Scarlett Letters

Earlier this week, something happened that made me very angry. I wrote a long, heartfelt blog post about it, my browser crashed and the whole thing was lost. At the time, I was enraged that all that work was gone. A day later I thought, Well, you've had your catharsis. Move on. But this morning I realized that I was still angry. I'm not going to talk about the specific incident, but I want to talk about the larger principle behind it. This won't be as gracious or poetic as that first draft, but it still gets the idea across.

I have a philosophy: try to be kind to people, but be especially kind, especially careful and considerate, with those to whom you are close. That kindness manifests, among other ways, by being polite. Saying "please" and "thank you." If I want or need a favor, I try to ask for it carefully and with consideration for the other person's feelings, their time and effort: "If you wouldn't mind, would you please . . . " Being polite is a Thing for me, but it's especially a Thing with regard to the people I care about. It's a sign of respect.

The closer I am to someone, the more I owe them my care and consideration. When I say "close," I don't mean family, because family can be abusive or manipulative or mean. Sometimes we are close with blood relations--caring, supportive, enthusiastic about each other--and that's great. But we also have close friends who are like the family we want most. Anyone we're close to, by this definition, deserves to be treated thoughtfully.

I have heard some people say that the closer you are to another person, the less important it is to be polite; they know you care about them so politeness isn't an issue. To me, this is like saying the closer you are to someone, the less you have to respect them. But I can't believe for a minute that a friendship isn't damaged, that relations aren't strained, when one person treats another without consideration. Such behavior assumes that love is known. It assumes good will.

But you know what Felix Unger said about assuming.

This applies regardless of the relationship and regardless of the circumstances.

This isn't a matter of social graces. It's a matter of treating the people we care about with respect. It's about offering consideration to others, especially if we need or want something from them. It's a way of demonstrating appreciation, a way of saying, "Thank you for caring about me. I care about you, too." It's about being a mensch. I have found that respect begets respect. Consideration begets consideration. If you don't treat someone thoughtfully, you don't give them a reason to treat you that way either. You strain their goodwill. You diminish their love for you.

ETA: I'm not perfect. I can't say that I'm completely considerate and thoughtful every single time. No one is. But I try to be aware and I make a regular effort. If I fail, I try to be more considerate the next time. Perfection isn't the point--practice, intention, effort is.

This goes back to one of the first lessons we learn as children. Say "please" and "thank you." Ask nicely. Consider others. It's a little thing, but it makes a difference. And you'll be remembered more kindly, loved more fiercely, as a result.

1) Vague-booking about social drama: The phrase "I thought this was a safe space" is often--not always, but often--deployed as a guilt trip when someone says something or does something inappropriate and is called on it. That shit just makes me crazy. And it makes me crazier when it's used by someone whom I thought was either more straightforward or less manipulative than their use of the phrase indicates they really are.

2) Weather: The entire rest of the country is being challenging by extreme weather. In Seattle we've got sub-freezing temperatures, which is pretty extreme for this part of the nation, but it's been dry and clear. The fact is we're getting off pretty easy compared to, for example, New York, Pennsylvania, and so on. This doesn't lessen the fact that it's freaking cold and I'm wearing more layers than I would prefer.

3) Cat-sitting: My cat-sitter has sent out a card announcing that she's retiring at the end of June. I knew it would come--she's an older woman--but I'm really sad. She's been a fixture of my time in Seattle, and though our relationship has mostly consisted of phone calls, I'll miss her. I've contacted her about two more kitty visits before she retires, and I've put into motion the obtaining of what I hope will be an appropriate farewell gift for her.

4) Making things: I recently picked up a knitting loom and am nearly done with my first scarf, a stretch of brown and pink wool that I'm looking forward to wearing. I don't know whether or not I'll keep up with this, but it's been a fun project, and I expect to finish it this weekend. We'll see what happens from here.

5) Foolscap: The convention was last weekend. It marks a year since my last car accident and the start of my experiment in carless living. We know how the experiment turned out. It was a fun weekend, but the convention came up so quickly, with so little fanfare from the concom, that it was an unexpected occupation of my time and I'm behind on a number of projects as a result. This weekend, also crazy busy--but at least planned busy-ness, will be partly spent catching up. But I'm going to be behind in stuff for a while yet.

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.

I was all set to get up this morning and review the first two films I've seen at this year's Seattle International Film Festival. I thought I might write about my next big international trip, currently in its delightful planning stages. But no. This morning, you get a rant, because I'm pissed off.

I'm pretty picky about my mornings. I set my alarm clock for a particular time. I enjoy waking up to a kitty who wants to cuddle (even if she's being a pill about it). I enjoy the warmth of blankets long slept in, and the relaxation following a good night's sleep.

But every now and then, this morning pleasantness is broken by a phone ringing, usually somewhere around 6:30-7:00 AM as it was this morning. Now, like most people, if a phone rings at a time outside what might be considered normal, reasonable hours (say, I don't know, 9 AM to 9 PM), I get a little worried. Most people don't call other people outside of said hours unless something is wrong or something is urgent. My experience of such calls is dramatic enough that I get a shot of adrenaline when I hear a ringer, and I will bolt out of bed to get the phone, worried about what I might hear.

This morning, as has happened a couple of other times, the call was from a recruiter with a foreign accent, calling to ask if I was interested in a job opportunity. Sometimes these guys are calling from Bangalore. Sometimes they're calling from Atlanta. I understand that it's this guy's job to make cold calls looking for client prospects. But--DAMN IT--I don't care how polite and well-mannered you are, manners and politesse don't matter if you're calling at a time when someone might be freaked out by a phone call. They don't matter when you're pulling someone out of bed. If your job is to make a sales connection, at least have the brains to look at an area code, a map, and a clock and figure out whether or not a call at such a time might be welcome or might piss off your prospect. These people are probably trained to call at an hour when prospective clients might be home and available--but early in the morning will invariably piss me off.

I have, on occasion, tried to educate such cold callers in as restrained a manner as I possibly can. Really, I try to be polite but firm, and insist that perhaps they ought to be aware that Seattle is three hours behind Newark, twelve hours behind New Delhi, and so on. This morning, I didn't have the patience for that. I was polite but surly (I'm currently employed; no, I don't know anyone else looking for this sort of work) and the caller was bewildered. He was well-trained; he stayed polite and thanked me for my time, but I hung up before he could conclude his patter.

I think the worst thing about this phenomenon is how many of these calls I took when I was really desperate for work, how many of these people tried to engage me, and what they actually did was take my resume and never respond to me again despite normal follow-up. Or they called offering me rates that, in my industry and geographical region, were insulting or inappropriate. Or showed that, despite their statements about my being an excellent candidate for a job, demonstrated that they had never actually read my resume or understood my skill set.

If you're going to do a job, do it well. Do it with forethought and care. Do it with awareness and consideration. And for the love of all that's good, don't--please don't--call me before 9 AM.

Had a tough day at work today, receiving criticism I wasn't prepared for, and then having to rewrite documentation already completed.

By the time I left for the vet this afternoon--sans Spanky--I was tired and disheartened. And why was I going to the vet? Because I had to learn how to give Spank sub-Q fluids, and to pick up more meds for him. The report I received this morning was that though his red blood cell count was looking good, a bunch of other metrics were off and we needed to recalibrate him. Once I learned about poking a cat not just for a second but for 5 minutes at a time, I left with a bag of supplies. I then drove all over freakin' creation looking for new food for him plus a small sharps container. Tonight, of course, no one had any of the stuff I needed.

By the time I got home, I was not only tired, I was hungry and feeling really overwhelmed. I had kind of hit the wall. And then I got a call that revealed that plans I thought I had weren't what I thought they were going to be. Communication either hadn't been clear or hadn't been complete on the subject. Honestly, if I hadn't been feeling so bad to begin with it wouldn't have been a big deal but, in the moment, it just felt like the last straw.

So now, I'm eating dinner, and then I'm going to turn off the damn computer and be a vegetable...between bouts of work. Because, you see, tonight is the first night of work for the upcoming release and I have stuff to do for the day job.

What I wouldn't give for an enormous piece of chocolate cake.

But not if I want to stick to my goals for next week's weigh-in.

::sigh::

So looking forward to this day being over.

It's cold.

My left hand hurts, and I seem to have injured myself such that I have a hard time exerting pressure with my pointer and middle fingers; it hurts into my wrist. Ow.

I didn't have enough time to myself this evening and now it's 10:15 and I have to go to bed, get up, and do this all over again tomorrow.

I haven't had enough cuddle time with the cats.

I really need to have the brakes in my car done and I have no time for this. Similar statements may be made about certain plumbing issues in the house. I also should, at some point, just have all the windows in this place replaced. Seals are broken everywhere. See above re: cold.

I'm tired. This car smells funny. He's touching me. Are we there yet?

Okay. I'm weeks behind on LJ and at least 5 days behind in e-mail. I don't know what more than 2/3 of you are up to in your lives, and I apologize. Work's great in that I like the people I'm working with and I dig the site I'm working on and I'm getting to write one of our Halloween feature stories (which I'll post a link to here when it's live). But everything that's not either the house project or writing or particular social commitments (written or live) feels like a time thief and I am trying to give the thief as little time as possible--hence my LJ absence.

I am also feeling feisty about another kind of theft. I was reading a friend's journal this AM when I discovered him quoting an e-mail he received at work, a forwarded story offered without credit that was clearly ripped off from a piece of spoken-word poetry that I adore, Taylor Mali's "What Teachers Make." (I don't know why this incident has angered me as much as it has--really, my reaction is disproportionate, but there it is.) This is a brilliant, passionate piece. Everyone who is a teacher, who loves a teacher, or has been taught by a teacher needs to see and hear the original spoken by its creator. Accept no e-mail fakes, kids, and give the man his props. Watch it. Really.



Off to go have a day and write.