Junti in 2020

 My little cat came up in my FB memories. She was so pretty.

Piano Update

I am making progress!

I still am just teaching myself -- no formal lessons yet. I acquired this set of books as well as a couple other books and am working my way through them. My musical ignorance is a problem (what does 'key of G' mean?). The internet is a little bit of help.

I might have told y'all this story before, but we had no music at all in the house when I was growing up. My father had a transistor radio which he would use to listen to baseball games on, but not music. No music at school either, not in Louisiana. There was band in high school, but I didn't play an instrument. 

In high school, I was bused to the girl's school in Jefferson Parrish, which was about an hour away. So I got to listen to the radio (played by the bus driver) for two hours a day.

When I was about fourteen, my father bought a sound system for some reason, which included a stereo and a turntable, except we had no records except the one that came with, Johnny Horton's Greatest Hits. After a while, I bought Bridge Over Troubled Waters. How did I know who Simon and Garfunkel were? I can't remember. Maybe those bus rides?

Anyway! My point here is that I grew up very nearly musically illiterate, so learning even on this very basic level is a revelation. Also, fascinating.

I'm still thinking about signing up for formal lessons.

My garden

I'm growing herbs, a fig tree, rose bushes, and a watermelon in my raised bed garden. Some of these are in the plastic crates that were formerly used for recycling -- when the city gave us wheeled carts instead, they said we should repurpose the plastic crates. The rest are a DIY wooden beds I filled with dirt bought in sacks from the local Harps.

So far the rose buses are doing wonderfully, as are the herbs.  I have some tiny watermelons on the watermelon vines.

Tomatoes don't do well here because the squirrels eat them off the vine before they can ripen. I'm hoping that won't happen with the watermelons.

I've always wanted to grow peas. Maybe next year!

My first watermelon!

Iran War

I'm still avoiding news and most of social media, but I saw that Trump has actually lost the Iran War? He lost it?

Or did he just get bored and wander away, and so the war was lost that way?

MAGA, man.

(Fox Goggles)

Gender Wars

I was reading Fraser Sherman's post about how men enforce masculinity, or rather toxic masculinity. It led me to thinking about how a certain kind of conservative views gender -- specifically, that there is only one correct way to perform a given gender. 

I was thinking of a specific conservative I know, who said if their daughter put makeup on their son (the daughter was about five, the son about three) the makeup would be in the trash and both kids would get 'whooped,' to use their language.

Why such an over-reaction to normal play on the part of their kids? Especially since -- according to that kind of conservative -- gender is natural and fixed? If you can't change someone's gender, why do we need to terrorize children into performing their gender properly?

Sherman says this:

As I’ve discussed earlier, part of this is the toxic-masculine insistence that there’s only one way to be a man. Because if there are alternatives, then that concept of manhood — it doesn’t matter if we’re toxic, we’re guys, we can’t help it! — becomes invalid.

That's what's going on, I think. This sort of person has been, themselves, abused into performing gender this one specific way. They've been damaged. They have had a neurosis installed in them by their society or their family or both. This neurosis, this damage, has left them terrified of gender not being performed in one specific way. 

What are they doing about this damage? Well, they're damaging their children in exactly the same way. Anything else is just too frightening for them.

It's why they insist on trying to compel everyone else to damage their children as well: because if anyone is performing gender in a way that doesn't match the "right" way, then they are reminded of their own damage. Maybe they are even forced to notice how they're damaging their children. Guilt and terror follow.

Sherman also points out that not being a specific sort of masculine -- or a specific sort of feminine -- terrifies them because they don't have an identity outside of that specific gender. What are they, if they aren't "man" or "woman"? They can't just be a human. They can't just be some self not defined by other people. The neurosis doesn't let them be that. 

For example: it doesn't bother me that other people perform gender some way I don't. Like, some people wear makeup and have their nails done. Some people wear their hair long or short. Some people wear skirts and some have earrings. Some people modify their bodies with plastic surgery. Some people spend their lives having kids, and some spend their lives at beauty pageants. I don't do any of that, but why would I care if other people do? I'd have to be neurotic to care about that.

I should feel sorry for the damaged people, I suppose. 

But I don't. When you're damaged, the way to react is to that damage is to seek therapy, or whatever else you need to do, to heal your own trauma. 

The thing not to do? Damage others in a vain attempt to make yourself feel better.

Raeburn Miller

I was browsing the blog and came across this post I wrote 20 years ago now.

Part of it is about assessment in academic classes, and part of it is about Raeburn Miller, who had enormous influence on my life.

He died in 1990, I see from the internet. I was wondering if anyone else remembers him? A good poet and a great teacher. 

World Events

I haven't really been paying attention to the news for the past week or so, because I needed a break. It's been so depressing. But apparently Trump is turning the White House into a trailer park. And God is reacting by sending algae and giant storms and killing heat.

Also he's won the Iran War yet again. This makes like eleven times, doesn't it?

Also some sort of important sports event happened in New York.

In other news, I have reached the point in my piano lessons where I am introduced to sharps and I've got blisters on my thumbs because the way I hit Middle C (with both of them) hits right at the juncture of nail and flesh.

 

Fig Season!

It's fig season again!

(In the background, the teapot my kid bought me, which looks like the Frog King)

Wait, I AM an Adult

I just re-read yesterday's post and realized something even weirder than my kid being an adult. 

I'M an adult.

Like, I do the things I'm supposed to do. 

I pay my bills. I walk the dog. I do the laundry every Monday. I have this rule I follow, which is that I always leave a clean kitchen before I go to bed -- that means all the dishes in the dishwasher, the sink scrubbed out, the floor swept. I take out the trash and recycling, and I put the bins out on bin night. I compost.

I practice my piano every day. I write every day. I go to the library every Sunday and take all my books back on time. I go to bed at a reasonable hour and wake up early every morning.

I even eat salads! Like an adult!

How did this happen?

I have raised an adult

The kid and his husband have flown off for a week in the Outer Banks (with the husband's family). I had almost nothing to do with any of this -- the kid didn't need my advice for booking the flights, or renting the car. They didn't need my help getting to the airport. I didn't have anything to do with their packing.

I'm feeding the cat while they're gone. That's it.

My kid is an adult. 

(I remember taking the kid to the Outer Banks when they were about two, staying with my family. That little little kid in the sunhat has become an adult. I hope he remembers to wear his sunhat at the beach. You will not believe the restraint I am practicing to keep from saying that to him.)

Read This Thread at BlueSky

 Read this thread about why Conservatives oppose certain treatments and approve of others.

There are two pillars of conservative medicine: One is eugenics, the other is a hatred of science as a method of discerning objective truths and a need to replace scientific truth-finding with declarations from conservative authorities.

 

Piano Update

I have assembled instruction books and Dr Skull's ancient Kutzweil and am busily engaged in teaching myself to play the piano. 

Dr Skull, who had actual piano lessons as a kid, cannot stop himself from backseat teaching. Since I don't understand a single thing he tries to tell me, this is doing no good, but no real harm either.

I should probably find someone to give me lessons. But I'm enjoying the process so far, so I'll stick with this for a bit.

My Yard is Full of Fireflies

I dislike summer intensely, as you all know, but I must admit I love this particular season, when -- thanks to the green space behind my house -- my yard is filled with fireflies.

They're so pretty. Also, it's fun to watch the neighbor's cat trying to catch them.

Shamus just ignores them.

Spotted on Tumblr

"I don't think anyone has won a war as many times as Trump has won the Iran war. MAGA!"

Hey! Who Knew?

This guy tells us about a study which shows that cooking meals -- especially if you're bad at it, like I am -- helps stave off dementia. Who knew!