To every politician ever

Article

Tonight I happened to stumble onto this great article* by Heather Corinna, about rejecting the fear of being abnormal. The article is focused mainly on sexuality, but so much of what she says applies to all of life. Being truly myself without worrying about if I'm "normal" is something I've always struggled with, and this article does an amazing job of addressing that. The quotes that really woke me up:

"The most concise definition of normal is "being approximately average." Doesn't that sound so super exciting? I sure hope in my life I can reach the amazing goal of being approximately average. Who needs world peace, the end of global hunger, to develop the cure for HIV or to win a Pulitzer when we could accomplish that?"

"It might help to think about the people in the world you admire most. It's likely that a big part of why you do is that there is something exceptional about them: something different. Maybe they had a challenge or adversity they have faced remarkably well, better than a lot of other people have. Maybe they're different in a way you can relate to, and they don't hide that difference or act like there's something bad about being different in some way. Maybe they have asked something of themselves or others that is more than what people will usually ask. Whatever it is, it's unlikely that you feel inspired by someone else because they're just that normal, just so awesomely homogenous. When you like or admire other people, the first thing that comes to your mind when you think about how cool they are probably is not "Wow, they are so totally average!""

I highly recommend reading the whole thing. It's a great little refresher course on being your own damn self.


*Speaking of abnormality, I found this site via a Google search for "Peewee Herman abstinence rings". Yes, those exist. No, I don't know why.

Fun

And when I think I know what's best for me

Fate, she takes me back
To exactly where I need to be

-Amy Steinberg

Last weekend I was having a major freakout because I still had no job prospects and I thought my lights and water were about to be cut off. Then on Saturday, my friend Jill emailed me and asked if she and her family could park their RV here for awhile, and they could give me money right up front toward the electric bill. On Sunday, they were here. They just left yesterday, on their way to a fixed water pump and other states. The timing couldn't have been more perfect, really - I was getting desperately lonely and desperately broke, and their visit helped with both of those. One lesson I've learned in the four months since I lost my mom is that when you're open to possibilities and don't try to force things, things have a way of working out. Maybe eventually I'll learn that lesson well enough to skip the freaking out stage entirely.

But as Edie Brickel would say, shove me into shallow water. I always mean for this blog to have more of a "what I've been up to" feel, but then I end up writing nothing but essays and navel-gazing stuff. People seem to like those posts, but I forget that I can write fun stuff here too. I wonder if people who only know me through my blog think I'm a pretty serious person. Really, I am just a goofball who occasionally has a serious thought and likes to write them down before I get distracted by a fluffy squirrel.

So here's what we got up to this week. I wish I had pictures, but both Jill and I forgot to take any all week! But there was much jumping on the trampoline, on which the kids had me play "Gummi Bears" with them - you know, from the old 80s cartoon? Ironically, they had to teach me how to play, because I didn't have the Disney channel as a kid and have never seen the cartoon! But I was Princess Calla, and Kaya was Igthorn, and Pearl and Fern were Gummis. We also played Super Mario, where Kaya and I took turns being Mario, and whoever wasn't Mario had to be the Koopa shells and Goombas and stuff. I love how the advent of DVDs and Youtube and things mean that kids are still into stuff from when I was a kid.

We also went to the Salvation Army store a few times and picked up a bunch of old movies. I found out the SA is the best place in the world to buy movies, if you don't mind VHS and you like watching older stuff. Jill got a huge stack of Disney movies for the kids, and I found a bunch of my favorites - Star Trek IV, The Breakfast Club, and The Nightmare Before Christmas, to name a few. I pretty much doubled my movie collection, which was pitifully small (if you don't count the 30+ Elvis movies I inherited from my mom).

All in all it was a great week. The thing I love most about hanging out with unschooling families is that I can be friends with the whole family. There's not that invisible wall separating the kids and telling them to run along and play because grownups are talking. If kids aren't kept sheltered from all signs of the adult world, there's no reason grownups can't talk while playing Mario Party DS and being climbed on by cuddly little girls.

When they were ready to leave, Kaya was looking a little sad, and he suddenly had to run into the RV (which Danny had already pulled out into the road - the kids were going in the car) to draw me a picture, and the girls followed suit. That's a nice memory to keep in mind when the job hunt is getting me down. Maybe I don't have a BA and I'm not bilingual and I'm not a "specialist", but dammit, drawing me a picture is a Major Emergency, and that counts for a lot more in the grand scheme of things.

My fridge, right now:

Integrate

I grew up, and still live, in the rural South. We never had much money, but my parents were accumulators of things, and we had a TV and a radio and an old record player. I remember the house always being full of music - wonderful, classic music that predated my arrival by decades. I remember flipping through my mom's record cabinet, running my fingers over the thick cardboard jackets and memorizing the faces on the most colorful ones. I would see those faces again and again throughout my life, repeating like a familiar rhythm as I grew in my knowledge of pop culture and recent history.

It didn't occur to me, back then, that they all looked like me. I suppose it didn't occur to me that anyone should look different. Almost nobody did, where we lived, and the ones who did lived in separate neighborhoods, pushed back almost behind the town, where people passing through wouldn't know they were there. Certainly everyone in my neighborhood looked like me, and everyone in my church, and all of my parents' friends. Even in the movies we watched, all of the characters looked like me - with the notable exception of Gone with the Wind. Every place we went was a hall of mirrors, reflecting larger and smaller versions of myself. I never felt racist, never had any ill feeling towards people Not Like Me. I just didn't pay much attention. Since I saw myself everywhere I went, I had no reason to expect to see anything else.

No matter what I saw on the covers of those records, I knew they each held a piece of magic within. Music was my life, my inspiration, my consistent source of joy through an inconsistent childhood. The radio expanded my choices, playing more from those artists and many others who I'd never heard before. Even without moving the dial from our favorite oldies station, I was exposed to a dizzying array of sounds: the doo-wop and rhythm and blues of the '50s, the classic soul and British pop-rock of the '60s, the passionate folk music and stirring protest songs of the early '70s. This mixture of sounds lit up my soul and filled me with an energy that could brighten almost any bad day.

But radio is radio, and though I knew the songs by heart, I had no idea who any of the artists were. I could pick out The Beatles, sure, and Elvis. Those were my mom's favorites, and sometimes I'd help her tape their songs onto scratchy cassettes. Everyone else was anonymous.

By the time I was ten or eleven, I'd outgrown my mother's music, wanting to move on to something cooler, more now. I turned to contemporary pop radio, and when that wasn't cool enough, to MTV and VH1. I would spend hours each day simply soaking in music and images, resisting my teachers' attempts to stretch my list of tasks beyond school hours. To any outside observer, it was surely "unproductive" and a "waste of time".

But it was here that I first saw the black faces of the people who wrote, performed, and danced to many of my Most Favorite Songs, both from the MTV world and the sunny oldies radio of my earlier years. As my love for their music grew, I realized that these were real people with real stories. They weren't just Others living in trailers behind the grocery store, but people. People who did real things in the world and had fans of all colors and creeds. People I even thought I could be friends with, if they weren't so famous and far away.

And I remember my change of heart clearly enough to say this with certainty: It is no coincidence that when people who didn't look like me began showing up on my TV and in my CD player, it wasn't long before they began showing up in my life as well. My circle of friends today contains multitudes; we're a veritable Rainbow Coalition of assorted geeks, hippies and other misfits, each with a unique background and perspective on life. But I don't think it would be that way if, all those years ago, my ears hadn't opened my eyes.

Bored

What "I'm bored" can mean:

I need something and I don't know what it is.

I'm lonely and want you to spend time with me.

Life has gotten monotonous around here, let's do something new!

I'm not sure what I want to do next. I could use some ideas.

I'm feeling a little down and could use a distraction right about now.

I need a change of scenery.

I wish my friends lived closer. I miss them.

I'm between major interests/hobbies right now. I need a new one.

I've learned all the interesting stuff around here. Show me something new.

I'm not getting enough exercise, and it's boring to do it by myself. Let's go play outside together.

I need something to do that makes me feel purposeful and important.


What "I'm bored" almost NEVER means:

I don't appreciate the hundreds of dollars worth of toys and games I have.

I am oblivious to all the stuff there is to do right in front of my face and need you to point it out to me.

I can't do anything on my own. This is your cue to give me orders.

I am volunteering to do any random household chore you feel like assigning, no matter how tedious, boring or lonely it is.

Since I'm not sure what I want to do, I am willing to do anything. Just blurt out an activity and I'll happily do it.

I should be able to completely entertain myself by now, independently of other people. Since I can't, I am immature.

Update on the Haiti Fundraiser

I mentioned in this post that a Livejournal community I'm in has been making donations to UNICEF for help in Haiti. At that point, we were just shy of $8,000. We've now reached over $15,000.

That's $15,000 raised in two days.

$15,000 raised mostly by people in their early 20s, many of whom are in college and are already living off ramen as it is. This has done a lot to renew my faith in the human spirit.

We've also been posting about this on Twitter, and so far we've been retweeted by:

Zachary Quinto
Simon Pegg
Neil Gaiman
Tyler Shields
Wendi Lynn
CNN iReport

That's a big deal not because attention from celebrities is awesome (though it is), but because these people have thousands of followers. Hopefully most of those followers would have donated somewhere anyway if they were able, but star power can be influential. (Hence why my Twitter feed is mostly full of me bugging Star Trek actors right now. Some of them have over a million followers.)

If you'd like to contribute to our UNICEF fund, the link is here. Some other great places to donate:

Doctors Without Borders
The American Red Cross, Canadian Red Cross, or International Red Cross and Red Crescent
The Salvation Army

If you can spare it, please give something somewhere. Even if it isn't much, it matters.

Seven Quick Takes

One

I'm really feeling the tragedy in Haiti on a more personal level than I normally might. When I hear about natural disasters in other countries, my usual reaction is to say "Wow, that really sucks", maybe say a prayer, and halfheartedly follow the news until they stop talking about it. But I have a good friend who has family in Haiti, and she has no way to know if they're even alive. Even though I don't know any of her relatives there, it makes the whole thing feel closer to home. On one level, I feel bad knowing I wouldn't care as much if I didn't have a connection there, but on the other hand it makes me realize the value of being friends with a whole lot of different people. The more people you know, the more connected you are to everything that happens in the world, and the easier it is to truly understand the impact when things like this happen.

Two

A Star Trek fan community I'm in has been raising money for Haiti through UNICEF, and has raised just shy of eight thousand dollars in roughly the last 24 hours. What makes this extra amazing is that:

1) This isn't any major organization or official fanclub or anything. It's just a Livejournal community. Granted, it's an enormous one, but still.
2) Part of what's making the effort so successful is that our donation page was linked on Twitter by Zachary Quinto, Tyler Shields, and Wendi Lynn (who does makeup on Heroes). I'm trying to focus on the good cause and not get all starstruck, but I can't help going holy shit about that. Just a tiny bit.

I've been feeling shitty that I can't do anything to help because of my economic situation, but I'm really proud to be part of a group that's making such a big effort to help out.

Three

Speaking of Livejournal (which I spend entirely too much time on), I'm also a member of a tiny glam rock fan community, and today someone posted Sandra Dodd's letter from David Bowie. They thought it was adorable and wanted to know if it was for real. I was momentarily stunned when that showed up on my friends list, because it's so rare that my unschooling life and my pathetic fangirl life overlap so neatly. But I was happy to be able to verify that the letter is real, on the grounds that "I totally know the person he sent it to."

Four

Wanna know a random thing I learned today? Mayonnaise lasts a long ass time. See, I've had this jar of mayo in my fridge for longer than you probably want to know. The expiration date says June 2010, and it smells and tastes fine, but for a long time I refused to use it because I believed mayonnaise couldn't possibly last for six months. I'm not sure why I was keeping it if I wasn't going to use it, but I'm glad I did, because it turns out it's still good. I did some research and found that it's so acidic it's hard for bacteria to grow in it, which is why it lasts so much longer than you'd expect from an egg-based product. (Note that this only applies to store-bought mayo; the homemade kind doesn't last as long.)

Five

This is probably going to sound weird coming from someone who lives in Florida, but I'm pretty sure I have some form of SAD. While I'm usually happy in December, I tend to spend January wanting to crawl in a hole somewhere and maybe evolve into some kind of plantlike creature so I can just absorb nutrients from the dirt. I also tend to leave my Christmas decorations up well into January, partly because they cheer me up, but also because I'm too listless to take them down. Today on a whim I finally took down the Christmas tree in my bedroom, and after that I felt a whole lot better. Turns out my cheery, happy Christmas tree was blocking most of the light from getting into my room, thus making my depression worse. Face, meet palm.

Six

The job hunt is not going so well. And by that I don't mean I'm having trouble getting an interview. I mean I'm having trouble finding anything to apply for in the first place. There just isn't all that much around here right now. I finally put a profile on some babysitting websites and I'm hoping to hear back from a family I'd like to apply with. Meanwhile, I'm trying not to panic too much over money. My gut is telling me everything's going to be okay, and even though my gut is usually right, it's still hard to listen to it when my head is screaming oh my god I'm gonna run out of money and I'll starve and my electricity will be cut off and my house will magically disappear into a puff of smoke even though I don't have a mortgage, just because the universe feels like punishing me some more. Any prayers, kind wishes, positive energy, happy thoughts, affirmations, or whatever it is you do are appreciated.

Seven

Holy hell I forgot what a load of bullshit high school homework is. I have a good friend who's a senior this year, and she's overworked and overwhelmed and basically just comes to me and goes "What the hell am I supposed to do?!" I'd be tempted to just mail her the Teenage Liberation Handbook with a note that says get the fuck out, but she's graduating in a few months anyway, so for now I'm just trying to help her through the work. The stupid, mind-numbing, pointless work. When you have teenagers upset because their school schedule doesn't leave them enough time to volunteer at a homeless shelter, and lamenting the fact that they have to write essays on Nineteen Eighty-Four because it keeps them from really getting into the book, it's a damn sure sign that whatever kids are being forced to do is a waste of time.