That Neighbor

We all have one.  That neighbor who we want to kick every time we see them.  The one who constantly complains.  "Someone reported me for a minor issue."  My father was one.  My former roomie was one.  When I got my apartment, I vowed not to be That Neighbor.

I can shrug off the kinds of things they raged over.  The neighbors don't pick up after the dogs?  I just watch my step.  Downstairs beats on the ceiling to shush me but plays their TV awfully loud at three in the morning?  I roll my eyes and move on with my life.  I did yell at kids once for playing in the dumpster area.  Once.  For safety reasons.

The apartment down the hall from me belongs to a heavy smoker.  The smell - not actual smoke - permeates, so I just go the other way.  Use the stairs instead of the elevator.  No big deal.  I think the former occupant of my unit smoked, but lots of home remedies took care of the worst of that smell.

In the spring, butts started appearing in the hallways and  the stairwell is often full of smoke. Someone has even taken down the legally required signs.  Over a week after reporting the situation to management, I replaced the signs (printed a photo of the sign by the elevator) even though it's technically against the rules for me to post signs in the public areas.  My signs also vanished.  

Smoking has always been a major bone of contention for me. Smoking is unhealthy, expensive, and just plain stinks.  I went hungry as a child, but my mother always had her cigarettes.  She died a slow, lingering death.  Cancer - started in the lungs.  I don't allow it inside my home and constantly encourage my smoking friends to quit.

Disrespect is also a bone of contention.  I will defend your right to fly a flag others find offensive, for example.  Accidental disrespect happens all the time.  Blatant disrespect - like flying said flag for the sole intent of offending others - is an entirely different thing.

I'll defend your right to have the unhealthy, expensive, and stinky habit.  Smoking while walking down a hallway is accidental disrespect.  (Some smokers light up and don't even realize it.)  Tearing down a No Smoking sign, however, is blatant disrespect.  Smoking in an enclosed area long enough to fill it with smoke is blatant disrespect.  If the same person does both, which seems logical in this context, I don't even have an adjective handy.

I've called the number on the No Smoking signs. I'm still worried about becoming That Neighbor.  I would much rather pack up and move again than do so, but just thinking about doing that makes me want to cry.  Except for this issue, I'm happy here.  

Someday

Head's up, y'all...  this one's gonna ramble.  Something happened this week that touched a couple of nerves.  Not physical nerves, or literally a couple (you know who you are), but a few figurative ones.  

I blogged in the past about empty buildings and the homeless.  Just a few days before the event in question, I was discussing the same with a nephew.  I mentioned The Bodmer, a historic hotel here in my adopted hometown.  It was built in the 1930s as a hotel.  Beautiful architecture, massive building.  And it's been sitting unused for 30 years.  It's a local landmark.  Well, it was.  Turns out I was wrong when I told the nephew it was structurally sound.  One wall collapsed and took out another empty building next to it, which may have broken a third building (which is in use).  Both empty buildings were uninsured and neglected.  Why own them if you aren't going to take care of them?!  Likely response - "I was gonna fix it up someday."

My mother had a car.  It spent most of my childhood in the back yard, weeds grown up around it.  She did get it barely running from time to time.  But most of my memories of that car involve weeds and wheel-well wasps.  She had intentions of "fixing it up someday".  She eventually lost the house and the car went with it.  I have a few things I want to fix up someday, but I find a use for them and take care of them to the best of my ability in the meantime.  I don't park them in the backyard and let wasps live in them.  I don't let them collapse into Second Street and maybe bust another person's head or property.

I have a little table, for example.  The legs are wrought-iron or look like it.  I've painted them with Rustoleum just in case.  At some point, the glass top broke and my grandmother covered it with shelf liner so she could continue to use it.  Right now the top is a shelf from a broken TV stand - ironic, since I still think of it as Mamma's TV table.  My printer sits on it.

We had a lot of antique furniture when I was a kid, and some of the pieces are still around (I have seven siblings, after all) but far too many of them rotted away as they waited for Someday.  The legs broke off one of them - a huge, heavy buffet table - and I improvised legs for it and still used it. Looked awful, but damage was being minimized and it was still in use.  Eventually, it got "put away" for the proper repairs it would get Someday.  It's gone now.

I always said I'd hike the Appalachian  Trail... Someday.  I didn't stay in shape, I didn't save my pennies for gear, and now I know it's never going to happen.  Even if I come into millions, my poor ole body couldn't take it.  The owners of those buildings and my mother never got their Someday, either, at least in part because of their own lack of forethought.

If you want to do it, and you can't right now, take steps to make it possible if Someday ever comes. Don't let your Bodmer rot away because you can't fix it perfectly right now.  Upkeep, to the best of your ability, will make Someday much easier if it ever comes.

You can't write that!

Over the years, I've gotten grief for writing about characters that are different from me.  The main one has been racial - I have no right to use Cherokee characters because I am not Cherokee.  Never mind my deep respect for all native cultures, the things all humans have in common, and mere fact that I love these fictional people.

Using the same logic...  Stephen King shouldn't write about all manner of supernatural creatures, rabid dogs, or gunslingers.  The Hillerman Navajo Tribal Police books should not exist.  JK Rowling should have never written the Harry Potter series.  Entire genres of fiction should not be - in fact, fiction itself should not be.

A wise man once said a writer should take "write what you know" with the widest possible interpretation.  He also said that every character you create is partly you.  I don't remember if it was from the same wise man, but another good rule is "write what you are passionate about".

My Cherokee character started out in a tertiary role.  I made him Cherokee simply to add some diversity to the setting.  Once he grew on me, I learned as much as I could.  And that was when the grief-givers appeared.  I'm willing to bet those are the same people who complain about all white folks thinking the Cherokee live in teepees.

I've gotten praise from lesbians for my portrayal of a lesbian relationship - and I all I do is write them like any couple. Olivia is surprised when they get invited to Ann's ex-husbands wedding.  Ann thinks Olivia is too frugal.  They don't bicker over the teenager's curfew, but only because it never comes up.  My characters "of color" have never drawn criticism for being inaccurate.  Granted, I'm writing in a modern setting, but still...

I write what I know, what I'm passionate about.  Olivia, despite having a Korean mother and a wife, is probably the most like me.  A large part of Megan is based on my brother-in-law.  I will not apologize for having characters that are not small-town straight white girls.  I will ignore you if my attempts to accurately portray a world in which I never lived are met by contempt.  I will embrace you (maybe even literally) if you help me do it!

Confederate Statues

There's an old saying "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it".  This is one of the reasons I oppose removing statues of Confederate heroes.  How are people supposed to learn from history if  everyone is pretending it never happened?  We should emulate Germany - they start teaching kids young about the Nazis.  It's virtually impossible for that to happen again.

The men being memorialized in these statues do have redeeming qualities, too.  Some of them were military geniuses.  Many of them lost everything for The Cause, misguided as that cause may have been, and some of them were even against slavery.  The old chestnut about the Civil War being about State's Rights does have a basis in reality.  Robert E. Lee was a slaveholder, yes, but he fought on that side because Virginia left the Union.

White Supremacists look up to them for all the wrong reasons, and I understand that this is a problem.  How is tearing down these statues and banning a flag going to stop them?  It isn't.  It's like forbidding your teenager to date someone you disapprove of - it will just make them more determined to do it.  A far better course, in both cases, is patience and respectful communication.  The days when the scientific community believed one race was better than another are gone.  The days when people shrugged off hatred are gone.  Today, a business that refuses service to someone (except troublemakers) is vilified.  White Supremacy is on the way out.

We can learn from history.  We can look up to Lee for reasons that have nothing to do with race relations, or even take into consideration the times in which he lived.  But not if we pretend he never existed.  Not if we insist upon focusing on his faults.

By today's standards, Lincoln was a racist.  Grant owned slaves.  Most of our founding fathers owned slaves, as far as that goes.  Several past presidents, including some scarily recent ones, allowed cultural and physical genocide of indigenous peoples.  Shall we tear down all those monuments?  Ban all their flags?

Leave the statues where they are.  Erasing the past is incredibly dangerous.  Stop ignoring the strengths and contributions of these people.  Don't ignore the faults but look at all sides of the proverbial coin.  And let them rest in peace.  Even the worst of them deserves that.

Owning My Weakness

That meme is going around again.  The one that says people suffering from Depression are not weak. What's so wrong with being weak, anyway?  The thin crust of ice that forms on a puddle is weak, but it is beautiful.  Everyone has a weakness.  We can all learn to work with our weakness, to compensate for our weakness.  It's rather like an architect putting arches in to strengthen a cathedral ceiling.  Which is - what's the word - oh, yeah, beautiful.

We don't see memes that say "people with diabetes are not weak".  Why is Depression any different?  I think it's because of ignorance.  The old chestnut about every one gets depressed - OK, next time you catch a cold, just put on more clothes.  Everyone gets cold.  Mental illness cannot be willed away any more than physical illness can.  Who would claim that a chronic physical illness is something we fake for attention?

My specific diagnosis is Dysthymia - a Depressive disorder.  One of the problems caused by this weakness is poor memory.  I've learned to write things down and to use mnemonics.   I'm too weak emotionally to have a healthy romantic relationship, so I don't date.  I accept my weakness, I built around it, and focus on my strengths.

Most mental illness is caused by a combination of brain chemistry and past events.  I'm not going to get into the details of my own case.  It is sufficient to say it runs in my family and it doesn't just manifest as Depression.  A lot of mental illnesses share symptoms with, or are diagnosed right alongside, Depression.  Sometimes Depression is a symptom.

You cannot understand a person's illness unless you have suffered from it yourself - and even then, there is a limit to how much you can understand.  I've known lots of addicts and cancer patients. I've known other Dysthymics. But I can only identify with them for part of the struggle because it's different for everyone.

Speaking as a person with Depression...  Yes, I am weak.  But I own it.

Nothing New

I don't remember how the conversation started, as it is with conversations, but my nephew and I were talking about how people like to label something a rip-off.  The example he used was within the sci-fi genre, specifically Star Trek's phasers and Star Wars' blasters, but then he moved on to another genre - the romance novel.  They all seem to start with the main characters hating each other but then they fall in love.  My response: "The Walking Dead totally ripped that off."

That was about the entire exchange, but it got me thinking.  Don't most iconic relationships, in any genre, follow that pattern?  Not just romances - buddy films come to mind.  The relationship in which you meet, are compatible, and remain friends just isn't compelling storytelling.  Even Han Solo and Chewbacca are more entertaining when bickering.

People who do what Josh and I were talking about don't understand a few things.  "Ray guns" are a staple of science fiction.  Sharing a staple with something else in the same genre is not ripping it off.  Using a tried-and-true storytelling technique is not a rip-off of anything that's used it before.  

If I were to write the story of an ordinary young man who finds himself swept into an epic adventure, I would not be ripping off Star Wars.  Or The Legend of Zelda.   It's a classic story called The Hero's Journey.  

There is nothing new under the sun, as the saying goes.  Everything is derivative of something that's gone before.  So what makes a rip-off?  That's a difficult thing to explain - ask any judge asked to decide a plagiarism case. As another saying (sort of) goes, I may not know what a rip-off is, but I know what it ain't.

My Problem With Anarchy

I have, among my friends and family, a handful of Anarchists.  They run the spectrum from the ones who live by the Non-Aggression Principle to the ones who would be okay with rioting in the streets and burning down government buildings.  Like so many other schools of thinking, there are a million subcategories.  Anarchy, for the purposes of this blog, is defined as a lack of government and an anarchist is someone who believes that would be a good thing.

My issue with Anarchy really does boil down to definitions, so bear with me while I supply a couple of others.  Government: The governing body of a community.  Govern (verb): To conduct policy, actions, and affairs of.  Strictly speaking, according to these definitions, a mother is the governor of her child.

I am aware that the scenarios I'll be using are fictional.  I've chosen them because the characters are very realistic, and act as I believe nonfictional people would in similar situations.  The scenarios in question?  Lost and The Walking Dead.

Lost gives us the ole desert (actually jungle) island story.  When it becomes evident rescue is not coming, what do they do?  They look to a leader.  Jack makes and enforces policy.  He decides what actions the survivors will take.  He even handles "affairs" like another man's refusal to turn over medical supplies looted from the wreckage. These people are dropped into a totally anarchist (no government) situation and one of the first things they do is appoint a leader.  A government, by the definition given above.

The same thing applies to The Walking Dead.  Thanks to a zombie apocalypse, the characters are living in anarchy.  So what do they do?  Look to leaders:  Shane, Rick, Hershel, Gareth, Dawn, Deanna, Negan, Ezekiel, Gregory, some whose names escape me.  Every one of them makes and enforces policy for his or her community.  Every one of them decides the actions of the larger group.  Every one of them deals with "affairs" like whether or not to merge groups.

Going from there, it seems to me that nonfictional people would do the same.  Yes, there would be the loners like Lost's Sawyer who are a community unto themselves. But humans, for the most part, are social creatures.  We group.  We look for guidance, for leadership.  Thus my problem - anarchy is not the natural state of the human being.

Small, local government is the natural state of the human being.  The United States of America got its name from that very notion.