Entries tagged with socialization

Current Mood: crushed
Current Music: Taslis Kimberly

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We go High!

It's a tough day today.

I started wanting to write something last night when it started really looking like Trump might win (I had a blessedly meeting filled afternoon, and between that, and taking Kosh to her Daisy
Scout meeting I didn't see results that I took seriously until about 8.

My first thought in response to a Trump presidency, was to offer Governor Brown help with building the California wall. That was an angry and scared response. In content it's a bigger version of moving to Canada. Take me and mine out of the control of this government with this man at the top of it.

I had various ideas, but my dad consolidated my thoughts. I checked my email this morning, and my dad, who is retired in Thailand had emailed all 4 of us kids with encouragement to move to Canada.

That gave me a target.

This concept is tempting (like a California sesesion would be), but it's really terrifying if you follow it.

It's already too easy to keep yourself in an echo chamber. And in this case most importantly for our governmental leaders to keep themselves in echo chambers.

It would be one thing to run from Germany in the 1930s you could be running to someplace that could reasonably have been expected to be stronger than Germany. The United States is too powerful for that to be reasonable.

Therefore we desperately need everyone who is upset with the election results to stay in the United states, and to get active.

We need to build relationships across socio economic barriers and across parties. We need to find the areas where we agree, and build movements based on those. It's going to be hard, and it's going to be scary, but it's our best chance to minimize the damage of this presidency.

That said there's no way in hell we're leaving California, My hope is that we're a big enough economic engine that we'll be able to maintain what we're doing.

Love and prayers to all,

This is what I wrote to my family.

That's more or less what I think, although I'm a little torn. There were people who said a Trump presidency would bring the revolution. I'm not 100% sure what that is, but I'm open to that potentially, but I'm tentative.

Regardeless if the next step is revolution or moderation and regroup for 2018 there are some steps I think we all benefit from.

We need to take care of ourselves. In as much as we can we should cut ourselves slack and allow ourselves to vent as we need to. We should try not to do something in anger or grief (or whatever strong emotion) that will haunt us a month from now.

Love and express your love for those we love. Give and get more hugs (or whatever sign of affection is best for the people involved) Make sure our groups know that they are safe, and if there is a real lack of safety do what we can to make it more safe.

As we have spoons/energy we need to be kind and loving to others. Do what we can to show that people are good and loving.

Give ourselves time. Time to think, and plan, and feel.

Be as well as you can be.

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Vacation Journal Part 1 of...

Getting to Westercon
( Read more... )

Con and Facility
( Read more... )

Legoland!!!
( Read more... )

I have more to write, but I don't know when if I'll get to it.( Getting there )

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Words and What They Mean

I'm involved with a parent group online, and like so many while it is titled a parent group it is mostly a mommy group. There are daddys that post, but on this particular post none of the comments apppeared to be from males.

So the post was, and I'm being lazy and paraphrasing:

Argh my husband!
We're trying to have another kid, and I'm ovulating, and we need to have sex tonight or tomorrow night and I suggested sex tonight and he rolled over and went to sleep. He really wants another kid. I want to get it started now so I'm not in my 3rd trimester in the dead of summer. Needed to vent!

This fits well in this group, and seems reasoonable, but then we get into the comments. I know don't read the comments, but it's a facebook group, so half the conversation is there, and usually this group is mostly with the helpful advice and sympathy.

Comments included:
I would have jumped on, asleep or not

Poster:I've explained to him that al he has to do is lie there

Commenter A: Suggest preapproved "taking advantage of"

Poster:He's not getting off that easy

Me:trying to be sympathetic, but if we switched the gender on this it would sound rapey. i thought the rule was enthusiastic consent.

C.A: Does sound rapey. Only started when trying to have child. Even when I push it he could say no/indicate lack of interest. Explicit Consent is hard when your busy.

P: We are both consenting.

Further elaboration

P: not getting off that easy comment just a joke, sorry if I offended anyone else.

It was really this last that got me, and if you've made it this far I appreciate it.

Full disclosure i'm paraphrasing, and probably dropping a lot of the nuance of the conversation, and we didn't have any trouble at all conseiving Kosh.

I grew up in the 80-90s when political correctness was something that came up in conversation a lot more than it does now. It was akward, and it was taken to extremes like maternity leave (seperate from paternity leave) for men. But the pendulum swing on it can be dangerous, and in many areas like this one is more illustrative of a problem in the culture than we want to admit.

One issue is that even though something is intended as a joke that may not be clear to everyone interacting with it. This is especially true of the internet. You don't know whonwill see your joke,and if someone doesn't know it's a joke that someone might look at this as reinforcing a behavior, and that builds the cultural norms. This can be especially problematic around sex related interactions, and with racist, or any other ist you like jokes.

But more importantly what does it say when ts is how we joke?

How did it become funny to threaten someone, or belittle someone. What does it do to our culture, and show to our children when we use threats and insults to make ourselves happy?

This isn't all I wanted to say, but maybe it's enough to let me stop trying to compose it in my head.

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Pondering on voting, honesty and words

On voting:
I absolutely want the things I vote for to win, but I would rather have everyone (even those who will vote against what I vote for, and those who will vote without being informed) vote.

As with most election times most of the people I saw comment on the concept encouraged everyone to vote, and one or two people are like no, really if you don't know the issues don't vote.

Here's my response to that. I think that it's more important that we all participate in the government if we're going to claime that our government represents the populace than that any one issue is successful.

To me this is about honestly. In the US we claime that all people are equal, at least have equal rights as far as the government is confirmed. We know that we're not perfect in our attempts to do that, but we claim that as the goal.

We claim that we are a government from the people and the point where that doesn't mean encouraging everyone to vote that's not government from the people.

On Word use:
At church we are encouraged to fill out cards with what we've done to better the world or be disciples of Christ (I don't recal the precise instructions), but I was filling out a card.

There's been a very nice gentelman begging along my way to drop off Kosh at daycare, and I've given him money a couple of times, and chatted with him a bit more, so I went to write this down, and realized that I didn't know if he was homeless, I mean I wouldn't be out on a bench before 8 in the morning this time of year if I had somewhere warmer to be, butI wasn't sure.

But my brain balked at calling him a beggar. I went with begging gentleman, but it made me ponder my perception of language. Why would I have no problem identifying someone as homeless, but hesitate at beggar. I think that it's the difference between the label begar is the identity of the person where homeless person is the situation of the person, but I don't think that's all of it.

Just made me think.

I also hope he is well. I haven't seen him at all this week. I wonder if it's related to the switch from daylight savings time, but I worry about him.

Current Mood: distressed

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Speak Out

Just last night Groblek and I were talking about my inability to communicate my needs or boundaries.

I've come a long way, but I still have a long way to go.

This is something I've been working on because I know it will help me to be more completely in relationship with those I love, and model healthy communication for Kosh.

Here's another reason, and it's terrifying:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6IL8WVyMMs&feature=youtu.be

It's not a quick easy watch, but it's good information.

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Ponderings on Public Parenting and loss of a busmate

So a while ago there was an article about a mom who took her little boy to Walmart with a pink head band on. Details here:
http://www.carbonated.tv/lifestyle/how-a-pink-headband-at-walmart-led-to-a-moms-harrowing-experience

What the man in the story did was horrendous! He should not have done that!

One of the ideas I got from reading the article and people's comments though is the idea that one should never touch an unknown child. Without thinking I found myself going along with it until yesterday I read this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/10/18/specials/kingsolver-hers.html

This description of the situation in Spain seems excellent. I've personally dealt with relatively little of the negative description of American reaction to children, but I have noticed the lack of interactions by many.

I think that culturally we have a tendency to say this one situation came up where this behavior was problematic no on should ever do this behavior. I know I've fallen into this trap. I hope that if the walmart incident had happened in a culture more like that described in Spain even if someone had behaved like the man in the story someone else would have stepped up to defend the child.

As part of our lifestyle, and our parenting practice we have developed several villages that Kosh benefits from. We've actively chosen and thought about our connections to church, Pryanksters, and biological family, but one that I originally didn't consider was our bus commute.

On the bus many riders don't interact with me or Kosh, and it's possible that some or many of them are silently unhappy that Kosh is along, but none have complained or displayed this that I've noticed.

However there are several that have positive interactions with Kosh, and me, but really Kosh is the driving factor.

This collection of bus buddies includes several drivers, and several regulars.

One of them was Liz. Liz was always friendly greeting many people as they got on the bus, and checking in on how people were doing. She had a lot of fun interactions with Kosh. She always sat in the seat closest to the door, because she walked with a cane. Frequently Kosh wanted that seat, and so we took one nearby, and they'd play the mine game. She read to him on a couple of occasions, and was generally friendly and interactive. She was an example of a great way to interact with other people's children.

Some months ago she stopped riding the bus. We heard that she had caught shingles. So we looked forward to her return, but yesterday I heard that she had passed away. She is missed, and Kosh and I are lucky to have known her.

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Bubbling and Brewwing

Haven't posted a whole lot lately.

I've fallen off of the zombie walking/running I'm giving myself this week for heat, and hoping to get back on board when the highs drop 10 degrees to mid 90s.

Before I fell off the chases were getting easier, and a coworker had suggested we walk together some times (we did one last week, and I begged off this week).

On Harassment:
There's been a whole lot going around about harassment especially as it relates to Sci Fi/Fantasy/fandom cons.

After reading (probably more than I did) on the subject Groblek looked at me with concern and asked if I experienced this.

My answer is not that I've noticed.

I tend to be excessively oblivious, and more likely to attach bad behavior to a person than to a group. There are groups and people that I have removed myself from that I found obnoxious that could probably more accurately be defined as harassing.

I also tend to be one of the guys. To the point where at a meeting at work where we were prepping to present at a public meeting and the discussion of what to wear came up, and the supervisor responded to the question from one of the guys with the suggestion of a nice shirt/slacks and a tie at which point she paused, and said not for you Kay, and I reassured her that I knew what to wear. I was the only female presenter, but I think it also reflected the fact that I was dressed almost exactly like the other guys in the room.

I'm going to Westercon this weekend, and I'm going to have a harassment lens on because of this. Hopefully if I see it I'll speak up.

Pondering this has caused me to notice that there are more than 2 males per female at my level in the office. All 3 supervisors in the office are female, but for my level it's mostly guys it's not a small office, and I wonder why.

Inching into the white collar world.

I've held a desk job for 6 years. Just recently I've been reexamining a habit that stems at least in part from a more blue collar mentality. If you see me in person you may have noticed that I almost always have my forearms bare. I wear long sleeve shirts a lot, and roll or push up the sleeves. One of the more concrete reasons for this is that my arms are easier to clean and heal than shirt sleeves. This is still perfectly applicable to interacting with Kosh, but recently I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't make much sense at work.

This started when I saw videos of our group at Valhalla, and thought that I stood out with my sleeves rolled, and has moved into my work wardrobe as I notice that I'm one of few with this particular look. Of course this week I'm in short sleeves, but I have been wearing long sleeves with sleeves down previously.

Kosh is doing well. He's been enjoying "swimming" in our not so hot tub, going to the library, and narrating his potty experience. I'd just as soon not hear this narrative, but if it gets him using the potty I'll take it.

Happy 4th everyone!

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What the Fing F #Stubenville Rape

So I know I'm behind the times, but I read about the Stubenville Rape this morning, and I was incensed. Really what the fucking fuck.

Cut here for anyone who doesn't want to read about it.( Cut here for anyone who doesn't want to read about it. )

Edited to correct these weren't college boys they were high school boys.

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What do you do when complimented?

We had a great weekend.
Saturday was the Pryankster business meeting. It was a great excuse to get together with the dance family and I got to do a lot of dancing, and a good bit of chatting. I also totally took advantage of being the parent of a toddler to tag out of the talky part of the meeting and into toddler wrangling when it started running too long.

Glad I did because I think I managed to help DancingNurse feel comfortable stepping out and getting some caffeine.

Kosh, Kitten and I took off on an unplanned walk shortly after the dancing started back up. I would have enjoyed the dancing, but it was a nice chance to get to know Kitten better, and a chance to see that Kosh got some fresh air and exercise. Since it was otherwise an inside day for him that was good.

We got to enjoy the sunset, and went a decent distance. Google tells me the walk was about half a mile one way, and Kosh walked there and about half way back. This tells me that he can totally do the walk home from the bus stop.

At the party I received a couple of compliments from people I respect, and I don't think I responded well to them. In both cases I thanked the person but also denied the compliment. I'm not sure what this says about me, or if this was what they were expecting.

When you compliment some one what do you expect?

I think when I do it I just want the person to know that I noticed something good about them.

How do you respond when complimented?