Culture
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Action is the Antidote to Anxiety
I saw a meme the other day that was 20 things you wish you had heard before, and the first item was this: “Action is the Antidote to Anxiety”. This is definitely true for me, and I think it’s a lot more helpful for my mental health to write postcards, attend rallies and demonstrations, exercise, and listen to music, than it is to doom scroll or listen to the news all day. So that’s what I’ve been doing. I wrote a lot (for me, I know some do more) of postcards to voters this week, for elections in Florida and Wisconsin. There were 2 protests this week in my town,…
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Miscellaneous Monday
This is my favorite thing that Maya has shoved in my face and made me watch recently. We had a good laugh. It starts with ‘my mom with the cat she didn’t want’, and we agreed, that’s Ted with Mulder. If you enjoyed this video, watch the next one, where mom makes kitty a beautiful dress and sings to her. Friday I slept until 7:15!!! I rarely am able to sleep that late, and it was DELICIOUS. I felt so well rested. I had a relaxing day, which included using a reverse vending machine to recycle some cans for CRV (California Redemption Value), which was kind of novel but a…
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Mobility
Mobility ~ Lydia Kiesling The year is 1998, the End of History. The Soviet Union is dissolved, the Cold War is over, and Bunny Glenn is an American teenager in Azerbaijan with her Foreign Service family. Through Bunny’s eyes we watch global interests flock to the former Soviet Union during the rush for Caspian oil and pipeline access, hear rumbles of the expansion of the American security state and the buildup to the War on Terror. We follow Bunny from adolescence to middle age—from Azerbaijan to America—as the entwined idols of capitalism and ambition lead her to a career in the oil industry, and eventually back to the scene of…
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Focus on What You Can Change
In April of 2020, my darling friend Marilee and I were commiserating about the stress of the world. About how suddenly fraught it felt to get groceries. How isolating to be trapped at home. Marilee and her husband Paul have a business, Spotlight Sojourns, which requires them to spend a lot of time traveling around the world. No travel, no leaving the house, was stressful. Paul made the Venn diagram above, and Marilee shared it with me. I was reminded of Paul’s diagram by Anne’s recent post, where she shared a quote that I liked a lot: “Caring about everything is a disaster. Caring about nothing is also a disaster.…
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Wednesday Randomness
YOU GUYS!!! I am HAPPY to report to you that my company has changed their mind and the In Office 2x a Week Mandate has been cancelled. YAY! For those of you who are new here due to NaBloPoMo, I have worked from home since 2006, both at my prior job and my current one. There is an office about 30 miles from here, which can take anywhere from 25 to 90 minutes by car each way, and there is no public transportation that would take less than 100 minutes and involve several transfers. My company decided that it was time to get people ‘back in the office’ 2 days…
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Finding Light
Back when Maya was little, she was a big fan of the singer Jewel. She was a toddler, and would carry pictures of Jewel that we printed from our computer around. She loved her songs, and thought everyone with long blonde hair was Jewel (at the time I had short hair, so no, I did not have Jewel hair.) One of my very favorite Jewel songs is Hands, which gave me support through September 11th, and the many times I have felt helpless since then. I’ve been so angry since the election, and have felt myself pulled toward despair. I am angry and bitter, and I do not want to…
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Annie Bot and Kairos
Annie Bot ~ Sierra Greer Annie and Doug live in New York City. Her singular goal is to keep him happy, which is not always easy. She cooks and cleans, but not to his exacting specifications. She is always ready for sex, eager to please him in any possible way. Eventually he gets tired of the fact that she doesn’t keep the apartment clean enough, so he brings in a maid, with whom he also sometimes has sex. Annie isn’t jealous though. Annie is a robot. Doug has set her into auto-didactic mode, and she is learning about herself and the world in which she lives. She is starting to…
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Friday Randomness
Just a few random things I’m thinking about today. First off, while I appreciate the humor of the joke above, I am a firm believer in the Oxford Comma, so the first line bugs me. Enough of that. On to randomness. Kyria posted about things she has learned, and one of them was about how she uses Feedly. I don’t use Feedly, but my blog does have an option when you comment, that you can get an email if someone replies to your comment. However, I have heard (from Ally I think) that it does not work. Color me pleased to read in Kyria’s comments that you need a plugin…
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Miscellaneous Monday
This is going to be one of those random posts, just things I’m thinking about. (I mean, that is the name of my blog, right?) First I will dip my toes into politics a bit, and say that I am feeling MUCH more hopeful about the possibility of no Trump presidency than I was a couple of weeks ago. Ever since Biden’s horrible debate, I’ve been so stressed out. I think he’s been a very good President, and doesn’t get enough credit for his accomplishments. I honestly doubt that he could put in another 4 years, though, it’s a hell of a job. But we have a whole system set…
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Miscellaneous Monday
Many of you know Elisabeth’s blog, Optimistic Musings of a Pessimist. Elisabeth is such a thoughtful writer, I love her blog and am ever thankful to San for her organized NaBloPoMo for introducing so many of us to each other. Elisabeth sometimes has guest posts, and when she asked me if I would be interested, of course I said, Yes! So pop on over. Speaking of Elisabeth, she recently wrote about ice cream, and mentioned how much she loved the pistachio gelato she had in Spain. I decided I wanted to try some pistachio gelato with whole pistachios included, so I bought the Talanti brand, and it’s delicious! Is it…
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5 Things Friday
Five things I’m Thinking About… Have you ever had a root canal? Do you think harsh toothpaste could be the culprit? Did your meal plan veer off track this week? How would you feel about having a contraceptive share your name?
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Miscellaneous Monday
Today’s post is just a bit of randomness. Before we dive in, the picture above is from Tug Dogs, an amazing dog training company a couple of hours from here. I first heard about them from BARK, the Keeshond rescue that connected us with both of our darling dogs, Mulder (2015-2023) and Genevieve (1998-2012). One thing they do at Tug Dogs is to take in dogs that have behavior issues, diagnose the issues, and help the dogs to feel safe and secure, so they can help them to understand how to live happily in a confusing human run world. I follow them on Facebook, and the funny picture above was…
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Facebook Friday
One thing I enjoy about Facebook is the Memories feature, where you can see what you posted in a prior year on this date. I thought it might be fun to share a few with you. Sometimes I post something thoughtful, like a timely quote. Usually it’s more about what I’m doing in my life. Like whether I’m having a decent hair day or not. For those of you not on Facebook, it displays your profile picture and your name, and then your text, so I was doing a third person thing here. Why? Who knows. Clearly this is a different day. Sometimes, it’s a meme. There were plenty of…
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Top 4 / Bottom 4 / Meh 4 Christmas Movies
Elisabeth had a Top 5/Bottom 5 Christmas movies post, which looked like fun. Here are mine, though I couldn’t come up with 5 of each category, so we’ll only have 4, so I added a meh category. Top 4 Bottom 4 Meh 4
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Whamageddon
I’m in, again. The first time I heard of Whamageddon, I made it all of the way from December 1st to December 24th without hearing the Wham! classic ‘Last Christmas’, but last year the DJ at Ted’s company party played it, and I think that was December 2nd. (To clarify, I do not have strong feelings about this song. I like it fine, but I don’t love it.) We’ll see how it goes this year. Stout hearts. UPDATE: The acoustics at the party were HORRIBLE at this year’s company party, so I have no idea whether he played the song or not. SO I’M STILL IN!
