Your own worth

My ghost name is Ginooat:

https://twitter.com/nathanwpyle/status/1437233812203782145 

As you can see, the parameters for knowing your ghost name are somewhat arbitrary, but it is just for fun. I like it better than a lot of these, because by only going with your first name, it has no signs of being a ploy to pull in tools for identity theft or password hacking.

There are still people unhappy with it. As you don't need a ghost name, and even if you want one you can set your own rules for deciding your ghost name, it is not a problem.

Yesterday I was in a discussion about clothing. One woman who loves hoodies no longer wears them outside the house because she read that is not something to do once you are in your forties. Another person felt a need to make her towels match after a similar article recommend that.

If you start looking for lists of things you should own or stop doing or definitely have in your closet or never wear again at different ages, you will find many.

My obvious question is "Says who?" Probably the answer is right in the byline of the list, but is it someone you know and care about? Because getting to write a listicle doesn't actually require that much authority.

You may have the ability to influence your friends or children, where you can make them feel good or bad about clothes, homes, and life choices. If so, please use your power for good and not to make people feel inferior or spend money for things they don't really want.

On the other hand, if you are the person being influenced this way, how much do you like the person at the root of the times when you feel less? 

Even if you like the way they dress or wear their hair or arrange flowers, their way would still not be the only way. Other ways can be valid.

There is no need for this approach. If someone wrote a list of "10 things that made me feel like a grownup", and one of them was getting matching towels, and one was buying a nice jacket, I would have no problem with that, regardless of whether I thought any of the ideas were good.

I don't know if the writers (or their editors) don't feel like their opinions would merit that kind of treatment, or if taking on that authority is part of the appeal. From the editorial point of view, the more aggressive voice tends to attract more attention, even if some of that attention is negative.

You still do not have to respect this authority, especially if that will mean buying things you don't need, wearing clothes you don't like, and feeling like everything about you is wrong.

Often women over 40 will enjoy that feeling of the pressure relaxing as they can do their own thing. The 26 year old may still care if a magazine chastises her for having stuffed animals on the bed, but the 46 year old usually is less worried about outside opinions. 

The listicles are still trying to get you. Don't let them.

Personally, I am almost 50, and good luck telling me anything.

Values

One of the other things that people had fun criticizing about Marie Kondo is that she opened up an online store. That hypocrite! Make us get rid of our things so we can buy yours!

Except -- once more for everyone in the back -- her philosophy is not about minimalism and not having anything, but having things that make you happy to see and use, which she most commonly refers to as sparking joy.

Her taste may be completely different from yours, but if your tastes are similar, her store is where you can find some items. 

I remember going to the store and looking when it was first announced. I noticed that she really seems to like brass -- she mentions the way the appearance changes over time, though I suspect there are other tactile qualities as well -- and tends toward items made by craftspeople, not automation.

They also tend to be expensive, possibly out of reach for some. 

Have you ever priced handmade quilts? They are expensive. They also require hours and hours of stitching. The amount of time put into it probably means that even at the price that seems expensive, the cost of labor and materials means that the maker did it for a wage you wouldn't accept. For someone who loves quilting, they may accept that not having their time fully valued, but will still feel murderous at you offering them $20.

They are not my thing anyway, but I could not afford a handmade quilt. 

Money is not the only way to get them. Sometimes you have a grandmother who makes every grandchild one, or maybe you can make your own, or you buy something from an assembly line but maybe you still like the colors... ideally, you are able to like the things you have, even if you don't have everything you like.

Taking the time to listen to yourself to understand what you like and don't like is valuable for that.

Throwing out 30 bags of trash doesn't happen from getting what you really like.

Not having anything that really feels right for you, however, might lead you to buy additional things. Looking for the one thing that will make it all feel like enough could take thirty bags.

Trying to buy what other people say you should have is also likely to end up giving you thirty large trash bags worth of something.

It doesn't mean it would be trash to everyone, but that is not the point. 

What will feel valuable to you?

Defensive

I have this problem, where I get unreasonably irritated when I see people posting about things that I have already covered in the blog. I do know that not that many people read it, but if only they would!

Anyway, after having several posts referencing Marie Kondo's work, including two specifically focused on books, one friend posted a meme and then a friend of hers replied with something else, and they both irritated me.

The meme was a picture of Marie Kondo suggesting that you limit yourself to 30 books, split screen with a picture of a big pile of books saying "Where? On my nightstand?". Then the reply was about Marie Kondo having once gotten rid of things belonging to her family members and criticizing that.

Those were technically two separate irritations (beyond why more people are not reading what I have to say), and each of those is an example of a larger concern, so we are going to fill out the week dealing with this.

For the meme itself, okay, we have covered how everything about her method is based on what works for you, and what is joyful for you.

It should be pretty well-established that I love books. Even so, there are books that it does not benefit me to own, if for no other reason than that it may get in the way of finding the books I want.

Funny story: during the long period where the library was closed due to the pandemic, there was a book that I was sure I had turned in before, but it did not show as checked in. It was at the bottom of a stack of books on my nightstand. Of course, there is another book of mine that I should be able to find, but can't. Maybe that went in the library slot, convincing me that I had turned the other one in; they were on related topics.

That does not spark joy. 

Maybe you can have 250 books, and be happy, but that happiness requires getting a bookcase. Maybe you would be happiest with 20 books and a library card. The point is that it is about you, so the common response of indignation -- albeit often humorous -- to this tyranny is wrong, and only comes up because of a refusal to take in any context. 

(Which, in all fairness, is an issue that crops up in many other frustrating ways.)

The reply was worse. The standard response would be something about needing more books, maybe humorous, maybe indignant.

Instead, evidence was offered of Kondo being a troubled person.

It is true that as a somewhat neglected middle child who was obsessed with tidying but not caught up yet on the need to have items that spark joy, she did sometimes tidy things that weren't hers. She did acknowledge that, and that it was wrong. It's in the book.

Also wrong: when there were things she knew she did not want but felt guilty discarding them, she sometimes gave them to her younger sister as "presents". (A solution also provided in the Swedish death cleaning article.) 

Kondo's interest in tidying started early, but she had a lot of false starts, many of them happening very young. She is open about that.

The negativity about Kondo seemed a little spiteful, but that the commenter would know that detail -- either without having context or without caring about the context -- is interesting. It seems like it would require having gotten that from another source.

There were a lot of negative articles and things about Marie Kondo a few years ago, I think in response to the show. That was what drew my initial interest. I would see other people defending against the willful misunderstanding and noting that a lot of the criticism was racist. 

It seems that is still happening. Now I am one of the defenders.

I fully realize that my friend who posted the meme was not acting maliciously. I don't know her friend who replied, but that was probably not conscious malice either; just something that got stuck in the head, and now will come to mind any time Marie Kondo is mentioned.

However, what is out there for us to see and hear, what sticks, and and why... that all has a lot of factors going into it. It is important to understand how racism and capitalism influence us. 

There will be more on that.

Finding joy in necessity

Periodically I will see Twitter discussions about tidying. I find them interesting. 

A recent discussion had a question about whether you can really only keep things that spark joy. One of the replies said that he does not specifically take joy in his toilet brush, but that is how he gets a clean bathroom, and he does take joy in that.

I had recently seen an ad for a cat-shaped toilet brush, so I can't rule out that there are people who specifically do get joy from their toilet brush. I'm okay with ours.

I did have to change something else in the bathroom. I was finding it hard to clean the bathroom because of concern about the dirtiness of the rags.

We were all brought up helping with the housework, but we didn't really get explanations. There may be processes I didn't fully understand, and it is also possible that some things were done in a way that was not the best.

As it was, as I got to the ages where I was helping more, our mother was also doing house cleaning for others. She washed a load of rags fairly often. It probably makes sense that she didn't worry about it, but I was not trusting that any bathroom cleaning I did would make things cleaner.

That concern was one reason I read Cheryl Mendelson's Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House, which did not help nearly as much as I had hoped. (She goes on a lot about things that I did not find particularly useful.)

However, she did mention having a lot of rags, and I started to get the idea. We got a covered trash can that we keep under the sink in the half bathroom. When I use a rag, it goes in there. I don't repeat rags between the bathrooms. I might use a rag on the sink first and then on the toilet, but I might also use a separate rag, and I often use a different one for the shower stall. 

When the can is full, I will do a hot water wash with bleach for just the rags. In this manner I don't worry about spreading any germs. Is that overkill? Perhaps, but it makes me feel better.

It is not perfect. The laundry loads are smaller than I prefer when I wash the rags. We would need a bigger can to remedy that, and there is not a place to put one. It is still an improvement, and it is something that is doable for us.

It would be better if we could replace the shower stall, because that has aged in a way that makes keeping it clean harder (bits of the coating worn off so things can get trapped in between). We cannot afford to fix that right now, so it is just something to work around (and why the shower stall usually gets its own rag).

About that toilet brush...

You might be fine with yours. You might like it better if the holder was shaped like a cat or a goose or a Dalek.

You also might feel like it doesn't clean well enough. There are different designs. Ours has bristles all around like a cone, but there are brushes shaped like a loop. 

You might feel a repulsion to your abrasive cleaner, and need a gel, or something with more natural ingredients.

Maybe you would be happiest having someone else clean the bathroom. That can also be completely valid. (If you do that, pay them fairly and treat them with respect.)

What do you feel when you reach for your toilet brush?

It doesn't have to be the toilet brush. There may be something in your kitchen that makes you feel like you hate cooking, or you may really hate cooking. 

You may have sheets that make you vaguely unhappy every time you crawl into bed.

My point is that sometimes there is frustration or discomfort that is completely unnecessary, and the answers are inside you.

It may take some practice to get used to hearing your inner voice, but that ability is priceless.

Our bathroom is cleaner because I found what I needed to be able to clean it confidently. It did not require a major investment, but just listening to myself.

What if a few easy tweaks would make you much happier, but you don't know? The value of the process is getting to that.

Music Review: The Other Two

In July I wrote a somewhat humorous post that concluded with me learning that two "lesser-known" members of New Order had formed another band, brilliantly called The Other Two:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2021/07/rules-of-threes-bands.html

I thought that was the end of it, but I recently saw a reference to a series called The Other Two. It was not related at all, but it made me think that I should check the band of that name out.

I'm glad I did.

I have a fondness for a lot of relatively recent bands from Manchester (bands from this century), but those bands tend to be more guitar-based and kind of gritty. 

Technically, Wikipedia lists the band as from Macclesfield, but Factory Records is very Manchester, and there are enough Mancunian elements that it seems reasonable to make the association.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Other_Two 

So going back to 1990 Manchester, here is glorious synth that is fun and upbeat.

New Order is wonderful, but they can get kind of gloomy (perhaps less so now). That makes it striking how happy Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert look in the videos. 

They are simply delightful.

With label issues and other projects -- and a fairly busy career writing for television, which is how the project started -- The Other Two may not have achieved all that was possible, but it remains fun to revisit them now. 

I have to consider that even setbacks became opportunities. They had originally looked for another singer, and had problems with that. Gillian took voice lessons and did great.

(There is an interesting bio with lots of extraneous detail at https://www.ltmrecordings.com/the_other_two.html .)

It is wonderful that being "the other two" gave them another band and another career and a marriage and children. It didn't even require losing New Order. Gillian did take time off to raise their children and for health, but she was always welcome and her return did not displace her replacement, Phil Cunningham.

Although the band is not currently considered active, and there are not recent posts, there is a main page and a Facebook page. You can find at least three official videos, for "Selfish", "Tasty Fish", and "You Can Fly", though there is not a Youtube channel for them. 

Presumably it will make more sense to follow their activities with New Order, so there is a link there as well.

https://www.facebook.com/TheOtherTwoOfficialMusic

http://theothertwo.co.uk/

http://www.neworderonline.com/ 

https://twitter.com/stephenpdmorris

https://twitter.com/gillian_gilbert

Tidying as a matter of life or death

I was trying to make a point with someone and referenced Marie Kondo. She deflected and mentioned being drawn more to this new Swedish method. 

I knew in this case that it was just a deflection; there was no way that this person was actually adopting any new methods for any type of organization or tidying. I do like knowing what's what, so looked it up: Swedish Death Cleaning! 

For those irritated by Marie Kondo's pixie-like cuteness, Swedish death cleaning sounds way more metal.

The initial description that I read sounded worse: yes, it is thinking about the people who have to clean up after you. I have certainly known people left with mounds of things to go through after a parent's death. I get that. 

There also seemed to be an element of getting rid of things that would really hurt people, like the letters proving your affair, or the journal entries about how disappointed you are in your kid.

(I recently learned it is tradition to seal a royal will for 90 years after the death. I can only assume that's to continue the hiding of illegitimate children, but it seems relevant.)

Swedish death cleaning is not all dark, though the objections I have stand. This is from an article from before the book came out, Margareta Magnusson's The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning.

https://www.countryliving.com/home-maintenance/cleaning/a45190/what-is-swedish-death-cleaning/

Apparently Magnusson was around 80 when she wrote her book, and it is targeted to people over 50. That can a different mindset.

They do mention thinking about wills and inheritances and things too, and I am totally in favor of that.

There are other articles calling it the opposite of Marie Kondo, but there are definite similarities. Magnusson also recommends starting with clothes. Readers talk about it taking a longer time, but may not realize that the period Kondo has in mind is six months. Those reading Magnusson's work say it will leave things more streamlined and allow for satisfying reflection on your life. I assume, then, that it could still lead to changing your life and feeling more joy. Maybe it's a little bit late, but if that's when you start, that's when you start.

Personally, I prefer the focus on life, and finding and living the life that is joyful for you. The Swedish method seems more negative. 

My main objection is the focus on others. 

I think about others a lot. I care about people. I put their needs above mine, probably too often, but the best thing I have learned over all of this time is that I matter too. I should have joy.

Sometimes there seems to be a terrible imbalance, where people can either only know that they matter or know that other people matter, when all of the time it is both. 

Without having read Magnusson's book, it seems to do everything thinking about others, and then if you benefit from that it's just a bonus. That does not sound joyful.

Figure out your ideal life for you! Get the things that drag you down out of your way for you!

My pet peeve from the article -- without knowing if it was extrapolation or actually in the book -- is that it seems to find gifting a solution and making your discards other peoples' problems: "These books are for you; I don't want them anymore!" Seriously, do not do that.

(The book definitely says to tell your friends so they hold you accountable, so making other people responsible for your problems may be a theme.)

If having 120 porcelain figures sparks joy for you, but you don't want your kids to have to deal with them later, maybe your final instructions can include hiring an estate service. You can budget it, put it in writing, and verbally let your next of kin know. It doesn't have to be all one way or the other.

And if you have evidence of unhappy family situations, maybe you should clear those out now, but by really clearing them, not merely destroying the evidence. Go to counseling. Have a heartfelt talk. Cut out a toxic person from your life (not something to be done lightly, but the only thing to do sometimes).

Even knowing that other people are important too, choose life and choose yourself.

Digital maintenance

Posting for two days in a row about books as tangible items that take up space, new readers might be wondering if I ever think about e-readers.

In general, I prefer the feel of a book, and its heft, viewing the progress in pages and flipping to the end and then back. It is not impossible to do some of these things with digital media, but it is not my favorite. It is still something I do periodically, because with some titles it is the only way I can get at them.

This is again an area where the library makes me really happy. As they add access to platforms like Kanopy and OverDrive, it expands what is available.

As it is, I own 59 e-books (and have written 5) that I view on the PC screen when I want to read them. 

They can also be a little disorganized, but that is not nearly as much of an issue as the photos I take, and the files I create to keep track of different things. That doesn't even mention how behind I get on e-mail sometimes. I have recently deleted over 200 old messages in two accounts, and there are many remaining.

The books I have read do not mention tidying digital media. 

It isn't an issue of space in the traditional sense, but it is even more possible to ignore the items, and miss out on any joy or usefulness they might bring.

Marie Kondo does write about getting rid of photographs and other sentimental items, and how there can be an emotional pang. 

She give tips for making this easier: putting photos in envelopes and covering the faces of stuffed animals so they are not staring at you as you discard them. Also, she has you save sentimental items for last, so you take it on when you have become more experienced at recognizing what sparks joy and what doesn't.

I take a lot of photos. 

There are the selfies, most of which I am happy to discard, if I remember to get to it. Then there are also the photos I take at concerts and when visiting attractions that will be featured on the travel blog, and there are pet photos.

I have a greater appreciation for how important the blogging is to me. 

Writing about emotional or political issues is as much a way of sorting my own thoughts as of sharing those thoughts with others, but when I blog about concerts and travel -- even local travel -- it turns out that sharing those photos matters to me. 

I don't know if it is even the sharing so much as the considering and weighing and putting it out into the world: I did this thing. I know this. This happened.

Surprisingly, I am less sentimental with the pet photos. First of all, my sister Maria posts so many that me posting any feels superfluous. In addition, sure, the pictures are cute, but they never capture how cute it was. 

Still, I have been surprised sometimes when I see a photo printed out and have an emotional response to that.

The key is probably not what you delete or whether you delete it, but what you put where you will see it. Whether this is a screensaver slideshow, or a digital picture frame, or periodically changing your profile and background photos, make sure you are enjoying what you have. If something is missing, figure out what it is.

We need joy.

The other tip that might not be as obviously relevant came from when KonMari was writing about handouts from seminars and things, which often pile up because you mean to get to it someday. 

Her answer to that was to incorporate it into your life now. If it is something that you want, don't procrastinate. You can keep the handouts for years and never get to them, or you can do it right away, and not need the handout.

I cleared through sheets and sheets of old preparedness materials. Some of it is outdated, but mostly it is either that I already have it down, or that I am not really going to do it.

I don't miss the paper.

A changing philosophy of books

There was a time when my way of getting books was rather like conspicuous consumption.

I would go to B. Dalton or the Book Vault, see all of these paperbacks on sale, and just fill a large shopping bag with them. Mostly they were literary titles -- Signet and Pengin classics, AP prep materials -- that I hadn't read yet. I did luck out once and find multiple collections of short stories by L. M. Montgomery. That would have been around 1996, because I remember which bus stop I was at when I was reading through them.

I would also sometimes wander into the PSU bookstore and pick up text books that looked interesting. That probably comes from really wanting to keep my Psychology 101 textbook but needing the money that came from selling it back, but they were mostly history.

Part of that was imagining that I would someday be writing lots of historical material, and these would be good resources. If there was an interesting tidbit of information and you let it go, who knew if you would ever be able to find it again?

Enter the internet.

There is one book that I have just because it mentions Justa Grata Honoria's overture to Attila the Hun, but I don't need to look in the book to find it now.

I don't completely regret that. Many of my comfort reading books came from those book buying binges. 

I do still prefer libraries now. There are different needs for different times.

They say that to encourage reading in children, a child should get about ten new books to own per year. 

Now, they also encourage that you read 1000 books to your child before kindergarten. A different book daily for three years gets you there, and it's five years until kindergarten; it's doable. You don't want to have to buy or store all of those books, but yes, there should be some that stick around, and that should be continuing long past kindergarten.

We had a lot of books in our house when I was growing up. Some of them I devoured, some things I read too early, and some of them were boring and or not that great in other ways. There is a very out of date junior encyclopedia that I hang on to because I have such an attachment to it from flipping through it over and over again.

My point is that there is room for a lot of variety. That's not just between different people, but also between different stages of life, and the combinations one has living with different people at different times.

For the most part, I do not regret books I have bought. I do regret under-utilizing libraries at different times, when I just wasn't getting there or when I was stubborn about using the request system. 

Access to books is vitally important for me; it doesn't always require ownership.

I have gotten into a pattern that works for me, and I love that.

My books and I

I intend for this week to be about some of my tidying efforts.

The order that I am going in is based largely on how much an area annoys me. 

It surprised me to be focusing on my bookcase; I was sure that at this time I was not going to tackle books. I was partly right, but not all the way.

In fact, I have kept many books that I will probably not keep forever. I still am not going into another bookcase in a different part of the house, and there is still a not particularly tidy collection of books on my nightstand.

The primary reason I did not think that I was going to deal with the bookcase was that the top shelf has magazines that I am going to read someday. I knew I was not going to touch them. I did not touch them.

It was the shelves below them that were bugging me, so those are what I tackled.

Again, it is really easy to know what I have no interest in keeping, and easy letting it go. That is the part of the process that was most valuable for me, and that is the one that I have down.

Back when I was seeing more pushback against Marie Kondo, a lot of it was focused on books, and people being angry that she might suggest limiting yourself to thirty books. 

Of course that is missing the point of what sparks joy. Having a lot of books that you have already read and once was enough, or that you will never really read, is not likely to spark joy. 

There are books that are comfort books for me, that I periodically want to revisit. Without having counted it out, I can't swear that there would be more than thirty. 

However, right now I am in the middle of something that suits me really well. These reading projects that I do (and my lists) do help me get more out of my reading. I am not at a point where I want to disrupt that. 

I am getting to books now that I have had for years, and feeling joy about getting to them. (Some of them are not exactly joyful, but they are still giving me information I like to have, which I enjoy.)

I know that this is temporary. It may take five more years, though that is just an estimate. After that, I will probably go through and discard a lot, and that will be fine too.

My way of doing it would not be for everyone. However, going through and looking at what you are doing, and confirming that it is what you want, as opposed to shuffling along in the habits you have had and may not particularly like, makes a huge difference.

It is not just that everything is more purposeful, though that is huge. It is also that I am choosing me, displaying confidence in me, voting for me... it is remarkably affirming.

I know what I am doing, and I like it.

Music Review: Crestillion and Ejectorseat

Today's bands are bands where I have been followed by current or former members of the band, then reviewed other bands they were in. These bands may not even be active now, but I still felt like I should review them. (They did require some more searching.)

Music making is a process rife with change. Just because something is no longer happening doesn't mean that it never happened or never mattered. Becoming disconnected from it, though, is still possible.

Crestillion

Crestillion is a rock duo from Stockholm that was once a quartet. At some point after that change, there were plans for regrouping and doing more, but nothing else has been posted since 2019. 2020 did undo a lot of plans.

More songs appear to have been done with the duo.

The music is very synthy and auto-tuned I would say more dance than rock. It is still fun to listen to, with a profundity to the lyrics that often happens with Scandinavian bands singing in English.

https://www.facebook.com/Crestillion/

https://www.instagram.com/crestillion/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc6yDLVb2a1Hiedv6hqITgg

https://twitter.com/crestillionband 

 

Ejectorseat

Ejectorseat is more of a traditional rock sound, and pretty pounding with their charting single, "Attack! Attack! Attack!".

Their most recent Facebook post is from 2016 about listening to The Further, which two of their members were in, so it appears that whatever happened to the band, good feelings were maintained.

As there is also an Ejector Seats band and label, it is easy to find the wrong music. You can find three tracks on Spotify, but it does not have "Not My Girl", which I could only find on Youtube (and under the Ejector Seats topic). 

That doesn't mean that they are not worth checking out, and they will get a song of the day. It is just something to keep in mind when you are listening.

https://www.facebook.com/EjectorSeat/ 

 

Speaking of assessing...

Back in April there was a Twitter question about how you would assess yourself, Dungeons & Dragons style.

When creating a D&D character, you roll a regular (6-sided) die three times for each of six traits. Scores between 1 and 18 (depending on the edition) reveal your aptitude for different things, like casting spells or winning a fight or being undetected.

Back in grade school, my friend Jennie, her sister Sara and I would play in our own way, making up things without the use of a dungeon master, maps, and the other dice, however, we did roll our characters, and I ended up with a character who was strong and not that bright.

I think I was initially irritated with that, but then just leaned in and went full barbarian as Carna, a chaotic good warrior who (and this goes with the chaotic, if not the good) would go full on Beserker whenever we encountered bat dwarfs. (We might have made those up.) The downside of this was that the insides of bat dwarfs emitted a horrible stench, so the aftermath of killing them was very unpleasant, but she just couldn't help herself.

(Was my D&D character MAGA?)

Anyway, this was the guide I used for scoring. It is from a different edition, because it goes to 20, but it was converted from an edition that went to 25:

https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/81cras/dd_ability_score_ranges_described/

That led me to these scores:

Strength 9: Has trouble lifting heavy objects for a longer time
(Are we talking about lifting over head? I might be selling myself short here.)

Dexterity 8: Somewhat slow, occasionally trips over own feet
(Sometimes. Not often.)

Constitution 10: Occasionally contracts mild sicknesses
(I might be selling myself short here too, but the next one up is about taking multiple hits before losing consciousness, and I can't promise that.)

Intelligence 19: Highly knowledgeable, probably the smartest person many people know
(The only reason I didn't choose 20 is because it hasn't made me famous. I am confident in this!)

Wisdom 20: Nearly prescient, able to reason far beyond logic
(Obviously.)

Charisma 16: Quickly likeable, respected or feared by many people. May be very eloquent. Good at getting their will when talking to people
(I was surprised to have a high score here, but as they described it...) 

I'm a little unbalanced.

I wasn't always like this. I mean, my mental abilities have always been higher than my physical abilities, but I used to be stronger and tougher. (My dexterity was never great.)

Part of that was just less chance to keep up. When I first started caring for my mother, we would go on walks in the park. While she could not go as far as I could, it still wasn't bad. As she slowed down, I wanted to do more. I tried leaving her on a bench once while I did another loop. She said she would stay there, but she did not. The only reason I was willing to try was because I could see her from almost the entire path, but running across the park as I saw her wandering off was too stressful to be a good workout.

If you don't use it, you'll lose it. That is true.

I suppose that is why exploring Washington Park and the different trails was so important, as well as committing to a large baking last Friday. Yes, I am weaker, but I can still do things. It takes longer, but maybe I can build back some. 

I used to have a lot more stamina. I am not sure that I can get all of it back, but I at least want to find out what is possible.

Assessing

I promise that upcoming posts will have multiple references to A Burst of Light, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Health At Every Size, and Happy Fat. 

For now, though, after two days of on-boarding at work, with going through various exercises, I want to write about some of that. (Except for my new insights on preferring vampires to zombies; I think I will save that for October.)

There were two things that stood out.

One is that we took a brief DISC assessment. That rates you on factors of Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness.

I scored a 92% on Steadiness, 64% each on Influence and Conscientiousness, and 14% on Dominance.

A few years ago I am sure I would have scored higher for Dominance. I do care about results, I have become so averse to abuses of power now that even descriptions of some things that would probably work out as benign sound repugnant to me. 

As it is, I do take charge of situations pretty easily if people just need direction. If people need more of a "taskmaster" because they want to goof off, I would really rather not deal with that nonsense. Sometimes you have to, though, and I do what I have to do. (Is that the Conscientiousness?)

Those are the things that tests like this miss, and I get pretty skeptical of them. (Especially skeptical of people who put their Myers-Briggs result in their profiles, though apparently only INFJs do that.) However, looking at the recommended jobs for Steady people, there was everything I have ever done or thought of doing. Okay, it may have a point.

We also did a brief segment on body language, and encoding and decoding, and how often people do these things unconsciously, but you can think about them. 

We were asked what we thought people's first impressions of us were, and what we wanted them to be.

A lot of people said "quiet".

I could come off that way, and it would not be telling the whole story, but there is some truth to it. What bothers me most is my habitual frown. My smile still flashes easily, but then when it fades, I am frowning like a cartoon frog. I hate that. I am not that unhappy.

(This was through video conferencing, so there was my face in the bottom of the screen, relentlessly.)

I looked around at the other faces, though, and actually, that is a kind of normal face. I just feel like mine didn't used to be so pronounced. Am I fooling myself? 

We were asked to think about what we want people to think about us. I guess I don't need people to look at me and think, "Wow; she's really happy!" What I settled on was that I want people to think that I am "good", in the sense of being a good person, and good at what I do. Trustworthy. Competent. Good.

Based on the frequency with which strangers ask me questions or for help, I may have achieved that. It could be a relief, except that I still think that I look too sad.

Maybe I have not really reconciled myself to the last five years yet, and the losses over that time. But maybe, I am still healing.

Or maybe I should just be really grateful for face masks.

Envisioning

Yesterday's post mentioned listening to your appetite. 

One story in Health At Every Size was about a woman who found herself mindlessly eating at night. When she stopped and listened to that urge, what she found was that she hated her job. It was mind-numbingly boring, and once home she tried to continue the numbing with a different technique. Having faced that, she started preparing for a job change.

In The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Marie Kondo mentions that her client's lives often transform after the tidying. Often they change careers or start their own businesses.

If the environment and the body we inhabit are both things that we become accustomed to ignoring, given how much a job can dominate one's life, it stands to reason that there is a lot we shut out about our jobs. Focusing and listening might call for change.

Don't confuse familiarity with comfort.

As I started noticing these similarities, it made two books sections on envisioning your life seem more connected.

They are different questions. For tidying, it is about picturing your ideal life. 

In the manga, Chiaki remembered that she had chosen her apartment because of the kitchen. She wanted to come home from work, change into cute lounging clothes, and be able to cook or eat or socialize. Not only did a cluttered apartment where nothing could be found make that difficult, but she had forgotten that was what she wanted.

In Health At Every Size, the group members all had an idea of what their ideal life would be like, and it would be the one that would start once they lost the weight. Their process involved first checking to see if there were any ways in which their weight was protecting or helping them in some way. Then, they needed to examine if some of those goals could happen with their current body. Could they be more social, or more active, or travel, or have a relationship, or get a promotion, just they way they already were?

Maybe what you want is possible, but assumptions get in your way.

Maybe that is familiar, and almost comfortable.

But if that is where you are, what if that change that makes everything else fall into place never comes? 

Is your life good enough then?

Expanding gratitude

Reviewing some final things from Health At Every Size, I noticed some interesting similarities to The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up.

It was a phrase that had not suck out to me before, about thanking your appetite. 

Again, a big part of the book is listening to your body's signals, which want to tell you what your body needs. We can be very good at not listening, letting others tell us what we should want and need and deny.

Because we learn to think of our appetite as the enemy, thanking it sounds counter-intuitive; that appetite is what makes us want unhealthy, fattening food... except there is a lot of conditioning that goes into that. There can be wisdom in listening to your appetite, though it may take some sussing out.

It can be an interesting process anyway, to take something internal that you have tended to look down on or resent, and then appreciate it instead. It can set the stage for a major reset. 

And it was also a new thought, whereas I have thought many times about Marie Kondo's advice to thank the objects you discard.

There is a lot in her work that lends a certain energy and dignity to all of your possessions, including the ones you are letting go. There may very well be some shinto influence there, but it has occurred to me that it could function an important step for alleviating the guilt of getting rid of things. 

Most people end up discarding bags and bags of stuff that they don't really want or need. 

This gets criticized a lot, but the problem is not that people are not holding on to things that they don't want or need, but that they bought them in the first place. That may be more of an issue of a capitalistic, materialistic culture with its own issues (and certainly take advantage of ways to donate and recycle as much as possible), but going through and seeing all of that extra of yours can easily make people feel foolish and wasteful, and many other negative things.

Thanking these items -- for pleasure they brought at the time of purchase, or for representing a relationship if it was a gift, or even for teaching you what you don't want -- may be the step that heads off a shame spiral and simply moves into acceptance and forward in a process that is liberating.

We often talk about gratitude as helping with happiness, but that is often specifically gratitude to God or to the universe or something more general. As valuable as that is, there can be other types.

Extending appreciation to things you own and things that are part of you can also be transformative.

Music Review: Saving Abel

When bass player Scott Wilson followed me, I saw that he was in Tantric so reviewed them.

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2017/04/band-review-tantric.html

Then I saw that Tantric was his former band, and he is currently in Saving Abel. My timing was just a little bit off, but I did want to rectify that. I am finally getting to it.

Saving Abel is a Southern Rock band from Corinth, Mississippi. 

While Wilson only joined them in 2017, the band has been around since 2004, rocking for some time.

Musically they remind me of Vertical Horizon, except that they are harder, and less sentimental. Is that a Southern rock thing? Perhaps at least partially. It may be that they only seem less sentimental because some of the songs are very much about sex with no allusions to making love.

I can appreciate them being to the point.

Although their last album release was 2014's Blood Stained Revolution, the band continues to play live regularly.

Profiles of individual band members were recently loaded to Instagram, and may be fun for fans.

https://www.savingabel.com/ 

https://www.facebook.com/savingabel 

https://www.instagram.com/thesavingabel/

https://www.youtube.com/user/SavingAbel 

https://twitter.com/savingabel

Making connections

I think my goal going forward is to spend some time writing about those things where we need to listen to our inner voices, and how and why, and certainly spending time relating it to capitalism.

My concern is that I am not going to have the time to do it well as I start my new job. (Which is for a corporation that provides health care, because I too must survive under capitalism, regardless of my familiarity with its flaws.)

So, I don't know how it will go. If I don't have a post ready to go the night before, I don't think I will be able to get one out during the day. I may start being really irregular again, though this time I hope because my life coming back together takes time, rather than before when it was my life falling apart.

It's a good thing I haven't really rebuilt my readership yet. 

For those of you who have been sticking around, perhaps you noticed that hesitance this week. I hope you also felt the sincerity and the love. Whatever I do, I will do it with integrity and heart, and I will overthink everything, I promise you.

Fortunately, as I rework my home space to take in my work PC and its two (!) monitors, I will have a lot to say about tidying. I always have things to say about health and my size. 

However, how those two aspects -- tidying (where keeping only what sparks joy flies in the face of consumerism) and fat (with the billions spent on diets and weight loss products) -- relate to capitalism is fairly obvious. 

Audre Lorde going against the advice of her oncologist -- choosing to visit an anthroposophy clinic and taking supplements rather than undergoing more probes, surgeries, and heroic measures -- may not have as obvious a relationship to capitalism. 

Though this quote is worth thinking about:

"What would it be like to be living in a place where the pursuit of definition within this crucial part of our lives was not circumscribed and fractionalized by the economics of disease in America? Here the first consideration concerning cancer is not what does this mean in my living, but how much is this going to cost?”

Yes, the way capitalism affects our possibilities for health is huge, in more and less obvious ways.

However, there is also something that may relate more to dominator culture (another topic that will recur) where some people will feel the right to exert authority over others. The doctor's training was a factor that deserves at least some attention, but which can't be definitive for the patient; we all know doctors who have been trained and still been wrong.

In Lorde's case, seeing a Black woman may have increased his sense of authority. There are some dangerous medical trends against both women and Black people, for what is researched and how and for how patients are treated.

(For more on that, see Doing Harm by Maya Dusenberry and Harriet A. Washington's Medical Apartheid. That's just for starters.) 

But racism and capitalism have this way of shoring up each other too, so it all connects.

Always.

Wish me luck as I start anew.

Books come together

I have to consider Audre Lorde's A Burst of Light in conjunction with two other books. No, it's really three.

It's because of the closet.

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2021/08/tidying-up-my-closet.html 

Well, that sells it short. I went through the closet because of that Twitter thread, and the medical frustration, and there is stuff I have been working on for some time anyway.

Regardless, as I was remembering Marie Kondo's techniques from the manga, I thought that I should get around to reading the regular book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.

What people (at least Westerners) frequently miss about the book is that it is not about minimalism, but about enjoying the things that make you happy. The extra clothes in my closet that I didn't want to wear were making it harder for me to find clothes that I did want to wear, and stressing me out. Getting rid of them was a relief to an extent that I couldn't have predicted.

KonMari recommends starting with clothes because it is easier to know how we feel about them. That is completely logical: clothes have both a visual and tactile effect and they are also likely to get feedback, which adds an emotional energy.

The less logical -- but true -- part is that we are not commonly in the habit of making our purchasing and furnishing and wardrobe decisions based on what brings us joy. There is advertising for that.

That is not even the strongest connection to Audre Lorde.

One thing that I was very impressed with was that by listening to her instincts instead of the doctor's recommendations (and there was a lot of studying that went along with those instincts, but the inner sense is still crucial), her outcome was really pretty good. 

She lived for eight years after her diagnosis, despite her doctor scolding her hesitance and inaction. It wasn't inaction though, just different action. 

It also wasn't one doctor. She had a good rapport with the doctor who had treated her breast cancer, and being able to talk with her helped. Still, the one who could know her body best was her. After all of the expert advice, that's whom she needed to listen to.

I mentioned trying to find something I had read on stress hormones and their long-term effects.

The problem was that I was sure I had read that in The Body Keeps the Score. I knew I was going to read that again, so I didn't take notes. When I did read it again, it wasn't there. 

I recently re-read some of the other suspects, Happy Fat: Taking Up Space in a World that Wants to Shrink You by Sofie Hagen and Health At Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight by Lindo Bacon (previously credited as Linda Bacon).

It was not in either of them, but it was good to review them anyway.

While my concern was primarily about the eosinophilia, there was that reminder of the importance of listening to what your body is telling you, and the futility of trying any other way.

How good are we at listening to our bodies? Especially if someone is authoritatively telling us we are wrong?

I could be worse; I worked on that!

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2015/01/getting-back-in-touch-with-my-body.html

That doesn't mean it never needs re-work, especially when going through major life changes. 

But the question for everyone, then, is whether you are hearing your inner wisdom. If not, what are some steps to change that?

... but those hopes are faint

Yesterday I didn't know what to write, but I was feeling good will, so I wrote some hopes for you out there. 

Hopes that may not be realistic.

Well, it is totally possible that some of you had good days. 

There is a very good chance that your needs aren't being met.

For example, if you need prompt medical care, that can be a big problem right now. Maybe it's worse in Idaho and Texas, but even in Portland, there is some backlog.

There is a lot of economic anxiety (a term that people throw around recklessly, but it can still have a point). As much as we were told that money can't buy happiness -- which is true -- if the source of your unhappiness is unpaid bills for basic life expenses, money can do a great deal to alleviate that unhappiness.

Plus sometimes you just want a treat, but money may be so tight that it feels impossible, whether because it actually is impossible or just that you would feel too guilty.

And as much I hope that you like yourselves, I know there is a lot that works against it.

I want you to know that a lot of that is capitalism. Maybe not all of it, but some of it.

You have no idea how easily every thing I post could turn into an anti-capitalist screed. I refrain because I think I will be able to do a better job of that later, but the thoughts are there.

However, maybe the most important thing to stress is love. 

There are so many stories each day that make me think "I hate people", but ultimately, I don't. I keep coming back to feeling love.

I acknowledge "people" could use some improvement.

What I can do to help, I will.

Labor Day hopes

Happy Labor Day!

I start my new job in a week. It makes this time look a little different.

I hope you are having a good day.

I hope you like whom you are.

I hope your needs are being met.

I hope you get some good wants met too.

Let's work on that for everyone.

Love,
Gina

Music Review: Mike Ferry

Mike Ferry is a fiddler, songwriter, and composer, with a rather shocking divide in his Spotify catalog.

His two most recent albums, 2020's From Ulster to Appalachia and 2017's Virginia, are both lively instrumentals, feeling very traditionally Irish but also reminding of the trans-Atlantic connection between the two places.

Then there are 2007's Songs For Quirky and 2006's A Feather. It barely sounds like the same person.

There are hints on the earlier albums, like "In Pacem", where you can hear the roots of the later work. It still feels like a conundrum.

I guess a lot can happen over ten years.

It does look like there were some changes over that time, including exploring the Irish heritage of his grandparents.

I prefer listening to the newer music, but I admit that the previous albums make a stronger impression, with a real danger of tracks getting stuck in one's head.

https://mikeferrymusic.net/ 

https://www.facebook.com/mikeferrymusic 

https://www.youtube.com/user/MikeFerryMusic 

https://twitter.com/mikeferrymusic

Wisdom from Audre Lorde and A Burst of Light

There were two specific quotes that drew me to Audre Lorde and A Burst of Light:

“Caring for myself is not an act of self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”

“I just know I must not surrender my body to others unless I completely understand and agree with what they think should be done to it... I know I can broaden the definition of winning to the point where I can’t lose.”

Caring for myself has been something I have been struggling with since I have realized it was something I needed to do. I can't even count the years before when it didn't seem relevant. 

Then, feeling so frustrated with my health and my health care, and knowing that sometimes the things that I needed were not an option, being able to redefine what "winning" could mean seemed like my only hope.

Lorde is an amazing writer, thinking deeply and crafting her words carefully. I might have responded to A Burst of Light no matter what, but timing was important. I needed it when it came to me. That it was decades after it was originally written is interesting, but only crucial in that it made it possible for it to be there.

For Lorde, living with metastasized cancer resulted in clarity. She cherished what she loved more, and was able to recognize what was important and to cast off what was not important. If Sister Outsider teaches about harnessing anger, A Burst of Light may be more about transcending it, even though the causes for anger are still there, and still being fought.

I recognized her as a kindred spirit when her diagnosis sent her to Barnes & Noble to read everything that she could about liver cancer. I recognize the deliberate attempt to live by one's values. 

I am not good at self-care.

I hope to learn. There were three quotes that seem to give a kind of formula, not exact, but important. 

I am going to treat them in reverse order.

“Another secret is to find some particular thing your soul craves for nourishment – a different religion, a quiet spot, a dance class – and satisfy it. That satisfaction does not have to be costly or difficult. Only a need that is recognized, articulated, and answered.” p.123

This should be the easiest, but may be the easiest to feel guilty about instead, which seems vaguely unfair. 

“One secret is to ask as many people as possible for help, depending on all of them and on none of them at the same time. Some will help, others cannot. For the time being.” p. 122 

We know that asking for help is difficult, but what if we did it this way? So frequently and commonly, that none of the requests had to be desperate? There is even hope built in, that requests now may come to fruition later.

 “The energies I gain from my work help me neutralize those implanted forces of negativity and self-destructiveness that is white America's way of making sure I keep whatever is powerful and creative within me unavailable, ineffective, and nonthreatening.” p. 118

There is some fortune in being able to support yourself by work that nurtures you.

That was a dream for a long time, that has been put to rest. However, there are other things I do. I must give some of that time to my creativity and my power.

That is, of course, an important reason to keep up with this blog, which appears to be the main kind of writing that I can manage now, and which I hope does some good. 

That leads to another quote:

 “Most of all I think of how important it is for us to share with each other the powers buried within the breaking of silence about our bodies and our health, even though we have been schooled to be secret and stoical about pain and disease. But that stoicism and silence does not serve us nor our communities, only the forces of things as they are.”

There are so many things we are not supposed to talk about: talking about money is vulgar and talking about our bodies is embarrassing and admitting our vulnerabilities is dangerous. It keeps injustice strong and leaves us oppressed and lonely.

I have my honesty and openness. They were not built up overnight but they are strong. That is what I can give, because it is mine.

That is what I will continue to do.

The time we have

I need to preface anything I write today by saying that yesterday we got hit with three deaths over the course of a few hours. Only one of them is really personal, but still...

I was writing about mortality anyway. I have been thinking about death. And yet, my thoughts are not focusing well today.

For the record, two of the deaths were definitely not COVID; I am not sure about the other.

Regardless, there are families that are grieving today. 

I am religious and faithful. Part of what that means for me is that I believe in life after death, and that we will all get to see each other again. Animals too.

I feel pretty sure about that, and that works well for me. Without that, I think there would be all of this existential dread and I wouldn't know what to do with it. 

There was a point in the care giving where I was thinking about death a lot, but it was preparing for my mother to die. It was mainly about things that would need to be done and being ready to get them done so I could make everything go as smoothly as possible for everyone else. I wanted to minimize the pain.

In terms of thinking about my emotions about losing her, that didn't seem like as much of an issue. It will hurt, just as the extent to which she is lost to us while still living now hurts, but that separation will also only be temporary.

That also means that I view my own death as something that would be a transition, but ultimately be a positive one.

None of that makes it not hurt.

Does it make it hurt less? Does it even make it hurt differently? I am not sure.

There are families grieving today.

We do not know how much time we have.

In a way, this is not really that different from yesterday's post, where you have to make your time align with your values as much as possible.

It is important to value people.

It is important that it shows in the way you treat them, so they know that you value them. 

It's important to clear the air if that is what is needed. It is important to say things you feel.

Sometimes people are toxic, and the choices aren't ideal, but that unknown limit on time is also a part of that choice.

And it is really important to not live your life in a way that you are cutting other people's time short with your own rotten behavior and capitalist greed. 

No, this post is not about COVID, yet thinking about those grieving families, and knowing that there have been 641,000 US COVID death, and 4.53 million globally, and how many of those could have been avoided...

What is wrong with people?

Mortality is hard and it is also precious. 

Don't be the one cutting it short.