Dec. 19th, 2008

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From the [livejournal.com profile] altfriday5

1. How do you feel about winter? Why?
Ih. It's cold, it's grey, and the dark-time is too blasted long. Intellectually, and in my bones, I understand that everything needs to die for a while to live well. But in that ego-space where I spend most of a day? Ih. Done with the constant thunderstorm, thanks.

2. How about snow? Does it redeem an otherwise-gloomy season or just annoy you?
It redeems the living hell out of winter for me, at least until I have to drive in it using the same roads as the rest of the Huntsvillians. Snow brightens things, makes 'em smell crisper. And it's fun to play in. I <3 teh snows.

3. How does winter affect you physically, emotionally, etc? What do you do about that, if anything?
I don't remember ever feeling as useful and capable and alright in the winter as I do the rest of the year. Somewhere around late October, my ability to apply reason to emotional reactions just frays, and doesn't knit back well until cherry and magnolia blossom time. Staying mindful of it has kept me alright for the past couple of years; still sucks.

4. Do you celebrate $winterholiday(s)? If so, which one(s)? What do you like or dislike about them?
Giftmas, although it's only Mark and I who call it that. :) I dig the handing of shiny things to people. I dig the unwrapping of shiny things. I dig the noise and chatter of being around people when there's that "Do you like it?" vibe in the air. I could do without the small-scale nervous wreck I become in the space between "Do you like it?" and an answer, but I'm working on that.

5. Do you have inherited or created winter traditions for holidays, foods, activities, etc?
Heh. On a year where Giftmas finds my household be-squeakered, we make our hajj to my mother's house. Woe unto the scion of my mother's mother's mother who doesn't bring her child to her mother's house in the twilight of the year. Heaven and earth may be shattering, but thou shalt bring thy progeny to thy clanhouse, or thou shalt never hear an end of wailing.

Which makes it sound like going to my mom's for Giftmas is like taking my newborn son to visit Herod, and that's not fair. I love my family and it's good to see everyone...for a few days.

I just wish they were a little less shocked by the idea that my household might like to make its own traditions.

So every other year, when Dae's with his dad's folk, we skip the state.
Charlotte?
Here's our rough itinerary and our phone numbers; here's Dae's insurance data.
Call us if anything goes sideways.
Happy Christmas!
Bye.
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Not sure whether I should be comforted by how much I'm agreeing with Steve Brust's political analysis, given his personal lens.

Although I'll be the first to admit that I do not grok Trotsky's brand of Marxism (or, in fact, Marxism in general) in anything like fullness. In that and many other things, I am just an egg.

I'll stray on one point:

As a person who grew up watching her father pay union dues whether he was working or not, and knowing that some of the time he spent not working was because he didn't play toadying political games with the headmen of that union... And watching that union slip through loopholes any time he tried to lean back on the net he was paying them to hold for him, while supporting less able, more slick people... and watching that union bully employers into untenable situations...
~headshake~
I've got to say, I'm not entirely convinced a little bit of union-breaking is a bad idea.

Got an employer who literally or metaphorically abuses its employees, knowing that there's a nigh endless supply to replace the ones it breaks (*cough*Wal-Mart*cough*)? Yeah. That could use a union. That could use a nice left hook from the proletariat to remind the capitalists where their money comes from. I'm sold. That's a product-price-increase I'll take smiling.

But I've seen a teacher's union keep a job for a flagrantly unfit teacher, all power to hire and fire taken out of the hands of people who cared for quality in the school.

And I've got a sneaking suspicion that I know who's strangling the auto industry. It's not the government.

So. ~shrug~

Still. Steve sums things up neatly:
So then: Obama’s agenda, judging from his appointments, seems to be: Continue the attacks on education, drive food prices up while destroying the small farmer, continue the war, continue the attacks on our personal freedom, and continue raping the environment so long as it is in the interest of Wall Street.

...Look: if you want to include that
(Rev. Warren's invitation) in the long list of either What We Can Expect From Obama, or How Obama Betrayed Me, then fine. But to single out that one item, it feels like I’m being told, “I don’t mind if you take away my freedom, continue invading and torturing around the world, destroy the lives of individuals and the environment so the rich can stay rich, but don’t you DARE mess with the right of affectional preference!”

Someone has priorities screwed up and I don’t think it’s me.


For the most part, sir? I don't either.
Speak on.

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