My happiness is important.

I've been happier this week.  Does it matter?  I used to think that happiness, wasn't important.  It was hedonistic and selfish.  But I don't think that anymore.

I've been doing things just simply because I want to do them.  It's not because I have to do them, or somebody else wants me to do them, it's because I want to do them.

And I don't think that's selfish or hedonistic.  I don't think it's wrong in anyway.

What is the point of life?  I know that question has been asked hundreds of times, but really what is the point?

I don't think that happiness is the point of live.  I don't think it's the most important thing, but unlike the me of the past, the me of now does think it's important.

I always thought that the happiness of other people was important.  But what about me?  Isn't my happiness important.

I think it is.

Does formal education have more value than informal education?

It's after midnight, as it so often is when I write these posts.  This post will be scheduled for tomorrow morning, and when that day comes I hope both you and I have a good day.

My dog is snoring beside me, and my mother is already in bed.  I question what to write.  I write a sentence, and then delete it and this I do over and over again.  I'm extremely aware that this is  public blog, and as such anybody can read it.  I'm also aware that if I don't put some of myself into this blog, nobody will want to read it.  I have to put my emotions, my day to day activities, and a bit of who I am in this blog, to make it personal.

At the same time, I love to learn, and I spend many evenings doing just that: learning.  I am formally educated from more than one post-secondary educational institution.  I've done correspondence and in person learning.  I've written tests, written essays, and attended lectures, and yet I'm beginning to wonder if any of that really means more than the learning I do each day.  Does formal education mean more than informal education?  I never thought so before, but I disagree with my past self.

My mother, used to informally educate herself at the public library.  Before the internet, there were reference books.  She spent afternoons going to the library, and just reading any kind of reference books that interested her.  Did the knowledge she gained, have any less value because she didn't pay for it?

Does knowledge need a professor to teach it, to be valued?  It does in this culture.  But why?

I just spent another evening learning about intersex conditions.  I will probably spent countless more hours before I'm done with the subject, and when I am done, I'll go on to another subject with equal fascination.  Does all that research have any less value than the research those who are paying to research do?  I don't think so.

What do you think?  Do you like to learn?  Do you research things on your own?

Please answer in the comments below.

1000 Views - Thank You

I haven't posted in a while.  I'm neither going to explain why or apologize for it.  I don't have to.  And sometimes I even wonder if anybody is reading this.

According to the stats there have been 1000 views on this blog.  That theoretically means that that 1000 people have read what I wrote, 1 person has read the blog 1000 times, or any other permutations of the factors of 1000.  I'm not sure how many of those views (if any) are my views.  This complicates the stats even more.

But however it goes, if you are reading this right now, thank you for reading, and if you made any of the 1000 views of this blog in my stats before I started writing this post, thank you.

Creative Thinking

When I was a child, one of my favourite subjects was Creative Thinking.  "Creative Thinking", you might be thinking "What is that?"  Well I am aware that Creative Thinking is not a class in all places, but for 3 glorious years I lived in a very unique place mentioned in this post.  And it was there that I took a class called "Creative Thinking".

In Creative Thinking, I was asked to think of possible solutions for problems, and think of inventions I'd like to see.  We drew pictures of these solutions and inventions and wrote about them, explaining the pictures.  Nobody was allowed to have anything that resembled any other students work.  We had to think of solutions on our own.

That's one thing that really annoyed me when we moved away from there: the teachers expectations that my answers would be like everybody else's.  Even in art she'd hold up some sort of example, tell us what to do, and then get upset when I did something that didn't look like every body else's.  To this day, I think her way of teaching was dead wrong.  Is the point of education to be to make everybody think exactly alike, copy other people's work, and be little clones?  Or is the point to encourage learning and individual thinking?  I argue the latter, but many teachers think it's the first.  It mystified me and annoyed me then, and it still mystifies me now.

I waited, thinking that some day I would take another Creative Thinking class.  Maybe it was offered in a different grade?  Maybe some day...  But some day never came.

Until Now.

I have a huge journal, that I bought for something else.  It's bigger than the regular 8.5 x 11 paper, the paper is soft, smooth and creamy white, and it's unlined.  I bought it for something else, but used about 10 pages of it before discarding the project I bought it for.

Well...  I'm going to use it for Creative Thinking.  I loved that class.  It brought me happiness and joy to think of unique solutions and inventions.  Why can't I do that now?  As I said in previous posts I already discovered listening to Raffi while drawing in adult colouring books is still fun, even though I'm adult.  Why wouldn't Creative Thinking class?  And why can't I just sit, with this huge journal, and think of solutions to the worlds problems, and inventions I'd like to see, and anything other creative ideas I have, and express them in this journal.  Why not?

And that is what I'm going to do.  Starting today.


P.S.

You can read about Raffi and Adult Colouring Books in these three posts.

Raffi and Adult Colouring Books

I had an absolutely fabulous day

Adult Colouring Books and Regression.

I'm going to bed.

Last night I was so tired, I started getting ready for bed at 10:00 and was in bed by 11:00.  That is truly amazing for me, because usually I get to bed between 2:00 and 4:00 am.  I went to bed without doing a blog post.

Tonight, I almost didn't do a blog post either.  It's just after midnight, and although for me it's early I'm going to bed early again.

My mother and I have been listening to another J.A. Jance book.  Maybe listening to her, makes us tired, my mother joked.  I don't know.  Maybe.

And maybe it's just that the act of listening, and colouring is more relaxing than watching youtube videos, writing blog posts, or reading websites.  It's strange.  Maybe the article I read a long time ago that said screen time should be limited to bedtime had a point?  I don't know.

I do know, that right now, I have a stomach ache, and I don't feel like sitting up doing anything.

And as strange as it is for me to go to bed so early, I'm going to be heading there very soon.  Going to sleep....  Well that's another matter.  Right now I'm reading a very good book, and if I get sucked into it, like I did 2 days ago, I might end up reading all night long again.  I actually hope not because tomorrow I have to take my mother to the doctor and I want to be able to be awake while I'm driving.

Gender can be complicated, and it can sometimes be painful.

For those of you who followed my old wordpress blog you might already know some of this post.  First off, thank you for following me to this blog, and second, there will be new things in this post.

Last night, after Mom went to bed, and I settled down for my "alone time", I watched random youtube videos.  Google is interesting in the way it set up youtube, because it recommends new videos based on the videos I already watched.  A buzzfeed video about intersex people was recommended.  The video starts with, somebody asking "who has testicles", and a woman raises her hand.  "Ok this is interesting", I thought, and one intersex video led me to another, until an Oprah episode came up.  Soon it was almost 3:00 am, and my interest had been completely peeked, but I knew I had to go to bed.  Even in bed, I was thinking about the issue, and wanting to watch more videos.

I was introduced the the idea of intersex when I was a child.  At the time it was called hermaphrodite, and the adults and children in the group were extremely surprised to find out a bear was both male and female.

My friend, brother, and myself lived in a small town surrounded by forest, and bears were a common sight.  We decided to go "bear hunting".  Of course it was pretend, but we encountered a real bear.  I clearly remember my friend, pointing out a bear track in the dirt, and saying "look there's a bear track", and my brother saying "no that's not a bear track", and as we discussed the validity of this bear track looking up and seeing an actual bear.

We did exactly what we were taught not to do.  We screamed and ran.  We didn't back up slowly, we didn't fall to the ground and play dead, we didn't remain quite, no we screamed and ran.  My friends Dad came out of their house, and shot the bear.  And that was that.

Well not really.

My friends brother was extremely smart, and he asked if he could watch the necropsy.  He and all of us were given permission.  To the surprise of the forest warden doing the necropsy, the bear had both male and female parts, and the garbage from our back yards and my friends back yards in it's stomach.  Both identifying garbage (my friend's brother discovered a balloon with his name on it), and the idea that a bear could be both male and female were fascinating to me.  My friends brother asked for and received the bears sex organs in a jar.  He took them to his science teacher, to learn more about the condition of the bear.

I didn't get the bear's sex organs (I didn't want them and I didn't have a teacher who let me do my own science project on them), but I had plenty of questions, that nobody could answer for me: Could the bear get itself pregnant was a huge one.

Later on when I was an adult, I stayed up late on another night, and researched the term "intersex" having read it on a website, and found out that it was the new term for "hermaphrodite".  And my fascination was peeked again.  I stayed up late that night, reading website after website about the condition.  My question was answered: no an intersex bear could not get pregnant on her/his own.

And then last night...  Well I still find it interesting.

I find many things that are outside my own experience interesting.  The reason why is that small town I once lived in where we found the bear.  That town had a different culture that was unique to itself.  I'm not going to get into all or any of the differences, but they were emence and it was a huge culture shock to move back to where my extended family lived.  I spoke differently, I dressed differently, and I was different.  I was so different, that the teacher in my new school often called me a liar and told me things couldn't have possibly been how I described them back in my old town.

Having lived in two different cultures, and understanding that culture even within the same country can be very different, I'm always fascinated by other peoples storeys and how they are different than mine.  Throughout the years I researched several different conditions, cultures, and places that are not my own.  From living in 16th century Russia to intersex experience, a another person's storey that is different than my own, is extremely fascinating.

It's with this mindset I stayed up way to late watching youtube videos about intersex people.  When I made my first foray into learning about this subject, youtube wasn't invented yet, and we had the internet in out home for only a few short years.  Now the invention of youtube gave me more to learn.  I actually got to see and hear the people that were intersex as they told their stories.

In sociology class I was taught that we are male or female because we are socialized into being male or female.  I liked barbies, wore pink, and had long hair because that's what my society expected of me.  If I had been told I was a boy, and had been socialized into a girl, than I wouldn't like barbies or pink or long hair.  We were assigned a long assignment on our own family histories, and how we were socialized.  And like any fresh college student, I believed I was being told the truth.

But that's not the truth.  When I started being nanny for my nephew that became glaringly obvious.  My nephew was a spiderman magnet.  He loved spiderman.  If in any store there was a spiderman anything, he could find it, show it to me, and ask for it.  He dressed in his spiderman costume, slung web, read spiderman comic books, watched spiderman TV shows, and could list off all of spiderman's enemies in the marvel comics.  And I didn't teach him this.  I don't think he parents did either.  He was all 100% boy, with boy likes and boy dislikes, and he displayed that as soon as he could talk.  He had very definite masculine traits, and it had nothing to do with socialization.  My nephew had dolls, and teddy bears and "girlish" clothes, because we went to university, and we were all taught that children could be given a variety of toys and not pushed into any one gender.  Well that's a bold faced lie.  It's simply not true that children can be pushed into a gender.  He may have had "girlish" toys, but preferred spiderman, and all of his boy clothes and toys.  He was a boy.  And he knew it.

If children could be socialized into gender, than transgender children like Jazz Jennings simply wouldn't be.  She started out as all boy, with boy clothes, and boy toys and a boy name, but as soon as she could talk, she empathically announced she was all girl.

The most famous socialization tragedy was David Reimer, whose penis was amputated when he was a baby because of a botched circumcision.  David's parents were told to take him home, and raise him as a girl, and that everything would be fine.  They never told David or his identical twin Brian, why David has surgery or why both David and Brian were sent to a psychologist called John Money.  Both boys were interviewed by Money at length, and Money wrote papers on his "study" that gender expression is decided by socialization.  Money claimed that the "experiment" was a success, and that David had been successfully transformed into a girl and that Brian who was raised a boy was successful raised as a boy.

But it didn't work.  Even as David Reimer became more depressed and suicidal Money claimed that it did work.

Eventually David and Brian were told the truth, but only years after pain and suffering.  David and Brian both committed suicide as adults.

It's a sad and tragic storey, and it proves that gender is far more complicated than socialization, and that you simply can't socialize or will a person to be "boy" or "girl".  The Reimer's couldn't socialize David, Jazz Jennings's parents wouldn't have been able to socialize Jazz (although they never tried), and the parents of intersex children can't decide if their children are "boys" or "girls" for them.  Those children shouldn't be surgically changed to be any one gender, and should be left to decide for themselves.

Gender is complicated.  For most people (me included), gender is straight forward.  It is decided at birth, and never questioned.  But for some: those who are transgender, and those who are intersex, it is not straightforward.  It's difficult and complicated.  It is decided by Mullerian glands, testosterone, estrogen, progesterone and all sorts of other things in utero, and any number of those things can be atypical in the developing fetus.  And if any of those things are atypical in the developing fetus, that fetus will have a gender that atypical.  (Please note I use the word atypical, because it's the most sensitive and least offensive word I can think of.  In no way do I think that these people are abnormal or weird or mistakes or anything).

I'm not done learning about gender.  I love to learn and I love to learn about people who have different stories than me.  But as I learn, I'm learning that gender is complicated and sometimes painful.  It's not as simple as socialization.  It's fascinating.

But I'm tired, and I'm going to bed.

I hope you enjoyed reading about what I am currently learning about.

Let me know what you think in the comments.

Dear Judger

   I know what you think of me.  Don't you think I know what those looks mean as I walk by?  How you can't quite look in my eyes, or worse you look at me with distain.

   I know.  Really I do.  You don't have to tell me, but sometimes you just can't resist can you?  Does being in the post office, looking at the mail I got for the day, somehow invite you to say rude things to me?

   Are you that stupid, that you think I've invited your remarks?  Do you think I actually want to hear what you say?  Do you think you're comment's will change anything?  Make me exactly what you want me to be?

   Would that make you happier?  Me, being everything you expect, would that improve your life in anyway?  I don't think so.  You'd just go on to the next person, you thought wasn't following your rules, and be just as unhappy about them?

   But maybe it's not about changing me?  Maybe you don't care if I want to hear what you say?  Maybe the aim is to hurt?  Do you like seeing the look of astonished hurt on my face?  Do you like it when I can't think of something to say?

   I try to be nice....  Say something polite back.  I don't want to be as nasty as you.

  Why are you that way?  What do you get out of it?

  I'll tell you this much: I despise you as much as you despise me.  I never wanted to be your friend?  I know you think, everybody loves you.  I know you shine bright at the top of your peak.  I know you think everybody wanted to be in the popular crowd.  There's even that book "Queen Bee's and Wanna Bee's."  But guess what!

   That book is a lie.  I never wanted to be you, and I never wanted to be your friend.  I thought you were a mean little bitch, and I knew you'd just as much back stab your friends as you would me.

   I'm polite, not because I like you, or because I'm still afraid of you.  I'm polite because I don't want to be you.  I never did.  You're mean, hateful, rude and everything nasty.

  I'm empathetic, kind, generous, and everything good.

  Why would I want to be like you?

Is my dog happy?

As I write this I'm playing with my dog, by pulling a yellow stuffed duck from her mouth occasionally.  When I'm typing, she shakes the duck on her own, and then pushes it into my arm when she's ready to play more.  Every once an a while I have to tell her "no teeth".

Sometimes I wonder if we're the best owners for her.  I don't clip hair as often as I should, and apparently I'm bathing her too often (the vet just told me a few weeks ago), and sometimes her nail get to long.

I want her to be happy, and sometimes when she squeaks when I do her nails, or she looks so mopey when I'm eating and not sharing, I give into her and give he what she wants.

Temple Grandin says to give dogs at least 30 minutes of attention every day, and I think my dog gets way more than that.  I pet her and play with her often throughout the day.  I know she'd love to play fetch or frisbee, but it's too cold outside, and we don't have the space to do it inside.  Maybe they should make indoor playgrounds for dogs.

A night of old english mystery TV shows.

As I mentioned yesterday, it's cold outside.

After venturing out into the cold, to buy groceries and supper, my mother and I ate and then huddled under a mountain of covers in her bed and watched youtube videos on a computer propped up on my lap.  The dog alternated between being between us, on one of us, and at the end of the bed.  And then we settled into for a long winters....  Well not nap, youtube watching.

Old shows like "Hetty Waithrope Investigates" and "Rosemary and Thyme" filled out evening.  It was warm, cozy, and entertaining.  The wind blew the snow around outside, but inside we were warm, under several blankets and sometimes a dog.

Those are shows that we haven't watched in years, and when we first started watching them, I wasn't sure that we'd enjoy them again, but we did.  The last time I watched "Rosemary and Thyme" I was skinny like Rosemary, but this time I was fat like Thyme, which was kinda strange to realize.  It's also strange to realize that although I remembered the stone going through the window, I remembered it as a brick, and I didn't remember much else.

And so I'm sure we will do that again, sometime, when we just can't seem to get the temperature inside to warm up enough to be tolerable.  It's not that we don't have a good furnace, it's that sometimes, it just gets so cold that the furnace can't keep up, because the outside temperature plummets so much in such a short time.

And well now we've figured out how to warm up, and be entertained.

The furnace has now caught up, and the house is a liveable temperature, and we are settling in to go to bed soon.

So good night, although by the time you read this it will be moving, so good morning.

It's after midnight and it's cold outside.

Again it's after midnight, again I don't know what to post, and again I'm just going to start writing and see what comes out.

It's not that I'm not thinking anything.  It's that I just don't know what (of all I'm thinking) I should write down.

It's cold outside.  The type of bone chilling cold that freezes skin in minutes, makes sound travel faster, and makes people stay inside.  Not even cars like this kind of cold, and they demand to be warmed up before being driven.  They make funny noises when started, and need to be plugged in overnight.

It's hard to explain this type of cold to people who have never felt it.  Actually it's hard to explain winter to people who never felt it.  Things like whore frost, plugging in cars, snow, shovelling, and icey roads are hard to explain.

It's also hard to acclimatize to this cold.  I once worked for a man from Sudan, who had never known this type of cold until he got here.  He liked to keep the thermostat way higher than anybody else, even in the summertime when everybody else was using air conditioning.  He hated the ice, and fell almost every day.  "Snow I can take", he would say "Ice.  I don't know how you people walk on it."

It takes a different kind of walking on ice.  You have to shuffle your feet, moving them carefully over each spot on the ground, while looking for snow or traction in the ice to walk on.  You also have to learn how to fall.  Don't just fall.  Look for a snowy place to aim yourself and fall there.  It's softer that way.

It's not that cold all winter long.  Sometimes it's comfortable.  One those days everybody talks about how nice the weather is, and people walk around with their jackets undone.

But on other days...  Day's like today.  It's way to cold to go outside for anything other than a necessity.  All unnecessary trips are cancelled, nobody goes for a walk or a jog outside, and nobody goes to the store just for a snake.  If you have all you need in the house, you don't worry about getting anything extra.

How cold is it you ask?  Well it was -31 C (-29.2 F) without windchill today.  Overnight it might get worse.  By Wednesday it's suppose to warm up to -14 C (+6.8 F), which to us, at this time of year is down right balmy.

Maybe Entertainment isn't frivolous.

My mother and I are listening to a very good novel by J.A. Jance, about a detective named Beaumont who opens up a cold case for find even more murder than he thought he'd find.

While we are doing that I am colouring, and my mother is playing iPad games.

Just like when I coloured while listening to Raffi, I'm finding this very relaxing.  Maybe, relaxing isn't really the appropriate word for listening to a murder mystery, but in a way it is.

My problems, sadness, and hurts fade away into a fictional world created by J.A. Jance.  It's like watching a good movie or TV show, but it lasts longer.  It lasted for a few hours last night, and almost all day today.  As soon as I got up, Mom asked if I wanted to listen, and I immediately said "yes".  We were so caught up in the storey we wanted to know what happened to the 2 little boys that found the body in a barrel, and to Beaumont, the detective who had knee replacement surgery.

Her descriptions of surgery, anesthetic and Rehab in hospital (the physio kind, not the drug kind), were exactly write.  I could envision the hospital and his pain killer induced dreams perfectly.  My mother spent 3 months in a hospital after having neurosurgery (see my "about me" page for more information).  We got to know the rehab ward intimately, and it is not at all like the rehab wards they show on TV or in the movies.

Having surgery many times myself I know she perfectly described the anesthetic, except for one instance: counting backwards from 10.  Every time I have surgery, I know the anesthesiologist is going to ask me to count backwards from 10, and every time I am determined to get to 1 (or at least past 7), but I never do.  I always count ten, nine, eight, seven, and then that's it.  I'm waking up in the recovery room, wondering why I can't complete such a simple task.  I was a math major in university, you'd think I'd be able to count backwards before surgery.  I can't.  I never can.

I've wanted to be a writer for a long time.  I've written short stories, essays, and descriptions of real live in diary since I was 12, when a teacher introduced me to creative writing.  It was after my grandfather died (the same one I mentioned in yesterday's post), and she suggested it would help me deal with my great grief and hurt.  It was therapeutic.

It was also fun.

The next year in school, when the short storey was introduced in the school curriculum, I was ready.  I drove into it with excitement and enthusiasm.  In university I started writing novels.

It was never intended to be my career.  I thought that entertainment, was frivolous.  I wanted to improve the world, and I chose a degree that helped me do that.  (no it wasn't math, but I needed a major and that was available).

Things didn't quite work out as I expected, but that's a different storey not for this post.

I never gave up writing, but even my own entertainment was frivolous (it came after I did everything important), so how could I think that providing the entertainment of others was important?  I thought feelings were frivolous too.  I felt them, I wanted to understand them, but my happiness, wasn't important.  Other's were important.

But I'm starting to change my mind.  I am important.  My happiness is important.  And so is the happiness of other people.

Happiness can be attained in many ways, and I'm finding some of them.  I enjoy giving to others.  But it's also important to give to myself (and that is not something I understood before).

It's also important to do things that I enjoy doing (also something I didn't understand before).

And if it's important for me to do things I enjoy doing, it's important for others to do things they enjoy doing, and that's where entertainment comes in.  People enjoy entertainment.  A good book like the one Mom and I are listening to know, entertains, removes me from my own sadness and hurt, and takes me into a land somebody else created.

And maybe by writing good novels, and actually trying to publish one of them, maybe I'll be helping people too?  Maybe entertaining people through my writing, is important, because maybe I'll be providing them with an escape, just as J.A. Jance is doing for Mom and I.

Fire:

I never want to wake up to the word "Fire" again.  I was sleeping deeply for the very first time that night, I was finally warm, and my mother opened my door and said "Fire".  Instantly I was awake.  The smoke was so think I couldn't see anything, and I desperately searched the dark for two things: pants and my purse.

It was cold out that night, -47 C (without windchill), the coldest night of the year, but finally I was warm.  I didn't realize that warmth came from the fire that melted the lighting fixtures below my bedroom, and was melting barbie doll furniture from childhood that were stored under my bed.  In the middle of the night, in my sleep, I just knew I was finally warm.  I mostly likely would have continued to sleep, and just never woke up if my mother hadn't woken me up with that one word "Fire".

What that word represented, stole something from me that I didn't even know I could lose: safety.  Obviously that night, I wasn't safe, and as my family and I fled into the cold without jackets or shoes, we cared more about survival than frost burn or hypothermia.  But that night was the last night I ever felt totally safe.

I remember as a little girl, looking out the window at my grandparents house.  My grandfather stood beside me and together we watched the storm through huge living room windows.  I felt so save standing with my Grampa, watching the storm.  It felt like Grampa and my grandparents house could protect me from anything.  Lightning and thunder filled the sky, but I knew inside I was save.  I said so to my Grampa, and he said something very quizzical at the time: "I hope you always feel that way", and then he walked away.

I was only a small child, less than 9, and I didn't understand.  Why wouldn't I always feel save?  Didn't everybody feel save when they were inside?

What I didn't fully understand at the time, was the second world war, impacted his live.  He in fact didn't feel save.  The sound of thunder sounded like gunfire, and he never liked the sound of thunder.  And, although as I grew older, I understood more and more of just what the second world war was like, I never fully understood his comment until after the fire.

I have never been to war, and I'm sure I will never fully understand his experience in war.  But I do know what it's like not to feel safe in your own home.  My home is not a home anymore.  It's a house, that I live in, but it doesn't give me that save and cosy feeling that it once did.  It was the scene of danger, of fleeing for my live into -47 C weather without a coat or shoes or anything to keep me warm.  I didn't feel the snow beneath my feet or even know they were getting cold.  I didn't feel the wind on my bare skin.  Escaping was the only thing I knew.  Get everybody out of the house.  Call the fire department.  Wake up our neighbours.  Ask for shelter.  Those were the only things I thought about.

But after...

After is a different story.

Of all the things I lost that night (childhood pictures included), what I miss the most is not physical: it's the feeling of safety.  Now I know that nobody is ever truly safe.  It can all be changed in an instant.

I wish I had that feeling back.  I wish that even as I sit on this couch, that I thought nothing could hurt me.  But I don't know if I'll ever feel that way.

And although my childhood self can't go back and ask my grandfather what he meant, and if this is how he felt, I think that maybe this is what he was talking about, and I too wish that feeling of protection from the storm had always stayed with me.

A rant about computers

It's that time to blog again.  11:39 pm.  And I had no idea what tomorrow's blog post would be.

Until now...

My computer had started downloading an update without me agreeing to it.  There was a reason I didn't agree to let it download: my computer isn't working 100%.  It's acting slowly, and I think it might be because I have too much stuff on it.  I bought an external hard drive, and I fully intend to put things from this computer onto the external hard drive, but I haven't done it yet.

I really don't think this computer, at this time, has enough memory to do any updates at all.  It's just too full.

And yet, here it is, asking me nightly if it can update.  And here I am telling it "no", and then it goes and does it anyway.

Who programmed these computers to be so demanding?  Isn't the point of having a computer, a being that is not alive, and has no purpose beyond doing what I want it to, to do just that, do what I want it to do?  Why does it have needs, and wants beyond what I want?  And why does it have the ability to disobey and download updates anyway?

That is bad programming, and it's annoying me right now.

And that's my rant.

Obesity isn't a health problem.

I hate it when people think obesity causes health problems.  That is an absolute lie and it doesn't make any sense.

When I was born I was a small baby.  I was also extremely sick.  My parents were told I would die.  I didn't obviously.

My illness had nothing to do with my own weight.  I was just an infant, and I was small for an infant. My illness had nothing to do with my mother's weight.  She was 5 feet exactly and 99 lbs before she got pregnant with me.

I remained skinny throughout my live.  I was active in sports such as swimming, skiing, cycling, horse back riding, and walking.  I also remained sick.  After my surgery as a toddler, I didn't get as sick as that again, but I had frequent infections, and health problems related to the problems I was born with.

In my early 30's I got much sicker, and needed more surgeries.  It was after one of these surgeries, that I was no longer able to take the stairs two at a time (I had to use the elevator) or park a 20 minute walk away from my destination (I had to park closer).  I stopped all forms of exercise, except for walking, because I was too sick to do so.

I also started taking medication that causes weight gain.

I became too sick to cook, nutritious foods made from scratch.  My mother was progressively loosing energy due to her own health problems, and couldn't do that either.  Cooking from scratch takes a lot of time and energy, and Mom and I just didn't have it.  Some days we didn't eat supper, because we didn't have the energy to make it.  We grabbed potato chips instead.  To solve that problem we bought boxed foods, and made them regularly.

Sticking a couple of chicken fingers in the oven is easier than cooking from scratch, and better than eating nothing but potato chips.

And we started gaining weight.

But....

I am not unhealthy because I gained weight.  I was sick for decades before gaining weight.  I am overweight because I am sick.  I don't have the energy to exercise like I once did nor do I have the energy to spend and hour making each meal as I once did.

Obesity is not a health problem.  Health problems can cause obesity, but obesity in itself is not a health problem.

I've made a new page & explaining the sidebar.

Here, where your reading, this sentence right here.  Take a minute to move your eyes over to the left. See the maroon background with the beigish writing, that's the sidebar.

In that side bar, the first thing written is pages.  Under neither that is, Home, About Me, Related Posts and Comment Policy.  Related Posts.  That's the new page.  And if you click on that, you will find all of my posts, listed in topic categories.  If you liked one of my posts in one category, you might like the other posts in those categories.  And that's my new page.

While I'm here, I might as well continue explaining the sidebar.

Under neither the pages bit, is Blog Archive.  That's created by blogger, and it's a list of every post I've made, sorted by date.  If you click on the downward faces arrows you will see more choices, and if you click on the left facing arrows you will see less choices.

Below that is Follow by Email.  If you put your email address into that box, and push return, you'll be directed through the process of following me by email.  When you're done, you'll get an email of each and every post I make, when I make it.

Under that is "Please Subscribe"  You can follow my posts, or follow the comments on particular posts.

Under that is "Email Me".  If you fill that form in, I will get your message sent directly to me, through email.  And I might even respond to your email.  Actually I most likely will, providing it's polite.

Thanks for reading this, and I'll see you again tomorrow.

Adult Colouring Books and Regression.

Ok.  I know this is my 3rd maybe 4th day talking about colouring books, and this will most likely be my last post on this topic.

I was thinking a lot about it today, as I drove around the city doing errands.

As I said before, I took in psychology class that adults doing things children do is called regression and regression is "bad".  Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) at this time, I don't remember much else about regression.  A whole two years of psychology classes, and all I remember about regression can be fit into one sentence.  Oh well.  I remember my math classes much better - and that is a different subject all together.

So...  Have many people in the world regressed?  Are we all doing psychological bad things by colouring in colouring books?  No.

There are many ways of dealing with stress that are considered "adult" and are not considered "regression" and therefore "bad".  Drinking, smoking, shopping, having coffee, watching porn and doing drugs are all "adult" ways of dealing with stress.  All of them cause problems, and all of them can be considered "harmless" or "harmful", depending on the person you're talking to and the extent to which they are done.  I don't have to mention the effects of all of these things.

Colouring, listening to children's music, and swinging on the swing in the neighbourhood park, all of which I have done at times of stress, are not harmful to anybody.  It's not harmful to me or to anybody else.  It maybe unconventional, but nobody ever harmed their lungs with a colouring book, or had a little too much children's music, or overdosed on swinging in the park.  Nobody was hurt by another person's colouring, or set up a support group of friends and family of those who swing in the park.

And so, even if this is regression, I think my way of dealing with this stressful time in my live, is perfectly safe, harmless, and acceptable.

Whoever said "regression" is bad just didn't understand how much fun it is to colour.

"Reduce Stress", on of my doctors said. "But how?" I wanted to respond but didn't.

My dog is trying to get comfortable on the couch, having resigned herself to not being allowed to go outside and bark along the dogs already barking outside.

My mother just went to bed.

Colouring books and crayons await me at the table.  I bought new colouring books and new crayons today.  I wanted a crayon sharpener, but they only come in the big pack of crayons.  I'm glad I did.  All sorts of cool colours like metallic and gel colours are included in the large packs.

I like colouring with crayons more, than pencil crayons or markers.  There's just something about it.

In my psychology classes, I took I learned about regression and it's evils.  At this point I can't remember why it was bad, to regress, but I remember it was bad.  Am I regressing?  I don't know.  I do know that a whole bunch of other people are regressing along with me, because adult colouring books are very popular.  I'm not sure about the crayon's part, or the children's music part, but it is relaxing.

I need relaxation.  And I need to reduce my stress.  Apparently some of my health problems are due to the prolonged stress I've been under.  For the last 5 years, I've been under a lot of stress.  Deaths, illnesses (one that included neurosurgery and 100 days in hospital), a house fire, a dog dying, the family house being sold (it was in the family for 70 years), two car accidents (one a major head on collision), and a heart attack, have filled our family's activities in the last 5 years.  We've been moving from crisis to crisis, without much time in-between each crisis.  We've just had a really really bad string of bad luck.

And all that stress?  It's causing me health problems: unable to concentrate, unable to remember things, stomach aches, back aches, and many other things.

The doctor told me to cut down on my stress.  But how?  If I knew we'd have a house fire, I would have prevented it.  There wasn't anyway I could have prevented the deaths.  And know body knows what caused my mother's Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus.  I have no control over the health of my father's heart.  If I'd know that somebody would turn in front of me, on a busy 80 km / hr road, I would have taken a different road.

How?  Just how does anyone propose I stop these horrible things from happening?  I would have stopped them if I could.  Believe me I didn't want these things to happen anymore than my doctor did.  Or the librarian (when we told the library that they weren't getting any books back because they all burned in the fire, the librarian said "I hate fires", as if we had a fire just to make her live difficult.)

And so I'm doing small things.  I'm colouring in adult colouring books.  I'm listening to Raffi.  I sing loudly in the car.  I play with my dog.  I watch TV shows that make me laugh.  I blocked everybody who annoyed me in any way from all social media accounts.  I block every stranger on social media that offends me in anyway, because I have enough stress without arguing with strangers on the internet.

I've done big things like cut off all ties with a cousin, who was prone to calling me and telling me about the mistakes I made.  I didn't need to hear it, and although I love this cousin, I just don't want to have anything to do with somebody who is "only telling me the truth", when she says that back when we were children or teens or some other age along time ago that I did such and such and it was a mistake and if I hadn't done that then, I wouldn't be suffering now.

We bought another dog about a year after our last dog died (from smoke inhalation), and pet and play with her daily.  I try to make choices that will make me happy.

But the thing is: it's not really working.  I'm still living a stressful live, and that constant stress: the cortisone and adeline that pumps through the human body when it's under stress, is causing health problems.  Or at least that's one of the possibilities.  There are other possibilities of why I'm getting sick, and I am perusing those ideas with my doctors as well.

And there's one more thing I'm doing to help with my stress: I'm doing it right now - writing this blog.  And you, by reading this blog, have helped me tremendously, because as I said yesterday, looking at the stats, helps me.  It makes me happy when people read this blog.  And for that I thank you very much for reading.

I had an absolutely fabulous Day.

The day started, like any other.  Yesterday's post was written the night before, but set to post before I got up.  That's the way I post all my posts.

In the morning, like any other morning, I tweeted about the post.  If the post is about nobody particular, I tweet the title of the post.  If the post mentions a person, I tweet about the post, and mention the person whose in the tweet.  If I've written about you, you should know I have, and I tell you so in a tweet.

Raffi, the person I wrote about yesterday, retweeted my tweet, and wow.  All day long I saw my blog post stats raise.  For those of you that don't know, blogger, who hosts this blog, provides stats, which tell the blogger (in this case me), how many people read each post, and a variety of other things.

These numbers, can make me happy when they raise.  I've wondered about this, really I have.  Why do I need external validation?  Shouldn't just simply posting it and having nobody read it, be just as rewarding as posting it and having many people read it?  If I dug really deep into this external validation question, I could make my self sad again, and I'm not going to do that.  I simply don't want to.

As the readers of my post kept rising, so did my spirits.  And now here comes the awkward part of this post.  When this post is posted tomorrow, should I tweet Raffi again?  Would that be like asking him to retweet again?  I don't want to make him feel awkward or obligated (although I wouldn't mind another retweet), but I do think if I write about something, I should tell them I've written about him/her.

The day followed with more colouring, and more Raffi, although this time I didn't really need to listen to it on youtube.  I just sang songs like "Mr. Sun", and "Brush my Teeth", whenever I thought about it all day long.  It became a joke between my mother and I.  "What Raffi song can I come up with for every situation."

And then the evening as filled with watching an extremely funny gameshow called "The whole 19 yards".  Mom and I laughed out loud as we watched this.  It was the first time we watched it, and I'm really glad I found it on youtube.

Our dog was actually the one that wanted us to watch.  In the evening, we often watch youtube videos while laying on Mom's bed, and placing the computer between us.  Tonight our dog made such a ruckus about not going to the bedroom to watch youtube videos, that we eventually gave in and went.   So thanks dog.  But I'm not going to tweet her, because my dog doesn't have her own twitter account.

Raffi and Adult colouring Books.

I don't know what to write.  I don't know how honest to be?

I think I'm depressed.  I'm finding it very difficult to sleep, concentrate, think, or function.

I'm also finding it very difficult to write a post.  I've started several different posts, and just can't come up with something to say.  Maybe I shouldn't wait until bedtime to write posts?  Maybe if I had slept well in the last little while but that's not working very well either.

Last night because I was feeling sad and melancholy, I listened to Raffi, the Canadian's Children's singer.  I grew up listening to Raffi, and when I was nanny for my nephew I listened to Raffi with him.  I know the songs off by heart, and they have a way of making me smile.

So last night, I thought of listing to Raffi, even though I didn't have a child with me.  I tweeted about wounding if it was a little weird for an adult to listen to Raffi without a child alongside, and Raffi himself tweeted back saying "go ahead".  I did and it did make me smile.

Song's like "Mr. Sun", and "5 green and speckled frogs", still make me smile.

And I think I'll do that again tomorrow, while doing another children's activity: colouring.  Adult colouring books, are the "in" thing, and it relaxes.  I think tomorrow I'll try doing it while listening to children's music: Raffi.

Is that too weird?  But then again, even if it is, what difference does it make, if it makes me happier?

....

Update:

After I wrote this, but before it was scheduled to post, I got a video of Raffi on youtube, and listened to it, while colouring an adult colouring book.  I sang with the songs, listened to the children laugh, and at times laughed along with them.  It cheered me up, and made me happier.  Now I'm going to go to bed, and I won't be so melancholy when I do.

Thanks Raffi.

Gerd - the sleep thief of the night.

I truly hope I get more sleep tonight than I did last night.

Last night I didn't get to sleep until 3:00 am, and then I woke up at 5:00 am, and stayed up.

The problem: Gerd.  That awful feeling in the back of my throat, that burns, makes me cough and prevents sleep.  It prevents going to sleep, and it wakes me up with a mouthful of yellowie-orangie gunk that burns my mouth and hurts my teeth.  When it suddenly wakes me up, I can't wait to spit it out.  I fumble for the light in almost a panic, as I try to get up find a kleenex to spit it into.

And that is why, I wondered through the day, almost asleep.

I truly hope it doesn't happen again tonight, and I can sleep peacefully.

Happy New Years

It's that time of year again, when we change our calendars not just from one month to the next, but from one year to the next.

I will start writing the date as 2015, then cross it out and write 2016 beside or over top of the original year.  This will continue for about a week, until I'm totally used to writing 2016.

It's the time that people naturally think of change. The year is changing, the calendar is changing, other people are writing resolutions, so why shouldn't I change.

This year I'm not going to write or even think about a single resolution.  Resolutions are a set up for failure.  If I write a resolution it's usually very complicated.  One year I wrote how much weight I wanted to lose, followed by a month by month progress of how much weight I would lose by the beginning of each month, and what I would do that month to lose that weight.  By the time Feb 1 came around, I had already failed.

I don't want to fail this year, and I don't even want to try.

I know that sounds defeatists, because even as I wrote it I second guessed myself, but I have a reason.

Right now, in my life, I'm already feeling inadequate.  I am having a very hard time dealing with live, and I just can't set myself up for failure this year.  Before Mom was sick, we had a house fire, then when Mom got sick, were still unpacking all of the stuff after moving back into our house.  As Mom got worse and worse, I quit unpacking altogether.  Now our house looks horrible.  I don't think it will ever get clean.  And I've given up.

Sometimes brushing my teeth, washing my face and getting dressed in the morning is too much work and I simply don't do it.  In the last 4 years we've had several tragedies that in and of themselves are unusual and horrible to live through, but we've just had horrific luck, and have had them pile on us.  Through them all I've been coping, but I've reached a point where I can't be strong for anybody else, and I can't try to change anything either.  I'm not going to try.

This year, there won't be any resolutions from me.  This year, I'm going to not try to change a thing.