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.