Object of Procrastination

I finished reading Lonely Werewolf Girl this morning. It was pulpy, but I liked it. I wasn't ready for it to be done. I wish we didn't have to wait til August of next year for the sequel to come out.

This I Believe

Someone mentioned absurd beliefs tonight, which got me thinking about my own. So here they are:

My most absurd belief was, when I was a child, that the world is actually very, very small, maybe on the order of nothing being more than a 20 or 30 minute drive from anything else. But that all adults conspired to make children believe that it was much, much bigger than that, in the same way that they conspired to make children believe that there is a Santa Claus or a Tooth Fairy. Who knows why adults do anything they do? But certainly, if they take you on a "6 hour trip" to grandma's house, they are just driving in circles for all that time, to maintain the fiction. Which is why everything starts to look the same after a while, corn fields, brick store facades, houses after houses after houses, more corn fields, etc.

I'm not sure when I grew out of that belief, but I believed it for a while. And proselytized it to other kids.

My most absurd belief now?

These days... I don't know. My parents would probably point toward some of my "hippy inclinations":

I believe that western medicine is largely flawed, in that it largely works to treat symptoms without understanding underlying causes. And these days, with people in and out, without a long term relationship with a single physician, it often loses sight entirely of the whole person, or the complete medical history, which makes it even more into that treating symptoms without thought or understanding of underlying issues.

I believe that we over-medicate ourselves, and that we medicate for symptoms that we
mightn't have to if we were to understand and address some underlying causes.

I believe that American culture, right now, generally raises its children in exclusion to all other children, and very highly prizes material things and de-emphasizes community and interpersonal skills, and I don't believe that's a healthy way to raise a child. I believe that things like all our strollers facing out, away from the parent (versus European buggy-style strollers where the child lies down facing the parent) and our diapering and potty training systems are symptoms of this problem, and serve to exacerbate the problem.

I believe that if you have some amount of faith, you will find what you need. The universe, or god, perhaps, will provide. I've never worried that much about jobs, even when I haven't fond one for long periods of time, because one always seems to find me when I'm starting to need it. Whether I explicitly seek it out or not. All of my techie jobs found me; I never sought any of them out. My tango work has generally found me. My nannying work found me. I'm not living the high life, but I always have enough, I'm able to live my life on my terms (currently, I've been able to work entirely in a way that has allowed me to have my daughter at home with me for all of the first three years of her life), and when my resources start to seriously dwindle, something invariably comes along that allows me to address that and to start creating more resources.

"Absurd" is, of course, somewhat subjective.

What are your most absurd beliefs?

Where I've Been

I got out of the habit of blogging, I think, when I got really involved with Jaimes.

Partly he didn't like me spending time on computers, especially after I got pregnant.

Partly, one never knew what could come back to be an issue of contention later. Any time I committed myself to a belief or to some version of events or to some interpretation of the world around me, it was subject to later criticism.

Partly, whenever I did blog, so much of what I had to say was negative. I got tired of all my own whining. I don't want this journal to be merely an outlet for venting and self-pity; I want it to be an exploration of whatever comes to mind, good or bad, meaningful or trite. When that starts skewing to entirely complaints, it's not a good balance.

Partly, I think, after a time, there started to be a dynamic in my life where almost all my friends disapproved of my relationship with Jaimes, and were worried about me, and I was still in denial about it. It was almost like I was living a lie, that I was creating, that everything was fine. That the relationship was good. And I couldn't sit down and really reflect, and still be able to maintain that.

So I stopped reflecting, in some sense.

That was maybe the biggest factor.

Now I'm strongly out of the habit. And habits are hard to break or create.

Filling The Gap

I've made friends with a guy who lives in the basement apartment below me. He comes up late at night sometimes to hang out and chat, or to play a game of cribbage or such.

It's nice having an adult someone to interact with at those odd hours, when Ravenna is sleeping and I actually have time to myself to do things for me, but which are often kind of lonely. Stuck at home, can't go out and leave the sleeping child alone.

It has been especially nice since I have been spending many of my days, all day long, with toddlers and babies, and sometimes end up spending days on end without any adult interaction at all. You'd think you wouldn't get lonely, hanging out with children all day long. Small children are, after all, people! They are fun! There is a lot of satisfaction and enjoyment to be had in interactions with them! But... they are not peers. You can't really have a conversation with them. And somehow, some days, being entirely and only in their company is much, much lonelier than it would be just to be completely alone.