More Me Now

I am terrible at remembering to refill my MS medication prescription until the day I take the last pill I have on hand. Luckily, Rexall remembers for me, so I can usually just go in day of and it’s ready to be picked up.

I did such a thing last night, but the additional cool part was that – for the first time – the pharmacist ringing it through asked how the meds were working out for me. He asked how it was going. We chatted about it for an extra few moments before I headed for home. No one’s ever asked me that before, outside of my neurologist. It was nice.

I haven’t posted on FB since last week, the day after the election. Not even this blog goes up on there anymore. I go on just to see my memories for each day, especially on days like today. It’s the sixth anniversary of the day I had to have my Kate kitty put down, and while the memories in my feed today are ultimately sad, there’s also a lot of good ones, because I’ve posted a little tribute to her each year since.

Well, not this year. Or not on FB, at least. I did post a little something elsewhere, though, including some of my fave photos of us together:

The thing I’ve noticed about being on FB less in this past week is that I have far fewer interactions, and since this blog isn’t being posted there, I feel sort of liberated and like I can be a bit more open about things. We’ll see how long that lasts, of course, but for the time being, I actually feel like expressing a bit more on here than I have in the past. We’ll see. We’ll see.

Yesterday, I saw the dental surgeon guy who did my gum surgery. He was very pleased with how the healing is coming along – I think pleased with himself most of all, but pleased nonetheless. He approved me to go ahead and get the crown, so I’ll set that up with my regular dentist very soon. I look forward to paying for THAT over the next year or so of my life. Haha

My work day yesterday was ridiculous. A lot of entitled attitudes walking around here, it seems. I’ll no doubt complain about that another time.

Today is almost as bad, but a little over the top because my polar bear is out at the Toronto Zoo for the first time in 4 years, and I am stuck here instead of spending time with him again at last. The other thing is that I’ve been feeling so disconnected lately that I am sad about how little I’m affected by all that right now. I should be more excited to see him. I should feel more things in general. Instead I’m still just…swept away.

I’m sure that’ll change whenever I do see him again. It’s just sad that I don’t feel like I have even that to look forward to anymore.

Another FB memory that popped up was one I’d kind of forgotten about. I’d been challenged one time to list a number of things that most people wouldn’t know about me. It was fun to go back and re-visit that, so I thought I’d share it again here.

So here you go – 11 things about me that most people don’t already know:

1. I am obsessively partial to odd numbers. I’ll …have to find a way to make my biological imperative overlook this list of 8, for example. (Note: I was later challenged by another friend so was able to add 3 more to the original list, to total 11.)
2. I had a spoon collection when I was younger, thanks to my grandmother, who gave me her Charles and Diana wedding spoon to start things off. I’m trying to figure out where I put it, now, actually.
3. When I was little, I wanted to be a cowboy when I grew up. Then I wanted to be a Jedi. Finding out I could be neither was almost as disappointing as finding out that my parents couldn’t give me the older sister I’d asked for.
4. I was painfully shy as a child, but then I figured out that shy people got made fun of, so I faked it in the hopes that I wouldn’t draw attention to myself. Today it’s just as hard to leave the confines of my apartment, but I am way better at hiding it, and I bet no one has any idea now. Oh…crap…
5. One of my biggest fears as a kid was giants. Sweetums terrified me. Technically, I’m still nervous around things that are bigger than me, but am able to be awed by some of them, as well. Like whales and bears. ❤
6. My mom says I used to cry every time I heard the theme song from the Littlest Hobo. I actually still get a little misty-eyed over it now. Ah, doggies. ❤
7. My bedroom walls and ceiling are partially covered with glow-in-the-dark stars. I’m 41 (Edit: 44 now), and I love them. I purposefully charge them up every night before going to bed, so I can fall asleep in my tiny universe. At least the ones Flynn hasn’t peeled off. I had to move a bunch up out of her reach. Ah, kitties. ❤
8. I was Valedictorian of my high school graduating class. There were, like, 11 of us, I think, and I made the least stink about being nominated. My class had the coolest idea ever for a gift – we were creating a time capsule to be put on display and then buried on school grounds to be dug up in 50 years or so. We had a whole list of stuff we were each contributing, but in the end, we never finished it. So our gift to the school was actually nothing at all, which sort of sums us up rather well, really.
9. I have – and still listen to – the first Alanis album on CD. Not Jagged Little Pill – the FIRST first album! “Never too hot, never too cold, ya take your best shot, too hot to hold! Never too young, never too old….you gotta go for GOLD!!!”
10. I really really really miss plugging quarters into video arcade machines. I miss going to the arcade and playing my faves, usually with my brother. And I absolutely miss playing games that you can’t really “beat” no matter HOW good you are. Eventually, that little frog is going to take a misstep, or there will be too many asteroids to deal with, or the Pong ball will bounce faster than you can react. I miss that.
11. My walls, like many pre-teen and teen girls, was covered in pinups of my fave celebs. I was a regular reader of Bop, 16 and Teen Beat magazines, and was provided with more than enough fodder for my obsessions. The biggest one – and I’ve never really out-grown it – was for Ricky Schroder. Others included Ralph Macchio and most of the 80’s Menudo line-up. And the entire cast of Outsiders. And Mark Hamill. But mostly, I was and am all about the Ricker.

Finally, I’ll end with a few shots of the supermoon I took last night. ‘Cause why not, right?

Sides

I don’t really like people, in general. As a species, I often hate us.

But my hatred is not strong enough to outweigh my compassion and overall kindness. I ignore what I don’t like, more often than not. I don’t have the need to randomly call people names, especially if they are complete strangers to me. I have all sorts of my own biases – racial and otherwise – but they aren’t so ingrained in my psyche that I feel the need to act out as a result. Or attack someone because of them, or anything else. I don’t think certain people deserve more or less than other people, and certainly not because of something superficial that is out of their control.

I think people in general should stop couching their hatred in politics. It’s not a political view. It has nothing to do with Liberal or Conservative, left or right, political parties or perspectives, nor even individual candidates.

Being “politically correct” has nothing to do with politics. It’s about not being an asshole.

If you want to talk about, say, abortion, and whether or not it should be legal…that’s more of a political issue. Though, even that one is tricky because it involves a person’s right to choose – specifically a woman’s – so often sexual politics come into play in those discussions. I have my own views on that, and to me, there really isn’t any other way to see it, but many folks try, anyway.

As is their right. The difference is, I don’t try to legislate their opinion.

So…another topic. Say education. That’s something that could fall under the realm of politics. People will forever quibble over the details of how money should be spent, where it should come from in the first place, whether sex ed has a place in a public school classroom or not…that’s what politics are for. Quibbling over the details, and sometimes even having an actual discussion about them.

It is not, however, a place where a majority group (I’m looking at you, straight white guys) should exert pressure to ultimately deny members of minority groups the same rights they themselves are afforded.

We have so many laws and regulations which were created to curb the number of incidents in which stupid people hurt themselves or others. We have so many more which were crafted with the intention of stopping people from being cruel to one another.

But you can’t legislate kindness. Hatred is there whether there are rules against it, or not. People just couch it as a freedom of speech or some other such policy in a political forum, and continually seek the “right” to openly express it. We’re seeing more and more of that right being exercised after the US election fiasco last week. So many people chose not to vote at all, or voted independent, or just voted the party, without actually thinking about what it meant.

It’s not about being Republican or Democrat this time. From what I can tell, there are two kinds of people, and the categories do not fall into the political realm, but rather into the personal/social/emotional one. And I’m not sure that anyone is able to change which category they fall into, let alone if they’d want to change it up. I’m pretty sure I can’t, as even though I have hatred and darkness inside me, it’s just not strong enough to overpower my basic, better-natured instincts. I don’t have to curb it because it’s the law or uncouth or even politically incorrect. It’s just who I am inside. I am in part both kinds of people, but one ultimately outweighs the other.

The way I see it, you’re either a kind, caring, compassionate and ultimately flawed human being…

Or you’re an ignorant, intolerant asshole.

Let Hatred Ring

I was alone for 9-11, too.  Physically alone, at least.

Not that an election result is comparable to so many lost lives, of course.  But the impact it has – how changed the world seems after – feels similar to me.

Or maybe it’s more the change in me; in my perspective.  Maybe the world is the same as it always was, and I just see and understand things differently now.

To me, this goes beyond an election, or individuals, or parties and politics.  It goes beyond one broken country.

To me, hatred won.

Intolerance won.

Ignorance and fear have won.

There are many who will stand against the waves of hatred coursing forth from the many more.  But I won’t be one of them.  Something in me has snapped.  Something in me is gone now that my eyes have been opened, and there’s no getting it back.  It’s done.

I’ve been swept away with the tide.

Hate trumped love, after all.