October 24, 2019
***FYI: I will be collecting donations for our Lakota families until Nov 17th. Details in the Giving paragraph. Half of any proceeds from the blog during this time (see sidebar) will also be added to those donations.***
My three questions post just coincidentally coincided with Abby’s thoughts on why she doesn’t feel rich.
Koroglu, the Robin Hood of the steppes
The women of Angel did deserve better.
I’d never heard of California City before. Would you want to live there?
Can you imagine the world supporting people with disabilities like this? That would be rather incredible.
“Our unpredictable and overburdened schedules are taking a dire toll on American society.” Though I am notoriously antisocial, PiC and I are making serious efforts to connect with local people, to build some community here.
Holy wow this Patricia Lockwood review: Malfunctioning Sex Robot. I’m going to TRY not to quote the whole thing:
“I was hired as an assassin. You don’t bring in a 37-year-old woman to review John Updike in the year of our Lord 2019 unless you’re hoping to see blood on the ceiling.”
“Please tell me you’re writing something about Updike’s 9/11 book,’ another said. ‘Can’t do that,’ I responded, ‘because I’m pretty sure I would die while reading it, and that would be another victim for 9/11.’ Taste and tact had departed hand in hand; I had been reading too much John Hoyer Updike.”
Growing up, this sentiment would have been met with scoffs of “Americans,” underlining the major differences in our family culture and the culture of our new home.
It was laughable to think that you didn’t owe your parents anything – you owed them everything. You owed them life, and everything you had in life, and therefore you owed them your unswerving obedience. Now?
Well.
Obviously I have unusual circumstances. My dad is a manipulative selfish and really, just terrible, person. I gave him everything and still regret everything I sacrificed for him after Mom died.
In the end, I feel both sentiments can lead to toxicity. Maybe at this point, all I believe is that we owe our parents what we owe the world: kindness and care to the extent that we can give it.
Hank McCoy would say: oh my stars and garters!
October 17, 2019
***FYI: I will be collecting donations for our Lakota families until Nov 17th. Details in the Giving paragraph. Half of any proceeds from the blog during this time (see sidebar) will also be added to those donations.***
As I work on our Lakota family needs lists, I reflect on how incredibly lucky and filthy rich we are, with the Bitches: “I’ve been dancing around a point, but here it is: listening to rich people refer to themselves as “middle class” makes my skin crawl.”
Imagine the depths of the grief and trauma of the black community as these murders by law enforcement keep happening. This needs to stop. It needs to not be ok.
Three more small things to be more green from Tortoise Happy.
I’m not sure of all the ins and outs of this arrangement but it LOOKS like the Healthcare Anchor Network is a good thing. I hope it is.
I adore seeing people’s experiences with palaces in the sky (at least for people I like anyway).
Pay inequality is still a thing. This is why I negotiate hard, knowing that I’ll be penalized for negotiating too, but knowing that at least I show my worth many times over so I should at least negotiate for as much as I can even while a white male doing the job I’m doing would automatically be paid much more without having to ask for it.
How did your parents embarrass you? I assume mine did but I can’t remember any embarrassed by parents stories from childhood.
I had no idea this is why Sesame Street revealed Mr. Snuffleupagus. I also didn’t know that the show viewed Big Bird as the ostensible stand in for the child audience.
“The Two Questions’ came from trying to write something good and not getting very far because I had forgotten that trying to write something good before I write anything at all is like refusing to give birth unless you know for sure it is going to be a very good baby.” I laugh because it me in more ways than one.
Making friends as adults. I do envy little kids and their ability to make friends easily now that I’ve witnessed it in JB. I was as hermitlike as you could get at 4 years old and hated the idea of people. I didn’t so much make friends as have some happen to me. I still miss that first friend I ever made on my own in third grade – it took that long – and we remained fast friends even though were in totally different circles by high school. Now only eight years into my life in the Bay Area, I’m finally making the effort to make friends and it’s still every bit as difficult now for me as it was for child me. Ugh.
Move along, rams!
October 10, 2019
***FYI: I will be collecting donations for our Lakota families until Nov 17th. Details in the Giving paragraph. Half of any proceeds from the blog during this time (see sidebar) will also be added to those donations.***
How society really works after disasters
I keep repeating this to myself: stop buying stuff! Why do I still keep getting these urges to buy cute or beautiful things?
I’m usually very thoughtful about big decisions like adding a pet to our family but even after being so thoughtful, I have regretted getting a pet.
Angela and not being perfect: “If everyone focused on doing things better – let’s say, eighty percent better – the world would look completely different.” I know that when I try to make all my actions environmentally sound, I get stuck in paralysis because there are no perfect actions. But if I can aim to make most of my actions green in a significant way, then I have to forgive myself for the other “fails”.
The crappiness of “parental leave” (hahahahaha) in the US. Our parental leave in the US is so crap. Near five years later, I’m STILL angry that my raise was less than agreed (and that I hadn’t gotten it in writing that ONE TIME) because we found out I was pregnant before the raise went into effect. It’s definitely affected my trust of my employer.
I’ve been fighting the instinctive toxic positivity in myself because I hate receiving it from others but also I note that it’s hard to gauge sometimes what’s needed because a lot of my conversations are over text / email and not in person. Better responses I’m working on: “I’m here for you.” / “That sounds really hard.” / “How did that make you feel?” or “How do you feel about that?”
I’ve spent 11 years in 3 different jobs before this one, including my college years because I worked more than full time those 4 years, but staying so long at this one (more than my usual 4-5 years) makes me wonder if I’m making a big mistake like Ali’s here: For 12 years I refused to talk to recruiters and never applied for a position with another firm. I regularly review the reasons it still makes sense to stay here that aren’t “because I’m too lazy to find another job” because the monetary benefits are fairly modest. It’s all about the day to day autonomy and flexibility but at some point it’s also got to be about the money. I think we’re still committed to this particular balance but if PiC has to leave his incredibly good benefits job, I may have to sacrifice the flexibility of this job to make more money. OR maybe I can have all: more money and all the flexibility?? Maybe. We’ll see.
Life In The Cupboard Under The Stairs: on living with the smallness of a chronically ill life. Most days, this is just normal and I accept it. But this feeing of smallness, of tightness, is renewed. I discovered a fantastic band I’d love to go see and they’re in Oakland this winter. Tickets are under $35. But it’s on a weeknight. How could I possibly scrape up the energy after a workday to be out and then also work again the next day? I still have dogs to be walked and child to be looked after. PiC volunteered to cover both (as a sitter for the required amount of time would be $100 minimum) but I still am unlikely to have the energy to cope with the bookends of work AND having to stay up late. Heck, I’m unlikely to be able to be out that late without consequences even if I didn’t have work, even if I didn’t have to expend energy to drive all the way to Oakland and back. So life gets a little smaller and I try to pretend I didn’t want to go anyway to ignore that new little spike of disappointment in my side that’s grown, trusting that it too will fade away, replaced with new cuts in time.
BOING
October 3, 2019
I’m quite proud of this work journal for young kids that I made. A preview of the interior:
Remember to focus on the important stuff that money can’t buy.
The Four Tigers Sword: a Twitter thread
Look at this beautiful rainbow baby quilt! I would love this for me, as an adult 🙂
Have you made any easy eco-friendly switches in your life that you want to share?
The cost of reproductive choices
So many reasons to love Piggy and Kitty. I want to quote the whole post because it’s all my favorite but I’ll settle for just one. HOW DO I PICK: “Guess what happened the last time I was on the phone with my sweet, loving, stubborn, old-fashioned grandpa, and he said something racist? That’s right: I read my beloved g-paw for so much filth the trash can got jealous. Thrown off guard by my vehemence, he immediately apologized, and has successfully checked himself since then.”
A little bit on Anthony Stewart Head. ASH has a very special place in my heart as Giles and I hope that his time away while working on Buffy was worth it for him. It makes me think about whether or not he actually made enough money to make it worth it for their family, too, or whether this was one of those moves you make to sacrifice in order to build your professional reputation even if the money doesn’t make sense. I made a move like that about 8-9 years ago, forgoing the higher salary in a lower COLA to get out of a toxic sector of my industry. While it took me four years to get back up to that higher salary I could have gotten right away, the move away from the toxic sector was worth at least 30% of that salary. The amount of stress I would have been under would have destroyed my health entirely. At the time, I was stopping to dry heave outside work every day and my vision suffered. A few more years of that and life would have been over.
Qandeel Baloch’s brother was convicted of her murder and sentenced to life in prison. I should hope so. He was utterly remorseless and felt that he had the right to murder his sister just because he didn’t like how she was living her life. And a look at her life before the end was sobering. I’ve never quite understood how people live when they garner attention in media or social media. In today’s world, it seems like there are no holds barred anymore, even in death you are no longer accorded an ounce of respect or dignity.
Totally unsurprising: “Before my transition, people assumed I knew what I was talking about. They didn’t talk over me in meetings. They trusted me when I spoke, and they didn’t look to others for confirmation of my ideas. There was a baseline assumption that I was competent and capable. Since my transition, it’s distressingly common for people to talk over me, to look to men for validation of the things I say, to assume that I couldn’t possibly know anything about [technical topic] because I’m a girl. I’ve actually had people tell me, “what could you possibly know about that? You’re a girl!””
Oh no, bear
September 26, 2019
I adore Maggie’s latest coloring book: Pixel Museum Art!
Jonathan at My Money Blog on college tuition. I’ve been thinking about this a lot as a function of our overall budget and what we should save and why.
My car incident over the weekend that’s going to cost money when I am already feeling squeeze is making me feel this post extra hard. We COULD dig into our savings and not live so lean but we do that for a very good reason and it’s worth sticking to that reason. It is. Remember that, self.
I’ve read quite a few FinCon recaps but OFG’s resonated most with me. Not a surprise, is it? It reminds me that I loved the two FinCons I went to because I got to connect with people I only know online the rest of the year and that the money part is actually just a bonus. That’s harder to see in lean years like this one where we don’t have much wiggle room in the budget to afford, basically, a mini vacation for me.
Actually, Gender-Neutral Pronouns Can Change a Culture. Obviously, I use gender neutral pronouns here for JB and I like that it pushes me to change my socially instilled default gender mentally from him or her to gender neutral and to reduce my assumptions of gender outside of this blog. I know it bothered at least one blog reader enough to snark at me about it but I’m sticking to it.
Beyonce’s Homecoming and the Emmy snubs. I don’t claim to understand the Emmys but how does James Corden’s light and amusing car show (which is a lot of fun) win over Beyonce’s intense Homecoming? I’ll never understand.
How To Lose A Third Of A Million Dollars Without Really Trying. I’ve not yet tried to break into publishing but I’ve got a lot of questions after reading this.
How does an actual agent not teach their clients the very basic things about what an advance is, how earning out works, and how does one land an advance of that size and not ask a lot of questions to be sure you know what’s happening and why? It felt like this was very much like lottery winnings going down the drain.
Helpful doggy
September 19, 2019
I’ve decided that while I’d like to go to FinCon 2020, I can’t justify it out of my regular income that’s all committed to other expenses. Between now and the end of January, I need to earn enough from my creative endeavors / from the blog to justify that FinCon ticket and trip. I’m going to continue sharing cool stuff I made in support of that:
Thanks to SP for the nudge, I just realized (duh) I can show a preview of the interior here even if I can’t show it on Amazon! Duh.
*-* I’ve always intended to put the monthly updates that I publish about JB into a book for zir. I made two books for that: Milestones, design 1 and Milestones, design 2.
*-* For beloved aunties, uncles, caregivers of all sorts: a journal for the people they love, design 1 and design 2.
Content cats: a Twitter thread
Women should have emergency money always: a Twitter thread
I had noticed that Tanja’s blogging schedule had changed, I’m glad to read her reflections on why.
Not going to guilt myself on the fact that I don’t remember our list of 2019 goals, just leaving this here to remind myself to check in on them next week.
How much of a hand are you at mending things?
Learned helplessness is deliberate manipulation.
How Much Does Sexual Terror Cost Women?
Which tea dragon are you? The tea dragons are so so so cute.
Scarleteen needs some help. I didn’t know this site existed but a resource like this is good.
What do you think of accepting money gifts from bad people, institutionally? You’d think it would be simple but it is not. On a personal level, I refused to accept money to pay for Mom’s funeral (in the neighborhood of $5000-10,000) from her horrible parents and siblings who had hurt her for so many years in so many ways. Even in my grief I knew they just wanted to publicly rehabilitate their image and I knew that by the way they disrespectfully and relentlessly badgered me up until and throughout the funeral. Good people who want to pay for things out of love and respect conduct themselves better. They did not deserve public redemption by means of writing a check. Do billionaires get to absolve themselves so easily just because their checks are much bigger?
In related news, Ronan Farrow reports on donations to MIT Media Lab from a terrible person.
Lego!
September 12, 2019
A few things I made: Weekly planner (chihuahua in a cup), Weekly planner (small brown puppy), Sketchbook (oil paints cover)
Done by Forty is pondering how to raise a kid with trust fund level wealth to be a good person. You know I’ve thought about this a LOT.
I knew theoretically that pre-partum depression was a thing but I’d never read anything about it. Thanks to Emma Pattee for sharing her experience at Frugalwoods. I never remember pregnancy as a magical experience, there was entirely too much nausea, heartburn, and itching (I still have flashbacks to that damned itching!), but that’s entirely separate from how I feel about the end result.
Cinderella Shock Syndrome: I’ve felt a bit of this myself. When PiC and I started our lives together, even before we got married, he had people on his side who assumed I was a golddigger. I have had to adjust to the idea of being financially stable in our own lives. Parts of my own family sure didn’t cope well with having access to money (through me).
I didn’t even know there was an expected sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale but what a frustrating embargo break.
1000 praying mantises: A Twitter thread. And that last line might have been a throwaway but I had to look up whether they are an invasive species what with the gladiatorial assertions and was sad to see they are.
Related: the crickets thread.
I laughed for a week