Scarlett Letters

8/25/13: ETA I wrote this after having decided not to write about it. I filtered it tightly. Then I privacy-locked it. At this moment (two months later), I'm unlocking and unfiltering it because I have things to say to which it pertains, and it's time.
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I spoke with davidlevine about this last night because I was so upset, but I woke up this morning, still upset, and decided that if talking it out didn't help as much as I'd hoped, maybe writing would.

I have a friend whom I have learned regularly engages in risky behavior, as in life-threatening risky behavior. When said behavior was confessed to me, I flashed on all the friends I have lost in the last two years to illnesses or conditions that they didn't ask for and couldn't control; I thought of the friends who are fighting the battles of their lives (bedii, jaylake, and a couple of others not on LJ) and something in me just seized up. I found myself with tears in my eyes, angry and hurt, and I begged this friend to please stop this behavior, that it could hurt him in permanent and almost certainly fatal ways. I saw a future without him in it and it scared the hell out of me. He had a portfolio of rational--and, he admitted, not rational--reasons for doing what he's doing and continuing to do it; nothing I said penetrated. I have been angry and upset about this ever since.

The great Jewish sage Hillel said, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to others." (And by the way, he said it a good hundred years or more before that rabbi in Judea said something similar and, frankly, less rigorous--but that's a subject for another time.) I bring this up because of the understanding that I came to as a result of the above-described conversation and about some decisions I have made recently with regard to dating.

Let's start with the dating thing, and you'll see where I'm going. There's a man in the writing community in whom I am interested. He is funny and sweet; he is a writer; we clearly have much in common, and there is a certain attraction. He is also large. And I mean large. He also has two kids from a former marriage. As result of my difficult personal history, I've decided that I can't involve myself with someone who won't take care of himself. I'm not here to argue fat politics. My experience is that some of the people of size whom I have loved have died terribly and far younger than they ought to have, all for reasons related to being overweight, starting with my father, who died when I was 11. Given all the loss I've experienced over the last two years, I simply will not invest myself in an intimate relationship with someone of size again; I cannot do it. But more than that, I can't do it in this case because there are children involved. It's not that I don't like kids; I do, very much. But if a man can't bring himself to take care of himself for his children, to ensure his presence and long life for his children, then I can't rely on him to take care of himself to be present for me. I'm not looking for a model body; I'm merely hoping for someone with enough sense of self-worth and responsibility not to be 200 pounds overweight.

And let me be clear: I speak as an overweight woman. I know I can do better, which is one of the reasons I've made a point to work at it the last couple of years. I've faltered. I'll succeed again; I know it. I haven't stopped trying.

What the process of making this decision has done for me is make me understand that part of love is a responsibility to those whom one loves to maintain oneself, to preserve oneself. Perfection isn't necessary or even desirable; there are plenty of perfection Nazis who, frankly, aren't terribly lovable. My point is that if you love someone and they love you, your best gift to them is to keep yourself aware and healthy, to not do things that could jeopardize your presence in the world. It is an act of supreme selfishness to risk one's own life given the presence of loved ones.*

Now, I am a reasonable person. Some of us love a good adrenalin rush. I can't begrudge an adrenalin junkie his adrenalin. But I don't have to like the choice to throw oneself out of a plane, either, even if there's a parachute involved.

In the case of my friend, where this whole post started, there's no parachute, metaphorically speaking. He has deliberately chosen not to wear one. He has facts and figures and reasons for this choice, all very rational and reasonable. Some of them are emotional. Some of them he couldn't articulate. I told him that gravity has no respect for facts and figures and reasons; it will still kill him if he doesn't wear a parachute and choose his landing target well. But, by God, he's going to continue to jump out of planes without a gravity-mitigation device no matter what I or anyone else has to say. And it makes me so angry that, two days after I learned about it, I'm still angry--really angry--about it. Because it means that he doesn't care about the people he loves enough to stop it. And he doesn't love himself enough to stop it either. That which is hateful to him--hurting others--he is doing without restraint or consideration.

I understand that some of this behavior comes out of pain. He is not the sort to seek help; he has a million rational reasons for not seeking it. He wouldn't take it from me.

There's nothing I can do about it. It's clear, based on our conversation, that he has no intention of stopping what he's doing. I'm sure he doesn't see it this way, that his behavior means he just doesn't really give a damn about the people who love him. But it does, just as surely as if he were putting a gun to his head to play Russian roulette. Someday, there's going to be a bullet in that chamber. He'll pull the trigger, and it'll hit before he even sees it coming.

God damn it.



* An exception here, of course, are emergency workers, law enforcement and the military. In each of these cases, the work is a matter of social good and safety precautions in the face of deadly circumstance are requirements of the job, not just good ideas. One goes into such work with thought, care, training, support, and safety gear. It is, at its most elemental level, different than what I'm talking about.

Earlier today, I posted about Referendum 74 here in Washington state, which is an attempt to repeal same-sex marriage. I said, "Most of my local friends live in Western Washington, and we have a habit of poo-pooing the conservative, Eastern side of the state. But these people are serious about their bigotry, even--especially--because they don't see it as bigotry, and they'll come out in throngs to vote against same-sex marriage. So will conservatives here in Western Washington."

Elsewhere, in response, an acquaintance of mine said, "You know what the worst kind of bigotry is? The kind where certain people call other people 'bigots' because they dare to have a different viewpoint than their own."

I answered in the following way: A clear distinction needs to be made between opinion and bigotry. On the one hand, you and I may differ about whether we like onions. I can respect that you don't like onions and you can respect that I like onions. That's a difference of opinion. Where it stops being opinion and starts being bigotry is when you decide that I can't have onions because you don't like onions and you pass laws to stop me from eating them. It starts being bigotry when you decide that, because I'm an onion-lover, it should be illegal for me to marry another onion lover and you work to pass a law to that effect. Or maybe I should wear an onion patch on my coat so everyone knows I'm an onion lover. Or maybe I should have to ride in the back of the bus so you can't smell the onions on my breath.

He posted in response saying that I had it backwards, that by trying to shove my onion-love down his throat, and by not respecting his right to fight back against my onion love, I was a bigot.

This is an intelligent man. I've seen him speak intelligently about science fiction, about writing, about the business he's in. So to see this kind of thinking just stymies me. He believes that this is a difference of opinion. He doesn't see how trying legislate away someone else's rights is bigotry. And he thinks I'm a bigot because I think he's wrong. And he thinks I'm a bigot because of my onion patch remark.

I don't understand this. If you can legislate away someone else's right to marry, then you can legislate who gets to live in one place but not another, who gets to do business in one place but not another, who gets to work in one place but not another. Don't they see where this leads? Don't they see what it means? If they'll do it to gay people, they'll do it to brown people and Jewish people and yellow people and people who don't believe in God, and on and on. What's worse is that I like this person but I can't be friends with someone who thinks any of this is OK.

I'm heartbroken to learn that this is how he thinks, because I can't--I can't--associate with someone who thinks this way. Why? Because there was a time when they came for the Jews and said, "You can't live here, you can't work here. We say so." That's what's happening here, now.

At Passover we're taught that each of us must behave as if we ourselves were taken out of Egypt personally. The metaphor extends to all of life: put yourself in someone else's shoes and live mindful of that awareness. If I put myself in his shoes, what I see is things changing that I can't control and acting out of fear to control and stop that change. At the same time, the things that are changing don't affect how I live and they give others rights and freedoms that they don't have right now. Doesn't that make the world a generally safer place? Doesn't it make it a better, less hurtful place?

I don't understand this. And I don't understand how he can't see what's happening here.

I'm fatigued. All the time. I go out to walk to try to work up some energy. I come home and fall over. I do two hours of work. I go into the bedroom and fall over. I've been eating a lot of red meat lately because I've craved it like a mad, craving thing, which means I need iron. I'm starting back on my iron supplement tonight. But I'm so tired of being tired.

Being tired has put me behind on reviewing my SIFF films. It's only two movies, but it feels huge. Being tired cost me seeing one of the movies I most wanted to see at SIFF this week. I was too tired last night to get to the theater.

I know this is all about recuperation but, wow, I just want it to be over. As of last Thursday, the doc said I have two more weeks of this. As of today, that means one week plus one day. Counting the hours? You bet.

Also? I'm sitting around in a long-sleeved shirt and a fleece. It's freaking June and it was 58 degrees here! I want my goddamn warm weather already. They're predicting temps at 70 degrees for the weekend. It can't get here soon enough.

Due purely to a fluke, I just discovered that Elton John and Billy Joel will be playing at Key Arena in November. Apparently tickets went on sale at the beginning of March. I was completely unaware. I just went over to ticket master to look for tickets. The cheapest tickets that are apparently still available are $179.00 per ticket.

The first time Billy and Elton toured, I didn't go because the tickets, again, were outrageously priced. I feel like if I don't see this show, there may not be another tour. And you have to understand: I LOVE these guys. Love. With a big, undying love. Part of it, of course, is that I'm a Long Island girl, and Billy is One of Us. Part of it is that Billy and Elton's songs were a big part of the soundtrack of my youth. And, ya know, Billy and Elton together? It's a piano man fan's wet dream.

$179.00 per ticket.

I see that one reseller has them at $125 per--way across at the other end of the arena. Were I employed, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Even at that price I simply can't justify it in any way right now.

::grump bitch moan grump::

..."plowed streets" in Seattle actually means "snow-packed," as in there's snow and ice left on major arterials by design.

Apparently, one of the reasons this spate of severe weather in Seattle is so debilitating is that the city has decided that it's environmentally unsound to use salt to melt ice. The city's plows have been equipped with only marginally effective equipment. And it's all on purpose. Read the Seattle Times report.

Maybe I'm a bad environmentalist, but I'll take the rap. I don't think these choices are good for the city or its residents. Those of us without four-wheel drive or chains (go ahead, try to find chains at this point--if you can get to stores, that is) are stuck without recourse, especially when bus service is limited (like yesterday, when every bus closer than a 20 minute walk away was taken out of service and none of the sidewalks have been shoveled--except by me; I've been clearing our sidewalks for days now. It's been my main form of exercise.).

Kvetch, kvetch, kvetch, I know. I just think this endangers residents (on the news last night, it was reported that traffic accidents the last two weeks have increased specifically in relation to the weather and road conditions), limits commerce (economy? what economy?), and frustrates everyone (merry freakin' holidays, yo).

And then there's the forecast: More snow, then rain, to be followed by possible urban flooding.

I understand why these choices are being made. But it's times like this that I long for New York.

...that gets me sick yesterday, then gets me a jammed ignition cylinder this morning.

[vent]

I got up this AM extra early to get to work to try to make up hours that I've missed this week. My key goes into the ignition, but it's jammed hard. I can't turn the key any which way no matter what I try. I call the dealership. They have to tow it in and fix it for an insane amount of money. In the meanwhile, I'm missing hours and hours of billable time. I can get to work via bus--one transfer with a drop off on a freeway entrance (which I hate with a fury of a thousand suns) to get there, one transfer on the way back--but I have to be in Lake City before 6 PM to get the car, which means leaving work early. At most, assuming absolutely nothing goes wrong, I'll get in 4 hours of time at the office and a lot of aggravation.

Hate. Hate. Hate.

I should have stayed in Africa.

[/vent]

So . . . I went over to Amazon to order up my brother's Chanukah gifts. I checked his Wishlist and selected a few things for him. I go to complete the order and I get the following error message on one of the items: "We're sorry. This item can't be shipped to a Wish List or gift registry address." There's no other explanation. The only option the user has is to delete the item from the shopping cart. I doublecheck the item to be sure it's in stock: yep, there it is, all free and clear of any apparent blockages. And yet, there it continues to sit on my brother's Wishlist, an item that can't be shipped.

So first I scour Amazon's Help files to see if there's an explanation. Nope. No explanation.

So then I try to find a customer service number. Well, this is like searching for the Holy Grail.

Then I remember that I actually have the Super-Sekrit (tm) Amazon Customer Service Number in my PDA: (1-800-201-7575). Write it down and share it with your friends. Really.

So then I call customer service: ta-da! A free call to India. He takes all my information and asks me to wait. I wait for ten minutes. And what am I told? "Were sorry. This item can't be shipped to a Wish List or gift registry address." The guy's got no other answer for me. And when I tell him that this is a poor user experience, his only response is, "I'm sorry, ma'am. Some items can't be shipped to a Wish List or gift registry address."

Note: When I went to the item's page without going through my brother's Wishlist, I was able to order it and mark it for shipment to him directly without a single problem. To suggest that I'm baffled by this behavior is to put it mildly.

Not what I expected
Went and did the drug test for the new job. Things like this are somehow never what I expect. The unexpected element in this experience was the way in which the lab tech made sure I watched every step of how she managed my sample to ensure that I saw it wasn't tampered with, and that what I gave her is what she packaged up to send out for analysis. As I think about it, of course, that makes perfect sense, but it just hadn't occurred to me until I walked in there and followed her instructions. Interesting.

The Effect of Broken-Foot Rays continued
The trip to the lab was enough to knock me out for a couple of hours when I got home. My conclusion of this morning still stands: the foot's just taking it outta me. I need to reexamine my plans for the next couple of days and figure out what's realistic given my condition. Can I just say that I hate having to do that?

I hate having to do that.