philosophy for one

I'm slightly frustrated right now because I am in a pondering sort of mood, the kind where you wanna discuss philosophy with someone.  It's kinda like somebody tapped a hole in my head and all my thoughts are spilling out uncontrolled.  But nobody seems to wanna go there with me right now.  I think I'm annoying people.  One of my friends said something on facebook that got me thinkin, and I was off and running in a comment, and I don't think she wanted to get all "deep" right then.  Understandable.  There are plenty of times when I just don't have the mental energy to go off running on a topic.  I feel bad for jumping right in without testing the waters of what she was up for.  But nobody seems to be around at the moment who wants to ponder with me.  :(  Where's my mama??  Probably in bed, or at work.  She's always ready to talk. 

Unconditional love

I may or may not have blogged about this before; I can't remember & am not reading through to find out.  Sorry if it's a repeat.  Topic: unconditional love.  Does it exist?  I love my husband, but that doesn't mean that if he cheated on me I wouldn't leave him.  I'd go, and I'd be heart-broken, and I'd still be in love with him for a while, but I'd probably get over it eventually, just like everyone else who has a love that ends or their partner dies or something, even though it seems impossible to me now, I surely would have to stop loving him at some point and move on, yes?  (& by the way, I don't mean for this to sound like I don't love him, because I really do, this is all philosophical discussion)  So.  That would mean that my love for him is conditional upon his being faithful to me.  Does this mean I don't love him unconditionally?  I'd say that it does.  But to be an unconditional love in the truest sense, I'd have to be the kind of person who would take him back after an infidelity, which I would not.  Or be ok with someone abusing you physically or mentally.  And I don't think anyone with real self-respect would.  So I guess to love someone unconditionally you'd have to have so little self-respect that you'd let the person walk all over you and still you'd fawn all over them, right?  Why would I want to be like that?  I know there are people who are like that, so I guess maybe unconditional love does actually exist, but, I don't know, perhaps it is just not something that I am willing to do?  Does that mean that my love for Jessy is any less valid than this "unconditional" love that I, personally, would consider sort of insane?  When people say that they love someone unconditionally, are they thinking on a large scale like these sorts of circumstances, or do they just mean things like, "I'd love you even if you had an accident and became horribly disfigured," or "I'd love you even if we couldn't be together all the time,"  or "I'd love you even if you were going through hard times, or became brain dead, or developed some kind of neurosis or disgusting rash"?  I totally love my husband like that, but I still don't think that truly counts as "unconditional,"  because there are still certain things that could make me stop loving him, as a-fore-mentioned.  Anybody wanna pipe in with an opinion on any of this?

The Heat Is On

I keep finding more and more aches and pains that can be cured or assuaged with heat.  Leg cramps, back aches, menstrual cramps.  So I'm starting to wonder if I'd be pain free if I moved to, say, Florida.  I could live close to Disney World.  Sure there are gators and the odd python, fire ants I think, and I'm betting more mosquitoes,  ....and no snow  :( .  Not that I'm a huge fan of snow now that I'm grown up, cuz it's scary to drive in and scary to walk on icy sidewalks and all, but I think if I never saw snow for years on end I'd really miss it.  And I don't know that I'd be ok with raising a kid somewhere that it doesn't snow.  They'd miss so much!  No snowmen, snowball fights, sledding, snow days, ski jackets and hot chocolate.  So sad.  But is it a fair trade for less pain and being close to Disney?   ...ya know, I bet there'd be lots of air conditioning anyway, and that's why I'm cold today in Ohio, so would it be any better?  Probably not.  Least I don't live in the arctic, or Canada, or Maine.  

Think it through dummy!

So, recently somebody asked me why we have cookouts in the summer.  Why do we want to stand over hot flames in temperatures that are already in the 80's and 90's?  Why not do this in the winter when it will keep you warm?  And I was like, yeah, why is this?  Seems weird.  So now, like a month later, it has dawned on me.  Yes, now, with air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter, it doesn't make sense any more.  BUT back in the day you'd wanna cook outside in the summer so it doesn't heat up your house any more, and in the winter you'd wanna cook inside to help keep it warm.  I are idiot.  I suppose even now in the summer it makes your air conditioning work even harder if you cook inside.  You'd think I'd have figured this out sooner, since I grew up in a house very much devoid of air conditioning. 

*sigh*

I just posted on facebook that I'm not sure sometimes whether I'm more annoyed by an annoying thing happening, or folks endlessly complaining about the annoying thing that happened.  And then I realized I'd just read my friend's blog about things that annoy her, and I in no way meant that her blog was annoying!  I thought it was pretty funny, actually.  So I commented on the post to say it had nothing to do with her, but then everybody else started commenting and now ya can't see my little "Not you!" note unless you click to see all the comments.  :(  And my co-worker commented back about something we were discussing along these lines earlier, which attracted the attention of my boss, who is friends with both of us, and then I was worried that SHE'd be offended cuz she has complained about the same thing I was complaining about some other co-workers complaining about, but I really didn't mean HER either!  I was mostly thinking about 2 women at work who can go on and on and on, and one will often be complaining before she's even gotten out of her car in the morning and not stop until the shift is over.  That and the whole people complaining about stuff on the Bellaire facebook page which I talked about in a previous blog.  So now I'm all worried that my friend and my boss think I'm just trying to placate them by telling them I'm not annoyed by their complaining, but it really is true that I wasn't annoyed by them at all!  I think it has to do with the way a person complains and the volume of complaining.  If all anybody ever has to say is negative stuff then it's not very pleasant to be around them for any length of time.  And I think there has to be a give and take in it too, like, I listen to you complain, then you listen to me for an equal time.  Not one person going on for a straight hour without taking a breath between sentences, and moving from one topic of complaint straight into another.  A few of the girls I work with will even complain in this manner to customers while they are helping them, which I find ridiculous and inappropriate.  But anyway, if any of the people I was referring to were on facebook (in my co-workers' cases) or my friends (in the Bellaire page's case) I never would have said anything about it.  And I hope people believe that when I say, "I didn't mean you,"  I really mean that I didn't mean them, cuz I didn't.  I just didn't have enough common sense to think ahead and think that some unintended targets might think I was aiming at them!

Politics and Ten Foot Poles

I don't know how anybody can be a politician or anything resembling it, or why they would want to be in the first place.  I think folks think that you'd have the power to make big changes and make everything better, but from what I've seen and heard, it's just not that simple.  And even though you start out on a save the world, improve life, etc wave, things just get mucked up because people can't agree on anything and nobody has enough power to change anything without having a thousand other people agree and filling out a book's worth of paperwork in triplicate.  And it seems like most people are not willing to even consider other viewpoints, it's just, "I am right, you are wrong, end of story." 
Our town started a facebook page, run by somebody in the city building.  I thought it was a cool idea, and that they'd have posts about the good things in town, past & present, and up-coming events, opportunities, good news, etc.  But the people that were friended turned it into something else.  It got nasty.  Everybody complaining, pointing fingers, attacking and arguing.  So many people saying, "Somebody should do something about ____" and "Nobody cares about _____."  Eventually the city shut down the page, I'm not sure why, cuz I didn't read the article in the newspaper about it.  Now there's a Bellaire Underground page.  lol  Run by some anonymous person.  And people are still being nasty on his page.  Today he had posts up about spending the day trying to find a solution to the fact that there are so many wild cats in town.  He was talking about no-kill shelters and things like that, and he was offering to trap them himself, drive them to the shelters, and help pay for the shelter to take them.  Then he made a joke about just playing a certain radio station over a PA system and that would kill all the cats.  And people practically crucified him!  I mean, seriously, what is wrong with people?  It was the same people who had commented on his posts about no-kill shelters, so obviously they knew he didn't actually want to kill any cats by radio or any other means, and as if it would even be possible to kill cats by playing a radio station!!!  Come on!  But I think this is just an example of how impossible it is to be in a position of public leadership.  People are falling all over themselves just to attack you over stupid stuff when they should probably be helping you. 

Jessy's Family Values

Jessy's family (Dad, Step-Mom, and Step-brother, plus a half sister who I don't see very often) are extremely nice people.  They'd give ya the shirt off their back if you needed it.  Which I admire, because sadly I am not really like that.  I'm very selfish.  That's another story though.  Anyhoo.  They're the kind of family that's very dependent on each other, they do lots of things for each other and if one of them gets something they share it with everyone else.  Now, this is a very nice way to be.  But...it's not the way I grew up.  And while I have benefited from it on many many many occasions, I have trouble thinking like them, and sometimes get annoyed when they expect things from me.  My family is a family of loners, basically.  We do our own thing, individually.  We're self-sufficient and self-reliant, and I, personally am proud of it.  We don't ask each other to bring us stuff from the other room.  We don't ask each other for money unless it's an absolute necessity, and of course for the times that I have had to ask it was ALWAYS given, but ya don't abuse the fact that you know they'll do whatever you need.  We do things for each other, but it's always offered by the do-er, not asked by the recipient, and the recipient usually politely refuses to trouble the giver until the giver insists.  And in my family it is perfectly acceptable for someone to get something and not share it, like when Joe & I were kids and got allowances, if Joe spent his money on a new toy and then later I decided to spend mine to buy potato chips or Burger King, I was in no way expected to provide the same treat for him.  He had every opportunity to buy the same thing as me, but he chose not to.  Nobody would expect him to have bought me a toy when he bought his.  But in Jessy's family if it's food, you gotta buy for everyone regardless of anything.  Arik used his money on cool new shoes and Jessy wanted to get Dairy Queen?  Jessy's gotta buy Dairy Queen for himself, Arik, and everybody else who will be at the house, or he better not come home with it at all.  At my house my stuff was my stuff, my brother's stuff was his stuff, and we didn't mess with each other's stuff.  If we did, and something ended up broken, either the breaker was expected to buy a new one, or if they couldn't afford it my parents usually helped out to get a new one.  At Jessy's house you HAVE to share everything.  If somebody wants to play your game you gotta let them, if they wanna use some of your hair spray you gotta let em, if they wanna eat your ice cream, you gotta let em.  And if something gets broken, well, sorry bout yer luck.  Which in some ways I guess, made their family less materialistic than I am, since everything was easy come easy go, they never get attached to possessions.  I think there have been some times when his family and I have offended each other because we just don't think alike.  This doesn't seem to transfer into my relationship with Jessy though, cuz we don't have any awkwardness at all between the two of us about whose food is whose and whose stuff is whose, or who asked who to do what for them.  I guess that's all I gots to say, although I wanna make clear that I don't think there's anything wrong with the way Jessy's family works, and in a lot of ways it may be better than the way mine does, it's just that it's not what I'm used to and not the way I work.   

New neighbours

The houses on either side of us have been empty since we moved in (about 3 years ago).  One side is well taken care of, but the other side was let go completely.  We were worried that somebody would torch the place, because we have an arsonist in town who likes to burn abandoned houses.  And our house is only like...eh...15, 20 feet away at most, so if that house burned ours likely would too.  Not that we own ours, it's a rental, but still, life/death, loss of possessions, etc etc.  Anyhoo.  Lots of folks from the block have been going to city council meetings complaining about how horrible the property looks, all grown over and looking like a jungle with the house practically falling down behind it.  Lovely.  So last week a bunch of guys show up and start hacking back the greenery, and I'm thinkin' they're a crew that the city sent to at least clean up if not tear the place down.  I was excited.  But no, turns out it's a guy moving in with his wife and unborn daughter, plus her other 3 kids (whom I have not seen yet, cuz the house is not really fit to live in yet even though the couple is spending nights there).  Now, I like to think I don't judge people on appearances, but in truth I guess I do.  These are heavily tattooed, smoking, saggy pants guys (the man and his friends who are helping clean up), and they all kinda look like they just got outta jail.  Which in fact they've since told me both the man & his wife have both spent time in jail.  They're very friendly, but just kinda....I dunno.  I'm not thrilled.  She's smoking while pregnant, says her husband used to have a drug problem, like, hard drugs, not just weed, she's on meds for insomnia, anxiety, anemia, 2 blood disorders and I don't even know what else.  She says her mom kicked her out @ 12 years old, & she's lived under bridges and eaten rice soaked over night in water from the creeks.  There's tons more that she's told me, cuz she's one of those ya can't get a word in edgewise, how does she not lose her voice from talking so much kinda people.  Anyway, they're borrowers and favor askers too.  Do you have this, do you have that, can we use your this, can you drive me here, can you cash a check for us if my mom writes it out to you cuz we have no checking account, can we run an extension cord under your door for an hour so we can run a vacuum cleaner over at our place since our electric isn't on yet?   Argh!  I like to think I'm very self-reliant and don't like to ask people for things unless I have zero other options available and it's an emergency kind of situation.  I know not every one is like this.  Jessy's family is not, but in a nicer way, which I may talk about in another blog later.  But anyway, it kinda bugs me when people are always wanting shit from me like this.  We're struggling as it is, and not to be mean, but why should we foot the bill for extra electricity so that they can run the sweeper?  Especially when they wanna hook a couple extension cords together, and they've got  cords that are not all the same voltage or wattage or whatever, so something might overload and fry out, possibly causing damage to our house, which could be dangerous plus we'd have to pay our landlord for any damages to his house since we're the idiots who said yeah, sure, in the name of good neighbourliness come plug your crap into our house and cause a fire hazard.  No problem.  So this has been my little rant, which I'm hoping is moot anyway, because yesterday the girl told me they put in a down-payment on a trailer home somewhere else because it's gonna cost too much to fix that house up, plus she doesn't want to live in Bellaire because the caliber of people here is just not high enough.  Really?  Ok, I know it's actually the truth, but who are you to be talking when you've lived with crackheads, smoke while pregnant, and have spent time in jail?  Just sayin. 

Couldn't say no.

So my co-worker just randomly went to another JoAnn's and bought a skein of clearance yarn, and assumed that I would agree to knit her a pair of mittens if she bought a second skein for me.  Now.  #1 I have enough yarn to keep be busy till I die as it is, and I'm always buying more every time we have clearance, and we have seasonal yarns, so that is fairly often.  #2 I have never made mittens before and have no pattern for mittens.  I could not find a pattern for the size yarn she bought.  She found me a book herself, and I get to keep the book when I'm done, which makes it more worth while cuz I know the yarn she bought was only $1.97, and this is sock yarn, which means it takes about a million billion stitches to make anything because it is very thin yarn.  That woulda been a lot of stitches & a lot of work for a $2 skein of yarn.  PLUS, #3 the yarn she bought is a yarn that we used to carry in our own store but clearanced out about a year ago, at which point I bought every single color available EXCEPT this one, because I wasn't crazy about it.  She told me about it before she brought it in, said we'd never had it and that it was pink and primary green with a little bit of lighter green.  No.  No. It is pink and sage green with a little bit of  forest/olive green.  Still sounds like it'd be pretty, but it's just not.  #4 I am not really comfortable making something for someone when I have never attempted to make that particular thing before.  There's usually some figuring out, maybe some misteps.  If I mess it up I'd probably just hurry up and knit another pair out of the skein that should be mine for socks, and give her the second correct pair, keeping the messed up one for myself.  I do not want a pair of mittens at all, let alone in a yarn I'm not crazy about.  So.  Grrrr.  *sigh*  knittedy knit knit knit. 

Eyelashes

I am quite happy right now, because of one thing.  And when I tell you what it is and why, you're gonna think I'm really really really weird.  I have eyelashes!!  lol  Ok, so quite often I feel like there is something in my eye, so I rub it, and it still feels like something is there, so without even thinking about it I tug on my eyelashes, I guess in case there's something caught in them and hanging down into my eye, I dunno.  I also have a theory that I am more likely to do this when I am stressed and/or tired.  Anyway, the upshot is that I end up tugging out most of my eyelashes, and I then have bald eyes.  lol  My lashes are not as plentiful as some people's, like Jessy's, he has tons and tons and they are thick and long.  Mine are individually thicker than his, but there are fewer of them.  I am very jealous of his lashes.  So anyway, I spend a lot of time with makeup trying to cover the fact that I often have extremely few lashes, and when I tell people, even people that I'm with every day, that I have this problem, they look at me like I'm nuts, then lean in and examine, and usually say something like "Holy shit!  I never noticed that!"  LOL.  So at least people aren't looking at me like I'm a freak all the time I guess, but I still desperately wish for long, full, dark lashes.  I even tried wearing fake lashes a few different times, but they always look really unnatural.  But I am happy at the moment, because I've been making a very conscious effort to let them be, and they seem to be growing back in pretty nicely.  They're still sub-par to many of my friends, and my husband (grr!), but they're decent.  It's really hard to keep from yankin' em back out though!  Surprisingly hard.  I guess like breaking a bad habit, like nail biting, or possibly even smoking.  Ok, maybe not smoking.  So, yeah, weirdest bad habit ever!

Unexpected friends

Inventory day today.  The corporation hires a group of people who do inventories every day to come in with their little scanny computers and scales to weigh the fabrics, and we basically just keep an eye on them and try to make sure they don't screw things up too badly.  There are some things that are tricky, where things look alike but aren't, or you have to really dig in to count the stuff and we just don't trust anybody but one of our girls to do it.  So some things we pre-count, and some things we team count.  Team count is one inventory person and one JoAnn girl counting together.  I got put on team counts today.  Normally it's a bit of a battle, the inventory person not really caring, not being all that friendly, kind of annoyed with the whole thing.  Not today!  I got teamed with a guy who actually wanted to help me, who actually paid attention and corrected me if I made a mistake, who offered to hold things for me and put things back.  And not just that, he was friendly too.  He wanted to talk.  He wanted to know about me, and I think he actually cared.  He was smart.  He was kind.  He noticed right away when my arm started to hurt.  He kept telling me he had a bad temper, but other than thinking that most of his co-workers were jerks or idiots, I didn't see it.  He smokes, cuz I could smell it on him.  He stayed up all night last night getting a new tattoo, a giant cross on his forearm.  The other arm sported a tattoo portrait of his son.  He's divorced.  He used to be a truck driver, and for a while owned his own truck.  But then he got a DUI, so now he can't drive freight anymore.  Not for 7 years, he said.  He said he gets to see his son as often as he wants.  He lives in Wellsburg.  We talked about the pros and cons of Jambo, the details of truck driving, and lots of other stuff.  By the end of the day I felt like I'd known him forever, and people were joking that we were gonna be calling each other and sending Christmas cards.  We were laughing and joking and having a good old time.  This is not the general sort of person that I normally get on this well with, but this guy, I dunno, there was just some kind of connection there and I don't even know what it was, but we understood each other and liked each other.  And don't anybody be thinking there was flirting or any such thing going on, cuz there wasn't, and that's actually another reason I like him, he's a guy, but even after he clearly saw my ring and I talked about being married, he became no less interested or friendly, and he clearly respected the bounds of marriage.  He was just a nice guy, and he made this inventory day the best inventory day I've ever had. 

preparation

My housemate once told me that people who had a tough childhood were better prepared for life as adults than people who had a "normal" childhood.  He said if you grew up tough, you'd seen enough disasters by the time you grew up to know how to deal when things fall apart.  When the shit hits the fan "normal" people are standing in front of it freaking out and wondering what to do, while people who had hard childhoods expect this to happen and just calmly take a step to the side, outta the way, wait for it to blow by, and move on while other people are laying on the floor shocked and covered in poo.  *shrug*  I guess he might have a point.  But I don't think I wanna trade my happy, easy childhood for a hard one anyway.