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#WednesdayWisdom: No they are not the same.

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It’s a sunny day over here, and today’s post will be a quick one, but will be packed with wisdom.

Well, one wisdom, if you can count wisdom and quantify wisdom and ignore this grammatical quagmire. And here it is:

No matter how clever you think your reasoning is, no matter how much you want it to be so, people discussing a demographic’s abuse of power is never equivalent to stereotypes about marginalized groups.

It seems pretty clear.

And I’ll get more specific. When women talk about the actions of “men,” there are a lot of tactics used to invalidate the actual subject. One of the favorites is “not all men.” It derails the conversation and centers the feelings of the man who interjects. Suddenly we’re not talking about the broader misogyny, we’re talking about one man who feels bad who thinks we are obligated to make him feel better.

“Not all” is an abuse of privilege, a means to end conversation about abuses of privilege.

Stereotypes about marginalized people are a means to keep them marginalized and take away power. Often by the very same people who “not all” to derail conversations.

Do you get it? Because I’m not sure I can make it more simple, and beyond this it’s just a pretense.

It’s a cousin of “reverse racism,” an attempt to assert the white male Christian patriarchy by pretending everyone starts on the same footing by the people who ensure that everyone doesn’t.

And if you try to float such ridiculousness as “intelligent discourse” or like it’s a gotcha, frankly, I’m going to question your logic, your reasoning and your critical thinking.

It’s just so obviously wrong.

And with that, I wish you a wonderful Wednesday.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#ThursdayThoughts: They are bad people.

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It’s sunny today but apparently I have a headache, which makes sun less than ideal. Drats. Not too warm, either, even here at the end of March, but it has to warm up eventually, right?

Right?

I am watching republicans be even more abhorrent than their usual abhorrent over the Key Bridge and I find it so incredible that anyone would vote for these monsters. Blatant racism using direct substitution for racist words; claims that the federal government shouldn’t pay for a major thoroughfare like the bridge, even though that is, as a matter of fact, one of the roles of the federal government.

They are terrible, terrible people and yet people pretend that their being bad people is a different point of view.

It isn’t. They are bad people.

They hide behind complete twisted versions of religion to justify their actions, to pretend they are not bad people.

They are bad people.

And it’s time we told them so. It’s time we didn’t let them hid behind boring words or whistles so loud they are train whistles, not dog whistles.

If someone says something to you, in person, online, that reveals bad character, tell them so. Let them know they should be ashamed. It is not your job to make sure they don’t feel bad about being a bad person.

People should feel bad about being bad people.

It is more rude, more impolite, more inconsiderate to be a bad person. They certainly aren’t concerned with the feelings of others so why should their feelings be anyone else’s responsibility?

They hide in the demands for politeness.

Bad people don’t deserve politeness.

And that’s it for me today. Have a great Thursday and call out a bad person.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#WednesdayWisdom: If you have “not see” blank to accept people, you’re a bigot.

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It’s a very sunny day, though they told us it would be mostly cloudy, I can’t find a single one. It’s not warm, though but I guess that’s OK.

I’ve seen a lot lately online about people “not seeing color” or, now, a new one to me, the qualities that make one part of the LGBTQIA+ community. And if you think that description was awkward it absolutely was, it’s a difficult one to write without sounding like a terrible person, which should have been a clue to that person who tried to make it a thing, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Everybody sees the differences among people. Everyone does. Because it’s how we experience the world, but the difference is whether people take those as lovely traits that round out a person or things that have to be ignored to “tolerate” the person. Negatives, that, through some “normal” “baseline” largess, a person pretends not to see.

“Normal” and “baseline,” in the eye of these people, of course being white, straight, Christian, cis gender, etc.

What’s interesting is how they would freak out if people turned the tables on them. How do I know that? Have you ever seen someone freak out about being called “cis?” Even though it’s scientific term also used to describe molecules?

Exactly.

The idea that someone is doing other people a favor by pretending not to see something that is the very essence of who they are is abhorrent. It’s not a compliment, and it doesn’t make you sound like a good person.

It makes you sound like a bigot.

Why? Because only bigots need to cut off whole chunks of who people are to view them as people. Only bigots need everyone to be like them to accept them, and if they’re not, they need to pretend they’re like them to accept them.

Diversity is what makes people beautiful, makes humanity beautiful. Our differences are the interesting parts, we should cherish them, not treat them like embarrassing secrets.

Anyway, that’s it for me this Wednesday, have a wonderful day.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#WednesdayWisdom: If such a thing is possible.

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It’s been a wild weather ride these last few days. Yesterday it was in the 60s; today it’s 26.

Well, what can you do at the end of February? Even a leap year February?

One old but enduring nugget of wisdom is not to say anything if you have nothing to say, and I find myself in that position today with this post, though much is happening in the world.

Maybe my brain is trying to process it.

And also when you haven nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all, but I’m afraid I can’t stick to that in the face of Mitch McConnell retiring from leadership, and hopefully soon also the Senate. I mean I’m glad he’s going, I guess that’s nice, but he is a monster of epic proportions who drove the fascist agenda of the GOP to this edge of no return.

You’d think he’d want to push it over the precipice himself but he’s always tried to avoid getting the full blame for his horrific, terrible, heartless, evil actions.

On the plus side, he doesn’t seem to have a clear successor.

I wish him every ounce of the misery he has heaped upon others in his too-long career; I wish him the kind of healthcare dearth he created; I wish him the health and ease of his constituents forced to live under his self-serving policy. May his fetid soul eventually depart this earth to the fiery climes it deserves.

If such a thing is possible.

Turns out I had more to say than I thought. And with that, I wish you a lovely Wednesday.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#WednesdayWisdom: Awkward conversations.

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It’s sunny and cold and it’s possible I used all my wisdom already on Spoutible this morning, but maybe there are some bits still floating around.

Yesterday there was an incredibly antisemitic poster, one who–though he thought he was being clever in how he phrased it–was calling for a genocide of Jews. A pretty familiar call, overall.

People recognized the overt antisemitism, some responding, some reporting and blocking, some all of the above, and by this morning, he was gone. Which is remarkable and unique to Spoutible.

But it turns out a number of people were surprised to find they were mutually following him. They thought he’d gone from nothing to full throttle in no time but that is rarely the case.

Often with people like that, there are bread crumbs of the bigotry that sometimes people don’t even realize they’re buying into. Coded language, doublespeak, ideas that are sold in an innocuous way but at their heart actually nestle the hatred in a cloud of deniability.

Often, when pointing these things out, the members of the targeted group are told they are “overreacting,” the “person didn’t mean it that way,” or that it’s not “fill in the bigotry.”

A reminder that someone outside of a targeted group is not the arbiter of what is harmful to that group, and then we will continue.

So the bread crumbs are ignored, noticed and discarded, or devoured.

We need to think critically in these times of slow burn indoctrination, where people test the waters and keep going if they don’t get pushback. We need to listen when someone tells us “this is harmful.”

If we’re not fighting it, we’re perpetuating it.

I’ve never been on a social media site that dispatches antisemitism this way, let alone anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and racism. Especially the racism.

The racism on twitter is absolutely revolting in its depth and scope and longevity, where I’ve watched people be targeted for days, sending reports that were either ignored or found not to violate the rules.

The big stuff is easy to see, it’s easy to distinguish. We have to start recognizing the feelers too.

These conversations are uncomfortable and awkward. Often people who are improving all the time feel bad for not seeing the signs or not realizing.

I’m not asking for that, I don’t want that, it doesn’t get us anywhere. I only want us to learn, to take this experience on board, to integrate it into our perspectives going forward, our tolerance for bigotry going forward.

And with that, I am out of wisdom. Have a great Wednesday.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#ChatTuesday #TuesdayThoughts: The only experience you can have…

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It’s the Tuesday before (American) Thanksgiving, and as we slide into the holiday prep and frenzy or lack thereof, it raises a lot for a lot of people.

Not everyone, of course, and if you are one of not everyone, please continue to enjoy this week to its very fullest, however it looks for you. I hope it is the perfection and charm of old Saturday Evening Post covers.

For me and my dad, it is the second official Thanksgiving without my mom, though the one before that we sat in a hospital cafeteria and ate a meal that could have been our feelings expressed in food. It was awful enough to border on comical. Still, people were away from their families to make it and serve it to others who would be there anyway, the day only distinguished by the offering of turkey as a main and stuffing as a side.

We planned to go to a restaurant we both like with a pre fixe menu, but then my dad got COVID. He’s feeling better, and we realized his congestion wasn’t clearing because of a sinus infection (that can happen so please be aware, I sometimes get them after colds too). So now he’s feeling completely well and though we figured out a menu and plan, we considered going to the restaurant.

We took another look at their offerings, and as amazing as they sound, it seemed like just…too much. Way too much food, too much butter and cream, too much of a dining room filled with people.

Just too much.

So I think we’re going with Plan A which used to be Plan B but got a promotion. I won’t cook turkey, neither of us is that into it, I’ll make a turkey meatloaf instead, which is still technically turkey. Corn casserole, probably mashed potatoes, though I’m not entirely sure, and we got some frozen sweet potato fries that are fantastic.

I’ll bake some cranberry crumble pie bars tomorrow, and that will be that. Simple, not complicated.

Not too much.

Somewhere, underneath it all, I wonder if it’s not the food that’s too much (although, it is) or the price tag, which is hefty if you’re not going to fully enjoy it, but really being in that room with all those other people who are having a very different experience.

But when you think about it, the only experience you can have is your own.

And that’s all for today, have a great Tuesday. I am going to try to post this week, including the #ThursdayTen, so hopefully we’ll have some fun or a little break if you need one.

Get a free trial of Audible Plus! (affiliate link.)

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#WednesdayWisdom: And wondering how you do it.

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It’s gray today, but I don’t see rain. They’re calling it mostly cloudy, but I disagree.

It seems to be all cloudy.

Today I am waiting for inspiration like one of the characters yet to meet Godot, I can sit on my bench-couch all I want but for me, today, the ether is eerily quiet. Especially in the direction of wisdom.

Which is tricky for a Wednesday.

But that is the thing about writing, it isn’t all about the inspiration. It’s nice, but not required. It makes it easier but it’s a luxury, not a guarantee.

Writing is grinding out word after word, often, and with great friction.

To make great fiction.

I’m sorry, I really shouldn’t be unsupervised today, and I could edit that out and pretend it never happened but that wouldn’t be entirely honest. There go my cool points.

All two of them.

And I saved up hard to get those.

Back to the writing. It’s not always downhill in a free flow of sentence after sentence, and I think that’s where a lot of people stop because they believe it’s supposed to come to you and through you. When it does, there’s nothing to beat it.

But when it doesn’t, it’s pushing past the resistance that will get you through.

That’s not only about writing, or even solely about creative endeavors, though they have so much of us in them it can feel personal.

But it’s true in life, as well. So many invisible membranes all around us, some others seem to push through with ease. It doesn’t make us worse, it only makes us different. Someone, somewhere is watching you glide and wondering how you do it.

That’s it for me today, have a wonderful Wednesday.

Get a 30 day free trial of Amazon Prime, including Amazon Video! (affiliate link.)

Check out  my full-length novels: 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird and FREE!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#TuesdayThoughts: Rolling clouds.

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First, #ChatTuesday, “A grand feat of self-delusion.” And now Tuesday.

It was sunny when I started, but the clouds are rolling in. Sometimes the weather can be a little heavy-handed with the metaphors.

I think we can all agree.

Been having a lot of Deep Thoughts lately, the kind that lead to others, and I guess I’m just in that state of mind. It happens.

I’m also tired. Must be those rolling clouds.

It’s another Tuesday where my thoughts went into the Chat Tuesday, so I will wish you a terrific Tuesday and see you tomorrow.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#WednesdayWisdom: Do it anyway.

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It’s cloudy today, and I’m in a place of I don’t wanna. Don’t want to post.

Don’t want to do the day’s tasks.

I just don’t wanna. Looks like the weather doesn’t wanna either.

But the problem with I don’t wanna is it doesn’t make anything less required to be done. Well that’s an awkward sentence.

You know what I mean.

Isn’t that the crux of being an adult, a life crammed with things that you have to do but don’t want to do. So what do you do?

You do it anyway.

Not complicated, not wildly insightful, but now and then we need the nudge to plod ahead. So if you, like me, don’t wanna, you, like me are going to square your shoulders, put a determined look on your face and…

Do it anyway.

Have a great Wednesday.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#WednesdayWisdom: Dipping my toe into the daydreams.

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It’s sunny today but I told you that yesterday, and all of a sudden it wasn’t anymore. I don’t think it rained, but the wind picked up and it got a little chilly. So who knows what today holds.

Lately I’ve been missing travel, real travel, not my TV travel. Granted I’ve gone all over the world through the television, and I’m currently TVing in France, but in the end it just isn’t the same.

How could it be?

What I miss is travel before the pandemic, that whole life before the pandemic, when a plane ride was a gateway to somewhere new and not a new pathogen.

Although that’s not entirely true as I’ve caught more than one cold on a plane.

Before the pandemic it was like the world was getting smaller, all the corners accessible, but now it’s puffed up all over again, and so many places feel too far to reach. Except with a remote.

Very little chance of getting sick from my remote.

So far.

Still I’m dipping my toe into the daydreams, imagining where I’d go, how I’d get there, what I’d see. Unrealistic fantasy, really.

But imagination is free.

And generally virus free.

So you can’t undercount that.

Have a great Wednesday.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.