The Single Life

People act like being single is the worst fate imaginable.  I see them plunging into relationship after relationship, pining desperately in between.  I see them staying with partners who mistreat them, even to the point of actual abuse. And I try not to judge.  I used to be one of them.

As a single person, I have no one telling me my partner is cheating on me because he hugged some lady at Red Lobster. I don't get accused of cheating.  I don't get accused of being stupid enough to be tricked into cheating.  Nobody gets upset if I'm not "in the mood".  Best part - nobody cheats on me.

As a single person, I can pursue my own interests.  I no longer feel the need to pretend to be someone I'm not.  I see a lot of men and women losing themselves for the sake of a relationship. 

As a single person, I don't live in fear of being beaten.  I did always draw the line at physical abuse, but a lot of people seem to prefer it to being single. 

A healthy relationship is a fantastic thing.  One with mutual respect and good communication and lots of sex if you're so inclined.  But far too many of us are not holding out for that.  There are worse things than being single. 


And no, I do not want you to set me up with your cousin Bob.

Blind Boxes

I keep seeing these toys that, when you buy them, you have no idea which you'll get or what bits and pieces they will come with.  They remind me of the trading cards my brothers used to collect.  Get a double, trade with your buddy, no big deal.  Usually they just came in an envelope or a tiny box.  I like the "World's Smallest Toys" because they're good for the dollhouse.

Blind boxes have exploded in popularity and now you can buy a thing the size of your head (or bigger) that has a whole bunch of things in it.  Again, if that's what floats your boat, go for it.  But once all is said and done, in most cases, you end up with maybe enough toys to fill a cereal bowl and enough trash to fill a stew pot.

With some of them, the packaging is meant to be used as a play set or display, but even with those there are:  Cellophane-type wrapping on the entire thing, a collector's guide, cardboard boxes or compartment doors for each item, and plastic envelopes for each item.

Since so many are dolls, I see unboxing and review videos, and every time, I'm more impressed by the amount of waste than by the toys.  Yes, reuse and recycle is a thing, but so is reduce.




UPDATE:  I found another one I like.  Five Surprise Mini Brands.  Dollhouse scale, realistic looking, toy versions of actual products.  Minimal waste if you're into the reuse thing.

On The Fringes

I'm going to start this blog with a little background information.  Bear with me, readers who already know this stuff.  I am a middle aged woman, never married, never had children of my own.  I come from a large family - seven siblings, all of whom have gifted me with at least one minion.  I became The Aunt.  You know, the one all families used to have: She babysat for free and caused a kid stampede every time she showed up, but she wasn't part of the nuclear family.  She lived on the fringes and was okay with it.

Several years ago, I moved in with a nephew.  The fringes I lived on got a lot shorter.  He and his wife said things like "I've got two kids.  A six year old and a forty year old."  They were in their late twenties/early thirties, so that was always good for a giggle.

Fast forward a little over a decade.  We didn't fight, not any more than any family would.  They didn't throw me out.  I didn't leave in a fit of rage.  I was simply ready to return to adulthood, which frankly had not been kind to me the first time around. 

Determining the new length of the fringes I live on, though...  WOW.  We treat it rather like I'm their grown child, gone off to college or something.  I do holidays with them.  His wife and I frequently run errands together.  I do laundry at their house and keep the boy overnight on a regular basis.

Some things have taken a little getting used to on all sides.  For most of the boy's life, it was the norm that Jeanie was going along on vacation or that he'd stay with Jeanie during one of Mom and Dad's weekend runaways. Mom "stealing Jeanie's truck" is no longer a given.  He's had to do the most adjusting, but even the extended family gets tangled in those changeable fringes.

My mental illness complicates things further.  Despite my meds and all the coping methods, that demon is still whispering constantly.  Despite the fact that my last major episode was fifteen years ago, those around me are concerned about my fragility.  I have to be very careful to make sure people know I'm okay with these changes, that I know they are healthy and sometimes even necessary.

All I can say it that it's a good thing I developed what little fashion sense I have in the early seventies.  I love fringes.  They're fun, if sometimes problematic.

GOAT?

I'm a dilettante football fan.  I don't understand all the ins and outs of the rules, the science of ball inflation, or statistics.  I didn't start watching football at all until about a decade ago.  But I'm not really going to be talking about football in and of itself here.

I'm hearing impaired, so a lot of the commentary on the games escaped me.  I read a lot on the subject, but I watched as an outsider.   One player I noticed a lot.  He reminded me of both a spoiled child and a bully.  He frequently complained to the refs about the other team doing the same thing he expected his team to get away with.  He screamed at his team mates and coaches.  He pouted whenever he wasn't the center of attention.  He -- there's no delicate way to put this -- hocked a loogie during a Moment of Silence for murdered children.  

I don't care how many Super Bowl rings he has.  The man is not a GOAT - he's an ASS.

The Whole Picture

Look at the image above.  Can you tell me what the picture is?  Can you tell me what any given individual piece is?  Of course not.  My asking you to do so is just silly.  Yet we do similar things every day.  To our fellow human beings.

One of the big stories in the news is "the MAGA kid".  Given the current political climate, the conclusion most of us jumped to was a reasonable one, but apparently we were wrong.  To what degree we were wrong remains to be seen.  But that video is just one piece of the puzzle.  

As more of the puzzle is assembled, the big picture is very complex.  I do stand by my description of the boy's expression as a smirk, though, although I'm no longer certain why he's smirking. 

In essence, we picked up a single puzzle piece and decided what the entire picture was.  

****

I see this a lot in smaller ways, every day.  Pretend you see the following:  A middle aged woman is checking out at Wal-Mart.  Within the purchases, you see a Barbie doll  and a Nerf gun.  Who is the doll for?  The gun?  

Look at a picture and write a story about it.  That's one of my favorite writing exercises.

The tendency to do this - to fill in the rest of the picture - is not something to be ashamed of.  It's hard wired into the human brain.  But we gotta be careful not to let it get the best of us.  Remain open to more information.  And, you know, don't go on a uninformed rampage.  That we should be ashamed of. 

Blades and Books

When my minions were little, they watched educational TV shows.  The specific show changed depending on the minion (after all, the oldest is now in her 40s and the youngest is currently in the womb) but every single one of them had the same game.  One of these things is not like the other.

Gillette has a new ad campaign that focuses on how men should teach their sons (and help each other) be "the best a man can get".  Don't punch each other out.  Don't force yourself on others of either sex.  Basically, just be a better human being.

People who can't tell why a banana is different from a monkey, a walrus, and a horse are in an uproar.  Gillette is attacking men!  The feminists have taken over!  Run for the hills!  Times like this are why adjectives exist.  Masculinity is fine, y'all.  Toxic - that's an adjective - masculinity is not.

The behaviors addressed in the ad apply to either sex.  But society has dismissed them when men do them.  Boys will be boys, right?   That's the entire point of the ad.  But man, have I seen some crazy responses.  One guy posed his children with guns.  (Well, the boys.  The girl was holding a flower.  But I digress.)  "I'll raise my kids how I want, you stupid razor company."   Did Gillette tell you not to teach your kids gun safety?  (Did Gillette tell you not to foist medieval gender roles on your daughter? Oops, digressed again.)  Because I missed that part.

If you use a Gillette razor, your penis is not going to vanish.  Unless you're using it very wrong.

*****

I discovered organizing guru Marie Kondo, or at least her philosophy, a long time ago.  She's in the news now for apparently ordering all of us to toss our books.

My books "spark joy" for me.  Therefore, Marie Kondo said I can keep them. Not that she's the boss of me, anyway.  God knows I ignore that advice about neat rows in my sock drawer.

In conclusion, let's play a round of that game.  Which is different: A suggestion, a hint, a bit of advice, or an order? 

Writers' Agendas

"I'm sick of this show pushing its liberal agenda on us."  "Why can't they just tell a story without cramming their conservative politics up our noses?"  "That book series is a lot of propaganda."

Anyone who has been in a High School or College literature class can tell you about having to psychoanalyze writers.  What is the significance of Harry Potter's glasses?  Why do they run through a series of rooms in The Mask of The Red Death?  How does Dracula illustrate the sexual repression of the Victorian era?   That analysis of the author's psyche is not a lot different from seeking out the agenda.

Everyone has an agenda.  Speaking for myself, as a fiction writer, I don't deliberately plant mine into my stories.  But it leaks in there.  My stories tend to focus on large, loving families.  I put together couples who fit, not really caring about their race or sex.  I don't set my stories in large cities.  I never thought much about those things - I was just enjoying my chosen role as story teller.

I've been guilty of diversity for diversity's sake - which led to the happy accident of Olivia Ross.  My white heterosexual male Owen became an Amerasian* lesbian and for some reason (buried deep in my psyche) this new incarnation blossomed into the rich character Owen never was.  Olivia also taught me not to force these things.  A diverse cast of characters is good, but only if they can bloom as Olivia did.  She isn't "the lesbian" or "the Asian".  She's Olivia.

But I digress.  My point is this - what so many today are calling the writer's agenda is nothing more than their subconscious mind leaking into the tale.  If two characters fit as a couple, it doesn't matter to me what color they are or what genitalia they're packing, so I write them together.  Is that pushing my liberal agenda on my readers?  If my characters go hunting, am I screaming in reader's faces about the Second Amendment?

There are writers out there actively pushing agendas.  It would be foolish to claim otherwise.  I've found that, in that case, the story telling suffers.  All the characters are stereotypes.  Couples that make no sense hook up.  Those writers lose viewers/readers.  I often think that George Orwell didn't sit down to make a comment on Big Government.  If he had, I doubt 1984 would be the classic it is.

A final bit of advice - if you don't like the way the story is going?  Put down the book or change the channel.



*Not sure what the current "correct" term would be.  Olivia has a white American father and a Korean-born mother.  I intend no offense to anyone by my use of this term.  This is the term I imagine Olivia herself using.