't do this as well. I rather loved a comment that Sherlock makes in this past week's episode, in which he states that he just analyzed everyone's motivations, figured out the probabilities of what they would most likely do next and went with that --- "And doesn't everyone do that?"

My aunts, per my father, accused me of overthinking recently on FB. I think I annoyed them. Their main posts on FB are pics of walking a beach, Disney World and puppies. What they don't understand and I'm not sure it is a good idea to enlighten them, is I joined FB to discuss politics not look at pictures of people's kids and pets. Not that I necessarily mind seeing the pics.

I'd written a brief post about how FB was scaring me again - in the space of an hour, I'd learned that there were creepy sites that had all my personal information, salmon carried tapeworms, and let's not even begin to discuss politics. I love you all, but seriously, sometimes I miss the age when there was no internet. We wrote letters. And read papers. With less news.

I do miss that at times. Although the drawback of letters, was that you rarely got responses, and if you did, not quickly. I corresponded a lot with people by letter in my teens and twenties. Overseas and in the US. Sort of like now, but with a journal. Some would respond within a week. Some within months. Some not at all -- which felt a bit like sending messages in a bottle. I'd write the letters in multi-colored ink. Sometimes doodle on the edges. And they'd be a bit like my journal posts -- except with crossed out words, and multiple typos. Cursive and printed letters fighting for dominance along the page.

The letters that came back, some typed, some hand-written, rarely responded to what I said, so much as circumvented it. It felt at times as if we were strangers or rather ships passing each other in the night and lighting a brief flare or honking a horn in greeting. Or maybe just throwing messages in bottles at each other -- the messages not connected at all. If you read the letters, it would seem as if the writers had not read each others correspondence.

That appears to be the etiquette on dreamwidth and live journal and other media sources. Most of the time. We write as if we are in bubbles. Not seeing each others posts, unless we directly respond to them. I wonder if that is the problem? This bubble existence. I'm nice and comfy here. I can ignore what is happening over there. That is until it comes barrelling through the bubbled walls of my life?
I don't know.

Off to eat breakfast and watch telly and give the internet a rest for a bit. Considering I left my cell phone at work (at least I hope it is at work, because if it isn't, I have a problem, I'm probably not wandering too far from home. Not that I can't. Seriously that sounds dumb, doesn't it? I rarely use the thing except as a watch, GPS, to check facebook, and occasionally listen to music. I'm just using it as an excuse to be lazy, write and watch telly this weekend.)

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The other day, I had the weirdest moment -- I thought I was in February and tomorrow was Valentine's Day. I was standing in the pharmaceutical aisle looking at all of these tempting valentine hearts filled with chocolates, so my confusion is understandable. Honestly, wouldn't the chocolates be a bit stale by Feb 14th, a month away? No worries, I passed the test and did not buy one. Bought 72% Coco Bar instead. The valentine hearts containing an array of chocolate candies had all sorts of nasty additives, including gluten, that would have made me one sick little puppy.

Anywho...I posted this on my wordpress blog, go read at your leisure.


In other reading news, I'm currently read, yet another romance novel ...this one is entitled "Beautiful Bad Man - Sutton Family 1 by Eileen...something or other", I tend to forget the writers of these novels. And if I didn't write down the novels, I'd forget them too soon after I read them.
Memorable they aren't. This one is a Western, about a gunman and a farmer's widow, who team up to fight off a bunch of ranchers stealing land in Western Kansas during the late 1800s, long after the Civil War. They apparently met up as kids, she saved him from being hung by a bunch of drunken brutes. Years later, while working for the evil cattle rancher, he comes across her being taunted by the men he's working with, and stops it. Kills one of the brutes. Injures another. And quits. Courts her. Tries to convince her to sell the land to him -- because he takes a fancy to farming it himself, but she refuses and talks him into marrying her instead and becoming partners. That's as far as I've got.

The villains are fairly one-dimensional, they always are in these types of books, and the heroes a bit more complicated. The writing is notch or two above some of the genre, but below the better writers or my go-to novelists.

I decided after reading Masq's reviews, to buy a Ben Bova novel -- which I can't remember the name of. I think it was Star Conquerors -- a predecessor to Star Trek or so the description stated. It is considered a favorite among sci-fi space opera fans. I like space opera...

Looked at some of the new novels being published and none of them strike a chord. All have characters that ring a sour note, thirty-something rich divorcees, or young marrieds in their twenties...and well, no. Or teens coming of age in small rural towns. It's not that I don't want to jump into another perspective, it's just that I've jumped into that particular perspective so many times now that I'm starting to wonder about the publishing industry and the people writing these books -- can't you come up with something new? I'm tired of reading the same stories all the time.
Tell me a new story. One without a 40 something divorcee. How about a 40 something virgin or a woman who is single and never been married or dated much? Or instead of a young married couple, how about a couple in their 70s or 80s struggling with their kids and getting older, and memory loss? I have found those books here and there but not as many.

Instead of a bunch of rich girl-friends traveling into the wilds and meeting disaster, what about a bunch of strangers on an adventure tour, who don't know each other, and are varying ages and races and nationalities?

See this is why I write...I write the books I can't find on the shelves. If it's already out there, why bother writing it?

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It's late, but I had chocolate and I'm wired. Dark chocolate. No sugar. I'm a chocolate addict and should not have it. I know this.

Also still disturbed by my interaction with my Aunt, who is a favorite. But alas, it may pass over now that I deleted the post. I'm not sure I like FB, it's ...less safe somehow than here. If that makes sense? Probably not.

In some respects, I feel more understood or freer here. Like I can let my hair hang out. I can be geeky and fannish. Radical. On FB, I have to restrain myself. I'm more exposed.

Today, I watched television while it snowed. I may hibernate this weekend. It sounds like it is raining now. I hope not. I liked the pretty snow. The weather is funky, isn't it? At any rate I hope you don't mind the multiple posts?

Elisi has posted lots of links in her journal regarding the ACA and politics. Here's a few useful one's on the ACA. I can't talk about this without ranting. And I'm trying not to. I'm furious at the Republican Party. Actually I'm angry at a lot of people at the moment and I'm trying not to be.

IT's TIME TO FIGHT - THE ACA REPEAL

Also, this link cheered me up or made me laugh: Our calls to Senators are Apparently Working at least on some level

I finally got irritated enough with FB, which has been irritating me for a long time now - to state: "I'd apologize for all the political posts, but seriously? That's why I joined FB to begin with, to discuss politics. Way back in 2008, before my family joined and it was just me and the people from discussion forums."

Okay, back to the reason I was posting, television shows..and damn, it is raining. Stupid weather.

1. Nashville -- really good this week. Far cry from last week. The final song, even made me cry. And it focused more on the music and less on the melodrama. Also each character's relationship to the music and to each other through it.

2. Good Behavior -- the season finale was perfect. It even works as a series finale if need be. Satisfying in every way. I love what the male lead states to the protagonist's son at the end, that he trusts the boy's mother, because of her actions, which are honest and genuine, not her words.
She basically puts everything on the line to save both his ass and her son, and give them a better life.

Great anti-hero show. With two immorale characters that have a deep moral code underneath.

3. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend - still a rather clever and insightful satire on romantic love and how narcissistic it can be. There's a wonderful scene between Rebecca Bunch and her therapist, where Rebecca is on the cusp of a psychological breakthrough, but it's ruined when her clueless boyfriend pops in and literally pops the question. The therapist is about to have a hissy fit when it happens.

Bunch is about to admit that she was wrong, that a man isn't going to solve her problems. That her problems are still there. That moving or changing locals didn't make them go away, they just followed her. And maybe she needs to dig deep inside herself and find what she needs inside herself and not in someone else. Narcissists look for validation completely outside themselves. They are never secure or happy with who they are. It's always about getting approval, winning awards, how many friends they have, how loved they are, how much money they make, how big their house is, what their title is...success to a narcissist is measured by external things, and defined by others.
And they are never happy or satisfied.

Unfortunately, Josh Chen, who equally has issues, decides he has to propose to Bunch, they have to make it work -- because he's told everybody they are a couple. And if they don't work out, he'll look like an idiot. He's also doing this for external gratification, he cares what others think of him.

Then there's Ethan or is it Nathan? I suck at names. The new guy at the firm, and Bunch's new love interest. Apparently he's the male version of Bunch. His father drove him nuts and made him feel insecure, just as Bunch's mother makes her insecure. In this episode you see them echo each other in how they relate to their parents. Both are successful and have graduate from top schools, but neither is happy, because they need external approval.

Crazy Ex-Girl Friend shines a satiric light on the sickness at our society's core. Actually I think all of our media is shining a light on it...in various ways. We live in the age of narcissism. Just look at how many award shows we have on television, reality contests, and competitions. Heck look at our leadership. I find myself suddenly wanting to place everyone around the world into group therapy.