Microphones

Unfortunately, I just don't like Ender's Game very much.

I mean, when I read it in my early 20's, I was impressed by what I thought was an unsolvable moral quandary.  I felt compelled to both condemn and absolve Ender, but couldn't do either, and it blew my mind.  I'd never seen anything like it before.  But in the years since, I've learned to discern a great many more shades or right and wrong.  I have learned to reconcile opposing truths, to see that good people can do terrible things, and this makes them neither wholly good nor wholly terrible, but both at once.  I have learned that one can take responsibility for the things they did unintentionally, even if the amount of responsibility deserved is mitigated by the lack of intention.  Intention matters, but isn't the only thing that does.  And so that shocking, mind-blowing, crux of the book is just kind of meh now. 

What this means is, as much as I'd like to, I can't boycott Ender's Game any more than I can boycott Grownups 2.  (I have no idea what that movie is, but apparently it's playing in theaters now.)  It's not a boycott if I wasn't going to see it anyway.

I wouldn't boycott Card because it would have a personal impact on him, either financially or philosophically.  I'm pretty sure his career is safe, and I'm pretty sure that he's heard and not listened to any arguments that might be made against his terrible social ideas.  I also wouldn't boycott Card because I believe that his bigotry shows in the work he's produced.  I think that Ender's Game is flawed, but not in an anti-gay-marriage kind of way.  Or even a Mormon kind of way.  (Maybe.  I don't actually know where Mormons stand on the good-works vs. pure faith debate.)

I would boycott Card, if I could, because he has a microphone.  He is successful and popular and famous, and when he writes articles about how the people should overthrow the government in order to stop gay marriage, he gets published in newspapers, and because he's famous and "controversial," those articles get quoted in other articles and everyone knows what Orson Scott Card thinks.  He's not the only one with a microphone; many of the people writing those articles quoting him also have microphones.  But there are lots of us, who disagree with him, who don't have the social capital to be heard at the same kind of volume.  What a boycott does is give the rest of us a microphone.  A boycott is a union, except instead of providing bargaining power, it provides publicity.  The Ender's Game boycott allows the rest of us to say, "hey, we don't agree" and be heard.  Or it would, if only it weren't Ender's Game.

I feel that I should follow that up with,

OK, back together.  Sorry.

Although it didn't do much for my feeling tired. 

Things I Thought I Could Handle

I almost did it.  I almost got out of this soul-sucking, spoon-taking, slump.  I went to the gym three days last week, and did housework, and consumed non-DA entertainment.  But now there is a wedding to go to in a few days, which means dressing my body, which means making clothes for my body, because nothing works for more than one event in a row, obvs, and I am realizing that I can handle moving my body in very specific ways, but I can't handle looking at it.

I found (borrowed) a top that was loose enough to feel reasonably comfortable in, but then it wanted a fitted slightly-A-linish skirt, and I started making that, but couldn't handle the whole "fitted" part of that, and it was going to be shiny which would make it that much worse if it went wrong, so I found some other fabric and made a nice skirt I could handle wearing except now it doesn't match the top, and the top it does match is skin-tight.  And it's not like I can hide being fat or anything.  I will be a fat person in a skirt and top, no matter what skirt and top I pick. And I'm having a fucking meltdown.

Quiet night

Listening to the soundtrack to Nashville on repeat, washing dishes and putting away laundry and making a skirt pattern.  Keeping occupied, keeping distracted.  I'm starting to feel restless and unsatisfied again.  Time to remember what I was doing before I cut everything but video games from my life.

(slightly) Better Photos

At least, with better color correction.

Really, this is me showing off 1) my awesome paint and decorating choices, and 2) it's CLEAN.  Everything has a place, even if that place for bras-I've-worn-and-will-wear-again-before-washing is hanging off the bookshelf.  This is not my room's "showing off for company" face.  This is its normal hanging out face.

I made my bed every day this week.  (My definition of "bed making" isn't traditional, but it's neat and I like it.)  I have spent a few days in between doing laundry and putting clothes away, so there are a few days when dirty clothes are piled in the corner instead of in the hamper, but never long enough that the corner spills out into the rest of the room. 

I am ridiculously proud, but I'm also having trouble being proud, because I've invested so much of my self-definition on being someone who doesn't care.  Lots of people are unsettled in messy environments.  I get that.  But I'm not that person.  Mess doesn't bother me.  It doesn't interfere with my feeling comfortable or productive or relaxed or happy.

I got so used to not needing a pretty environment that I decided that it was a worthless goal for me.  I worked on not screwing up public spaces, but my room, my office, have always been a wreck.  Seriously, I am 33 years old and I have never had a room that wasn't a mess 99% of the time.  And I didn't care.  When people said "you'll feel better once everything is neat," it sounded like when they said, "you'll change you mind about kids."  It sounded like "I know you better than you know yourself," bullshit.

I like good food.  But, most of the time, I eat frozen meals that taste like frozen meals, because I like them, too.  Not as much, but I'm not bothered by the lack of food goodness.  I don't pine for better.  Neatness is like that.  So, most of the time, the benefit I get from enjoying a neat environment isn't worth the effort in creating one.

But "not worth the effort" isn't the same as "not enjoyable."  This feels like such an obvious thing to say, but it's actually difficult for me to admit to.  I do, actually, enjoy a neat environment.  And maybe in the past the effort wasn't worth the benefit, because I had less resources to allocate.  But, right now, I have the resources. 

And I'm so proud, but part of me feels like I'm giving up.  Like I'm giving in.  Like I'm waiting for the I told you so's to start.

Available now if you happen to be a graduate student in photography at my university

This is a myspace selfie I made by picking up a scanner and holding it next to my head.

It will be available for checkout if you happen to be enrolled in photography classes at my university in the fall.  For all your holding-scanners-against-things needs.

This is another one.

BREAKING NEWS: The Shopping Edition

Gentlepersons of the internet, I have finally retired my sad, sad, "wallet."  If ever there was a need for scare quotes, this is it.  For those who have not had the unenviable experience of seeing said "wallet," it looked like this right before I threw it out:

Yeah.

Now my wallet looks like this:

It came in the mail today.  Handmade by Quiet Doings on etsy.