Man Up To Your Choices

Today is my birthday. Yay!! Friends and family have been ringing me up and sending me e-mails and SMS, or posting on my facebook wall (which you may not be able to access if I don't know you, for I have security levels so high that compete with The Wall from Game of Thrones, and hopefully not even the wildlings and white walkers will be able to pass it). Lots and lots of years ago I was born on this day a baby, grew up and turned up to be the woman tapping on the keyboard you've got today. It is kinda funny that my topic for today is precisely that of Childfree-ness, but it is.

When posting on Facebook about my believe of no children (for me) from time to time I get this selfconscious nag about my sister-in-law, whom I've friended and can read my rantling. Never says a thing - there's not much to be said - but it's still there. The last comment of mine on this topic was about this Malaysian airline that decided to ban babies from first class. Not that I have the means to fly first class, but it warmed my heart. I'm not a frequent flyer, as you all know, but I do fly in average once a year, and in these occasions I seat on a plane for about 7.5 to 12 hours, depending on the airline (KLM takes longer, Air France is faster, but I also love Air France for sooooooo many other wonderful reasons!), and through them, having to suffer whining children and wailing babies has been the one down I can't forgive. Thoughts like "please someone just shoot them down", "ain't a terrorist that can just destroy this plane so we get over with it?" and so on cross my mind. Of course, the valuable aid of my laptop and all the movies and series I can watch is appreciated, but some children are so loud you can hear their crying through your earphones in the middle of an accion scene from "Prince of Persia".

In an airport isn't so terrible (unless you have to crash there because your flight got delayed, cancelled or something), as you can go somewhere else (often smoker booths and bars are the best place to escape the children!), but in a confined place it is a nightmare. So far, in a society that truly beheld family and children as the ultimate goal of marriage and women, adults were all expected to put up with the annoyance of unruly brats. Children crying in the movie theatre, children throwing temper tantrums at stores and restaurants, loud children on airplanes... The excuse was always "they are children", and that should suffice for anyone to suck it up and put away any thing that might get interrupted because of the kid. You could hardly even complain in a public transportation mean when some baby vomited on you or started pulling your  hair, clothes or things. Slapping the child or even looking at them like "stay away from me, you shit-machine" was right next to murder. Is, still, I believe. So, what do we, adults-not-carrying-a-kid expect? (Because believe it or not, not childfree people, like people with older, teen kids, also get annoyed!) Well, we rightfully expect the parent of the child to be responsible and contain the child.

Indeed, to expect a baby to out of the blue understand how it should behave among other people is unreasonable. On that same line, if we would expect the baby to know how to behave just by being put in a situation, we should also expect them to speak the local language and chat with us about the current global politics, maybe toss an idea or two about how to solve the Greek situation. No, lets clear something right now: it's not the child, it's the parent. Yes, we get mad at the child, but isn't automatically the feeling passed onto the parent who proves incompetent in properly parenting the offspring? Do we get mad at the baby pulling our hair or at the parent who hasn't thought the child that such a thing shouldn't be done? Yep, the culprit is the parent.

It is the parent's responsability to educate the child, teach them good from wrong, proper from unproper, and also, yes, to teach them how to behave in different social situations. It is also the parent's responsability to determinate whether the child is ready to be exposed to certain social situations. Just as you wouldn't take your uncontrollable pet (be it a dog, a cat or a reptile... or anything) to a public place (or you are supposed not to), a parent should also consider whether they can expose their children to situations they can't handle. After all - going back to the pets -  you wouldn't take your big, unruly dog to a playground full of kids, and unleash it  knowing it won't listen to you if you call them, and then expect parents and children to put up with your terrorizing dog while excusing the both of you saying "well, it's a dog". However parents often act like they are inmune to those basic social rules. Sadly this irresponsible attitude is learned by their children, who then learn that children can do anything they want and adults with children too.

Pop-question: Are Childfree bitter because we don't have the human shield of a children to get away with annoying others? Well, as a Childfree I'd say, I don't want to get away with annoying others, I want not to be annoyed. I'd love it also if pro-family and fringe parents would stop a second on their tracks and think about what so carelessly they say. They call us immature and selfish. I look back at them. They bring children to this life, act irresponsably about them, regarding others... and we are the immature. They don't do what's requiered to not impose on the rest of society because of a choice they made by themselves... and we are the selfish. Well, being childfree surely is fucking up with my semantics.

However the world goes by and parents rather hide behind their children and "being left out of choices" attitudes, instead of owning up to their decisions and realizing that while the child isn't ready to properly function in society, they must make sure neither them or their children disrupt the social mechanics and impose on other people. This sadly forces people and companies fed up with the gamble of whether a parent is responsible for their kids and if they bring them is because the kids are ready, or not, and take matters to their own hands. This is how children and families get separated, secluded or down right banned from different places. You may say it is unfair, and well, it could be. There are parents who are really responsible, who really educate their children to behave, and there are children who are real angels, quite and undisturbing, but that's not the case of all of them. As a matter of fact, that's more an exception  that the norm, so until parents get through their thick skulls that yes, they are entirely responsible of their children and they shouldn't impose them on the rest of the world, the rest of the world will have to ban them, distrust them and lock them far away where they can let others be in peace.

It always comes back

I meant to write on Summer Solstice, since a Smurf greeted me "Happy Litha" (though I believe pagans greet "blessed Litha") and I thought about how nice would it be to gather and share a few thoughts and words with the Great Darkness (meaning the cyberspace and all of you, beloved readers who remain so safely conceled in it's digital anonymity). However, as more often than  not lately, time got in the way and I never got around to write. Well, as a matter of fact, I haven't gotten around to write in quite a while.

These past days have been crazy. I was both on the run to get things finished as soon as possible with the thesis, which didn't went as quickly as planned thanks to the slacking of the 50% of the workforce behind this thing. I did finish it and sent it to the lectors on Tuesday, and now I'm praying and hoping everything is fine and without observation, so that we can go through the next point and please, please, please get it finished before we run out of time, which is in 2 months. Nothing like pressure to get you running in circles chasing your own tail, right? Anyway, this is the point where my capabilities halt, where I can do no more, though I'll keep doing all I can, but leave it to God. Let's pray and hope for a miracle.

Work, on the other hand, has been all over the place. I've been graced with quite some hefty tasks, which I've been shouldering while wrestling with yet another task involving other areas, which have neglected to follow procedure and had nearly shot themselves in the foot. Well, as a matter of fact, the known philosophy followed by their head of "rather ask forgiveness than permission" has effectively put a whole in their metatarsals. They have acted rashly, in a hot headed fashion, claiming to be urged to get things done, with no time to follow due procedure, and precisely this has costed them up to much more time than what it would have if they've had done it as it should have been from the begining. With this move another of their requests (well, a couple of them) has just fallen off the grill.

I'd really would like to extend a little about Litha - though it is well known that I am a Christian, generic, not fringe, and not a Pagan - and a few things connected to it, but the first thought that comes to mind as I think of time, right now, is that Smurf and his coworkers are moving to another building in another district. In the last re-shifting, their group was separated from ours, and attached to another division, which has kept them quite at bay, which has roused suspition around the group. Rumors have already spread, about it being due to their head, who's known of being of a rather difficult kind. From both sides it has been notorious how the rest of the division has been integrated, kept in one same space, but they are still and will still be kept shut aside and away from the rest of them.

As these things roll out, there's a certain sense of connection in the whole. The wheel of the year turns, the milestones in it, or Sabbaths mark a certain balance and also in the daily life, the cycles of work show that they follow them also. Everything comes back to the begining, it is not a straight line drawing your path, but a circle, maybe a spiral that takes you again to the same place, maybe from a different position, but it always comes back. You can't get away with murder, there's no such thing. What you sow is exactly what you reap.

Litha, middsummer. Somewhere I read it means "gentle" as in the sense of gentle waters that are easier to navigate. Well, let's hope that the good intentions, hopes and efforts are carried easily and swiftly to their goal.

The Stories Around

I confess - or had often confessed - myself a writer. In the making, of course, for I've never been published and only Hyne knows where I ever be published (Internet posting of fics and short stories doesn't count). Stories have been circulating in my mind since fuck knows when, taking here and there the shape of short stories, and often the shape of novels that go on and on and on and hardly ever finish. (Currently I'm spinning around three novels in my head, one of which has already four chapters typed down.) Then there are other things in my head that occupy my mind - the central stage, so to say - from time to time, like topics I'd love to develop and eventually publish within the frame of my career  - for I have slowly reached the age where I actually believe I have a valid thing to say about economics and would like to throw in my two cents into the general discussion -, but then also is all the matter about work, thesis, about this and that, all continuosly rolling around in my head. Yes, I get busy, I get quite out of time, I get crammed up with things to do and things to solve and things to think about, and all this other things, my stories, my theories, my books, my movies, my pictures, my blueprints get shelved up back for another moment, while the desk of my head, my central stage is occupied by other things, so called urgent, important things.

Eventually, when you look around, it seems as if there were lots of people that don't work that way. Sure, you would love to gain a small sneak-peak inside their skulls and peep at out of their mental pictures. Borrow the mental novel they are currently engaged in, sit down in the same mental movie and check out the latest piece they've been watching in their heads during the boring meeting, while commuting, while politely smiling at someone in the party when they really wished to be away.

It does happen, here and there, that you get that sneak-peak. Some people write blogs, and some of those use the blog as a sort of journal or arena to display the collection of stories and essays they spin around their heads (which is why blogs can turn so addictive and some are down right guilty pleasures!). Other people sometimes open up and tell you about this "silly story" they've been playing in their heads. I remember there's this lady at the office that once felt compelled to tell me she often imagine the lives of others, and she had imagined one day my life and told me about it.

Some stories are, well, plain bad. Some stories are boring and you get for free. These are the stories and excuses of the liars, the unreliable people who always resource to excuses nobody is really interested in, and well, the stories of the attention whores. These are stories you'd rather file away as "channels I'm not interested in subscribing to". Yes Timmy, there are crappy stories out there. (Personally I file all the "The life of Moms who think they have something to say", "Mom's Wonderful Life with their Children" and the omniprescent "The Wonderful, Blessed Story of the Christian That Will Get Saved For Being Straight, Devote, Bible Thumbler and Family Loving".)

But there are stories that could feed the most wonderful books. Have to admit that I have spun a few stories in my head around some of those stories. Some start less-than-delectable, but the right view, and the right mind can turn them into something fantastic. Some twisted, chaotic lives feed a few stories I'd like to harness into full novels. One of those is the sickening, twisted life of an old acquintance of mine, who was dead set in living in a surreal world. There's something disgustingly pleasurable in the unnatural choices of people, and though you can't wait to get them out of your life, remembering them does fill you with fascination. Almost like reading gruesome stories of tragedies and devastation: you really don't want to be there, but you can't tear yourself from watching the chaos, not to mention how awesome it feels when the tables turn around and the whole fantasy life crashes over the liar, or the "super awesome" plan fires back.

Truth is, whether people around you are plain, boring or stupid, there are always a good story lurking around.

Welcome June

The Wheel of the Year keeps turning, and we've hit June already. Like many, we marvel as not long ago it was January and we were rising our glasses of champagne (or our beer jars, each to its own), cheering for 2011. From a composition of long and short days, some where the hours seemed eternal, others where the minutes were simply not enough, from bill to paycheck, from pushing the cart of our projects down the road of the calendar, to the checklist of things accomplished and things to still tackle.

It is summer for some, a season of long days, full of sun, full of heat, short and vaporous clothes and the mandatory bottle of water, sandals, dark glasses and hat, threat of heat waves and all the nasty things it can make to you. For others it's the season of thunder storms and hurricaines, tropical storms, rubber boots, trench coats and umbrellas. For yet others it's the time of winter.

For me June is the month of my birthday, but also my Black Month, and today is the first day of it.

It's kinda funny that after several years going through this, the first day is always kinda hard. Casting away all color, picking out only the black, getting into that mind, striving to get all my stuff organized, worried I'll have not much to wear and so on, then only to end the month wishing I could keep the "all black" yet another month with me. Black is certainly addictive.

Perhaps this month, if time proves enough, I'll try out my hand at sewing a few pieces I feel like I need, but I can't find in stores. Yes, sewing. Now, unlike common believe dictates, sewing isn't always cheaper than buying clothes done, as you must consider that you probably can't get the supplies (fabric, needles, threads, buttons, etc.) as cheaper as the factories for you don't buy on bulk. Sure, sewing can be cheaper in certain cases, but not in all. However what sewing does have - if you have the skill, and the skill is acquired by practice and will to improve - is the chance to get you exactly what you want. Sure, in the begining you can start working out of patters from Internet or magazines (like I do ^_^), but with time you are able to lower or push higher the waist, make the dress longer or shorter, tighter or more flowy, change the sleeves, change the neck or clivage... possibilities are endless, and they are not tied to fashion or disponibility on the stores, nor you have to wonder about making sure to boil the clothes before wearing them for only Hyne knows where they've been hiding before you purchased them, or who had them on.

Haven't sewed in a while, so we shall see what comes out of my next project - if I man up for it. However, what I did do was starting a project of jewelry. Yes, more, jewelry! ^_^ Didn't take a picture, but yesterday I dared to try out and make a spiral pendant for a "floating" necklace (I call floating the necklaces that are made with transparent thread, thus often it looks like the pendant is magically suspended from the collar bone dip), inspired by a teenie piece I've got one day with a magazine. The original is a simple, inexpensive necklace threading on some of this transparent line four iriscident beads and in the middle of them a wire spiral with iriscident beads. Things like this make me think that, when looking for inspiration, every source is a chest of treasure. Also made a pair of pendant earrings. A project I haven't finished is an eight thread necklace, which I plan to mix and twist to create a thicker effect later on. That one is yet to be finished.

This is my June, so far. How's yours?