Day #117

Anyone else losing count of the days...that we've been in isolation, well of sorts. My State is re-opening, but I'm still more or less in the same lock-down that I've been in since March.

Anyhow, took a two hour walk around Greenwood Cemetery this morning, instead of in the afternoon, in the hopes that it would be cooler. I don't know if it was - it was definitely humid. Felt a bit like walking through water, actually. Also the weather forecast stated possible storms this afternoon. There weren't any. It reached the upper 80s today, and according to my phone and the news, felt like 90 with the humidity. So going early on - might have been a good idea. I left 8:15 am or thereabouts and got back around 10 am. Had breakfast at 7:45. It was about 2.7 mile hike. Too hot to do much more than that. By the time I got home, I was drenched and ended up taking another shower.



Spent the day laying about eating chocolate and watching Last Airbender on Netflix

Outside of checking email and the television recs on DW, I took the day off from social media and the internet, and my computer and chose to watch Avatar: The Last Air Bender on Netflix. Netflix has three seasons of it, the first one is about 20 episodes long, the next 18, and the last 16 episodes - kind of typical of animated series on broadcast television actually or any television service. They start out with a ton of episodes, then dwindle.

After this week, especially yesterday, I wanted something light and fluffy. (I did a lot yesterday, made up my bed clean, tested intercom, did laundry, worked, wrote...tried not to have an anxiety attack over doing laundry - LOL!) So today, I wanted to watch something cute and comforting and not "directly" relevant to ANYTHING happening at the moment. Metaphorically it may be - but then just about everything is, so this was about as good as I could get in that department.
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(As an aside, I'm also sticking with Black Sails, What We Do in the Shadows, Steven Universe, and going to try Legend of Korra (assuming of course that I can find it again), Warrior Nun, and Maladorian. It's not like there's anything compelling on broadcast television at the moment, well outside of Beechem House on PBS, and GH reruns (yes, we actually have reruns of daytime soaps being broadcast out of order for the first time in history. They are allegedly going back into production on July 20th, which makes sense since that's about the time Disney is opening their amusement parks. Disney owns the soap.).)

Family

Me: I keep thinking I should be doing more with my community. If it weren't for my fears and anxieties, I would be able to do all this. If they didn't stand in my way. You know, getting more involved with the community outreach, doing something -outside of donating money -
Mother (in a very stern voice - or as stern as she can get over the phone from South Carolina): No. Please do NOT do that. Please. The last thing you should be doing right now is getting involved with community outreach. I'm worried enough about you. Please don't go out there and become an essential worker. ( Read more... )

What I don't understand - is all the people who walk around Greenwood Cemetery with their eyes on their cell phones. I mean - I get doing that on the subway, it's the subway, but in a beautiful green space, with birds, and wildlife, and statues...why?

People continue to bewilder me.



Other things..

Besides talking to my mother, I took a nap, kind of. I just rested my eyes. Also meditated, which is helping me keep the anxiety, depression and all those other toxic emotions in check. Envy is a toxic emotion, as is rage. But the meditation really helps. I do it through a Headspace app - that is run by a Tibetan Monk by way of Australia. I find his voice very comforting and calming.

Intercom is apparently fixed now - according to a sign on the door. I don't know if mine is - but I assume so. I don't really use it that often, most of the time, people leave the main entrance open - so when I do need to let someone in - it's not an issue. Also up until recently, I wasn't home long enough to get deliveries in this fashion.

I want more Saturday and less of Monday. Mondays are long, Saturdays always feel short. Even in the middle of a pandemic. Of course, I've been working through it - so that could be part of it. I'm debating giving myself a four day weekend at the end of July. But it would be a stay-cation, so I don't know. Maybe I should take three weeks in November - self-quarantine for fourteen days in a B&B or my brother's barn, then do Thanksgiving with him?
I'm trying not to think too far ahead, it's really hard to plan anything at the moment. [Oh, methinks I see and feel storm clouds rolling in.]

Leave you with..flowers..

Last AirBender, Book Rec's, and links...

1. Okay, I'm admittedly a little shallow...but I really liked how they drew the character of Jett and the animation for that episode was beautiful. This was I think the 10th episode of the first season of Avatar: The Last Air Bender.

Although the point of the episode was to give Katara's brother Zuku some agency - and a little more depth, than pointless sidekick and damsel, who keeps claiming to be a warrior but just gets knocked down, taken hostage, or thrown around. The fact that he's made it this far - makes me think his super-power is invulnerability.

Jett - is the best drawn of the characters I've seen to date, along with his gang. Jett and his gang reminded me more of anime - specifically Cowboy Bepop, Jett looks a lot like Bepob. (I love anime. It's kind of ruined me, actually, for other forms of animation. I've been known to binge on it.)

2. Also went on a book buying spree - I really should actually finish the book I'm currently reading prior to buying more. I blame Smartbitches, which I should stop following - but I can't get myself to do so...

Books bought? Ah.

* What's Your Pronoun? Beyond He and She by Dennis Baron

Like trigger warnings and gender-neutral bathrooms, pronouns are sparking a national debate, prompting new policies in schools, workplaces, even prisons, about what pronouns to use. Colleges ask students to declare their pronouns along with their majors; corporate conferences print name tags with space to add pronouns; email signatures sport pronouns along with names and titles. Far more than a by-product of the culture wars, gender-neutral pronouns are, however, nothing new. Pioneering linguist Dennis Baron puts them in historical context, noting that Shakespeare used singular-they; women invoked the generic use of he to assert the right to vote (while those opposed to women’s rights invoked the same word to assert that he did not include she); and people have been coining new gender pronouns, not just hir and zie, for centuries. Based on Baron’s own empirical research, What’s Your Pronoun? chronicles the story of the role pronouns have played—and continue to play—in establishing both our rights and our identities. It is an essential work in understanding how twenty-first-century culture has evolved.

I'm trying to wrap my head around it. My church has embraced it completely. This looks like a good way to understand it. And the book was marked down to $3.99 on Kindle.

* Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life by Emily Nagoski
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The description sold me, along with the sample. Most books about women's sexuality seem to generalize - this one doesn't. Also it makes a very strong point about how you can't tell someone is a virgin - that the hymen is an area that can heal and doesn't stay torn on everyone, and that there isn't always bleeding. Which I found fascinating, when I skimmed the sample. There's a lot of misinformation and myths out there about female sexuality. Bonus? It gave me a free credit. (Whether I actually read it or not is another issue.)


* Or What You Will by Jo Walton - this is a fantasy novel about a fictional character who fears dying when his author dies. He'll be stuck in her skull. So he's trying to convince her to put them both into her next book so they can survive.

Sounds fascinating, and I find Walton to be an interesting fantasy writer.
So, we'll see.

Meanwhile flirting with Jim Butcher's to be released Peace Talks - it's out on Kindle on July 14, but it is frigging $14.99 which is pricey for Kindle. OTOH, Dresden Novels tend to be things I've bought in hard cover.
I like the characters and the writing style. (Only the Dresden novels, I don't like anything else the writer writes and I'm not overly crazy about the writer himself, but I like the Dresden files.)

3. Cognitive Dissonance...and how to enjoy and care for people who have political views that make me crazy or are offensive.

I've learned in life that people aren't one thing and can't be judged on one thing. I have co-workers, who I know are lovely people and I've seen help others - whose views on homosexuality, transgender, and race make me cringe.

While I've met very liberal people, including a man who was my boss, who were horrific - the man who was my boss at dead evil library company, was gaslighting me, a serial bully, and a narcissist. But hey, he was very liberal in regards to politics.

It makes life interesting.

This is kind of preamble to dealing with writers, actors, directors, and artists whose work you love but some of their personal views make you want to run away screaming - or you are diametrically opposed to them. Not to mention some who have done things that...hmmm, make you want to run in the opposite direction screaming.

I think I can continue to enjoy their works, and to a degree separate the work from the writer. In a lot of cases, the works are largely collaborative efforts and this makes it easier. In the cases in which they aren't? I have found things of value in the works, also, people are flawed. They aren't one thing. I have had racist family members - who were also kind and loving.
And I know Trump supporters, who are kind and loving. One woman that I know of, who is a Trump supporter and alt-right, goes out of her way to rescue domestic animals. She volunteers at shelters, she goes to natural disaster sites and rescues the animals. And she helped me get the job that I currently have. Cognitive Dissonance.

Same with various writers, etc.

That said, there are a few that I've swung away from, mainly because their works began to reflect those aspects of their personality that I found distasteful.

4. The Surprising Reason that Zebras Have Stripes

Apparently its to discourage biting flies from landing.

5. A New Theory On Why We Haven't Found Aliens Yet?

Now, three researchers think they think they may have another potential answer to Fermi’s question: Aliens do exist; they’re just all asleep.

(Their hypothesis that the aliens have uploaded themselves digitally reminds me a great deal of a similar hypothesis in the Powers of X/House of X - Hickman comics I've been reading. Making me wonder if Jonathan Hickman is reading these research studies?)

6. Here have a flower...as a kind of thank you...for not arguing with me about anything lately...