Feeling safe

The pool party pictures hit me harder than they might have because of other things that were going on.

I had been thinking about was a basic sense of security. That came from reading about police harassment, including one man who was stopped 258 times, mainly for trespassing, except it was happening at his job and where he lived.

That sounded bad enough, but a friend directed me to the This American Life episode where they talk about Miami Gardens, and they talk to him and his boss:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/548/cops-see-it-differently-part-two

It became more tragic then. There were a lot of people who were negatively affected by this, but what struck me most was for the man himself, how will he ever possibly feel safe again anywhere?

It reminded me of something I read long ago where children who were raised in war zones don't develop the same emotional skills and resilience. Those who had some time before the war and could remember that had those memories to sustain them. They knew a time of security. Never knowing that, their play is different and there is a heavier emotional toll. It's like, you know that post-traumatic stress can be bad, but what if it was only traumatic stress, all the time?

In light of that, it's something to consider in terms of common health issues among black people, and certainly in regards to this article:

http://psychcentral.com/news/2011/03/04/racial-battle-fatigue-seems-to-fuel-anxiety-disorder-among-african-americans/24132.html

Those things gave McKinney a context for me, along with the issues black girls face with their bodies being viewed as more sexual and less protected as covered in yesterday's post. There were three other things that all happened really close together that made it worse.

I live in the suburbs. In fact, I live in an unincorporated suburb where we don't even have city police - just county. I was downtown though, and talking with a friend who lives in the Portland city limits, and as we were talking she told me she sees the police hassling black kids a lot.

I know Portland, Oregon, in the liberal Pacific Northwest, is not supposed to be terribly racist. I'm not saying it couldn't be worse. For one thing, those kids are very unlikely to be killed by the police. They're also unlikely to feel comfortable, or like they belong or have value or have their community backing them up when they need it.

Then I read about Kalief Browder:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/06/08/kalief_browder_suicide_had_been_held_three_years_on_rikers_island_without.html

There was not reliable witness testimony or physical evidence, but because our courts are slow and prejudiced, he spent three years in Rikers, much of it in solitary, and he killed himself.

Maybe it was worse because I read the other article first:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/06/before-the-law

That was in October, and he was still alive, and probably going to get some compensation from a settlement. He had a job, and was taking classes, but there was a sense of despair.

"People tell me because I have this case against the city I’m all right. But I’m not all right. I’m messed up. I know that I might see some money from this case, but that’s not going to help me mentally. I’m mentally scarred right now. That’s how I feel. Because there are certain things that changed about me and they might not go back... Before I went to jail, I didn’t know about a lot of stuff, and, now that I’m aware, I’m paranoid. I feel like I was robbed of my happiness.”

Kalief Browder killed himself on June 6th, the same day as the McKinney pool party. He probably did not know about it. I also don't know if she knew about it, but one of my girls attempted suicide on the 8th, and she is black.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/19/health/suicide-rate-for-black-children-surged-in-2-decades-study-says.html?_r=0

She did recover. She says now that she doesn't remember why she did it. That could be true; disassociation has been an issue for her. I also know that the issues that she has are made worse by her eating disorder, because despite that fact that she is beautiful, and she is certainly not fat, she always feels a need to become physically less than she is.

I don't know that it's connected, but if she wonders about whether there is room for her in this world, it would be hard to prove to her that she is welcome.

It would have been hard to make Kalief believe that he could get his happiness back.

It is not surprising that Dajerria Becton is having PTSD symptoms after the pool party. I worry about that. I worry about how her friends will feel after trying to help her and having to run - if they are carrying around feelings of helplessness. I worry about how she will handle things in the future, knowing that asking for help could get the person she asks killed. And then a church got shot up.

There was discussion after that - black people are saying that nowhere is safe, and how do you teach your kids that, and white people trying to tell them that it's not that bad.

I would like to be able to say it's not that bad. Having no safe place is a horrible thing to think and feel. It's worse because it's true.

That cannot stand. This cannot be allowed to be.

Layers of ugliness

I am about to start something I feel inadequate for. I need to write about race.

When I am not writing about political and social issues, I am still thinking about them, but I always feel like there is more to know, and other people are saying the relevant things. I didn't think I had anything to say about Rachel Dolezal. I felt like I did need to say something about McKinney. Then I waited, and something much worse happened.

So I'm just going to try and say what I feel I need to say, and hope that it can be helpful to someone. Before Charleston I thought there would be six posts; now I don't know. I was going to start with layers of ugliness though, and that still feels right.

The picture was ugly. Seeing a cop straddling a black teenage girl in a swimsuit was ugly. Seeing the video, where he manhandled her, where he ordered her to get down when she was already down - no, she needed to be face-down - and seeing her friends try to help and be chased off with a gun, and knowing how easily it could have ended up with them dead, all of that was sickening.

It's been a while since I've mentioned this, but one of my big wake up calls to racism was reading stories about street harassment, and seeing that when you are white, it starts later and is less likely to involve touching. There aren't the same boundaries in place for women of color, especially if they're black. There is a long racist history going back to slavery for why that is. A lot of these problems have a long racist history.

(That's one of the things that made me mad with Dolezal's deception - she did not have to put up with that when she was a blonde freckled child.)

I was disturbed by picture and video. It was clear that the officer was out of control. Even his fellow officers made him put his weapon down and were able to speak to the other kids peacefully. That's nice, but they still didn't make Casebolt get off of the girl. They were too accepting of his violation as well.

That was ugly enough, but then I was reading more about how it started, and it got worse. Some kids of multiple races are having a party, and some white people say "Go back to Section 8 housing." That is an insult, and unfair, and offense was taken, including by one of the white kids who started getting lectured about the company she keeps. When a black friend defends her, the black friend gets slapped.

That's uglier. There is open racism, the assumption of poverty based on skin color, and physical violence, again with no boundaries respected on behalf of a black girl. It got worse.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/troubled-waters-in-mckinney-texas/395150/

Section 8 housing has a history in McKinney. There is a highway running through the town. To the East, McKinney is 49 percent white; to the West, 86 percent white. There have been lawsuits and blocks to prevent any affordable housing from going up on the West side, you know, because that brings in black people. (Even though there were residents at the party who lived there and were black, and there are plenty of white people in Section 8 housing.)

There are no public pools on the East side.

It gets uglier going past there too. America has a long history of not allowing black people to swim, from pouring bleach in pools to filling them with cement to selling them to private clubs - anything to prevent having to share that space.

http://nextstl.com/2010/12/fairground-park-the-history-we-choose-to-forget/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/17/fairfield-ohio-pool-police_n_7603484.html

http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2014/05/a_history_behind_black_people.html

Many black people don't learn how to swim. That probably raised the death toll from Hurricane Katrina.

There were people reminiscing on Twitter about not being able to swim, or how their parents made them learn to swim. One person wrote "Swimming feels like freedom," but it's a freedom that often isn't available enough.

The deeper you look, the worse it gets. Get used to that.

We still need to look.

http://m.snopes.com/2015/06/11/aftermath-mckinney-texas-pool/

Band Review: Moderne.

Moderne. is an alternative rock band from Huntington Beach, California.

Occasionally bordering on the moody, they are at their best with more energetic numbers, like "Tied Up" and "Quietly".

Distance & Distractions, their 6-track EP, will have been out for one year on Tuesday and has two music videos. The video for "Colorblind" gives a sense that this could be a good band in a show.

They do feel a little undeveloped, as if their next album needs a stronger theme, or a stronger producer, but if feels like they have potential.

It's worth noting that I was initially followed by a band called Meaning in Masterpiece, and then it redirected to Moderne., so this may be a time of transition for them as well. I believe they are worth checking back with. Also, the art in the "Colorblind" video is pretty neat and should be checked out anyway. When it's their turn for song of the day, we'll see where they are.

http://www.moderneband.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Moderneband

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

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/distance-distractions-ep/id882880089

https://soundcloud.com/moderneband/sets/distanceanddistractions

https://twitter.com/moderneband

Band Review: Greco

Greco has been good listening this week.

Greco is a band of mostly brothers from Athens, Georgia. Their Facebook page only lists four of them - Sebastian, Josh, Zack, and Gabriel - but in recent videos they include oldest Greco brother Johann. This seems to be a band in transition. In fact, their Soundcloud proclaims...

"Though GRECO has spent years saturated in music and perfor​mance, it is the release of their latest EP – ALL THE THINGS YOU WANT - that will mark their true musical statement to the world."

It is a musical statement of rock that pulls in multiple influences. There are things that remind me of garage rock, Southern rock, and even some psychedelic, but "All My Life" starts with a synth groove that would not be out of place in pop (back when pop wasn't a pejorative). That track should definitely be checked out, as well as the heartfelt "If I Could See".

Part of that transition should involve running social media more tightly. I found at least three broken links to ReverbNation, and then once I found the correct page via Search there was no music listed. The Youtube channel could be better organized too, though I hope the "In the Bathroom w/Greco" series continues.

There is work for them to do, and I hope they do it. They have a good sound, and their efforts to make it more available to more people should be beneficial.

https://soundcloud.com/wearegreco

https://www.reverbnation.com/wearegreco

https://www.facebook.com/WeAreGreco

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJKJue-pjwbZGR-X9hftmHA

https://twitter.com/wearegreco

The adaptation

I haven't been doing a lot for networking, but I have joined one site, and I think that is how I got a message asking for me to review a comedy pilot and offering to review something of mine. That sounded good until I looked at the pilot, and it was too awful to talk about. I could not say anything nice, so it seemed better to have no conversation. This will relate.

Periodically I will write about previously written screenplays and refer to others that don't count.

For example, "Sisters of Justice" is a television pilot. It was written to fill one hour, leaving room for commercials, so it's shorter than feature length, but because there are also character bios, summaries of episodes that would happen in the first season, and notes on arcs that could occur in future seasons, there is a lot more to it too. Also, with doing all my submissions at Amazon Studios, they don't take drama pilots (comedies and children's shows can be submitted), so there's not really anything to do with it now. I don't count it as a screenplay.

It can get much messier. I worked with a partner on adapting an novel into a screenplay. As the partner kept veering further from the book she also brought in another person. They decided that it didn't even need to be set in the Depression anymore. There are some marketing advantages to not making something a period piece, but I felt in this case the time period was relevant.

I hated what they were doing with it, but it was an exhausting period in my life anyway, and having someone else to work with for her meant the long phone calls to me ended, which I needed. That whole experience drained the writing joy out of me, leading to a dry spell that lasted from October 2010 to March 2012. I didn't write anything creative again until a music video launched me into 400 pages of post-Apocalyptic fan fiction.

I don't count the fan fiction as a completed screenplay. Length-wise it's more like three and a half movies, I envision it as a comic book anyway, and it is using other people's characters.

I don't count the adaption because it was with two other people, one of whom I never met or spoke to, I hated the finished product, and again, it started with someone else's material. I always felt bad about what that became. We started the project feeling pretty good about it. I liked the book.

I wrote to the author a while back telling her that I often though of it. I had thought maybe the way to go was to read the book again and come up with three treatments, focusing on different themes and events. After reading it again, I felt like there was really only one theme that would work.

I just couldn't see starting over again without knowing that there was someone interested in the screenplay. We started the adaptation because a filmmaker she knew had told her he thought it would make a good movie, so there seemed to be some promise there but it never panned out.

She wrote back that she was re-writing the book and changing the setting to make it fit in with where she was living now. People buy souvenir books there, especially if you show the landscape on the cover, and there are people who promote the area. Also, she decided that one of the characters needed more backstory.

I just finished the new version today. I feel like I need to get back to her. I don't want to tell her I don't like it. It wasn't just the setting change. The original was set in Arizona and New Mexico, and parts of it have been moved to Utah. Some parts have not moved at all.

Characters have changed a lot. I can see that they were softened to be made more likable, but they are still flawed and now it doesn't feel real. It felt very real before. Without that, they are actually less likable.

I know she re-wrote it with input from her writing group. One of the members is the previous collaborator. That didn't seem like a good sign.

There are other things that grate. Some descriptions have been added that drag things out. Some actions have been cut that were interesting. Some of the old-fashioned slang has been taken out, which should help comprehension, but it subtracted flavor. If I were going to cut slang, I would have taken out the terms that have racist origins, but they're still there. While the location change wasn't major, maybe changing things to make a more marketable book opened the door to everything else.

It really felt important to write to her, so it feels like something should come of it. I don't know what I would do with it now.

And the posts come later and later

I have not been on top of things lately.

Work has been busier. It has a right to be busy - I can't argue with that - but when things go at a slower pace somehow more gets done during the day. There's more room in the brain.

There have been family issues, and emotional things take their own toll. There are setbacks that take days to recover from. It feels pathetic, but I've seen it. Every function of the mind and body takes some energy, and some take more.

This is one way of saying that I haven't been writing much.

I am also in the middle of one of our regular health challenges at work. This is the Summer Games. We just track out steps for six weeks. The highest level of points is achieved at 420000 steps, or 10000 a day, though there are lower point amounts for 210000 and 315000.

I am currently right on schedule, but each day you have to make 10000, and if you fall behind catching up becomes difficult very quickly. Since working from home, I need to make some efforts to move around more, plus do 30-40 minutes of exercise a day to stay on track. It feels good to move, but that could also be a big chunk of writing time.

I had this plan in mind that while the six weeks was going on I would write like crazy. I would finish Spitters, and finally write up that musical, and then I would start my ninth regular feature screenplay written only by me (so not counting shorts, comics, television pilots, or collaborations), and I would decide what to do about that book adaptation. That has not happened.

Always, there is everything else, but at some point I started to stress less over it. Everything that is keeping me busy will clear up in time.

I finished the first round of single adult phone calls. I need to figure out what to do about wrong numbers, missing phone numbers, and voicemail where they didn't call back, but that's actually a huge milestone for that project. I have everything ready for the Saturday activity, and the July fireside will fall into place too. Things are moving along there.

The dolls are done.

I finished finding people through the invitation autofill on the reunion, and filled in about an other 100. 211 people to go.

Most of my classes are done. I am still finishing up the final presentation for my superhero, but that is due the 26th, and it will be done.

I found a new class to take. That sounds like a bad idea, but just today I found that Oregon Care Partners has classes for Alzheimer's and Dementia caregivers. There was a promoted tweet with the title "Activities for Meaningful Dementia Care´- I've been thinking about that for weeks, with some ideas but not enough, and there is course material. There are multiple courses. That feels like a godsend.

Mainly, the urgency from the writing has always come from the urgency to have more money, and it just doesn't seem that thinking that way will ever work. That could be disappointing, but I feel at peace about it. Things are falling into place. There is a logic and order in that, and I am going to have to trust for the rest.

In two weeks the Summer Games will be over too, and I can stop worrying about remembering to put on my pedometer, avoiding bumping into things that might reset it, and remembering to look down and check the number regularly in case I do reset it. I will still want to do more physical activity, but I may be at a point of just trying to maintain my current level of health instead of improving it. I would like to be fitter now, but impatience won't be my friend there either.

It's not exactly one thing at a time, but it is not too much.

I still can't quite seem to give up blogging daily, so it's blogging late.

Reunion invitations

When I mentioned organizing the reunion before, I mentioned that sometimes there were names coming up that I knew were questionable, because it was simply an issue of graduation credits.

This is not speculation. When the 10 year was approaching, they sent out a list of people they couldn't find, and I tried to help locate people. One of them I remembered as being class of '89, but I called him  up anyway, and he was surprised to find out that he was showing up. I think there had been an issue with a math credit, but he had never thought of himself as class of '90, even if that might technically be the date on his diploma.

Falling back on my usual method of using spreadsheets, I went through the yearbook first, and then the memory book from the first reunion. I thought the graduation program or memory book from the 20 year reunion might be good, but I have no idea where they are right now. Still, it seemed like a pretty complete list.

There are names I don't recognize at all, and some I recognize as older. Two I have gone ahead and left off the spreadsheet - the one I called up fifteen years ago, and another that I saw a few years ago. His year was 1988, whether he got a diploma then or not.

(It feels appropriate to leave names out, though that would make things easier.)

With everyone else, I am more cautious. For example, one guy, I always thought was a year older. Is that because I met him and socialized with him only in the company of another guy who was class of 1989? There is another girl I always thought was younger. Did I just never see her our sophomore year, so when I saw her in junior year I thought she was new? I don't know, but clearly I can't just assume I am remembering the age right.

Also, it occurs to me that it is not always clear-cut. Two girls came up, both of whom I remembered as only being there for senior year. One's family moved when her father got a new job; another was sent to live with her aunt. They both had more years at their previous schools. They might feel more connected there, even though their graduation was here.

That's one reason that I'm leaving it fairly loose. If someone from a different year wants to come, and they feel a kinship, that's nice. I'm not going to fight that.

I currently have it an invitation only event, because I want to make sure everyone on the list gets invited, and it can only get harder to track as more people are added. However, once the spreadsheet is filled out, I think I'll change it to "Open".

After the names were all added, I went through all the invited and matched their invitation status. I am now going through the names with nothing by them, and seeing if I get an auto-fill when I start typing. I am finding a fair amount this way.

Next I will take the remainder and try regular searches, outside of the invite field. I will probably also try LinkedIn, because a lot of people who won't use Facebook still use that. (How often they check it, I don't know.) After that, I hope it will be just a small list where I can ask for help. With a big list, people would get lost reading it.

Is this process overly laborious? Probably, but I wasn't sure of a better way to do it. Believe me, now that I have a fairly complete digital list of the class members, I am hanging on to it.

I have found a way to put up a survey on whether people are going to Friday, Saturday, or both, but it feels too early to do it now.

Memory books and memorials are still a question. There must be someone more technical than me in our class. Surely we have a few programmers and web designers out there.

Band Review: Helen Austin

I suspect that hating this music makes me a mean and black-hearted person. I've got to be me.

Helen Austin has won a Juno Aware and a John Lennon songwriting contest, and her music gets used in television shows and things, so clearly other people see merit I don't. For me it cloys.

I liked her earlier music better. I didn't love it, but at some point after 2009, everything became more twee. That may work better as a niche, because then you have the children's market, but then there is too much of it. There is an album every year, and each album has lots of tracks, and while any one song might be harmless put together they aggravate me.

I get how they are supposed to work. Take the song "Underneath My Bed":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLDjhgP0nCA

It is taking a common childhood fear, and making it funny and about friendship. That seems positive. The video is pretty well done with simple animation. Other videos incorporate toys and children and drawings. Many people would find it charming. There is probably nothing wrong with finding it charming. But the high voice, repetitiveness, and relentless preciousness somehow builds into a perfect storm of hatred for me.

If a song about how being yourself is great, so always be yourself unless you can be a unicorn, then be a unicorn, sounds like your kind of thing, links are below.

http://www.helenaustin.com/

https://www.facebook.com/helenaustinmusic

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

https://twitter.com/helenaustin

P.S. This is late not due to the lack of enthusiasm, but it just being one of those days.

No band review today

It seems like the best way option.

The band I had planned on reviewing today, Stillframe, has broken up. I have reviewed broken up bands before, but I found this announcement from the 5th:

"Hey everyone, in regards to the current situation of our singer, Marc, the rest of the members in Stillframe deem it inappropriate to continue moving on with this entity. So the remaining members have all decided to disband and make Stillframe no more."

What situation is that? He was recently revealed to have committed many sexual assaults, including underage girls.

I feel bad for the others. Writing a review of the music I have listened to seems like it would be counter to their wishes, and it looks like the Twitter account is already gone, so the other links might end up being dead soon anyway. (There are some similarly named bands that can cause some confusion.)

I also admire them. Their singer was not the first band member to have assaulted anyone, underage or not. There is often a tendency to play it down or explain it away or to try in some way not to know about it or act on it. They have acted decisively and quickly. I am sure there is a sense of loss.

I am also hopeful for them. They haven't announced any future plans, and maybe they are too disgusted right now to think of trying again. However, they were in other bands before; they can have other chances, together or separately.

So this is wishing good luck to David Fernandez, Kevin Herrera, and Kyle Lacoste. Thank you for taking a stand. I hope good things come your way.

Planning a reunion

I said yesterday that I was taking something new on, and I had to be crazy to do it, but really, it's not that bad.

One thing is that the parameters of this project are fairly finite. I know what to do and when to do it by. That doesn't necessarily make the workload light, but it's manageable, and it will lead to some social time, which will probably be good.

I am planning a 25th reunion.

Last year the year before us had one, and I was kind of accidentally invited. By "accidentally", I mean that the person who invited me does random invites and does not think about years. It sounded fun, so I went with some minor guilt, and thought that our class should really do one.

The other key piece of information is that the girls in my family came at five-year intervals. That is mainly a result of my parents changing their minds a few times on how many children they wanted. As my class hits year 25 (which is a cool year, but the official reunions only happen on the decades), my older sister is invited to her 30th reunion and my younger sisters are invited to their 20th.

This has given me many opportunities to hear about why they are not going to theirs. Misty is not going because it is too expensive and not a good value. Julie and Maria are not going because they talk to people on Facebook and who needs it?

Those points have some validity. If you do it through Classic Reunions they really overcharge. I thought our 10-year was great and reasonably priced, but the 20 year was high for the value, and a lot of people did not go because of that, but also because we talk to each other on Facebook.

In addition, for my younger sisters their student body president does not even have it together enough to hire Classic Reunions, so another classmate is trying to organize it, and it is a thankless job, but she is asking for too much input, which people find frustrating and it makes them not take her seriously.

That is probably why I had the dreams of reunions, but it was only on the second one that I realized, "Crap. I need to do this."

It is doable. Things I have been able to learn are that people don't want to spend money, and agonizing over everything and pestering people doesn't help. Simplicity and economy are key.

I have set something up. I haven't invited everyone yet. The yearbook indicates that there were 556 of us. Some of that is wrong, like people from previous years who had issues with graduation credits, but would not consider themselves Class of 1990. I decided to start with a chunk, let other people pass on the invitation, and then I will go through comparing the yearbook, the book from the first reunion, and maybe the graduation program if I can find it. I know not everyone is one Facebook, but I have e-mail addresses for at least two people who aren't.

There are little technical issues, like I thought maybe a photo album could work as a memory book - everyone put one photo and a description telling what's going on with you, but I don't see a way to do that for an event. There are technically two events, but I didn't want to separate them, making the RSVP information not as complete as it could be. Those are still workable.

Sometimes it's nice to have projects where you know for sure when you're done.

The loneliest part

This is something I haven't wanted to write about, because it is not primarily my story. It affects me a lot though, and so I sometimes find myself blurting things out about it when I don't mean to. Maybe it's just better to get it all out there.

For a while now my mother has been having memory issues. At first it seemed like just absent-mindedness, like she would ask the same question five times, but maybe she wasn't really listening for the answer because she was thinking about other things she needs to do. She has said that she is always thinking a few steps ahead - which I do too - but she hasn't been as good at tracking it anymore. We did a cognition test with a neurologist about a year ago, and she was diagnosed with dementia.

It is not Alzheimer's. She knows us and herself. It is more that new information does not register reliably. She will tell the same story multiple times, which isn't really that unusual for an older person (I know she doesn't look 72, but she is), but she will tell it three times in a single conversation instead of just every time you visit.

She is stable, and she could easily stay stable for another ten years. However, in that stability, she still doesn't know what you have told her. She has a hard time keeping track of days and dates or what has been done already. Sometimes she will just not believe us.

There's a certain amount of stress to this. It can be tiring repeating the same thing, but then when she has gotten a wrong idea into her head, and you keep correcting her she can get really angry, and that's exasperating.

It is mostly mine to deal with. I am home during the day because I telecommute. That is one reason why I don't think looking for another job could be a good thing right now. Getting established anywhere else would almost certainly require going in, at least for a while, and I can't think that would be good.

It is also more mine though because I am more patient. Depending on which sister, they can often lose their temper or be condescending. It is really frustrating, and I lose my temper more than I should too, so I get that, but I can still hold onto it better. (For the condescending one, that just goes with some other problems.)

That is hard in many ways. I worry about her when she is going somewhere. We limit it, possibly more than we need to, but she still needs to be allowed some dignity. She is still a good driver, and can get to familiar places. A wrong turn could really throw her, so we installed a tracking device in her car, which we haven't needed to use since it's been in there.

I worry about her in social situations, when she is repeating the same story for the third time. Will people be understanding with her? She can still talk. She should be able to visit.

I worry about if she will get worse, and how bad it can be. Her mother and one of her sisters both had Alzheimer's. That could be in our future. It could be in mine, for that matter.

When I have mentioned needing to research diet things, part of it was for her arthritis, for quality of life, but part of it was for memory. There were claims out there that you could completely reverse Alzheimer's with diet, and okay, this is a different form of dementia, but it's still something to look at. Coconut oil was touted, but no complete reversal there. Then you dig down and this time the miracle ingredient is Omega -3 fatty acids, but those are just for helping delay the onset. Where's my complete reversal? I kind of knew it was too good to be true, but you still hope.

I think about activities too, because doing different things is supposed to stimulate and be helpful, but it takes time and effort, and frankly I am dragging now. I may have to give something up, but I don't know where there is room to let something go.

But the thing I am thinking about now is that it takes away a confidante. Thinking about this loneliness thing, I have online contacts who care about me, and friends who enjoy my company, but the contact is limited. They all have their own lives, and that's exactly the way it should be. In my family I am really an oddball. The person who would be most on my side is my mother, but she will not remember what I tell her.

Or she will remember that something is wrong, and it will worry her and be worse for being undefined. And if I tell her about the things that her condition makes hard for me, her being a problem will be something that will sink in, even if not how it happens. I don't know why it works that way, it just does.

This is also fair. If my friend's cancer makes me sad, it is absolutely not the friend, or the friend's family, who should be comforting me, because they are dealing with it worse. You look for support outward. I don't know where to look.

And I know a lot of people who have it worse, as well as knowing that it's not a pain contest. This is just where my pain lies. Working at home is best for this situation, but it isolates me. It is no one else's job to take care of me. If I need emotional support I will have to reach out for it, but there's been enough rejection and enough exhaustion that it's not going to happen. Even if I imagine someone calling me and wanting to go out, right now I feel like I don't have the energy.

And I am taking on planning a new large social gathering, which pretty much makes me insane, but I had a dream and felt it was necessary, so I am doing it. It is easy to get me to take on responsibilities. If I can view making myself happy as a responsibility, it may pay off.

Things to do

Never one to shy away from stating the obvious, I'm going to come right out and say that trying to heal emotionally, which is very entwined with the physical, while also attempting to make my writing pay and not drop any of the balls that I already had in the air, is hard.

It's tiring, it's easy to lose my place, and all of the wounds that aren't healed yet are likely to reopen.

I periodically refer back to my paper, but some of the things written there are things I want, or problems I see, and some are things to do. Today I want to review the action items so I have a clearer picture of that going in.

Some of them are things I have already done. I figured out what I needed to regarding the chakras. I think I am done there, at least for now.

The idea that came with them, of building on a foundation, relates to something else I wrote. There are some words linked horizontally:

Don't cry - shame - fat - can't be loved - can't trust/Dad/driving

That's the order those things happened in, and they did build on each other. Getting over not being able to drive feels really important, but I don't feel capable of taking it on. Maybe it's because it came last, and other things need to be strengthened first before there is enough of a foundation for it.

I do have some ideas for things that would help. Bridgestone has a driving course that helps acclimate you to driving in bad weather, and there are racing classes and even stunt driving classes. I am not sure how practical some of those would be, but if I add an element of mastery to driving, where I am studying it aggressively and pushing the limits, then maybe I won't be scared on the streets. It's just something I can take on now.

Under disconnection with body I have "Reconnect", with "Physical needs met" below that, and various things that I try to do to the side. They are all self-care really, remembering to take care of my body, because it has value, and to take care of me, because I have value. Sometimes I am more in the zone than others. That one will always be ongoing.

I have a reference to old pictures, referring to the Throwback Thursdays. That's in progress, and about halfway done. The other part of that, though, will be selfies - probably daily selfies for a year. If I had a smart phone, and could just snap a picture and post it, I might start that now, or maybe take a weekly selfie and start daily ones after the last Throwback Thursday. Other people have found it helpful, and I am going to try it, but I am allowing the technical issues to delay it.

Well, the technical issues plus I am doing something else. If I get to the last Thursday (November 12th) and I still don't have a smart phone, I guess I will start taking them daily with my regular camera, but maybe I will only upload and post them weekly.

The other thing I have below that is to go through my old mission journals. I have wanted to go back and transcribe them before, but it's a big project. I feel like it will be pertinent here because as we are thinking about loneliness and trust, there may be some pertinent companion issues in my past. I can see maybe starting that in August. I came home in August 1994, so there's some symmetry there.

"Writing a fat heroine" - that is under "able to see the good", meaning to visualize a positive outcome for me as fat. I believe in the importance of representation, and I have read some powerful pieces on it, but that is something I have always held back from. Even when my heroines are really close to me personality-wise, they are always thinner. Claudia feels fat, but she isn't really; she's just not skinny.

There is a practical aspect to that, because so many stories have been set in dangerous landscapes - post-apocalyptic or not - that being spry just increases one's odds of survival. I might be good at killing giant spiders, but you've got to run and hide sometimes.

Still, while fully acknowledging that there is a lot to unravel with health and fat and attractiveness and ridiculous standards, my worth as a person is independent of my dress size, and I should be able to believe that, and believe that I am worthy of love as I am. There is an abyss between that and where I am, but it's important to traverse.

That ties in with the other thing I wrote:

"I need to get comfortable with being lonely."

It made sense when I wrote that, because I need it to not be desperate about it, and when I wrote it, it seemed impossible that it would ever change.

I'm not sure I should settle for that, but I'm not sure exactly what goes into settling or not settling. That one may have to be the last thing I work on. Except for driving.

And I am adding making a vision board to help me put it all together with the things that I want.

Band Review: Crobot

Crobot is a rock band from Pottsville, Pennsylvania.

Their song titles led me to expect them to sound more occult. Their new album, Something Supernatural, contains tracks like "The Necromancer", "La Mano de Lucifer", and "Wizards", but the overall sound is not particularly eerie. Without listening to the lyrics, the songs could just as easily be about sports or girls.

I think that's for the best. It would be easy to get weighed down trying to be spookier-than-thou, and there is a feeling that this is a band that does not take itself too seriously. That impression was reinforced by watching their Ashcroft Amp video - bassist Jake Figueroa really loves his amp.

The band also includes Paul Figueroa on drums, Bishop on guitar, and Brandon Yeagley on lead vocals and harmonica. Together they freely refer to themselves as "beardos", and yes, there is a lot of hair between them. With that and the heavy guitar, there is some sense of '70s throwback, but again, I think they are having more fun than anyone in the '70s ever did.

They do seem to take music seriously, and that comes through in hard driving rock. I have seen some good reviews of their live performances, which I totally believe. There is a level of commitment that comes through the recordings and I imagine is even more powerful on the stage.

That makes it encouraging that they have several shows scheduled for the rest of the year, with domestic and international dates. They should do well.

http://www.crobotband.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Crobotband

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/something-supernatural/id917374047?ign-mpt=uo%3D4

https://soundcloud.com/crobotband

https://twitter.com/Crobotband

Band Review: Luiz Santos

Luiz Santos was pretty disappointing. The main page plays snippets of multiple songs, and initially I thought it might be the disjointed nature of those sounds that made it impossible to get into the songs. However going to Youtube and listening to full tracks via the videos was a similarly boring experiences.

While Santos is currently based in New York City, he has ties to Brazil and the Caribbean, and references their music as well as chamber music and jazz. That sounds like it should be interesting, but it wasn't. I think the jazz comes through the most, so dedicated jazz fans may wish to check Santos out. Otherwise I can't recommend.

https://www.luizsantos.com/

https://www.facebook.com/luizsantosmusic

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

https://twitter.com/LuizSantosMusic

A sense of self and s'mores

I'm glad I wrote about the Root Chakra yesterday, because last night I saw its practical implications, and I have something coming up where I will be able to demonstrate learning, whether I choose to or not.

In my single adult calling I sometimes help with planning firesides. I was thinking ahead several months ago and I suddenly remembered Indoor S'mores. They were the s'more equivalent of Rice Krispie Treats, made with Golden Grahams, marshmallows, and chocolate chips. I decided I wanted to have those at one fireside. I will get my chance on July 19th.

These are sweets, and people are often watching their sugar intake, so you always want to have some healthier options. I like there to be connections, so I decided on deconstructed banana boats. Allow people to fill a bowl with banana slices, and there are marshmallows and chocolate chips as options to go with them, but there are also mixed nuts, Mandarin orange slices, and coconut. Customization with options should accommodate most needs.

(The orange slices are because I have done them twice before and people love them, and because my version of ambrosia salad is sliced oranges and bananas with coconut, the coconut feels like a natural addition, and the nuts are just an extra protein option.)

As luck would have it, my sisters were also asked to do a ladies night for church, where they decided to do a summer kick-off and the snacks there would also be s'mores-themed. We could trade ideas back and forth.

Their event happened last night, and they did a great job. There were some things that happened between the initial plans and last night that gave me new perspective.

One thing was that at some point Julie said something about me making the Indoor S'mores for their thing, and I asked if they were expecting that, because I don't remember them ever asking me. We could have gotten signals crossed, because I was talking about my event and they were talking about theirs, and that could be confusing.

So then I was confused, and I needed details like to know if that was all they were doing, and if they thought one pan would be enough. I'm planning on two for my thing, plus the deconstructed banana boats, but then the conversation got curtailed and she said "Never mind." It was abrupt.

I felt that I had irritated her, and a later prefix of "I know you don't care" to a different discussion about the presentation kind of backs that up. However, we have had many discussions about them taking me for granted, and there could also have been a legitimate recognition that I already have a lot to do, and they can handle their own thing. So I let that be, even though I was very tempted to just buy the ingredients and make it anyway.

The other thing was that we had a meeting for the single adults last week, and we talked about the fireside, and I said with there being a lot of slicing to do for the boats, if anyone else wanted to make the Indoor S'mores I could get them the recipe.

There are some levels of hassle here. You can't slice the bananas too much in advance or they get brown. You can't even buy them that much in advance really. Also, there is a budget for the food, but you need to buy it first, turn in your receipts, and get reimbursed, which sometimes goes slowly. So I don't want to ask anyone to do that, but no one volunteered. One of the committee members told me privately "Just make assignments." She's right, that will work, and I don't want to do it.

Come to last night. The presentation was great. My sisters know a lot about things to do around the state, and people were interested. There were no Indoor S'mores, but there were S'more Oreos (which shall hereafter be called S'moreos), chocolate chip cookies, and Malt-O-Meal's S'mores cereal - which people had not seen before and loved! It was really well-received, and my sisters did it on their own.

It was also really stressful for them, and that was where one of the realizations came in. My sisters are good at asking for things from family. Maybe it's because they are the youngest, or because they came in two and as a force, or maybe it's because we were better off financially when they were young. They can be so confident with us that I forget that outside the family they are a lot like me. It's really hard to ask other people or rely on them.

That was a good reminder. Our own quirks and insecurities can make us feel like such freaks, but actually we are all freaks, which means that none of us are freaks. We're not all in the exact same boat, but whatever boat you are in has fellow passengers.

It is also good for perspective in that I know that if they had asked me, "Gina, will you make two batches of Indoor S'mores for us?" I would have said yes. I can also see that it is probably better that it didn't happen like that. Maybe they still would have brought the cereal, but not the S'moreos. People liked what was there. There were only four chocolate chip cookies left at the end, and that was out of a lot!

I can also see that if they had asked someone else to bring cookies or something, that person probably would have said yes. My sisters would have fretted about whether the person would forget, but it would have worked out.

Am I going to make assignments for July 19th? My natural instinct is to do it all myself, but putting all of this together that would be sticking with my old patterns, which haven't necessarily been healthy. There is a chance coming up to grow, and I need to decide how to take it.

The Root Chakra

I think I figured out what I needed on the chakra thing, and it did not require doing yoga.

I can't rule out yoga happening in my future. Right now it does not do it for me, but there was a time when I couldn't stand doing aerobics tapes, and then later on that was something I liked a lot. Right now the exercise that feels best is walking outside, so I am focusing on that, but it can always change again.

I mention that because in the past I have felt this antipathy toward yoga. Given how many other people love it, and recognizing changes in my own patterns, I still have no interest in doing yoga, but I no longer have scorn for it.

The chakra thing was something else. It did go with the idea I had of a sequence where things properly lead to each other. Ultimately I kept feeling drawn to that one page: http://www.eclecticenergies.com

I would go through different sections, and feel a need to dig further. It was in the introduction that it finally clicked. The root of the problem was the Root Chakra.

The first time I landed on the page (searching for something else), it was on the exercises for opening the chakras. It said not to do the meditation for the Crown Chakra unless you have a strong Root Chakra, so there was always this idea of a necessary foundation. I have also been thinking about the spine more, which has its own principles of alignment and support.

I thought it would be about sex. The Root Chakra is located in the perineum, an area that seems like it would relate to that, and I have never denied that there are some frustrations to chastity when you remain continually unattached.

(Sexuality relates to the Sacral Chakra, which is located in the pelvis. That also makes sense.)

The Root Chakra is about being grounded, rooted, and physically there. It is about knowing you have a right to be here.

That has been a hard one for me. It is part of the overfunctioning - trying so hard to earn a place, so it is worthwhile for other people to have you around. "You don't unnecessarily distrust people." Not trusting is unnecessary?

What became clear was how hard it is for anything else to be okay if you can't even accept your basic right to be present. How do you let your feelings flow? How do you assert yourself? How can you be unguarded in your affection?

Working the way upward, the things that don't relate as much to the group and physical world - art and fantasy and intellectualizing things - are overactive, because they're safer and that's what you use to compensate.

I am better at asserting myself for other people. I have seen that and identified that years ago. I figured out years ago that those times when I didn't go after something I wanted and I got mad at myself for being scared or lazy, that I wasn't really scared or lazy as much as I didn't feel like I deserved what I wanted. All of that is such old news, and yet I still need it. I still need to remember that I have value and belong here.

So do I start doing affirmations now? I am not sure. There are some at http://www.chakra-anatomy.com/root-chakra.html.

Mainly I guess I just need to keep reminding myself, because I am prone to forget.

My most offensive blog post ever!

Some of you may not find this post that offensive, but I assure you that when I broach the subject with people I know, they get defensive. Like most situations when this happens, I know I'm right.

The last time it came up was in February. I was so irritated, and heard the usual defenses, and I decided the best thing to do was wait a few months and then blog about it. If I start noticing a lot of glares coming my way at church, I will know the post got passed around.

There is a very popular dance class in this area. It often seems like every family with a daughter in the stake has her in this class. I first became aware of it when I attended a luncheon for senior sisters. (A few not-senior sisters were asked to go to help the seniors get there.)

The entertainment was the dance class, like this was a recital for them. The first thing I noticed was a distinct lack of choreography. You know what there was no lack of? Costume changes!

That bothered me. If I were sending my child to dance classes, I would want her to learn some moves. I mentioned this, and everyone has the same answer. This is a free dance class. They actually spend more time dancing than they would if they were learning regular dance routines, because then they would be broken down into groups, and each group would probably only perform one number.

Seriously, everyone says this in pretty much the same way, so that must be the spiel that they are given. I tried to accept that. After all, movement is good, so this class gives them opportunities for exercise and socialization. I can support that. Then I saw them perform again.

Part of the context is that I had recently attended an adult talent show, and while it was a good experience it appeared that some people had not rehearsed or prepared very much, including choosing to sing a cappella rather than dealing with an accompanist.

Okay, these are busy adults, and it was good for them to get the chance to share something again. Also, no one individual act took that long. I can make some allowances.

The little girls prepare. They have practices. They have music. They have seven costume changes! They just don't have routines.

I mean, there is kind of an idea of tapping your foot here or circling there, but as simple as it is, they are still looking at the teacher who is motioning from the side, and some do kind of wander the floor in a daze.

I admit to being impressed that there aren't more collisions, given how little of an idea any of them seem to have of what they should be doing in a given moment. Some of this may be due to the presence of older students too, but I kind of felt like the older students should be embarrassed. If at this age you decide that you still like dancing, isn't it time to look for a real class? Shouldn't you be learning something by now?

(This is not getting into the fact that one song was written by the teacher's grandmother about herself, which seemed a little egotistical, or the absolutely ridiculous segment about flowers - whole living flowers instead of petals or seeds or something that wouldn't be killed by being uprooted - getting blown up onto the mountain by harsh winds, being in danger from the dark, and then being blown back down.)

I can totally conceive having the first few months be mainly free dance with a few moves taught, and letting the children improvise with each new move, but as you start getting closer to the big performance, maybe this is a good time to learn an actual routine. Maybe you do break into groups at this point. Yes, that means that not every single girl gets to be a pirate and a butterfly and a flower and a snowflake and a fairy and a princess, but that's actually the part that bugs me the most.

They aren't learning complicated routines or moves of increasing difficulty, so the thing that differentiates one number from the next is the costumes. And they are cute costumes, and they are cute little girls all together, but when more attention is put into the costumes than the routines, what does this teach them? Your job is to look cute. We neither expect nor want anything else of you.

What a wonderful message for young girls! I could not be happier with that. Sure, it will suck a little when they hit their awkward stages, or they end up not being that cute compared to other girls around them, or when while they are in fact cute, they do not believe that they are - I mean, that never happens!

The odds of them becoming professional dancers were low anyway, but so are the odds of being professionally cute, and a lot of those professions are kind of demeaning. Yeah, but they dance more than they would in an actual dance class!

So, fine - I'm the mean, childless, grouchy spinster, but I will take it. I get that it's not ballet. I get that it's free form by design. Lack of comprehension of the philosophy is not my problem. I concede that it's helpful for the local craft and fabric stores.

I remain convinced that it sucks.