Illiterations: Laughing At My Own Expense

Tender people make great targets.  They seem safe and easy to injure.  Often, the assailant has seen others targeting them, and they feel emboldened by the past "evidence" that the target deserves the attacks. The fact is though, that there are people in this world who just have a huge dose of empathy and humanity which keeps them from wanting to injure another, even in the face of unreasonable or even atrocious attacks.  And being tender and kind and empathetic does not preclude a person from also being smart, strong, and well-versed in defending oneself from onslaughts of narcissism and tyranny. Over the years of my life, those tyrannous and abusive people have found that a tender person such as myself doesn't necessarily lack the chops to defend herself.  I am never one to talk about the times I win the fight.  I do not gloat.  I understand that winning "the fight" means I had to fight, and I am never proud of that.  I am never willing to advertise ...

On a daily basis I feel as though I should have something profound to say. My feelings on a daily basis are certainly profoundly amazing; profoundly happy; and profoundly thankful. And I've said previously on other blog posts that I recognize that my readers are probably tiring of me gushing about how amazing my man is and how in love with him I am. Unapologetic as it may seem I still seem to feel profoundly happy; profoundly thankful; and profoundly in love with this man, who shows me, daily, that he loves spending time with me and wants to be with me.  Month by month and week by week, as time passes, I see more of him each week. We are knitting together understandings about our lives; our families; the things we love and the things we hate; our dreams and our disappointments. I think the best of all is that I believe we each feel seen and safe and understood by the other in a world that, by and large, doesn't otherwise do that for us. Whatever else was pulling him other direc...

Do you know a loose cannon?  It's a metaphor and it means completely exactly what I know it to mean and so I use it a lot. But I am very literal, and sometimes I think others may not internalize the reality of that term. "Loose Cannon" is a term that dates back to the days of galleons and wooden ship explorations.  As early as the 1300s, explorative ships from countries in Europe and other places included cannons mounted on the decks to protect them from pirates and other invaders. Cannons, as you can imagine, weighed an immense amount because they were Solid cast iron. Their barrels were thick walls of 3 inches or more, they were somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 to 10 ft in length. As mighty as these old-fashioned defense weapons may seem, their immense bulk and weight were a liability on the ships. There was almost nothing technologically that could perfectly assure that the Cannons would not come loose from their mountings in high seas or a heavy storm. Picture the i...

There's this [boy]. ... It's as if I have taken love heroin, and I can't ever have it again. I've opened Pandora's box, And there's trouble inside.   -- William Thacker in "Notting Hill"  

I was just watching a sappy if still appealing TV series. The details aren't really important but the woman who is the main character is surprised by romantic gesture made by her boyfriend of 2 years and he suggests they get more serious. They're both surgeons and he is suggesting they move in together. I paused it at that point, but it looks like she's going to be evasive and avoid the suggestion. The reason I paused it is because at that moment I realized I am not her. I have always been somebody who would do almost anything for love. Real, trustworthy, solid, love. Which is ironic because I am also the person who has been single most of her life and who has been married and divorced twice and in between the marriages had one long-term significant relationship that also ended. But the pragmatic engineer in me says, "It's not that love and forever are not possible. It's that I just haven't chosen that right person yet." So, there you have it. One of m...

There's a peace that settles over the couple who has reached the "other side" of the initial growing and discovering phase of a relationship.  For most of us, this initial discovery part of the relationship seems to be a bit of each party contemplating the question of whether they want to keep going with this person; is this person the one they want to invest their time and their energy in; et cetera.  Some amazing (and rare) couples seem to simply meet and they are there, almost immediately. Yet, we, the rest of us, get there too.  We just do the "growing into him/her," "getting to know him/her," and the "let's see how this looks when the honeymoon phase wears off," thing.  And, personally speaking, I feel that we--my guy and I--have rounded all those corners.  And I love us!  I love how we look.  I love how we are just easy and understand each other's lives.  I love how we are pretty good at checking in with each other, and how we m...

Rescue is not for the faint of heart. I think a lot of people wander into rescuing by just rescuing one animal.  And perhaps they do it really well. Or perhaps they do it dismally.  When it's just one animal nobody ever really knows what you did. But try to become somebody who is rescuing or attempting to rescue many animals. Try to be somebody who is spreading the word to the community about your efforts so that more animals might be helped. Imagine just as you're finally reaching out to the world that you're helping animals, somebody claims you're doing the opposite.  Perhaps they claim you're abusing the animals.  Perhaps they claim that you are ignorant and don't know what you're doing, or they say you have no idea how to run a rescue. I personally briefly attempted to be in the position helping very young newborn horses by providing a place for them to be delivered as an alternative to their wholesale slaughter. I spent more than two years of my life tr...