DVR Results: Comedies

Actually, I am not sure that most of these would be straight comedies or dramas, as you could classify the dramas especially as action shows or sci-fi/fantasy shows instead. Between comedy and drama, I like a mix. Most of these shows, especially Grimm and Person of Interest, have healthy doses of humor, and while Scrubs was classified as a sitcom, it would often hit hard emotionally. But that’s how I roll. I have a serious life, perceived humorously as much as possible. So really, it’s the half-hour show and the hour shows, and we are starting with the half-hour shows.

The big winner here is Big Bang Theory. It is funny, and I do enjoy it, but the real source of its victory is that my family likes it. Mom looks forward to it, and is fascinated by Sheldon (never having had a kid quite that weird, I guess), and Julie and Maria seriously cackle with laughter at it. It is easier to have something that the whole family likes. Generally, they think I like weird stuff. (They may have a point.Just to give you a baseline, sitcoms I have loved in the past include Frasier, News Radio, and Scrubs.)

Of the others that I have been checking out, my favorite has been Modern Family. Continuing with the weird animal analogies for our laughter, this one makes me bark like a seal—in that the laughs come from places that I am generally not expecting, and so there are these unexpected sharp bursts of laughter. I can’t define why it appeals to me so much, but it does. The first episode I saw was “Fizzbo”, and I have not loved any of them quite as much as that (good leadup, good payoff, and good handling of clown issues), but still every episode has had some laughs and also some emotional depth.

Parks and Recreation: I think this one has a good chance of making it on to the family watching list also, due to Rob Lowe. My sisters and I recently read his memoir, and their love for him was firmly cemented by it, so I have actually heard one of them say that they need to try watching it. I love his utter dorkiness, but I suspect my favorite characters will be April and Andy. And Champion, of course. I am not loving the election storyline, and I can see that the subject matter may not appeal to me as strongly.

Community: This has moments that I really appreciate, but I think is being handicapped on two levels. One is that by my somewhat random pattern of recording, I seem to keep missing the strongest episodes, and getting the ones that people don’t like quite as much. The other, though, is that I think this might be a show where joining late is more of a handicap, where a deeper familiarity really enhances the enjoyment. I’m not opposed to going there, and I definitely do wish them six seasons and a movie, even if I am not watching. (And no, I did not see that episode either.)

30 Rock: This one is not new to me, as I have watched it before, and sometimes I love it and sometimes it doesn’t do that much for me. I am glad when it is brilliant, but there’s no way of knowing in advance.

That just leaves Portlandia. Portlandia was pretty disappointing. There were good bits. The Battlestar Galactica bits were great. Wanting to watch “just one more” is something I totally get, I loved the Moores, and getting in Edward James Olmos, Jamie Callis, and the real Ronald D. Moore is just a coup. Also, the punchline with starting in on Doctor Who was a perfect ending. I need to give major props to that episode. Also, I found the one couple’s trip to the wedding planner, breakdown during rehearsal, and the divvying up of friends that resulted in reconciliation over a Pub Quiz memory and basketball tip off wedding to be funny and touching and pretty Portland. The opening bit for that one show where everyone was a DJ, yeah, I can totally see that happening. Oh, and I adore Kyle McLachlan as Mayor, even if I am totally burned out on Sam Adams.

The only problem is that there’s a lot more to the show, and I basically just covered everything I like. I was surprised to find my mother laughing more than I did, and it wasn’t that she got the stereotypes that they were mocking—she was just laughing at people being idiots.

I remember when I read the first review of the show, and that complaint was that the punchline for pretty much every skit was someone freaking out over something, when I tend to think of us as really kind of mellow out here. Some of it may be perspective, because I do not actually live in Portland—I’m out in the suburbs and commute in. Most of my time here I spend in downtown and some in Oldtown, and they are in different areas for their filming usually, so maybe in some areas people do freak out more, and I just don’t know it.

However, it was more that a lot of the ideas sounded funny, but then the execution was not. I get the idea of an adult Hide and Seek team or Scavenger Hunt team with a really short guy giving them the advantage being funny, but then they weren’t. I’m glad I finally saw the first episode, because since I heard about it I would sometimes think “If you liked it then you should have put a bird on it” (to the tune of Single Ladies), and the opening bit when they are putting birds on everything is kind of funny, and then the idea that they would find a real bird completely repulsive is also somewhat funny, but again, Mom laughed pretty hard and I got annoyed.

See how much easier it is to explain why you don’t like something than why you do? Maybe I should use the summer to catch up on the first few seasons of Community.

The new DVR line-up

First of all, let me say how much I love my DVR. Having many years of working late shifts, I missed a lot of shows, and I can see now that often the shows I got into were primarily dictated by my work schedule. It’s nice to not have that as a factor, and even nicer to be able to fast forward commercials.

Having the DVR is a fairly recent development for us, but it has seen many different configurations since that time. I think the first thing we started recording regularly was Jeopardy!, followed by The Bold and The Beautiful. (That was originally for Mom, and then I kind of started watching it because my mother and all my aunts watched it, and then Julie and Maria got into it, and then it started getting so stupid that we had to give it up. I mean, it was always kind of stupid, but it has found crazy new lows to that stupidity.)

We did record new episodes of SVU, which we gave up, and we used the magic of DVR to record and watch every single King of the Hill episode. (Well, Julie and I did. Maria had a bad experience with a Texan that has hampered her enjoyment of the series.). We still have a handful of favorite episodes on tap for that.

We also used the DVR to watch A-Team episodes, first via BET and then through Centric. However, we have acquired DVDs for seasons 1-4 (5 sucked, but we may still pick it up for completeness sake), and this is better. First of all it does not take up precious DVR space, but also, what they air now has clips missing, and going back with the DVDs and seeing scenes that we remembered but have not seen since the 80’s has been pretty cool.  We are currently recording reruns of the Jack Benny show for the same reason.

I suppose to some extent it took us a while to get used to the technology, and start using it more. I have never been an early adopter. I guess it was partly a combination of increased familiarity, but also that there were shows that I kept reading about, and thinking I might like, but was not available to watch. I ended up setting up several season passes.

I can blame a lot of it on Television Without Pity. I would read recaps of shows, and think they sounded good, but sometimes even with shows that they did not recap, I would read in the forums, and see if they sounded good. Sometimes it’s just easier to read about television than to watch it. I know a lot about a lot of shows that I have never watched. But sometimes, you want to.

I was interested in both of the fairy tale shows, so I started recording both Once Upon a Time and Grimm. I thought I would be more interested in Once Upon a Time, but, while I like it a lot, I do prefer Grimm. At the time, even though I did not realize how much I would love it, part of recording Grimm was Portland loyalty, and that made me think I should also be recording Leverage and Portlandia. I also threw in Alcatraz and Person of Interest. (I have been recording White Collar for a while now.)

Now, that is already a lot of television, but it is pretty much all drama and action shows, with the exception of Portlandia. There were sitcoms that sounded good too. I have not set up any season passes, but I have at times recorded episodes of Community, Modern Family, and Parks and Recreation, (and sometimes 30 Rock, which I have watched before). Also, in Mexico my sisters became addicted to Big Bang Theory, and Maria will often record episodes of that.

That’s an awful lot of television. There was no way it could hold. In our next post, we’ll go over who made the cut.

10 reasons you should be watching Grimm

As I mentioned yesterday, my new procedural show is Grimm. I admit it is not your standard procedural show, due to the supernatural element, but it still works for me. The police have been shown as dedicated professionals, and they basically get a case, investigate, and seek resolution. If one of the detectives happens to be able to see things his partner can’t, and therefore discusses them with a very knowledgeable civilian who is familiar with aspects of that world, it is handled well. (Nick is starting to get some shades of grey now when there are Grimm things that do not fit well within the world of police work, and Renard makes some really questionable calls, but they are both good at their jobs.)
 

Just in case you have not already joined me in recognizing the superiority of this show, allow me to give you some reasons why you should be watching Grimm.

1.       Portland: Okay, some of that is local girl loyalty, and seeing familiar places does add an element of interest, but there is much more to it. First of all, it is different. We already see plenty of New York (or Toronto) and Los Angeles, but you can get some additional richness by branching out, and the mossy, timbered, primeval nature of Portland fits well with a world where a surprising amount of the population is part woodland creature.

2.       The expanded population: I really love those beavers, but the medical examiner is good too, and really, there are not many guest stars that I would not mind seeing again. Actually, I hope we see the priest again—I feel like there’s a lot more to know.

3.       The layers: Add there being “more to know” to a lot of things actually. Grimm is an intelligent show that trusts the viewers to have some intelligence too. Things aren’t always spelled out for you. Sometimes they are obvious with a little thinking, and sometimes they leave intriguing questions.

4.       They’re getting better about the women: Concerns were expressed early on about the heavily male cast, and Bitsie Tulloch’s character, Juliette, being underused. I think that was reasonable. The show is centered on Nick, and the cases he encounters, so more time was naturally spent between his official partner, Hank, and his unofficial consultant, Monroe. Also, they were leaving things vague with Juliette to allow freedom for future plot twists, but I think it hampered the character and the actress. That being said, they are giving Juliette more interesting things to do, she is handling some difficult situations quite well, and Bree Turner’s new recurring character, Rosalee, is awesome.

5.       The optimistic worldview: Suddenly finding out that your family legacy is to see the true faces of supernatural characters, and all the responsibility that entails, can be pretty difficult, and Nick’s Aunt Marie referred to it as the family curse. However, Nick is taking it in stride, and finding rewards in it. He has made new friendships and is better able to solve many cases. It’s not that things are problem-free, or that worse complications are not coming, but there is still a lot of good in the world. Comparing it to the X-files, it was an intelligent, interesting show, but pretty much every episode was a bummer. Grimm is a better world.

6.       Not gratuitous: There have been some nasty visuals, and usually you are starting with a dead body, but they then move on without being too squicky. In addition, it does not wallow in the fetishized erotic misogyny so common to horror. Before I started watching we were seeing an ad campaign in Mexico that was all lingerie-clad dead women, so I had concerns, but they have not been necessary. I know these things don’t matter to everyone, but I find it refreshing. And, if that’s what you want, you are probably watching cable.

7.     Respect for the actors: I am about to single out three of the actors, and that makes me feel guilty for not singling out all of them, which basically means guilt over not saying something specific about Russell Hornsby (Hank) and Reggie Lee (Wu), so now I have. Seriously though, I enjoy both characters a lot, and one thing I remember reading was that the writers allowed the actors to influence their characters, and let their own personalities shine through. That sort of mutual appreciation and collaboration is producing really good results, and well-written characters portrayed by good actors is good stuff, leading to the next three.

8.     Sasha Roiz (Renard): It has been really interesting to watch where this character is going. Initially I saw a heroic side, where he would come through for things that were important, and now in retrospect it looks like maybe what is important has always basically been self-interest, but Roiz really sells it, and he is not afraid to go out on a limb (as is especially evident watching “Three Coins in a Fuchsbau).

9.     Silas Weir Mitchell (Monroe): This is my favorite character of Mitchell’s by far, and I loved Crazy-Eyed Donnie from My Name is Earl. It is especially fun in that for an actor who has so frequently done mentally unbalanced and skeevy, Monroe is such a contrast. He charmingly quirky, but he is also intelligent, disciplined, principled, and sane. His interactions with Nick are some of the most enjoyable parts of a really enjoyable show.

10.  David Giuntoli (Nick): What a find! It may have seemed like a gamble to some casting a relative unknown as the series lead, but he creates such a warm, relatable everyman. I loved his recent interaction with the Eisbiebers where Nick told Bud he was brave for coming back to Nick and giving gifts. Some watchers saw this as self-serving, because it gets Nick free pie without really requiring much courage, but Nick was trying to help Bud find his courage, and did not have much to work with, and it worked. This conveys intelligence and caring, but he also pulled it off due to considerable charisma, as you could kind of see Bud and his friends all developing little man-crushes on Nick. Without being an overly perfect character, Nick is always likable and relatable. He is perfect as the heart of the show.

The season finale is this Friday night, but you can start watching the reruns and be all caught up for fall. What are you waiting for?

Requiem for SVU

I had seen various episodes of the original Law & Order at various times, and always found it interesting, but I never felt compelled to watch it. I fell in love with Special Victims Unit sometime around 2004. I think I saw the preview for “Mean”, and watched and was hooked.

I have always kind of been into law and psychology anyway, but those still come up in the other versions, and they didn’t affect me the same way. I think the cast had great chemistry. I ended up liking all of the characters, including minor recurring characters. I would be impressed with how they would capture behaviors that I knew real criminals would do. I just thought it was a great show.

I started watching regularly, and as it started being on all weekend with syndicated reruns, the whole family got into it. And really, from 2004 to fairly recently, it was a pretty good run. At some point, things just started getting stupid.

I know that with the franchise you expect a twist, and sometimes reaching for that twist involves some contortion, but then sometimes the result is multiple ludicrous twists, and it feels cheap. After watching “Bang” (John Stamos as a father of forty kids across New York and Europe), it is impossible not to feel that the showrunner learned about reproductive abusers and wasp knives on the same day. That sort of dart throwing does not automatically result in high-quality television.

In addition, they kept making the cops worse. The series used to thrive on realism—even if it was more dramatic than real life, it was still grounded. There were two episodes in a row where people were killed in the station. Actually, a lot of people have been killed in custody or committed suicide with cops right there or gotten trash-compacted while running away. When Julie Hagerty killed herself in front of Finn in “Careless”, it really punched you in the gut. Do that all the time, though, and it loses emotional resonance. And if you are doing it to avoid trials because you are having a hard time coming up with a new ADA, well, that’s just lazy.

The worst thing is, it makes the cops look bad. For years we have been seeing them as super competent and dedicated, and then a guy gets pulled off of a building by his crazy stalker because they started playing mind games with her without thinking about blocking off roof access. Really?

About the time it started going downhill, I started noticing the name Speed Weed in the credits. I don’t know that it is his fault, or really anything about him other than the insistence of various people that it is his real name, but it is hard not to watch those episodes and see that name and not think that there is some kind of a drugs killing brain cells situation going on.

Watching the show was starting to feel like a chore, which we had not quite given up completely, but when Chris Meloni left, so did we. We did watch the season premiere without him, and loving the other actors just isn’t enough. Sometimes maybe it is a mercy to good actors to not watch them with bad material. And there are actually some good shows around now.

Goodbye SVU. We will always have Wrong is Right, Weak, Families, Tragedy, Coerced, Lowdown, and Haunted. I’m getting my procedural fix from Grimm now, but I only started watching it after we had already broken up.

I don’t have to like the Duggars

One key difference between Maria and I relates to opinion. It is not that we are not equally opinionated, or even that our opinions tend to be that different, but she tends to be a bit more impulsive and vocal. Part of what this means is that if there is something she does not like, she will feel the need to state that every time it comes up, just in case we have forgotten. Also, sometimes she will hear something, and have a strong reaction which is immediately posted on Facebook, and may set off a small firestorm, whereas if I do that I have thought about it carefully before posting. (Julie is somewhere in between.)

The genesis of this blog was a wall posting where Maria had said something about the Duggars. I believe it was that they made her want to vomit. It elicited a strong response. I don’t think I commented, but I did think about it a lot, and I guess I saved those thoughts up. It is not that if you are pro-Duggar you will not be offended by this post—you very well could be—but I am trying to make it measured and reasoned, and there will be no vomit.

Part of my thinking on it so much is because often it is acquaintances from church who have the strongest reactions, and I believe their reasons for being pro-Duggar are fallacious, and bad thinking is pretty much my nemesis, so I was always going to have to weigh in sooner or later.

The common defenses are that they are a happy loving family, with clean, polite kids, and that no one is helping to support them. Keeping kids clean with no outside support is setting the bar pretty low, actually. Happy, loving, and polite are better accomplishments, though there may be some asterisks. I wanted to mention the clean, though, because it comes up so much.

I also need to disagree with the no outside support part. Sure, they are not on welfare, and that is great, but they are making money on that show.  Estimates have a pretty broad range, but even if it is the low estimate of $40K per episode, that comes to a huge amount of money, plus it provides a market for the books and DVDs. I know it’s a lot of people, but I could manage, especially since they seem to be pretty cheap. Also, various expenses get underwritten by TLC. In my view, this money comes from exploiting the children, so it’s not really so much nobler than welfare. I admit to a strong distaste for reality TV anyway, but I feel better about fame-hungry adults choosing it than greedy parents getting children into it who do not grasp the full ramifications.

These may not be the strongest refutations of the praise that people give the Duggars, but my main concern is what I perceive as the reasons people praise the Duggars. The most vociferous ones tend to be religious and have big families, and I think they feel sensitive about this, so I get it, but they are missing some key points.

First of all, there is not really that much similarity. On average, they have between 5 and 7 kids. Yes, that is a large family, and there are people who will look askance at you for that, but 19 kids? That is three large families. That is something completely different.

Also, there is this idea that LDS people believe in having large families, but that is not exactly right. What we are told constantly is that the family, which is eternal, is more important than material things or fame or prestige. So deciding to only have one child so they could have private schools and European vacations and Mom and Dad can both drive fancy cars would seem like a clearly wrong choice, just like focusing so much on rising in your career that you never saw your family would be bad. We are advised not to put off things just for the purpose of more money. (A three year engagement so your wedding could be the social event of the year would also be ill-advised.)

Still, with all of that being said, no one is saying have a lot of kids. There is a lot about making these decisions prayerfully, and with good values in mind, but there is generally this understanding that it is going to be highly personalized. This includes understanding that it is not solely an issue of financial resources, but also of mental and emotional and physical resources. One thing that I have heard from two friends recently (one a mother of two and one a mother of six) is that there is a trade-off with additional kids. You do have finite time, that you are dividing, so the mother of six has to let some things go, and she can do a good job of that or a bad job, but it is different.

Now, one could argue that the Duggars reached their decision on family size based on revelation, because after all, it came from a pregnancy that started and then was miscarried while the wife was on birth control, and that is why they know that they should never use birth control ever. There are so many problems with this.

First of all, and I say this as a religious and spiritual person who is always looking for meaning, it is not helpful to think of God as the micromanager of your life, always looking to stick it to you when you step out of bounds. If life worked that way, there would be less need for faith, and less choice. Yes, everything does happen for a reason, but sometimes that reason is that a specific person is a jerk, or chemicals becoming a part of the environment, or carelessness on an assembly line.

So let’s say there is a message in the pregnancy and miscarriage, it could merely be that her body does not respond well to this medication. It could be that they should not be putting off having children at that time. It does not have to automatically mean that they can never use any type of birth control ever again, not even the rhythm method, and must just spit out the kids as fast as they come.

I remember reading a column by Leonard Pitts once about people who had felt called of God to do certain things, usually something where they gave up lucrative careers for ones where they could be of more service, and one thing he pointed out was that they had a lot of doubt, and they had to ask more than once. (It was contrasted with an abortion related killing, I think predating Tiller, but I don’t remember, but that person was absolutely certain that they were doing God’s will.)

There is doubt and questioning, where you pray more, and maybe your original understanding is changed—not necessarily that you were wrong, but you are picking up different nuances and a deeper understanding. I have had clear, unequivocal instructions once, to go on a mission, but even then, while it was something that would affect my entire life, it was also something fairly finite. I knew I would go when I was twenty-one (which was seven months away), I knew I would go for 18 months (because that’s how it works), and I needed a firm direction because I had been really trying to avoid hearing it. That worked out. Most of the time though, it is reasonable to check back, and okay to modify.

The Duggars have stuck with their original plan, which is probably not great on Michelle’s body, and which may indicate that the children are not getting nursed for as long as would be ideal (maybe she’s just super-fertile), and half of the children are caretakers of the other half. Now, I am all for children taking responsibility and helping around the house, which I think is very important, but looking at pictures and how young they look, that looks too young to be in charge of a child so young, or to be in the care of a child only a few years older.

In addition, I am dubious about the home schooling. I know it is something that can be done well, but I also know one family that claimed they did it because their child was too smart and bored to do well at school. No, your child is lazy. This does not mean he is not smart—that could be how he got lazy (trust me; I know this one)—but catering to it is not the answer. Try a Montessori program or something to increase challenges. Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, was first exposed to the HeLa line in a PCC class that she was in because she did need more challenges.

I’m not saying that there are not specific cases where home schooling, especially for a limited time, might not be beneficial to a child, but most people seem to use it as a way to try and keep their children from being contaminated by the world. I find this distasteful because the riff-raff are children of God too, and there is much that is beautiful and good in the least of us, but I also find it stupid. In much the same way that vaccinations build immunity by some exposure, being familiar with the rough edges of life in childhood, while still somewhat sheltered, can make you a healthier adult. There are young people that I think are going to fall off the rails spectacularly at some point, because they have no preparation for different viewpoints, or seeing forbidden fruit that looks delicious and is really being enjoyed by those partaking, and it’s tragic.

The other concern that I have is that the politeness might be more a matter of lack of personality and free will, especially for the girls. This is a somewhat instinctive, but religion does often tend this way, especially this type, and other things I have read, like a sick pregnant woman (daughter in law) still having to go on an awful tour, and bits you read here and there, and the behavior of other fundamentalist home schoolers, and yeah, I am not down with this. To be fair, I don’t think my parents specifically tried to make me the independent individual I am today (Dad hasn’t been too pleased, as far as I can tell), but of all the things I dislike about myself, that is one I am really okay with, and I can do a lot more, and be much more useful to my fellow man because of it.

So there it is. There is no vomit, and nothing about world overpopulation, just a general sense of unease and distaste. I don’t think they are evil, but I don’t like them, and I don’t have to like them. I am confident about that.

Twitter-sated, and what comes next?

My, that has felt productive. I mean, it didn’t go the way I expected, because I really thought I was just going to learn and write about music, and then move on to television. Suddenly it morphed into feminism and fertility. However, I feel like I am writing better. I am better at organizing and focusing, even if what that means is 14 regular posts rather than three monstrously long ones.

Also, I have a way for the fertility to get me back into television. (That statement seems open to misinterpretation.) There will probably be some more music posts when I finish the comments on the 100 greatest guitar songs, but I am not very far in yet. So far I’m not that impressed with Pavement, but I’m digging Dinosaur Jr. Then there should be more personal stuff, and I will probably get into politics again because I can’t seem to help that.

Well, it will have to wait, because tomorrow I am taking off on vacation. Most of the family is taking a cruise up to Alaska. I love being on boats. With a large ship you are not quite as close to the water, but I still expect to enjoy it, and frankly, I could use a break.

I still intend to be productive. My sisters and I will be exercising daily, I want to start my Black History Month reading, and watch some DVDs I have had lying around forever. Also I want to write a screenplay during the vacation. This would require writing about 14 pages a day, which is quite doable, if I can get the laptop up and running and find a story that I am ready to roll on. I’m curious about whether I will be able to pull it off myself.

(Funny story about the reading—a friend had posted to grab the book nearest to you, open to page 45, and the first line describes your sex life for the next year. I had just gotten the first of my planned books from the library. It’s about the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment. Good thing I’m chaste.)

Often when we head out on vacation, my sisters will buy a People and some other magazines that we don’t normally read, but that work for vacation. I am always so behind on my magazines (Smithsonian, Shape, and Psychology Today) that I do not need to make any purchases—I just try and get a little caught up. This time though, I am buying a Rolling Stone, and wondering if I could or should aspire to writing for it. I mean, I have enjoyed blogging about music, maybe I should look into that, but to some extent I also question whether it is possible to write meaningfully and usefully about music, or if such a thing would happen in Rolling Stone.

I do not know if we will have internet access while we are gone, so I do not anticipate posting while at sea. I am probably wrapping up my Twitter experiment here, with posting the blog links with hash tags.

Incidentally, while I was doing this Blogger changed their layout, and after the initial adjustment, I like it. You can see the number of hits for each individual post, though I still use Analytics to see traffic sources. It hasn’t been as helpful as I’ve hoped.

For one thing, the amount of traffic does seem to have risen somewhat, but apparently only three hits have come from Twitter, so I am mystified where it is coming from. Also, I feel bad for the posts with low view counts, and again, no idea why one post has only six hits and another gets 35. Also, there always seems to be about six hits that come during the middle of the night, which seems odd to me. I don’t think Blogger can track anything that comes from Networked Blogs. If it does, it does not show it as a source, and there aren’t really that many hits from Facebook. It’s all still a total mystery to me.

Now, the experiment has not been without worth, because twice this month I have mentioned messing around with Twitter, and people’s eyes have gotten all big and they have wanted to know more, so now I am a Twitter tutor, which is pretty good progress. Always glad to be of service.

Now I am going to ask for your input, and see what you can tell me.

First of all, there is a contest. If you can guess what the next blog post will be about (with the hints of television and fertility), I will proclaim you smart on Facebook AND Twitter. You would have to guess before I post and before I publish a comment with someone else’s accurate guess, but if I find multiple comments with correct guesses, I will proclaim multiple people smart. I don’t have a problem with that.

The other thing I want to know is how you get here. What first brought you, and then if you are returning if you do it by linking directly or a bookmark, time of day, and if you ever pass it on to anyone, and anything else you think I should know. My thought is that I would publish these comments because it could be interesting, but if you don’t want it published, just say so.

Obviously if there are people who come to the page and don’t read it, they’re not going to comment, but if this is your first read, and you believe it will be your last visit, I would still love to hear from you. And it is possible to leave comments anonymously, so that’s fine too.

One problem with my mind is that once a question is raised, I have a hard time letting go of it without an answer, and so now I am wondering in a recurring loop. You can help relieve my aching brain. Thank you.

Why yes, Rush Limbaugh IS a big, fat idiot

I should clarify that I am calling his idiocy fat, as I don’t really feel comfortable criticizing someone else’s weight problem.

Anyway, talking about women, and women’s problems, it feels like a good time to address the debate over birth control, and the whole Rush Limbaugh/Sandra Fluke issue.

One aspect of the whole flare-up that dismayed me was the unnecessary ignorance. People were making comments that were oblivious to the facts, and the facts were really easy to find. Locating the transcript of Sandra Fluke’s testimony was quite easy, and reading it was not a huge commitment, as it wasn’t that long. People just didn’t.

I mean, in terms of Rush thinking that needing to take a pill daily means that you are having lots and lots of sex, I almost think that has to be hyperbole rather than something he actually believes, because come on! The mechanics of the pill were not only taught in sex education, but have been referenced in movies and standup comedy acts and it’s just really well known. I’m not saying that he can’t be that stupid, but maybe he was just being dramatic.

(I will cut Rush some slack here, because based on my understanding of him, no one has ever really expected him to be informed, reasonable, polite, dignified, or respectful at any point before, so that was probably rather a rude awakening.)

What bothered me more were the comments about one of the examples that she gave. It is pretty well known. She has a friend who had polycystic ovarian syndrome, and needed the pill to control that. Her doctor confirmed the illness, which technically meant it was covered, but her insurer kept denying the claim because they said she wanted it for pregnancy protection. Well, she was a lesbian, so her risk of accidental pregnancy was quite low. Her risk of complications from the initial problem was high, though, and she did end up needing her ovary removed, involving a lot of pain, disrupting her final exams, and leading to early menopause.

Comments focused on how if it wasn’t for pregnancy it would be covered, on why she wasn’t there herself, and whether it was really that expensive. All of that was covered in the transcript. Now, if you want to doubt the veracity of Fluke’s testimony, that’s one thing, but at least read it first.

Incidentally, she also gave an example of a married student, where she and her husband had to give up birth control because they could not afford it. The rhythm method is less effective, but it’s free. And yes, married women use birth control too—it’s not just for sluts. And having some control over when the children come is one of the most valuable things for a woman’s health and economic welfare, so that seems like it might be kind of important, but apparently not.

I’ve been pretty clear before that my big negative triggers are meanness and stupidity, and this entire debate just has a lot of both. First of all, let’s look at the cost. Based on Fluke’s testimony, the cost of birth control during law school (I assume four years) comes to about $3000. Her friend would have had an emergency room visit, surgery, and then hormone replacement for the early menopause. I bet that cost more.

Let’s consider the bill to require it being paid for. Okay, some employers have religious objections. Fine, the insurers will cover it. Nope, still no good. That just makes it too easy for women, those sluts and baby-making machines.

I guess the thing I hate most about the right is how ardently they put me into disagreement with things I believe. I’m chaste, okay? I am saving myself for marriage, which will probably never happen, and my insides are working correctly, so I will probably never personally benefit from birth control being covered. It still should be. It makes an important difference to a lot of real people who are not simple stereotypes.

And hey, as long as we’re on the topic, based on my religious beliefs, if as the person that I am, I got pregnant from a rape so horrific that Bill Napoli (that’s a few years old now, but look it up if you don’t remember) himself could not imagine it, I would probably still choose not to have an abortion, but the key words are “I” and “choose”. And I would pray and talk to my bishop and figure it out, but it would still be my choice and it’s no one else’s business.

So this is where I am, seething because there are people who want to take away my right to do things that I will never do, and many of them are probably doing things that I would not do, based on the amount of elected and appointed officials who end up in prostitution scandals.

Okay, so Limbaugh lost advertisers, and Beck had to switch to a smaller format, so maybe that could be a sign that we are moving towards a more respectful society, with less appetite for spewing, but look at the other things that have come up. Terry England compares women to cows and chickens, Foster Friess wants women to hold an aspirin in between their knees, and Pete Hoekstra calls the Ledbetter Act a nuisance. I know, different battles, but kind of the same, and facing the same problems.

 
So, again, women need to support each other. Part of that means not judging each other, but part of that is also knowing that someone who promotes moral behavior, but does so at the expense of the poor and the disenfranchised, has something seriously missing from their morals. It’s not that chastity isn’t important, but it’s easier to teach than kindness. If you have someone who’s missing charity, it doesn’t really matter what else they do have.

Post-feminism

I don’t really remember much about the feminist movement. I suspect that episode of the Brady Bunch where Marcia became a scout and Peter became a sunflower girl was somehow connected, but it falls in that period where I was alive but not politically aware, and it is too recent to really get covered in school.

While you certainly see women doing all types of jobs now, they usually do it earning 80% less than men. This is not good for women, but it is not particularly good for men either. One twisted Romney claim is that Obama has been bad for women, because 92% of the people who lost their jobs during his presidency were women. Barring the question of whether job losses during the first few months of his presidency can be blamed on him, the real issue is that most of the men who lost their jobs had already done so before he was sworn in. This is largely because they made more, so they were let go first. (So if men feel threatened by the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, they should rethink that.)

I think another good illustration is the discussion over Elena Kagan’s sexual orientation when she was being appointed to the Supreme Court. Since she was single and played softball and was not good-looking, of course that meant she was a lesbian. It was a stupid and pointless thing, but I remember thinking at the time that it was the new normal that women who want to really rise to the top of their field generally need to choose between family or career. As we already covered, it is not choosing whether to work or not, because even when you choose family work is often necessary, but you may be choosing to accept lower pay and prestige.

Finally, let us look at the many, many examples of schlubby guys on television with hot girls. We don’t see the reverse very often. Hairspray is really more groundbreaking than you would initially think. In crude terms, if I can’t have George Clooney, then I object to Jim Belushi getting Courtney Thorne-Smith.

Actually, I don’t care about that last part that much, but remember, the reason I headed down this path anyway is thinking about Lindsey Lohan. What happens when you give a child the trappings of an artistic career, but without the discipline and the passion and the skill? Their skill is cuteness, and their product is celebrity. What does this do? Of course when all else fails the next step is posing in Playboy—what else does she have to offer? And I think about this, and read about the reaction to Ashley Judd’s puffy face, and then I wonder if the reason Amanda Bynes quit acting, and then started again, and then got a DUI, is because she has a rounder face where it is easy to look fat, even when she isn’t, and she just couldn’t take the pressure.

I think I would be sick with worry if I had daughters. I don’t, but I have friends who do, and I see girls at church and on the bus, and I care.

The answer to most things is that we need better people, and that is also hard to come by, but these are things that I would propose as common ground for all women, and for all people.

First, fair wages ends up being good for everyone, even the corporations that gain a consumer base with disposable income. (Trickle-down economics was never really viable, but money will flow up.)

Second, families are important. Children are important. Helping children grow up into good adults with a knowledge of the world, and skills, is important. There should be high expectations on those who work towards this, parents and teachers alike, but there should also be high appreciation.

Three, don’t be tearing other people down. I realize these could all apply to anyone, but maybe women do need to hear it more. One observation I have made about jealousy is that it only happens when you are insecure about something. The fact that one person has something is generally not the reason that you don’t have it. The most destructive people I have known have been really unhappy, and that is not the best way of dealing with it.

So get rid of the guilt. If you feel guilty about working, or staying at home, look at the decision again, and if that is really the best one, put the guilt away. If it is not the best decision, and you can do better, go do it, and then put the guilt away. I’m not saying that glibly. I know it’s not easy, but when I focus on doing the right thing, and don’t worry about other opinions, I am much more happy and sane.

Get rid of your fixed ideas about beauty. There are actually a lot of different types. For me, if I like you, I can’t really think that you are ugly, and if I don’t like you, it’s hard for me to remember that you are good-looking, even if I thought you were before I got to know you. The movies are not helpful, because there a homely girl is just a girl wearing glasses and her hair tied back. Just enjoy the good points of all of those around you, including yourself. And don’t seek satisfaction in being a sex object. When you begin to accept objectification, you start to losing yourself as a person.

Be passionate about what you do, so you do feel good about it. I am not passionate about my job, exactly, but I am determined to do it well, I enjoy my coworkers, and I have other activities that I am passionate about, so it still leads to a fulfilling life. If there is a lack of satisfaction in what you are doing, take a second look at that. It may not even be that you need to change what you do; maybe you just need to change how you do it.

Look for ways to support other people. In a recent Psychology Today I was reading that attempts by people to increase their own self-esteem did not work. However, attempting to raise someone else’s self-esteem raised their own and the subjects. Funny how that works. Stopping actively sniping at, criticizing, or envying other women is good, but being actively supportive and helpful is even better.

I realize now that my list for women is pretty similar to my list for teenagers, which even at the time I said would be good for adults, so maybe the path for being a happy, contributing member of society is pretty much the same all across the board. I can support that.

I want to support one more thing though, and this is for Lindsay, Amanda, Britney, and all the rest:

http://www.girlsrockcamp.org/

Learning lip-synching and choreography is fine, I guess, but don’t you think you’d be happier learning an actual skill? Okay, yes to education and learning in general, but it’s good to learn to rock.

Fighting the real enemy

I thought I would have one post on feminism, with one follow-up, but now I am getting into a hydra situation again. It just keeps getting bigger.   

I’m going to take a side road for a moment here in the hopes that it will help me make my point. I have not blogged much about Trayvon Martin, but that doesn’t mean that I have not been thinking about it. I have been writing about it with Aaron a lot, as he has taken it very hard. I mentioned earlier that he has a lot of racial anger. He is always quick to point out that my family and I don’t count as the white people he hates, and I can point out other exceptions, but really there should not be an exception list—there should just not be stereotyping.

I would run into the same thing when I was working with Laotian refugees, and they did not consider me white. I took it as a compliment, but the part that is missing is they couldn’t lump me in because they knew me. If they had known more people, they would have had more exceptions, until at some point you realize that skin color doesn’t really mean that much. And I totally cut the members of disenfranchised groups more slack for their prejudice than for the majority. Fair or not, reading comments about how black people are lazy, criminal, neglectful parents and violent sickens me a lot more than reading about how white people are evil.

The problem with this type of thinking, beyond the mere fact of it being hateful and ugly, is that it is also really stupid. Going back to “The New Jim Crow”, remember, this was set up deliberately. First African Americans were enslaved, then they were made second-class citizens with the Jim Crow laws, then they were cast as criminals with the drug war, but always it is something that gives poor whites a chance to feel superior, and to stay divided whereas if the poor of all races would work together, and really organize, they should be unstoppable. We’ve let the corporations and the rich consolidate enough power that if we really tried to shake things up, there could be some interesting reactions. It’s a moot point though, because people get so caught up in the false threats that they ignore what really matters.

Building off of yesterday’s post, I think something that women do really well is feeling bad about themselves. There is also some skill at making others feel bad, but that is not the full story. I know we can also do well at being supportive. The support that comes from relating and commiseration is great, what with our willingness to talk about feelings and all that, so there is definitely a different side.

That’s really the side we need to focus on more. We live in what appears to be a very divided (and divisive) society, where it seems to be easier to label and dismiss anyone different than to try and understand.

So, now let’s talk about the Mommy Wars, especially as exemplified in the reaction to one small comment about Ann Romney. Actually, I did post something about this on Facebook, setting off a lively discussion, but at least it was a fairly polite discussion, and I know other people were having much worse ones. We’ll see how this goes.

One problem with the exchange was that people react too quickly without getting the facts or even caring about the facts, and I’m going to write about that more tomorrow. I think the other issue though, circling back to the beginning, is that women are really good at feeling really bad about themselves. So working mothers feel guilty about dividing their time between home and family, and stay-at-home mothers feel guilty about not contributing financially. I think there is a sensitivity there that is easily triggered, and the remark that Ann Romney has never worked a day in her life pricked the stay-at-home guilt, and their reaction pricked the working guilt, and then everyone was unhappy with each other (and probably unhappy with themselves, or remembering that they were).

There are so many directions to go with this. First of all, whether or not you have outside employment is not the key factor in whether or not you are a good member. I knew one mother who stayed home, but she wasn’t really interested in the traditional domestic things, so she kept a filthy home and let the 8 year old babysit while she was off volunteering. Those kids might have been better off in day care. I know working mothers who do great jobs, and feel good about their daycare providers.  There is a lot of variety in terms of what can work for a family. If your children feel supported and loved, and they are getting their physical needs met, you’re doing quite a bit that is right.

Let’s look at the larger situation. It came up because Mitt Romney said that he was aware of the economic concerns of women because of talking with his wife. Now, I will not deny that being a homemaker is valuable, and hard, and admirable. It is not the same as having an employer. Do you risk being fired if you are sick? Or if one of your children is sick and needs care? Or if you just fall behind? Maybe if your husband is really a jerk, but in general, no. There are lots of things to fill up your time, but you have some autonomy over how you use it, and that’s great.

This is nothing to feel guilty over. Every family has to work out what will work best for them, based on their economic resources and their values and all of the factors that figure into their lives. Even my non-traditional household, with mother and younger sisters sharing my house with me, we have to figure things out. When Mom was recovering from surgery and could not be alone, it helped that Julie’s employer allowed some working from home, and that mine allowed four ten hour days, giving me an extra day to be at home. Maria’s job did not have that flexibility, but we worked with what we had, and we felt lucky for what we did have.

Whether your family situation requires outside employment or allows the opportunity to stay home, the crux of that is probably financial. It seems likely that someone with a trust fund who has never had to work might not have the same viewpoint as everyone else.

Let’s look at the husband, and some of the things he has said.

“During a campaign stop in New Hampshire in January, Mitt Romney said that mothers of young children who receive state assistance should have the "dignity" of going to work. "Even if you have a child two years of age you need to go to work," Romney said. "And people said, 'Well that's heartless.' And I said, 'No, no, I'm willing to spend more giving day care to allow those parents to go back to work. It'll cost the state more providing that daycare, but I want the individuals to have the dignity of work.'"

No dignity for Ann, I guess. And another one from Romney:

“This is a different world than it was in the 1960s when I was growing up, when you used to have Mom at home and Dad at work. Now Mom and Dad both have to work whether they want to or not, and usually one of them has two jobs.”

This change in situation could relate to the decline in union membership, the decline in average wages, and companies like Bain capital firing workers and then re-staffing at reduced wages.

I will write more on the way I think things should be tomorrow, but the question I want to raise now is whether the working woman and the full-time homemaker should really be natural enemies, or is there possibly a common enemy they should be joining forces against?

Commercials that annoy me

I know, you probably thought we were heading towards feminism. This is a transition into that, because it does relate, and actually, it relates directly to the music too. Of the two commercials that have been annoying me recently, one has been running on Youtube, so I have had to listen to it before listening to many of the songs I was bringing up, both for the guitar list and for the teen stuff.

The other commercial, which we shall deal with first, comes to me courtesy of Frank Iero, guitarist in My Chemical Romance. Naturally, I am following him on Twitter, and one of his posts a couple of weeks back was “When people would mention Jamie Lee Curtis i used to think "oh you mean Laurie from halloween" but now i think "oh Pooyogurt for old ladies”. 

That probably just would have flown right by, except for two things. One is that Big Bang Theory has had a few jokes on that as well, and also, it started a little bit of an exchange for Frank, with snarky responses leading to the question, why do older ladies need the yogurt?

I started wondering about that myself. Is there something different about the aging female digestive system? The only thing I could really think of was poor nutrition, and doing some internet research seemed to confirm that. Even the Activia page recommends using their yogurt in combination with proper nutrition and exercise, in much the same way that I imagine a bowl of sugary cereal completes the breakfast of eggs, toast, and orange juice shown on the side of the cereal box.

The funny thing about this is that whether we are looking at people in general or we focus on the aging population, I would guess that women are more likely to be getting good nutrition than men (it’s a sexist stereotype, but I think it has some validity), so really the men should need the yogurt more, but it keeps getting pushed on the women. Why? I’m guessing it’s because they think we are stupid and insecure enough to fall for it, and not without reason.

I’m not accusing the advertising industry or their clients of trying to do anything other than make money—I’m not a conspiracy theorist yet—but I do think it is unfortunate how often the tactics relate to making something perfectly normal a flaw that you need a product to fix. You know what’s good for having a regular digestive system? A balanced diet containing whole grains and fruits and vegetables. This also gives you many other nutrients, and a wide variety of interesting flavors. Cost can vary, but it doesn’t have to be that bad.

I have blogged about this before, I think, a long time ago, but my all-time least favorite ad campaign was for DuraSoft colored contact lenses, which “give brown eyes a second chance”. That way you can have eyes as purple as the colors in a child’s imagination, or blue as ocean depths, or green, or anything other than brown as bark or shoes (said in a disgusted voice; after all, brown is the color of poo).

Now, if you want to sell colored contact lenses, it is reasonable to go after brown eyes. It might have been lower when the commercial was running, but currently probably about 95% of the population has brown eyes. There are a lot more customers there. You just also happen to be saying to 95% of the population “You have brown eyes? Ew!” And my brown eyes are gorgeous!

There are two things that I don’t like about the cultural mindset here. One is that the value of women has become so intrinsically linked with their appearance, and even as I type that I am thinking “Become? When has it not been that way?” So I guess my actual concern is that it hasn’t changed.

I know it’s not all there is. Certainly there have been times when I have been marginalized for my lack of attractiveness, and I marginalize myself for that, but at the same time I know that many people have learned to value me for my abilities and personality, and they do not define me that way. I do exist as an individual. My concern is for when I am not known—when I am merely an unattractive woman—and for what society thinks of women in general, and the value that is placed on appearance.

My other concern is for the level of competitiveness. As Jennie and I were exchanging messages leading up to lunch, on the topic of children and bullying and such, she mentioned something about the meanness level of a 6^th grade mutual acquaintance. (We knew her for more than 6^th grade, but Jennie meant the meanness witnessed that year.) I was surprised, because I didn’t remember her doing anything to me after 1^st grade, and that wasn’t even that mean—it was just stupid and caused the boy I liked and who was kind of my best friend to never speak to me again.

When we were talking in person, she explained that no, this person never did anything to her either, but she was awful to another girl, who was supposed to be her best friend, alternately freezing her out, then being nice again, then getting mad over something, in an awful cycle that Jennie got to observe over the course of the school year. That made a lot more sense, and I have read that it works this way. Boys are more likely to pick on outsiders, but girls use most of their meanness on their friends.

I honestly don’t get this. I never fought with the girls I hung out with, and I don’t really remember observing them fighting with each other. One girl had a friend who tried to get her to stop spending time with the rest of us, and she was really nasty about it, but I kind of thought she was the exception.

And I’m not saying that my not participating in this is because I was so sweet and even-tempered. I would sometimes carry jokes too far, and not realize it until I had hurt someone’s feelings, and sometimes I was thoughtless, and I hate remembering that. Also, I would often try giving boys who irritated me the silent treatment, but it was pointless because I have a hard time not talking and they just never noticed anyway, at least not soon enough. I’m only saying that I never felt a need to engage in that particular type of drama or to punish my friends for their misdeeds, and I don’t really remember any misdeeds.

So, I do not understand this dynamic in female relations, but it seems like we do have permission to be awful to each other, and I believe it is destructive on both a personal and societal level. I’m going to really take off on that tomorrow, but for now I am just going to mention that other commercial that bugs me.

If you spend a lot of time on Youtube, you may have seen it too. It is a Gatorade commercial, focusing on a female athlete who has been playing her heart out. “She is easy to spot” it says, and so you might think that it is going to be praise about her heart of champion, or the badge-of-honor mud stains, or something like that, but the language is vaguely insulting, focusing on how she depleted she is, leading up to “And water isn’t going to put it back.” And since she is not drinking Gatorade, you can destroy her! No, that’s not the exact wording. What it really says is “Yes, she is easy to spot. She is also easy to break.”

I admit that the amount of offense I take to this commercial is unreasonable. I’m taking it anyway. I don’t want to break anyone, and the story of any sports triumph of mine is going to be about me overcoming my own physical limitations, not exploiting someone else’s. And also, water is fine for most things, and the people you are trying to sell your Gatorade too would probably be better off with water most of the time too. So thank you, Gatorade. And if that “thank you” sounds more like “Screw you”, good! These connotations don’t always come through in print.

Stocking your child’s survival kit

I am completely aware of the arrogance of my writing this, having no children and not even being the most well adjusted individual out there. Certainly some of the things that got me through school are not practical for everyone, but I have had some of these ideas in mind for a while, and I was talking extensively with a friend with children who is thinking about some of these things for her own kids, so I’m just going to put it out there.
 

As I initially conceived this post, it was more about the traits and skills that you want to instill in your children, but we have talked about being loving and supportive as well, and I will give you two big tips for that. The first one, and this is important for success in most aspects of life, is to lose your ego. It’s hard—the ego will keep creeping back when you’re not looking—but if your parental guidance is based on the child being a reflection on you, rather than on what this individual in your care really needs, you’re going to be causing a lot of pain, and the kid will see right through you.

The other thing I would recommend is that in addition to loving, you need to make sure that they feel loved. For that I would recommend reading “The Five Love Languages. I have only read the first one, so I don’t know how the versions specific to children and teenagers are, but I found what I did read insightful.

Now, on to the things that my friend and I were talking about: It was interesting talking with Jennie because while I have only worried about potential children being outcasts, she has also worried about hers being the tormentors, or at least passively supporting the tormentors. My first thought was that I just don’t know what I would do if I ended up with a mean kid, but I think these things work both ways. Not only do they provide a shield and buffer for some of the outside world, but also it should put enough into the child’s life that they don’t need to lash out at others. Also, they set the foundation for a happy adulthood.

(Jennie has also talked to her children about how if they don’t want to be the leaders, that is fine, but then they should choose good people to follow—to go with people who are kind. I think that’s a reasonable discussion to have.)

Actually, I had been thinking about them for quite a while, so then it was nice that I actually had something to say. Well before my children got into their teenage years, I would want to have made sure that they had plenty of opportunities to develop the following things:

Friends: I started thinking about this after the child of a family friend spoke in church. He has some siblings who are quite a bit younger, and he remembers watching play dates when his sisters were really young that didn’t seem that valuable, and asking his mother about them. She said that these kids that she was bringing over had nice parents and they would probably grow up to be nice kids. At that point he remembered all of these friends that he’d had for as long as he could remember, and realized it was not coincidence. Obviously that does not mean that you selectively screen out kids with mean parents, or that all of their friends will come through your machinations, but getting them socialized early, and building that support network early, will help, and if they end up being nice kids, that will help quite a bit too.

Developing a talent: This is beneficial for many reasons, as has been touched on in posts on music and creativity. It can involve the acquiring of patience and discipline, while building satisfaction and self-esteem. That being said, where I really started thinking of it was after reading this article:

http://paulgraham.com/nerds.html

This post is lengthy, and it’s a lot more negative than my own memories of school. One thing I have learned talking to others, though, is that most people’s memories of school are more negative than my own. (One of my survival traits was the ability to be fairly oblivious, and I’m not sure that can be taught.) However, the reason I posted, and what I found fascinating, is the idea that having some other sort of guiding interest prevents the child from getting swallowed up in the quest for popularity.

Service to others: This was something my sisters and I have discussed a lot, because many members of their old social group are remarkably self-centered, and they could argue that now they are too busy with children to have time for other causes too, but then how are the children going to learn to care? (Answer: if they do, it will not be from Mom and Dad.)

From a spiritual and religious point of view, I believe serving others is necessary, and a large part of the reason why we are here. I also know that it makes you feel better. Part of that is that it reminds you that you have something to offer, and that you are capable of doing things. It gets you looking outward.

(I have more on that at http://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2009/03/october-2008-three-keys-to-happiness.html.)

Really, any of the previously stated items have the tendency to take you away from the self-absorption into the realization that there is something bigger than yourself, and that leads to the last part…

Developing a personal relationship with God: You can teach children about God, and to fear Him, but it’s not the same as actually building a relationship with Him. I know that a lot of what got me through was the scripture reading and the praying that I did. The morals kept me out of trouble, but just telling a kid that something is wrong without the kid having any personal investment in it doesn’t work. That’s one reason why abstinence-only education is ridiculous.

I have no experience in helping someone else to do this, but I think having your own relationship is a good start, followed by sharing parts of that relationship. One time this happened, and I felt this way. Naturally you need to start this young, because after they start understanding what you say comes a time when they start misunderstanding again, and trying not to listen, and you need to get it in early.

I did actually write a post quite a while ago about starting to get answers, like the basic questions that you would start out with and build on. It felt clunky and unhelpful, and so I have never posted it. I still have the post and I may get back to it.

For some reason, I can’t get the thought of children of bad parents out of my mind, though it seems completely unlikely that any are reading this blog. You can put these tools together on your own. You may be getting a late start, but there will still be people who can become friends, you can still find your talents and work on them, you can still build a relationship with God, and you can always find ways to serve others. You will need to be careful, because there are people who will sense your need and want to exploit it, but there are good people out there too, and good things, and whatever troubles come, it’s worth riding it out. And you can contact me if you want. Put it as a comment with your contact information, and instead of approving it I will just write to you.