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Yay! Comment if you've made the leap, and please change your links to reflect the new url: http://drublood.com
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This blog will soon be moving to a fancy schmancy new host and will have a fancy schmancy new domain name. I won't be posting this weekend, so prepare to change your fancy schmancy links.
thx! mwah!
Oh, PS...in case something happens that I can't keep my big mouth shut about, you can find me temporarily at fullbleed.net/drublood.
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Lots of stuff planned this weekend. I wonder what the soundtrack will be like.
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(because I refuse to use the phrase "blog dump")
Mr Morales has said in the past that one of his priorities will be to seek more rights for Bolivia's indigenous majority."Here, the indigenous people will be ministers," he said on Wednesday.
"Someone said that when we Quechuas and Aymaras were in government we'd make a ministry for white people, but we won't discriminate."
***
"The Voyage" is a nice introduction to the concept of saving face and sparing feelings. But itâs also about navigating a system you donât need, one that actually slows you down in order for other people to do their jobs. Itâs about other people not believing that you can actually accomplish something for yourself, about misguided good intentions and wasted time. Itâs about bureaucracy in general and, viewed through my lens, school in particular.I look back on my own institutional-school career in the honors program at a series of exemplary public schools and I see mostly boredom, bureaucratic hoops that had to be jumped through, and oceans of wasted time. Rules are rules. What you as an indivudal may need or can do is neither here nor there in a system devoted to itself.
Scientists believe that new habitats for butterflies are early effects of global climate change -- but that isn't news, by most people's measure. Neither is declining rainfall in the Amazon, or thinner ice in the Arctic. We can't see these changes in our personal lives, and in that sense, they are abstractions. So they don't grab us the way a plane crash would -- even though they may be harbingers of a catastrophe that could, quite literally, alter the fundamentals of life on the planet. And because they're not "news," the environmental changes don't prompt action, at least not in the United States.
Nigeria's government is planning a specific ban on same-sex marriages, with five years in jail for anyone who has a gay wedding or officiates at one.Information Minister Frank Nweke told the BBC the government was taking the "pre-emptive step" because of developments elsewhere in the world.
The Italian government has announced that it will pull its troops out of Iraq by the end of the year.[source] ***
Iran is the regional superstate. If ever there were a realpolitik demanding to be "hugged close" it is this one, however distasteful its leader and his centrifuges. If you cannot stop a man buying a gun, the next best bet is to make him your friend, not your enemy.[source] ***
The official Vatican newspaper published an article this week labeling as "correct" the recent decision by a judge in Pennsylvania that intelligent design should not be taught as a scientific alternative to evolution."If the model proposed by Darwin is not considered sufficient, one should search for another," Fiorenzo Facchini, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Bologna, wrote in the Jan. 16-17 edition of the paper, L'Osservatore Romano.
"But it is not correct from a methodological point of view to stray from the field of science while pretending to do science," he wrote, calling intelligent design unscientific. "It only creates confusion between the scientific plane and those that are philosophical or religious."
and, finally...
If Wal-Mart were a state, it would rank 39th in population, right behind Nebraska -- and that doesn't include the dependents of the company's 1.7 million employees.This company doesn't negotiate discounted prices from suppliers of everything from panties to popcorn; it mandates them. Wal-Mart makes unions tremble and politicians swoon. It could grab a health-insurance provider by the throat, shake it a few times for effect, then swing the sweetest healthcare coverage deal in the universe.
But why should it, when it can pass its health-insurance costs to taxpayers?
[source]
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Spending a day with seven children tends to cause a lot of reflection. In this case, I was thinking about my reaction to the events of last night that were vaguely alluded to in my earlier post. I think I need to give myself and my unwillingness to respond to people in the moment a lot more credit than I have. I have learned that it's best to allow people a day or so to think about their situation before addressing how it affects me, and I have found that this is generally a wise thing to do. It's important to note the subtle way in which people come back to events and address issues that were left hanging. It's crucial to respect that, and to give people a chance to "come to" in their own time and make decisions independent of my own bullshit reactions to their actions. Processing emotions too quickly can cause an endless chain of defensiveness and reaction without any hope of resolution. We are all putting the pieces together slowly, and we have time to figure it out together.
For my part, however, I feel like there's a certain amount of narcissism in my unwillingness to trust my own instincts about things. It might seem like anti-narcissism, but it really is just the ego in a different form entering into my interactions with people. The need to seek advice from people, and the tendency I have to trust others' wisdom more than my own is not necessarily the most healthy way of going about things. Although it is good to seek, be receptive to, and process the insight of others, ultimately I need to trust that I make good decisions. I do. And I'm getting better and better at trusting this, but there is still, obviously, some work to do. In the interim, I'm asking for validation from people to a greater degree than is necessary...and sometimes the divergence in feedback that I get from what I know to be true negatively impacts my self-image. The truth is somewhere in between. And I can't blame those who are offering their wisdom, because I am fortunate to have relationships with people who are gentle in their approach and (because I make wise choices about those who I spend my time with) truly are concerned about my well-being...it is, instead, the way I internally and externally react to this wisdom that I need to be careful of. I need to be careful to not invalidate my own process by being overly reliant on the advice of others.
Anyway, this is all stuff that has been going through my head as I have spent the day bouncing from one conflict to the next between the children and the others in my care today. There's probably more to it than that, but my brain is now tired and needs a rest. Ha!
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Hey everyone,
There are some changes brewing here in drublood blogland. The site is being moved to a different server and will end up with a different url, so be prepared to change yr linky links!
Also, if anyone is interested in donating a couple of bucks to cover server costs and the new domain, that would be fab. You can hit the paypal link on the sidebar. I've already paid my wonderful hosts, but I'd like to give them extra for all of their help over the past 3 years or so.
Thanks & Take care!
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I remember when it first became apparent that I was breaking up with L, and I would soon be joining the ranks of single mothers everywhere. I was on the phone bumming and mulling with my friend Gar, and I moaned "Who on earth is going to date a woman with two children and a deaf dog?"
I don't remember how Gar responded to that. Gar's always been good about pumping me up, though. He probably said something like "Buck up, buckaroo - you don't need no stinking man, anyway." Honestly, it really doesn't matter what he said so much as the fact that I was so certain that my status as a mother and caretaker was a negative/burdensome thing that there would be no way that anyone would be able to overlook that and see what I have to offer instead of what I might potentially take away.
In fact, I was so relieved when I started hanging out with J, before we were dating, that he had an ease with the children. The fact that he viewed them as an asset was one of the reasons I found him so attractive. Here was an opportunity to overcome my fear that I would have to live a secret life of a mama while surreptitiously dating men during visitation weekends and, ostensibly, living a double life. Disconnecting my mamahood from my womanhood, I suppose, is one way to deal with the conundrum of dating within the confines of single parenthood.
Things with J worked out well for awhile. He was enthusiastic about me AND the children. But the children are full-on. And, as well, they require consistent presence if you are to be open to seeing the full breadth of who they are. Seeing the children once or twice a week gives a warped representation of what it's like to be with them - for the better or for the worse. Eventually, J's enthusiasm for them waned. He spent less and less time with them, making the time he did spend with them more intense and, I think, fraught. Until, finally, I couldn't deal at all. It was either he not see them at all, and I take on the aformentioned double identity...or he gradually disappear from our lives entirely, which I guess is what he chose.
Over the past few months, no fewer than 3 male acquaintances of mine have told me they would never date a woman with children. Now, this statement was not directed at me as a form of rejection, as to my knowledge, dating is not really on the table with any of these 3. and I don't think it was intended to be mean or insensitive, either ("intentional insensitivity" - now THERE'S an interesting concept) but each time it was said, I felt...well...slapped.
I mean, of course my self-soothing internal dialog went something like "Whatever, dude...your loss." But there's more to it than that. I mean, I don't have a lot of time in my life for superfluous friendships, so generally the people I spend time with are people I greatly admire, find worthy, and share commonality with. So to hear them say that they would reject me because of my status as a parent is not something I take lightly - because it probably means that potential love interests might do the same.
But also, regardless of whether my relationship to someone (and, it's ironic that it's my male friends who express a resistance to relationships to women with children) is platonic or romantic, it's short-sighted for someone to say such a thing to me. Either way, these men and my relationship with them are benefitting from my experience as a mama. Whether I am dating someone or not & whether my children have a presence in the relationship or not, what I bring to the table in any relationship I am in is me - a woman with children. And while I don't feel that I overly identify as "someone's mom" I certainly can't be divorced from that reality. Having children has, in large part, shaped who I am. Anyone who loves and appreciates me today loves and appreciates me based on those experiences. There is, of course, the basic stuff out of which I am made, but even my physical body has changed its shape and texture to accommodate all of the internal growth I have experienced before, during, and after childbirth. Twice.
So, I have to wonder when a man (or, really, anyone I know) says something about putting any sort of barrier between himself and the experience of children (be it some hypothetical dating partner's or my own) whether that may be a way to cling to who they are and to resist change and reshaping. I also do have to wonder whether someone can truly appreciate who I am without honoring my mamahood.
It reminds me of the time I was in the middle of cooking a snack for my cricket & I asked him to take out the compost. He quipped that he was my surrogate husband, and I retorted that if he was my surrogate husband, he would be sitting on the couch smoking a bowl. And, anyway, if he was my surrogate husband, what the fuck was *I* who was in the middle of making him the 3rd or 4th meal in as many days?
Now, we all know how much I love me some cricket, but it's true. His experience of me is an experience of a woman who has children and who brings my mamaness into every interaction. He can take that for granted because I enjoy his adult presence in my life, even when he's acting like a little bug. But while he can't ask me to separate my mamaness from my womanness, he CAN choose to divide himself from my life as a mama and hog all of my mamaness to himself...and then make remarks like the above when asked to consciously take on household responsibilities.
Fundamentally, the statement "I would never date a woman with children" like most absolutist statements, says more about the person saying it than anyone toward whom that statement is directed. What I'd like to hear from my male friends...or perhaps what I *am* hearing underneath that statement is "I see from my relationship with you that children require a great deal of [whatever it is that person feels they lack, be it stamina, patience, love, self-acceptance, sanity, nurturing, etc] and I admire that you have that. I'm so afraid that I can't develop those skills/attributes/whatever that I feel like it's easier to avoid the situation entirely, rather than face my fears and attempt to undertake the thing(s) that I fear most."
Which, ultimately, is what relationships require us to do, anyway. Whether they are romantic or not. Whether children are present or not.
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I think the most difficult thing about the living situation here, for me, is finding out all of the ways in which I fall short of what I want to be. It's easy to convince myself I'm purt-near perfect when I'm here all by myself with my children. However, being thrust into situations where I have to be present with a wide variety of other people, both children and adults, and I actually have to try not to show my ass so much is really. fucking. hard.
I'm discovering I have little neuroses I didn't realize I had. I have a tendency to run and hide, for one thing. I have a tendency to keep things to myself. In a conversation I had this evening I was told I have a tendency to be passive, and to not protect myself. These things are all true. I am the queen of cave, and my power lies in the fact that, in spite of what readers of this blog might see, I keep my cards squeezed tight against my chest. In fact, upon reflection, it might even be true that the closer I am to someone, the less open I become. It's too painful, so I clam up.
However, these are all tendencies that can only be overcome by exposing them to the light of experience. Forcing them, even. Forcing my hand. I've been working on this with myself...little by little. It's actually a small miracle I was able to have a conversation with a friend that involved enough depth for the feedback about my passivity to be given. I told my friend that this would probably result in me running away from him out of fear of overexposure. He claims he won't hurt me. We'll see about that, says the ever-watchful eye. Hey, miracles - even small ones - don't happen overfuckingnight.
I find it interesting that changes in rhythm and patterns can cause so much upset in people. In a selfish mood, I consider that it's all about me - that I am the only one with the neuroses. When I open my eyes and see clearly, I realize that we are all broken, and true community and true friendship and true love seeks to recognize the brokenness in all of us and attempts to work with that rather than taking it personally and recoiling. Today was the first day of the new rhythm. I feel like it worked well, and I'm going to dance to it. That means I need to get some sleep so I can start fresh again tomorrow and see if we can get everyone up on their feet this time.
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It didn't take much encouragement for me to take the yearbooks down from their high shelf and show them to Cricket yesterday. It had been awhile since I perused them last, and I was pleasantly resurprised by them.
The thing is...we need an adult version of the yearbook. Maybe we should start a "yearblog" meme, where everyone goes to everyone else's blog and writes one of those super cheesy but super sweet yearbook type comments like: It's been a great year, I really love your style, you are a true original and very sweet!" Because, and maybe I'm just a huge hairy cheeseball, but reading over those little comments in my yearbook made me feel...well, good somehow. Even though I was hardly friends with any of those people, it was sweet of them to find something nice to say about me.
So, yeah...it's been fun reading through them. Also, I had the BEST HAIR EVER in my junior year picture. It's probably the cutest picture of me ever taken. I think I'm in love with myself! hahahahahhahahaha.
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I just dumped this week's photos onto my flickr page, including some really cute shots by coley, like this series of pictures where Spidey is flying through the streets of Austin.
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