The good, the bad, and the other

Thing that irritates me: Websites that won’t let me use a certain password of my choosing because it’s not strong enough. That’s my issue, website, not yours, so let me have my unstrong password that I’ll be able to remember instead of forcing me to insert random symbols that I’m sure to forget by the next time I log into your website. Come on now.

Tuesday morning just about took my breath away with beauty, which hasn’t happened in a long time. It was a cooler morning than we’ve been having lately, not even up to 40 yet by the time I was out walking Nutmeg, and much more humid than it’s been lately. (I checked a little while later and the humidity was in the 70s! I’m not a humidity fan but when it’s been as desperately dry as it’s been here, any kind of moisture is welcomed.) It felt so delightfully crisp and comforting out, not cold but just a tad chilly with the dew in the air, and the sun had just risen and was causing an orange glow on some of the low-laying clouds still hanging around (I imagine it might have been a bit foggy earlier in the morning, but I’m not sure). As I got up to the top of a hill in the park where we walk, all my senses were engaged in just such a satisfactory way that’s hard to describe, but made my heart feel full with gratitude in a way it hasn’t been in a very long time. I’ve been having a rough month or two (or twelve, sometimes in waves, but the last month has been especially difficult), so this morning was a very welcome feeling to know that I can still feel like that. It also did cause somewhat of an odd sense of déjà vu – which typically I really don’t particularly enjoy, but I guess in this instance it was something I could deal with. Sometimes I get the feeling that the déjà vu I experience is more a case of “this is a momentary instantaneous tiny taste of how things should be [if not for original sin]/will be in heaven.” Because it’s often when I’m driving near some kind of field, or it brings about some sense of longing for something I have never had but my heart yearns for without me even realizing it sometimes. Anyway. I’m not sure. I do know that our hearts will always yearn for something just out of reach, regardless of the blessings we’re given or not, until we’re united with Christ in heaven. And what a day that’ll be, eh? Jesus, come soon!

In other news, I really love that my work zip code is the same as my home zip code because a) it means my commute is nice and short, and b) I don’t ever have to sit and try to remember what my work zip code is. So that’s a nice thing. It’d also be nice if, one of these days, I could find a new place to live that’s also in the same zip code. But I’ve kind of scaled back on that because a) it’s depressing to look for affordable places that aren’t terrifying, and b) I decided to wait until after Ireland because hey I’m going to Ireland and it costs money.

Related: I’m going to Ireland! Financially I think it’s still a pretty crazy thing (and, come to that, realistically I think it’s still a pretty crazy thing that I’m actually going and I’ll actually be in Ireland which I’ve been wanting to do for years and years and years and still think might not happen), but it’s been like this little light shining to keep me going. Even though it’s still months away, there’s an actual DATE for it to happen. And that’s exciting. Even though it will be extremely weird and, I hope, not too awkward and/or scary to go a) on a vacation (an actual VACATION, which includes zero weddings), b) on a vacation BY MYSELF, and c) a vacation BY MYSELF in a DIFFERENT COUNTRY. I’ve traveled by myself before, sure, even to another country, but there was someone I knew on the other end. This…will be different. I’m still holding out hope I’ll meet some nice Irish lad who will fall in love with me over the week I’m there and propose and then I’ll live in Ireland forever. If it happens in movies it’s realistic and possible, right?

Here’s something I keep coming across and keep failing to understand: the LuLaRoe phenomenon. I get that apparently their clothes are very comfortable, and some of the dresses and maybe shirts, etc, look like they might be comfortable, but the way they’re sold seems much too pressure-filled for me. And also, the thing that apparently everyone LOVES about them are their leggings which are, in a word, crazy. All those weird patterns! People thinking they count as pants! I will never understand it. A good pair of leggings is great, sure, when under skirts and dresses and whatnot. But I am also not a crazy-pattern person so I don’t think I’m in their target demographic. Apparently they might sometimes have normal black ones, but I guess the attempt to find them isn’t worth it to me. And that’s the story of how I am tired of seeing LuLaRoe all over the place.

This article has good things. Confession is one of the greatest things about being Catholic. Also, the Eucharist. But man, confession. It’s awful and I hate going but also I neeeeeed it. Going to  confession is such a different thing from just apologizing to God alone by myself. It’s not the same at all.

A couple of times now, in my memories on facebook I’ve mentioned having a “favorite conductor” on the Metro that I would take from our house to school/work (this would have been the first year of grad school when I lived conveniently just down the street from a Metro stop). I have no memory of this favorite conductor, aside from my Facebook memories. Makes me kind of sad, I guess? Well, I suppose I enjoyed him/her at the time I needed it. I’m glad occasionally to have some nostalgia about living in DC.

Two days ago, when I was walking Nutmeg in the evening, we came to a crosswalk and a car saw us and stopped to let us go, which is nice. I did the wave acknowledgement but chose to wave with the hand that was holding a bag of poop so I waved a bag of poop at the nice person who stopped to let us pass. Not the first time I’ve inadvertently done that, either. On the flip side, yesterday morning we were approaching a different crosswalk, but were still a good, I don’t know, 30 feet from the curb. I’m horrible at guessing distances so I’m just making something up. But it was far enough away that any approaching cars could still safely go past the crosswalk without worrying about me and Nutmeg. However, this car had just turned onto the street from its street, and must have seen us, and stopped. I mean, this car was probably sitting there for at least fifteen seconds before I realized that yep, he was going to sit there and wait for us awkwardly, kind of like when someone holds the door for you but you’re definitely too far away for it to be normal so then you feel like you have to run to get to the door. I eventually waved at this person to tell him to go (I mean, at that point I could have been turning and not even crossing the street – I was just way too far away for him to know anything) and he went and I still was able to cross the crosswalk without having to wait for him. It was so annoying. It’s annoying when I’m standing there and obviously waiting to cross and cars don’t stop (like this morning, when I stopped for one car approaching even though I probably could have gotten across before he got to the crosswalk, but he didn’t stop for me, and then three more cars behind him didn’t stop for me, so that was also irritating), but it’s MORE annoying somehow when cars stop way too soon and sit there and wait for me far too long. Just. Don’t do it. Just do the right thing, people.

And there's some more of fun Susie Thoughts.

Is there a medicine for word vomit?

I happened upon this today and I love it:

I went to get my full license and forgot it was Ash Wednesday. pic.twitter.com/HDbN9vOZGp

— Elena Quinones (@elenaq32) March 1, 2017

I'm doing an evangelization class at church, and there's a couple who's also attending. They have two kids who come with them - a boy who I'd guess is around 10? Maybe? who sits at a table in the back and keeps himself occupied the whole time, and a baby who I think was born in September if I remember correctly from what someone said. Anyway. Last night, the older boy came over and must have been cold (it was chilly in the room) so he grabbed a blanket out of the stroller, and it was a knit blanket with a pattern I recognized because I've knit one before! Anyway. That kind of made me chuckle. Yay knitting.

I drove up to Denver today for a dr appointment (it's an inconvenient distance, but boy do I really like her). Every time I drive up to Denver I get this feeling like I should move back. Except not to Denver, but a suburb, obvs. My doctor is in Parker so I can take 83 the whole way which is nice for not-claustrophobia-inducing. Anyway. What I would do up there, who knows. I didn't really enjoy it when I did live in that general vicinity (and I was closer to the mountains, which should have made it better). I'm just not good at being happy I guess. Oh well. In any case, yay for good doctors.

Despite my chiropractor's weekly insistence that I join eHarmony (because Catholic Match is a pile of blah and online dating is the answer everyone has for single people because if you're online dating long enough or on enough sites or something enough, of course you're going to meet a spouse. It's science. But also, why is it that all of the guys I come across on CM don't like football? I'm not saying it's a dealbreaker, but...it does make me question them) I think I'm just about ready to sign off of online dating. For now, at least. I still have some months left on my CM subscription (because I stupidly reupped right before it was going to expire last time, because I had just started talking to a guy who seemed promising but in the end after meeting up a few times turns out he was not, let's just say), and I could just stay on it for the duration of what I paid, but I don't want to. It does nothing good for me and if God wants me to meet someone through that then maybe he'll just have to work out something else. Sure, there might be other guys on other sites that might be better, but I have yet to have much of a positive experience from any guys I've met or talked to through online dating, but enough negative experiences, so. I think I'm gonna be done for a while.

You know what frustrates me about our contraceptive culture? We don't teach women about their bodies and how they're actually working - we make it so their bodies don't work like they're supposed to and make it so they think they don't have to worry about it. Except I hear from a lot of women that "I don't use birth control because it makes me feel bad/makes me depressed/does bad things to my body/I'm allergic." And so instead we have lots of women with crisis/unplanned/potentially unwanted pregnancies, and also thus abortions. Now, I'm not saying there wouldn't be abortions or unplanned pregnancies if every woman was taught FABMs (fertility awareness based methods), because it does take some self-control and extra work. But man, I really think it would help a lot of women be empowered to know their own bodies and take control over their lives that they don't have with birth control (or a lack thereof). It should be taught in high schools. Absolutely. 100%. Sure, if you need to, teach them about condoms and all that, but teach women (and men!) how their bodies work. Tell them they can make these decisions. Tell them what their bodies are doing and what they're made for. WHY ISN'T THIS MORE OF A THING. I will be continually annoyed by it until it becomes a thing. Women deserve to know what's going on in their bodies instead of leaving it up to whatever. Which is what many women are doing now because birth control doesn't work for them. Let's get this shit together, World, and get on this bandwagon. Fuh rills. FABMs FTW. Let's make this happen.

In other news, I don't know. It's Lent which is good except the devil knows my weaknesses too well and he's really good at poking at them, so that sucks. But I love Lent because it leads into Holy Week which is the greatest and (probably) this year's Holy Week won't be in the midst of me waiting to find out if I have cancer/functioning reproductive organs/etc like it was last year. Though maybe it helped me focus on Jesus. Who knows. Either way, this year I'd like less of that, but. I don't know. Maybe I need more of that to become the person Jesus wants me to be, which I'm obviously not yet. I've still got a looooong ways to go.

I can't decide if I miss Facebook or not. I mean, I admit I occasionally log on to see the first handful of top stories that pop up just so I don't feel completely out of the loop, but I haven't posted much and probably everyone benefits from that. I also find myself caring less and less to find out what's going on in other people's lives. Maybe not close friends/family or people whose statuses I generally enjoy, but old acquaintances I barely would have even called friends when we were interacting on a regular basis, and with whom I haven't had a conversation possibly ever? I probably really don't need to know what's going on in their lives. Especially when it serves to make me feel worse about my own. That's just dumb. So we'll see where I end up with things after Lent, facebook-wise.

I guess that's enough of this for today.

Beauty and the Controversy

Last week the "news" came out about the gay scene in Beauty and the Beast and lots of people opined about it, and called for boycotts and whatnot, and I had a feeling it was being blown out of proportion by people with agendas (on both sides!). Seems to be the case based on observation of someone who's actually seen it. I think marketing people figured this would be a good way to conjure up some controversy and get butts in seats, and Christian people figured boycotting could be a good way to go against the tide of culture that is admittedly heading in a direction I don't think is necessarily good. But I really think Christians need to stop being so knee-jerk reacty to anything and everything that looks like it could be an attack on what we believe, because all it does is make us look unloving, unforgiving, an uninviting, and that's not what Jesus is. I'm not saying we should celebrate things that go against our beliefs, but I'm also pretty sure that a fairly high number (not all, granted) of the people who are now refusing to see this because of one scene probably don't think twice about seeing any generic rom-com that doesn't have gratuitous sex scenes but also clearly implies premarital sex between characters which is, fyi, more of a sin than two people dancing, gay or not.

(I do understand that in this case the concern is especially due to the fact that this is a movie aimed at children, and this is introducing themes parents don't want to introduce any earlier than they have to, but at the same time I think those discussions are probably happening earlier and earlier anyway, not that that's a good thing. I guess my biggest frustration is that this isn't an isolated thing, and as a country - and even world, I guess - we've become so "this or that" to the point that if you espouse something I don't believe in I can't even listen to you or look at you let alone have a discussion with you. This is pretty widespread across the board regardless of beliefs/religions/politics and it's helping exactly no one and needs to stop. I'm not saying everyone has to see this by any means, but I wonder how many of the people calling for a boycott weren't even planning on seeing this in the first place.)

Anyway.

I just think this is part of a larger problem that's gotten worse and worse since the election season. (Remember those days when we all looked longingly forward to the end of the election, thinking things would get better after that? Ah, blissful ignorance.) We don't see each other anymore, we see beliefs that go against ours. We see (perceived) offenses others do to us or our faith. We see differences, and no commonalities. It's a huge, huge problem. I think we have reached a point where we're so walled into ourselves and our circles and anything that is perceived as a threat must be eliminated. Not reasoned with. We see too many people as the "enemy" because they believe something we disagree with. And we too easily shut down discussion, and fall into name calling and ad hominems. We've forgotten that we belong to each other, and that we all belong to Christ. We're all insanely loved by God, regardless of what we do or think or believe. That's what we need to remember, and speak to each other as if we believe it. (And I need to do a better job of that, too.)

Here we go again

It's been...almost two years since I've posted in here. And if I were a betting woman I might bet against the fact that this will actually get posted because that's just the way I seem to be now. But since I'm trying (thus far more or less unsuccessfully, but still trying) to stay off Facebook for Lent, and still find my brain in need of a place to dump my stupid inane thoughts and comments about articles I come across, and since I don't like Twitter much (my solution two years ago when I also gave up facebook for Lent), here's this thing. Yay. So here's a bunch of extremely random thoughts in no particular order except the order in which I write them.

Let's start with this article: http://denvercatholic.org/more-contraception-at-what-cost
Now, obviously I take no issue with its concerns about easier contraceptive use. I don't think that contraceptives are generally good or useful whatever the purpose, as they mess with the body's natural systems (which are, for the most part by those who would seek out this new method of acquiring contraceptives, working well and as they should be and thus this is taking something that's not broken and breaking it. Because that always turns out so well). Where I *do* take issue is as someone who has endometriosis and had to go to three different doctors before finding one who didn't want to prescribe me birth control pills. Including, I might add, one of those mentioned in this article. Well, not the doctor specifically, but the office, which is what makes me upset. "Here's the bad side effects we know come from taking this, and here's why we don't think women should do this, but oh, if you have endometriosis, I guess you're screwed and messed up anyway so we'll get you on this even though by the way there are side effects that might also suck." Now, to be fair to the doctors I've seen, they didn't necessarily recommend or say I should use artificial hormones as a means of dealing with endometriosis, but it did have a feeling of "or else" if I didn't. And I'm sure that if I were one of the endo sufferers who actually, you know, has more awareness that she does have endo (like the bad cramping, etc that I have thankfully been spared from; I just got lucky enough to have bad endo with not a lot of indication and thus now only have one ovary left), all they would have offered me is birth control to deal with the pain. And also to be fair to them, it's not so much their fault as the general failing of the medical community that hasn't put much time or effort into figuring out what causes or how to treat/cure endometriosis, because we have the pill! This magic pill that makes everything better. Except it doesn't and solves and treats nothing except the surface symptoms while messing with everything else.

Why should those of us with diseases like endo, PCOS, and other things that are "treated" with artificial hormones have to be subjected to all the side effects that can come with them, just because no one really seems to know what else to do? Even a doctor's office that purports to be all natural? It's frustrating, is all. I know that particular office is great and does great things and has great people, and if I were a normal person without endo I'm sure I'd love them, and like I said it's not their fault no one knows how better to treat endo than with surgery and ongoing hormonal treatments. It just left a bad taste in my mouth that, despite knowing what they know about artificial hormones, that was all they could really suggest for me. It's a frustrating situation and I hope hope hope that doctors start being more proactive about figuring out other treatments that get to the bottom of why endometriosis happens in the first place, instead of saying "Oh, well, we can give you some hormones and send you on your way and let us know when you want to start trying to have a baby so you can have surgery first." (In contrast, I got a call from my now-doctor's office a few months ago regarding an appointment I have with her this week, to remind me that she does not prescribe birth control and to make sure I wouldn't be wanting or expecting her to. I wanted to tell the person who called me "That's sort of the exact reason I'm her patient now." She is trained in NaproTechnology, which actually seeks to solve the underlying issues and use a more effective method of surgery for removing endo that supposedly helps it from growing back, or not as much, or something, and helps better preserve what should be there and so if/when I have to do that again, I hope it won't be quite as...traumatic as last year. Especially because that would mean losing the other ovary which would, in a word, suck. But even though she's more familiar with those techniques, they still don't really know much about how to keep it from coming back, or why it's there in the first place, which is a problem.)

And now I'll step off that soapbox. But seriously. The pill has been horrible, overall, for the state of women's health, because doctors have a tendency to treat it as a catch-all so they don't have to deal with all those "women's issues." Not all doctors. But a lot. It's a real problem. In conclusion, artificial contraception doesn't help women, INCLUDING THOSE WITH ENDOMETRIOSIS.

Ahem. Next topic.

Here's an article about a dog whose 3-week-old puppies were killed in a fire (so sad!), and she was sad, and then they found some puppies whose mom had died, so now she's their foster mom and it is so sweet and dogs are the greatest.

Someday...someday...I will live next door to this place. Might not be until I die and that'll be my heaven, but it'll happen somehow. (Or, you know, once I die and get through purgatory I'll be with Jesus and won't care, but I like to think heaven might be pretty and majestic and pretty majestic and also mountainous.)

THIS VIDEO IS SO GOOD.

I always feel...not weird, exactly, but like my story isn't "conversiony" enough because I don't have a big dramatic moment at which I changed my life or my relationship with God or anything like that. My whole life is a conversion. I'm always turning away and back to God. Someties more than others, but it's never been "This was my life before God and this is my life after God," because I was baptized at 8 weeks (and it was exactly 8 weeks and yes I just checked) so there wasn't a whole lot of heathenism going on during those 8 weeks. And while, sure, lots of people are baptized as babies but not raised with much awareness of God, I had an awareness. My parents raised me to pray. We went to church. All that jazz. Sure, it's not like I was walking around in love with Jesus like those 7-year-old saints who are holier than I'll ever be even if I live to be 117, but I thought about God and all that. I was in religious education, I went to youth groups, I had powerful (even if sometimes superficial) experiences with Christ on high school retreats and whatnot. Never one of those whammo moments, though. And that's ok! It's a process, like he says, and so I appreciate hearing this video a lot. My story matters even if it's boring!

Story time! The other morning I was walking down the hall to go downstairs, and Nutmeg was waiting for me at the end of the hall because she knew it was walk time, and she was watching me and I was looking at her and suddenly she did something I wasn't expecting, like she started going downstairs or moved or something (I don't remember what). Whatever it was made me stop for just a fraction of a second, and in that fraction of a second I saw an insect flying right in front of me, except oh it wasn't an insect it was a spider slowly descending fro the ceiling. Right in the middle of the path I was walking down the hall. So instead of continuing I turned into the bathroom, which was conveniently right next to where I had stopped, grabbed a tissue, and found him again (almost to the floor by that point and the floor there is shag carpeting so I never would have found him), and then I killed him dead. I think. Sometimes these spiders seem to have a way of coming back to life. But in any case, as far as I know he's still dead, and I don't have spider on me, but it does make me wonder how many times that happens and I *don't* see the spider first. Like, how many spiders are crawling on me RIGHT NOW? There's just no way to know.

Here's a "yay, confession!" article for those who maybe don't realize how awesome confession is, or also for those who do, because hey, confession is hard and sometimes really sucks but it's also supremely awesome and yay absolution and grace! And seriously: yay confession.

There's a house I pass sometimes, depending on the route I take on my walk, and they have two dogs and zero fences. I guess there's an electric underground fence, or however they work, and I guess the dogs respect the boundaries - but what this means is that when they're outside and we walk past their house, one of the dogs in particular comes riiiiight up to the edge of the sidewalk (so, within at most a few feet of us) and barks and whatnot, and Nutmeg doesn't know that he's not going to come any closer so she's really tense and uncomfortable the whole time we're walking by. It wouldn't be a big deal if the dogs were confined to, say, the backyard, but I guess that's not the way these people wanted to do it. Thankfully the dogs aren't out all the time so it only happens on occasion, but it's enough.

Yesterday I was behind a car at a stoplight and this car had three bumper stickers. One I don't remember, but the other two both included the textspeak "u" or "ur." And one was particularly confusing - "If u can't acknowledge the 3rd antichrist is among, us, how will u help defeat him?" When did I miss the second antichrist? The other bumper sticker was "Hold on to ur faith, the angels are on our side." I can forgive the lack of semicolon, I guess, but not the ur. Oh, and I think both of these were written in all caps, but maybe that's normal for a car sticker. I just looked it up, and apparently some people claim that Trump is the 3rd antichrist. Listen, I really don't like the guy and think he's a terrible president, but I think calling him an antichrist is giving him a bit too much credit. Plus, even if you think that, you really damage your credibility when you can't add two letters and actually spell out the word "you."

Relatedly, I just saw a comment thread wherein someone continually used the abbreviation "txt" or "txted" or "txts" instead of the much more difficult "text" or "texted" or "texts." Boy, typing that e took a lot of work. (but for serious, my phone always thinks I want to say "test" or "tested" when I try to type "text". As in, the word "text" is not a recognized word in my phone's vocabulary, so I have to sit there and type it out every time instead of my generally-used swyping. Irritating.)

I've been rewatching Downton Abbey, and it's delightful (particularly Lady Grantham's quips) and highly enjoyable. BUT. I'm still annoyed about Sybil. When that season was on I knew that Matthew was going to be killed off which was not what I would have preferred, but Sybil took me by surprise and I did not like it at all and boooo to both of those actors deciding to leave the show. How rude of them. I temporarily stopped watching after that season (but then later picked it up again and caught up and watched to the end). The later seasons were still ok but not as good as the first few, but I wonder if it would have been able to last as long as it did had Matthew in particular stayed on, since the last few seasons were pretty much all "Who's Mary going to marry?" I guess that was also a big chunk of the first few seasons... And then poor Edith, aka me (minus the interested men and other stuff and also thankfully minus the vindictive sister and minus the dead sister and bro-in-law). But things turned out ok for her in the end so maybe there's hope for me too.

I started a baby blanket last weekend, I think, or maybe a few days before that, but no it was exactly a week ago, and I'm almost finished with it. I guess less Facebook wasting time + interesting enough pattern but easy enough that I memorized it after the first repeat or two yields pretty quick results. Also, it's a center-out blanket, which always seem to go faster (but oy, the cast off takes forever, because instead of just a row across, it's every edge. So, not looking forward to that). I really like center-out blankets. Maybe because it's easier to see progress, or something. I don't know. Also, they're guaranteed to be square, which greatly appeals to me. In any case, it's been a long time since I've done something so enjoyable, and I'm happy about it. It's not perfect, but good enough, and I hope the recipient enjoys it. Well. It's a baby, so. Babies don't really care.

It's been over a year now since I got back from my Germany trip (which means the infinity scarf I started and almost finished during my travel day back to the US, but didn't finish because I had modified the pattern to make the scarf a little wider but then figured out I didn't have enough yarn to make it as wide as I was planning, has been sitting waiting to be frogged and redone for over a year, which is dumb because it would be an awesome scarf to have so I should do that after this blanket), which also means it's been a year since I found out I had a huge cyst and a month from today will be a year since my surgery and it all seems crazy because it's just...been a year, you guys. A very rough year. Sometimes I feel like Germany got eclipsed by the health stuff, partially because I was worried and thinking about it the whole trip and partially because I didn't really get to process it, or...whatever I might have done, since I had the ultrasound just a few days after I got back and that took over all the mental energy I had. I don't know. It's been a sucky year. I guess objectively good things have happened but it's been rough, you guys. I've always had this thought that I should go to counseling for some things, but the cyst/surgery/results/other things finally made it happen because I didn't deal with it well. Not sure if I have yet, really. It's not just that but it's all exacerbated by that. Anyway. It's just on my mind a lot right now. So. Hey if you ever want to pray for someone you can pray for me. I'll let you.

I guess that's about it for this edition.