I hate to be one of those people writing about how I haven’t got time to write but here I am. I have several posts in the works right now but just haven’t had time to flesh them out completely. We’ve had house guests, parties, job issues and more going on lately and blogging just hasn’t been a priority. I apologize. I promise a complete Un-Wednesday post next week as well as the birthday post I’ve been trying to work on for K. In the meantime, a few random thoughts and questions I’ve had floating around that don’t really merit a post of their own. (And I do mean random, don’t think you’re going to see a discernible pattern or some nice segues from one bullet point to the next. You’ve been warned.)
- Job searching sucks. There is nothing quite like having to quantify everything about yourself on paper to make you question your worth and life choices. I hate competition and would rather live in a world where everyone’s individual accomplishments matter. But that is not the world we live in so I’m currently be weighed and measured by nameless, faceless people in HR departments. I hate it.
- When you have a child become a teenager it really brings the lack of respect children have in our society to the forefront. I keep having to field comments like, “Oh, two teenagers. You’re in trouble now!” I never let it slide. Never. I think my kids are awesome and any difficulties or struggles we have are because people always have difficulties and struggles, regardless of age. What I haven’t figured out is how to phrase it so I’m making myself clear that I’m not interested in kid-bashing without also coming across as sanctimonious. Any suggestions?
- Sometimes we need to poke our heads up out of the comfortable cushion of people who, for the most part, share our beliefs and opinions. My circle of friends and I don’t agree about everything but we do have the same basic worldview so even when we disagree the other opinion isn’t necessarily shocking. But there are people in the world who have shocking opinions. Not just the caricatures of extremists we hold in our minds eye but real, flesh and blood people who appear completely rational. They believe some insane things. I don’t like knowing that there are still people who see homosexuality as a virus to be eradicated, women working is the root of all problems in society or that those “ethnic” people shouldn’t be inserting themselves in places they don’t belong (like country music). These are all things I’ve heard with my own ears recently. I didn’t respond well to any of it and now the other person sees me as a hot-tempered, irrational woman instead of a person with reasonable disagreements. I held the line of reason for a long time into the discussion but there’s only so much BS and reliance on logical fallacies I can take before I lose it. One bottle of wine and two hours of fruitless argument seems to be my tipping point. At first I was upset with myself for letting my temper get the best of me but after giving it some thought I decided that there are some things I hope I never stop getting really, really angry about. Homophobia, misogyny, and racism are at the top of that list. I also think that even though I don’t like knowing that actual people, not just those out in the ether of the internet, feel this way it’s also necessary that I do. You can’t fight an enemy you don’t know you have.
- I’m really glad for that comfortable cushion that is my circle of friends. I can still carry on in the face of job searching, teen-bashing and discrimination. And I can do that because of my friends.
Look at that, I did find a way to tie it all together in the end. 🙂
Hopeful Insights 