It's Only A Paper Rose

I don't have any particular basis for the assertion, but Yo-yo Ma has always struck me as one of those assertively kind and gentle souls the world needs more of. I remember first seeing him perform on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood (speaking of kind and gentle souls) when I was very small - I believe it was also the first time I'd ever seen a cello played. I loved it so much that I gave serious thought to playing cello in school; I ended up opting for flute instead for practical reasons (the instrument was much less expensive and easier to carry), but I've always been a little sorry about that.

All of which is to say, this post about his unexpectedly visiting my local refugee assistance center, and especially the picture of him interacting with the rapt children, makes my heart happy. So I thought I'd share it with all of you.

Hello, fellow book nerds! Last Wednesday was a bit nuts; Brian and I were scrambling about trying to get all the last-minute preparations done for our trip to Washington state, only to discover that our pleasant evening flight had been delayed into an overnight flight thanks to thunderstorms shutting down O'Hare. (Thanks a lot, Chicago weather!) We made it eventually, although we had to shell out no small amount for Lyfts as transit wasn't running that late/early...ah well. The past week has been full of robot fights and gigantic waterfalls and a quick visit with the goddaughter and walks with my mother-in-law and driving. So much driving. And more later today. Washington state, why do you have to be so huge. >.>

And, of course, there has been reading!

What I've just finished reading

The Heiress Effect, by Courtney Milan. Incredibly generic covers aside, I've found this series to be one of my favorite period romances. It does suffer somewhat from the common "Regency romance that's basically modern people living in the trappings of the period" problem, but the characters are so well-drawn and likable that I enjoy them anyway, even if they're ultimately a little forgettable (except, perhaps, for Free and her Suffragettes! in book 4).


What I'm currently reading

Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life, by Emily Nagowski, Ph.D. (Yeah, I'm reading roughly a million other books right now, but I bought this intending to read it right away...almost exactly two years ago, if the receipt is to be believed. :P In any case, I finally picked it up off my nightstand and brought it along for the trip.) If you're interested in sociology and sexuality, this is a fascinating book - far more interesting than Future Sex, for all that it's more science-based than memoir. Nagowski's big reveal (er, spoilers? She talks about it in literally the first chapter) is the accelerator/brakes model of sexual arousal, where rather than an on/off switch, eroticism is mostly a matter of context. So we react sexually when there are enough turn-ons present in the environment (say, presence of an attractive partner, sounds/sights of other people having sex, relaxed and receptive mood) and relatively few turn-offs (say, crying children, an unappreciative audience, history of sexual trauma, general life stress); ergo what we think of as "sex drive" is really as much a question of what's going on in the person's immediate surroundings and in their life.

I have a lot of thoughts on this theory. Primarily, Nagowski seems to think it's mostly applicable to women, because their sexuality is socialized in a more complex way; that may be true, but I strongly suspect it's true for a lot of men too, if perhaps to a lesser degree. Similarly, I don't think it's only sex that utilizes this mechanism; laughter, say, is heavily context-dependent, as articulated in the benign violation theory of humor. And the sympathetic/parasympathetic nervous system works in a similar way to generate a whole host of responses to a range of different situations. So I'll be interested to see where she takes it.

The Kissing Booth Girl and Other Stories, by AC Wise. I picked this up as part of the LGBTQ Humble Bundle (it doesn't count as buying new books if it's supporting a good cause, right??), and basically opened it up knowing nothing about it. It seems to be lyrical sci-fi stories with a queer bent; the worldbuilding's been a little scanty in the stories I've read so far, but the sheer human longing at the center of each has been strong and well-rendered enough to easily drive the plots forward.


What I plan to read next

Given that I currently have something like eight books on my currently-reading list, I think I'm going to be best served by finishing some of them before I start to plan more, haha.

I've tried my best to keep my political posts to a minimum, this election. This is not because I don't like politics, or think they shouldn't be discussed in polite company; I find sociology and demographics and economics and all the other fields that contribute to political choice-making fascinating. Even more, I feel strongly that the point of a democracy (and deliberative government in general) is to encourage discussion and exchange of views between people who may not agree. It's slow, and inefficient, and often anxiety-making; it requires an ability to listen in good faith, and to find common ground. But, at its best, it helps us broaden our viewpoints and make decisions that are best for everyone. I've made a very real effort, therefore, to befriend people on all parts of the political spectrum.

And so I feel like I've gotten a front-row seat to our country's increasing polarization over the past decade. And that's made discussing politics increasingly uncomfortable.

There's no one single cause that I've seen a convincing argument for. Income inequality absolutely contributes, as does the stark divide in rural vs. urban culture and economic opportunity. Self-constructed Internet echo chambers may have had an effect, as well as the culture of bullying that Internet anonymity has given rise to. A news media that depends on conflict and horse-race reporting to generate clicks. But the one very real effect is a complete breakdown of communication between people with different views. An obstructionist Congress that refuses to work with the other branches of government. A Supreme Court evenly split along ideological lines. And, on a smaller scale, a stream of people in my social media feeds - many of whom I like and respect - demanding that people who voted for an opposing candidate, or who have different ideas about this or that issue, unfriend them right now. No more communication.

And the damned thing is, I can understand that. We're all human. None of us like uncertainty. None of us want to admit we might be wrong, that our friends might be wrong. A lot of us aren't even comfortable discussing our thinking anymore - it's too likely someone will take advantage of even that small vulnerability to land a sucker punch. It's so much easier to hide in our bunker with the people who pass our tests of ideological purity, who will reinforce our view of the world, and who won't challenge us for fear of being ousted from our circle.

But the cost is...this. A government so dysfunctional it can't even fulfill its basic, Constitutionally-mandated responsibilities. Social media feeds full of 'gotcha' memes and biased information. And now, a whole section of the populace that feels so left behind, so ignored, that they've (very likely) elected a supremely unqualified person for the highest office in the land, solely for the satisfaction of throwing a brick through the window.

It's times like this that being a big-picture sort of person gets really depressing. Because, ultimately, there's not much I can do about any of these trends. I can't make people listen to each other. I can't stop Internet trolling, or demand that the media quit publishing clickbait headlines, or stop my friends from posting questionable memes. I can't fight what feels like the inevitable tendency of humanity to lose sight of common goals in favor of petty squabbles.

So what can I do? What can any of us do?

Listen. Cultivate empathy to the people you might normally dismiss. Empathy is not the same thing as sympathy; it doesn't mean you agree. It simply means you're willing to consider what they have to say, and their possible reasons for saying it.

Find common ground. For all that we love to find reasons to argue, we're all human, and that means we all have far more in common than we don't. No matter your differences in background, culture, or demographic, I guarantee you have something in common with the next person.

Bring people together. It might be small ways - a yoga class, a church service. It might be bigger - writing a novel, running a protest. But find some way to help people reconnect with others. Help them remember that we're bigger than this.

Set healthy boundaries. Say no to interactions, discussions, and relationships that only drain you. This might seem counterintuitive, but people with the strongest sense of boundaries are able to be the most openhearted with others, because they've saved their energy for the difficult work of listening in good faith.

Maintain your integrity. Practice what you preach.

These are my resolutions for the next four years. What are yours?

I've written quite a bit about my struggles with anxiety and depression, both in terms of how they feel and how they manifest in my behavior. Yesterday, however, a friend linked to an article that resonated quite a bit: Living With High-Functioning Anxiety.

My experience is somewhat different from the writer's. For one thing, mine tends to move in cycles; there are times when I can't stop the stream of internal criticism, and other times when I feel perfectly normal and happy. For another, even when I'm in an anxious phase, my symptoms aren't usually that severe. But I feel firsthand so much of what she's written. The perfectionism. The need to constantly be busy while avoiding important or high-stakes tasks. The inability to ask for help, because that means admitting you're not capable of handling things on your own. The vacillating between "everyone has it together but you, what's wrong with you" and "other people have things so much worse, what are you complaining about".

Those of you who've been around the past couple years have probably noticed my increasing focus on self-care, mostly through increased physical activity and better diet. (I know that, to some people and in some circumstances, I've come across as more than a little evangelist on this point; to those people, I owe an apology. Yoga and self-care have been quite literally life-changing for me, but I suspect in my exhortations I was ignoring the twin contributions of a move to a much better-for-me environment and a significant socioeconomic boost that came about at the same time.) This has done a lot to stretch out the periods of feeling happier and more balanced. But these past several months, I've been feeling the anxiety creep up on me even with those efforts; this latest bout has lasted some weeks.

Another link from a friend, Life Hacks of the Poor and Aimless, has shed some light on what's been going on in my subconscious. Laurie Penny posits that my demographic's obsession with self-care isn't in spite of the scary events going on in the rest of the world, but is in fact a reaction to that very sense of helplessness. We can't refill the Ogallala aquifer, or stop ourselves hurtling past the carbon emission point of no return, or fix a broken political system, or avert any number of other disasters that seem to loom over the horizon. So we turn our focus selfward instead, and convince ourselves that by practicing "radical self-love" we can find happiness - and, on this philosophy's darker side, feel as if we're insufficient when our self-care practice fails to adequately substitute for a stable and functioning social contract.

And yet, the answer can't be to give up self-care entirely. One of my favorite yoga teachers would probably fit Penny's description of an "Instagram happiness guru", or at least an aspiring one. But I go to her classes regularly, because she makes a real effort to make them a safe place, where we can work on self-improvement without judgment. When it feels like the world is falling apart around us, where there's no good answer or right thing we can do to stop things hurtling toward a horrible conclusion, there's a real value in that sort of centering, in exercising that little bit of control we do still have. I always leave her classes feeling more hopeful, more able to focus on the positive aspects of my life. It doesn't always overcome the overall sense of helplessness, but it provides a bulwark, a small protection for my sanity that helps me keep a more even outlook.

And let's not kid ourselves - outlook is important. It's a lot easier to focus on the positives, to work towards making the world a better place in those hundreds of small ways that seem insignificant but are far more likely to ripple out into something lasting, if we're feeling energized and stable and hopeful for the future. Zeitgeist matters; the more we become convinced that the world is headed for disaster, the more likely it is that we will bring that disaster on ourselves. No single one of us can prevent it, no, but by each doing what we can to help raise each others' spirits, perhaps we can improve our collective future.

That's what I feel in my more hopeful moments, anyway. During those times when the anxiety starts to build, when (to paraphrase Brian) I spend more and more time either absorbed in news articles or staring off into the distance, I start to think that this is what my friends and family felt like during the Cold War. Those awful moments of hope mixed with increasing dread, that encroaching certainty that the worst will happen, it was just a question of how and when. It's not a fun feeling; I especially hate how it robs me of the ability to enjoy things in my life here and now, when the worst (whatever that might be) hasn't yet happened, and may not at all.

I've been thinking, too, about my earlier post on paradox, and how essential it is to our existence, even though it's uncomfortable and difficult for us to accept. Perhaps this is how humans get into these destructive spirals in the first place: we don't like uncertainty, we want things to be good or bad. And if things stay uncertain enough for long enough, if the constructive future feels too difficult or too far away, eventually we pick the bad option, just for the relief of knowing the uncertainty is over. Perhaps this is why it's so important to practice holding our paradoxes: that anxiety and depression are challenges to overcome and perfectly reasonable reactions to an increasingly scary world; that we need to focus on taking care of ourselves and fighting for a better society; that we can contribute meaningfully to our collective future and we're dependent on other people to help us build that future.

My head is not the happiest place, of late. But I hope getting these thoughts out in the open will help, if only in the sense of lancing the wound. And to everyone whom I owe letters, or a phone call, or words of comfort - I'm sorry I've been so unresponsive lately. Hopefully this will go some measure towards explaining why.

I have an ongoing dialogue of sorts with a Facebook acquaintance about compassion, and the need to exercise it while - incongruously, it seems - maintaining strong boundaries to protect yourself. And in a recent iteration of this conversation, it occurred to me that this sort of paradox was far from unique:


What really struck me, when I was writing this out, was that I had started out phrasing it as precisely the sort of either/or setup that I later disclaimed. "We need to be compassionate, BUT we need to have strong boundaries." "We need to be open to new ideas, BUT we need to be skeptical." It was such an engrained habit of thinking that it wasn't until I reached the final sentence that I realized that I was presenting these options as choices, and thus reinforcing precisely the sort of either/or framework I was decrying.

Having recognized that, still...it was surprisingly difficult, writing these seeming contradictions out not as quandaries, but as both/and directives. Even though there's plenty of research showing that people with the strongest boundaries are also the most compassionate. Even though just about any Internet comment thread will demonstrate the dangers of both over-openmindedness and over-skepticism. Even though my own life has borne out the value of the long road to a goal. Even knowing all of this, it was almost physically painful to stop thinking of them as choices, and start thinking of both as necessities.

Thinking about why, I was put strongly in mind of Q's final admonition to Picard in All Good Things...:


Paradoxes don't sit well with human nature.  We like things to fit neatly into boxes, to be all good or all bad.  It's genuinely difficult, almost painful, to hold two seemingly-contradictory ideas in our heads, even when we know they're not a contradiction, but two halves of a greater whole.  

But while I can't speak for anyone else's experience...when I manage to hold the paradox in my head?  It's exhilarating, even elevating.  Like I've grown larger, somehow.  Like someday I might be able to understand the entire universe.  

I'm curious, now - do any of you have experiences like this?  Are there paradoxes in your own lives that you struggle with?  Things you've learned that make you feel bigger?  Tell me!

Last Friday night, I had a very bad reaction to NyQuil.

To call it unexpected would be something of an understatement; NyQuil has always been my go-to cold medicine. When I've got a sore throat, am coughing too hard to sleep, or am otherwise miserable with a cold, it's always been there for me, willing to knock me out for a few hours of much-needed rest. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say I've probably taken it a hundred times over the past several years. Even this past week I'd taken it a few times - I've been dealing with a lingering cough and scratchy throat from the Swedish flu, which seems to get worse at night.

But this time, something in the chemistry was off. Instead of falling asleep and waking up in the morning, I awoke after two hours, heart pounding and blood pressure skyrocketing...only to nearly lose consciousness as it bottomed out a few minutes later. I had tremors, sweats, chills, nausea, and all the other symptoms of a bad flu, made worse by the clockwork shots of adrenaline that jolted my system every half-hour or so.

Since sleep was out of the question, I put the time to use doing what few things I could - Googling the symptoms (they all checked out as less-severe uncommon side effects of the drug), making and drinking tea to stay hydrated, and taking deep breaths and firmly telling myself that this was temporary, that I would make it through this. That last was rather more difficult than it sounds with the regular adrenaline dumps, but it was pretty much all I could do, so I did. (I would like to add with some minor grumpiness that, had I been in Sweden or just about any other first-world nation and could go to the ER without it costing literally thousands of dollars, I would have checked myself in for observation - "liver failure" was listed as a "severe" possible side effect. But I decided against it and instead checked my skin and the whites of my eyes every hour or so to make sure I wasn't showing signs of jaundice.)

Quite frankly, I was fucking terrified. In precisely the primal, hindbrain, violent sense that phrase evokes.

---

It's occurred to me, as I've been listening to the book on trauma that I was wrote about in my last post, that this qualified as a mildly traumatic experience - I was in fear for my life and I could do very little about it; even once it was past, I couldn't shake the feeling that it could recur, despite (obviously) avoiding NyQuil since then. And as I started to pick up the pieces of my daily routine, I realized that I could observe all the stages of healthy-person trauma recovery that Dr. van der Kolk discusses. I found words to describe the experience (naming and articulation). I reached out to friends and family for support (social connection). When I experienced some minor avoidance and flashback issues -- difficulty getting to sleep the next night despite being exhausted; performing a massage in an unusually warm room yesterday and, as I started to sweat, feeling my heart rate and blood pressure rise -- I dealt with them using deep breathing and centering techniques, reminding myself that this was not the past (reestablishment of temporal perception). And, gradually, my brain has been able to put the experience in the past (integration), instead of being constantly on alert, convinced that it will happen again.

---

Recently I've been ruminating on The Pictures are Pretty but the Struggle is Real, a plea for us to "be real" on the Internet. The author's a little fuzzy on the definition of "real", but suggests that we need to be honest about the things we're struggling with, to allow some of the rougher edges of our lives to show, in the hopes of better connecting with other people.

My feelings on this are...complex. I applaud her intent, but I think she glosses over a lot of the complexities of honesty and sharing. I think alexmegami had an excellent point over on Facebook: "The Internet is also home of the overshare. I question the ability to be fully yourself with an audience of hundreds or more. While I'm not opposed to honesty...a fight with your spouse is not something to be blasting across the tubes the day of or the day after or even within a week or two, especially without their okay." Vulnerability is powerful; misusing that power to hurt others is not cool, even if you genuinely need help.

And that's not even addressing the question of degrees. Is saying "I'm having a rough time of it today" any less honest than saying "My partner and I had a huge fight over moving today"? Is making a joke to put a humorous spin on a scary situation, as I did with NyQuil by announcing our breakup on Facebook, any less "real" than admitting how terrified I was, as I did above? Heck, is it somehow less honest of me to wait a few days to blog about it, until after I'd had some distance and time to process, than it would have been to write a mostly-incoherent in-the-moment accounting?

There's a lot to be said for the power of vulnerability: used conscientiously, it can be a powerful invitation to sympathy and connection. As peacefulleigh put it: "I strike a balance, or at least I try to, with triumphs and moments of frustration. But even in the latter, the point is not honesty, it's connectedness. I know that my friends have either felt that way too, or we can all laugh together at my foibles later."

And there, I think, is the key. There's nothing wrong with honesty (or "real"ness) in and of itself, just as there's nothing wrong with preferring to present a more polished appearance to the world. But neither of them are an end unto themselves. The point is connection; remembering that we need to strike a balance between reaching out from a position of power ("Look how thoughtful and smart and together I am!") and vulnerability ("I'm really scared about this and need help"). Maybe one's success on social media (and in the social world in general) is best measured in connections made. I think that's what I'm going to experiment with, ultimately; if I feel like I'm not engaging with people, I'll check to see if I'm spending too much time in one mode or the other. Which, yes, will probably require me being vulnerable a little more often. Sigh.

The Summer of All The Travel continues. One week until we leave for Sweden! The flight is going to be...interesting; we're flying overnight into Heathrow, and then have a six hour layover before the flight to Gothenberg. Given how well I sleep on planes (read: I can't), I was thinking about booking a hotel room to catch some rest between flights, but then I looked at the prices for the Heathrow Hilton...and since the layover is during the day, we'd probably have to reserve two nights. Nope. Nope nope nope. I'm willing to be a little sleep deprived in order to save three hundred pounds, thanks. So, flying sleep-deprived into a foreign country...it'll be an adventure! Maybe I'll be too tired for my ambiguphobia to trigger? We'll see!

Travel plans for my Washington trip in October are coming together. I'm flying in to Seattle on the 21st and spending a couple of days there before taking the train out to Mt. Vernon (and Donna, and my goddaughter!) on the 24th. I have emails out to a couple of friends I'd like to stay with. I'm hoping to get my tattoo while I'm there, but I'm unsure if it's a piece that can be done in a single sitting; I've emailed the artist I'd like to work with, but haven't heard back yet. I'm hoping I didn't come off as a dilettante wasting her time; I mentioned that this was my first tattoo, and I'm sure my questions belied my relative inexperience, but I'm absolutely serious about wanting to get this done.

Obligatory Craigslist grumping: I'm trying to sell the massage table I used for school - it's a good table, and in great shape. I put up a Craigslist ad with pictures, and got a couple of hits overnight, but both of them were...shall we say, curt? Admittedly, both came through the iPhone app (and had "Sent from my iPhone" appended to them), but usually one of the ways I filter out the flakes/scammers is by looking for people who take the time to compose a proper message using full sentences and punctuation. Even on an iPhone, is the difference in time between "Still have table" (seriously, that was the entirety of the message) and "I'm interested in looking at this table, do you still have it for sale?" really that difficult? Maybe I'm just old-fashioned.

Faith in humanity restoration: Humans of New York's campaign to help a Pakistani woman fight the horrible institution of bonded labor. HoNY is one of my favorite corners of the Internet, in no small part because the comments on their Facebook page have managed to stay one of the few uniformly-positive and hopeful communities I’ve ever encountered online. Seeing the pictures of this woman, reading her story, and seeing how quickly the numbers are ticking up on her donation page, just gives me the warmest feeling. I hope she gets closer to her goal than she ever thought possible.

• Dispatch from the Internal Wellness Department: Slowly regaining both my energy and my brain, although neither is yet 100%. I still have that strange feverish manic energy despite not having the actual fever (or energy). Odd. Still, I cleaned the kitchen and got showered and dressed and to the store and back, which is more than I've done in the past three days put together. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll feel up for yoga tomorrow.

• Dispatch from the Increasing Girliness Front: I'm preparing for my first (professional) waxing. When Brian and I first started dating, I informed him of my policy on leg-hair removal - I like smooth skin as much as anyone, but shaving every other day is way too much time and effort, and hairy legs don't bother me enough to make it worth it. (Armpits are another matter, as the effort/reward ratio is much more satisfying.) If he wanted to buy me a waxing, I'd be happy to go in for it. Ten years later, he finally offers. *laughs* Though I think I'm going to hold out for a facial and maybe a mani-pedi, too. There's a place just down the way that's well-rated on Yelp and has a very reasonably-priced package deal.

• Dispatches from England: My friend Suraya (pleiadeslion on LJ) was recently featured on the Risk! podcast's first London show. I hadn't heard of this podcast before, but quite like the format (people tell true stories about dramatic/inspirational/meaningful moments in their life). Hers starts around 21:30, and while it's a bit dark (trigger warning for suicide/corpses), it has a wonderfully human depth to it, and her telling of it is beautiful. (Unrelated, one of her housemates had to move out in a hurry, so she's looking for a new occupant for this beautiful room in Harringay - the whole house is lovely, in fact. I don't think I know anyone else in London, but figured I'd post it on the off chance there's someone in my extended network who'd like to share a house with some awesome people who have a slightly morbid sense of humor. Almost makes me wish I lived in London...)

• More dispatches from what's looking to be an outright Storm of Girliness: I'm thinking I might look into makeup lessons, specifically eyeliner. I've always been a bit hopeless at getting it symmetrical, but I love that colorful mascara/eyeliner is coming back into fashion, and it seems like it might be a fun way to soften the somewhat butch haircut I've been sporting lately. (Brian, the first time I came home after finding my new stylist: "You look great! Really great! ...Possibly like you kind of don't like boys, but great!") Between this and the rate at which my wardrobe's been expanding, I'll be into glitter before much longer...

• Dispatch from Facebook, shamelessly stolen from my friend Dana's feed:

Comment sections should have a filter that prevents you from submitting if your comment contains a logical fallacy. Like if you're placing an order online and try to submit and a red warning pops up, "this is a required field," type thing. Except it would say something like "ad hominem, please reword", or "No True Scotsman, edit and resubmit".

HOW CAN WE MAKE THIS HAPPEN. For srs. There has to be Nobel Peace Prize potential in there somewhere.

 Some random thoughts that are in that awkward "too big/too complainy for a Facebook post, too little for a blog post" zone:

• I'm not prone to squeamishness.  I can look at disgusting stuff (open wounds, rotting corpses, STD sores, centipedes, spiders), and not feel much more than a vague disgust.  (Once during my brief stint working at a vet clinic, I ate lunch while watching three doctors perform surgery on a dog through the observation window.  I thought it was fascinating, but several people who walked by were all "How can you eat while you watch that?"  Smells are a different beast altogether, but I don't think anyone's immune to them.)  My weak point?  Drug effects, especially nasty ones.  Of all the weird, strange things to have a physical reaction to, reading descriptions of drug effects is the one thing that will always raise my stress levels like crazy.  I made the mistake of reading an article on the use of and potential issues with nicotine gum on my phone while standing up, at a point when I hadn't eaten anything all day.  I actually had to sit down and put my head between my knees and breathe deep for a minute.  Weird.
• I got a letter from a friend of mine who just yesterday had surgery for ovarian cysts.  She is one of my oldest, dearest, and sweetest friends, and it was hard both hearing about the pain she'd been in (she'd written the letter last week) and the cost of the surgery (enough that she won't have any spare cash for the next six months, even with her insurance).  I think I'm going to have to see if I can visit her this year.  It might be a bit tricky to do so while sticking to our budget, but the last time I saw her was our first year in Arizona, and life's short enough. And in the meantime, at least I've got all sorts of fun cards to send her.
• If you're looking for something to read that's both edifying and elevating, I can't point you at much else better than the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Annual Letter for this year.  It frustrates me to no end to hear people endlessly kvetching about how the world is getting worse and worse, when in fact, by many objective measures, it's in fact getting better.  But of course, complaining is easier than actually doing anything about it, whereas taking the positive view that our efforts are having an effect means that we have to continue to make efforts.  So it's perhaps not surprising, even if it's frustrating.  (Ever-manic author and vlogger John Green also did a great video talking about, in part, how increasing global wealth benefits everyone, not just the countries in question.)  Possibly my favorite pull-quote:  "When pollsters ask Americans what share of the budget goes to aid, the average response is '25 percent.' When asked how much the government should spend, people tend to say '10 percent.' [...] Here are the actual numbers...For the United States, it’s less than 1 percent."  So...maybe we should give the people what they want?
• This week's writing has so far been...less good.  I'm still doing it!  But so far it's just been the minimum, and it's not feeling as easy nor as inspired as last week.  And I'm having a devil of a time figuring out this rewrite.  Sigh.  I wish inspiration weren't quite so ephemeral as it is.  (Me and every other writer ever.)  I am meditating heavily on today's Terrible Minds entry:  "It Takes the Time That It Takes".
• I miss my old hairstylist.  Well, that's not quite true.  I do miss her, but mostly I miss her prices.  I love my pixie cut but when we're trying to stick to a budget I just can't justify spending the $60ish every month to maintain it.  My old stylist was $18 to $22, though I usually gave her $30 because she did a fantastic job and was far-better-than-Bisbee quality.)  I'm trying to promise myself that when I start bringing in an income I can use that, but it doesn't seem to be working as a motivator.  Grump.
• I just realized I'm about to go to bed and I totally had nothing but bourbon and chocolate for dinner.  Huh.  Well, I'm a grown-up, and can have booze and candy for dinner once in a while if I want.  Besides, it was dark chocolate.  So obviously it was good for me.

It's been a nice holiday. What with not having many social contacts in the area, along with post-Christmas brokitude and some pretty severe cold/snow, we decided that a quiet observation at home was in order. But it was lovely nonetheless. Last night, I made one of my favorite incredibly rich meals, so Brian got a holiday off from cooking. When midnight rolled around, we had champagne cocktails and lay down on the hardwood floor by the fire (Brian: "I think 2014 might have to be the Year of Rugs") and recounted our many blessings for the past year. Today, we slept in before braving the (continuing) snow and taking the bus down to a nifty little Jewish deli in Lakeview for lunch, and after getting back I cleaned the bathroom and had a nice bath with one of the fancy bath bombs from my Christmas stocking. Now there's lemon pudding cakes in the oven, and when they come out we'll have the rest of the bubbly with them and watch Sherlock. {That part was written a few hours ago. The lemon pudding cakes were amazing, and so was the show. For a story about a protagonist who's completely clueless about human relationships, it's so incredibly smart about interactions and the power dynamics inherent therein.}

I don't have a lot of resolutions per se. I did tweet my wish for 2014: "Wishing us all new and better opportunities, and new and better guts to stand up and say 'I'll do it.'" I admit it's a bit of a selfish wish, given my plans for the upcoming month/year, but it's nonetheless true - I don't want to be the only one making scary plans and doing scary things!

About those plans...one of the biggest changes that's going to be happening is that I'll be making a concerted effort to raise my public profile somewhat. I don't know by how much, since popularity is a difficult thing to predict, but I'm hoping to make inroads in author communities and the like - I've met a lot of cool author-y people online, but even aside from that, name recognition is a good thing, and can often translate into sales. I've already re-Twitterpated myself (and even attracted a few followers, thanks to a few interactions with the ever-hilarious Chuck Wendig), and I'll be starting a writing blog this week, probably on Wordpress.

All of which is to say that I'm trying to decide what to do with my Dreamwidth/LiveJournal accounts. So far I've been fine with keeping them 99.9% public, as I tend to curate my friends carefully, pick low-drama folks to hang out with, and generally be obscure enough that even when I weigh in on a hot-button topic, it doesn't attract a lot of attention. But that may not be the case in the future. And there's a lot of history here - more than a decade, now, including many bits of myself and my growth process that I'm...not ashamed of, precisely, but that could easily be taken out of context. It doesn't help that I'm planning on writing in a controversial genre/about some controversial topics, and while I'll do my best (as always) to be fair and diplomatic on the subjects, that doesn't mean I won't piss some people off.

I've been thinking for a while about exercising LiveJournal's (and, I assume, Dreamwidth's) "change all your past posts to friends-only" feature, but resisted it so far largely because I know at least a few of my friends read this because they see the links through Facebook or an RSS reader, and if I were to only make posts under friends-lock the only people who would see it would be the ones who check LJ/DW regularly. Which - let's face it - is an increasingly small number.

I'm still deciding what the writing blog should focus on. If I make it a personal blog like this one, chances are that I'll stop posting here almost entirely. If I decide to focus on a few specific subjects (feminism, sexuality, the role of porn in Western society, and the cultural experience of sexually proactive women all seem likely topics, given my interests and the subject matter of my writing), I may keep this blog up separately for more personal journal-style posts. But either way, chances are I'll be going exclusively friends-only, here. So if you'd like to keep up here, and aren't already signed on my friends list on either site, let me know.