Tuesday, 06 November 2012

So, last night, I posted on Facebook reminding people to vote No on the marriage amendment proposal. I said that if anyone planned to vote Yes, then please provide me with a good reason why you are doing so, otherwise please delete me as your “friend.”

I’m not sure why I do this stuff. This might be tough to believe, but I really hate confrontation, and I go to great lengths to avoid it. It’s true. Just ask my wife. I get physically ill when I have a confrontation with someone – whether it’s a close friend or even just a cashier at a gas station.

This morning, when I checked my comment, I was surprised to find that 12 people had “liked” it (and that number has climbed since), and one friend copied it nearly verbatim and posted it on her wall.

But some commenters and made a few points:

-How they vote is none of my business

-Do I think it’s impossible to be friends with someone who holds a different opinion?

-What does a person’s religious and political viewpoints have to do with being their friend?

-Look at the hyprocrisy in belonging to a party that claims to be tolerant, yet unfriends people who don’t agree with them.

These comments made me nervous and upset all day, and I was preoccupied with responding and, ulitmately, smoothing over these ruptures.

I did respond – and very effectively, I feel. My response noted that, yes, of course your voting choices are your own affair and you are under no compulsion to ever divulge any of it to me. And not only do I think it’s possible to be friends with people who hold differing opinions, I think it makes for a richer life. However, religious and political viewpoints have a lot to do with relationships; those views were not created in a vacuum and are part and parcel of a person’s persona. And this is not a political party thing – don’t equate me with Democrats. I have never been a member of any political party, I do not vote solid Democrat, and there are many good reasons for not voting for or against candidates of all stripes. Also, I don’t like the word “tolerate.” If you only tolerate the GLBT community, then you’ve got a long way to go.

Next time I say something inflmmatory, I will do it differently. For example, there’s no need to be confrontational and say to remove me as your friend; I could have just asked what anyone’s reasons were for voting Yes. Also, as was pointed out to me, not everyone holds such a strict definition of “friend.” Some people may consider nearly everyone they know to be their friend, or maybe they accumulate “friends” on Facebook in an effort to garner support for their music or other artistic endeavor.

I think I’m quite different in that way. I “tolerate” everyone I know, but I am not friends with most of them. A few of my co-workers are my Facebook friends, but most are not. The same is true of my relatives. You know how many politicians and preachers begin by saying “Hello friends!” or something like that? Yeah, I would never do that. The reason I would never do that is because most people in the audience – though they may be great people – are simply not my friends. When I spent the day with six Jehovah’s Witnesses who I knew would begin shunning me in less than a week, I concluded my day with them by saying, “Thank you guys for being my friends,” and I sincerely meant it. Those six people were my friends, and though they were probably weirded out by the seemingly unwarranted gravity of my word choice, I wanted to leave them with the thought that, of the 6 billion people on the planet, they ranked among the hundred or so individuals that I have ever considered my friends.

So, though my Facebook comment was worded poorly, was confrontational, and appeared to be controlling by appointing myself final arbitor of what is good and friend-worthy…the underlying motive is true: I really don’t want to be your friend if you are not only heterosexist, but actively work against GLBT rights by voting against them. I don’t want to be your friend if you think black people should not be citizens, either, or if you think wives should be the disenfranchised property of their husbands. In the cases of who my freinds are, I am the final arbitor. If you already are my friend, and hold a different opinion on any matter, great! Let’s talk about it. As someone who used to be a non-voting, sexist, anti-gay, meat-eating, foreign film-despising, current music-loathing Christian who loved the suburbs and didn’t want to go to college or have kids…you just may change my mind. It’s happened before.

In the meantime, I’ll try harder to avoid confrontation. Even though I know I will continue to fail supremely.

Saturday, 03 November 2012

Earlier this week, I wrote out a list of projects Jennifer and I have around the house that are half done. I’m kind of sick of so many partially completed projects languishing in our basement, garage, and (frustratingly) on the shelves in our dining room. So I made a list of all of them.

Now, these aren’t lists that have anything to do with the house…they’re just side projects that we began, and never finished. After making the list, I started asking Jennifer what was stopping us from moving forward with each of these projects. The reasons varied. Soemtimes, we were missing a certain tool or supply. In other cases, we need several hours to dedicate to the project, and that just doesn’t readily happen with kids around.

Anyway, today we made headway on a few of the projects. Jennifer ran to a couple stores and acquired a few supplies. I took our little rocking chair – the one I’ve had since I was a wee thing – and brought it out to the garage and sanded away.

Sunday, 04 November 2012

More progress today.

Jennifer made headway on an art project concernign our kids’ table, and she worked on her whittling for a spell, too.

We have a couple of videos we are working on that are both being held up for want of appropriate music, so I made a thorough search and selected a couple of tunes.

We ventured to Michael’s this evening in search of both a piece of glass (to replace the broken on in one frame) and some clay.

They didn’t have the right kind of clay…just an empty box where the clay should be.

The glass, meanwhile, was available for $26. Yikes! That’s an insane price for a piece of glass to insert into a 3×5 frame. Has anyone ever paid that? How do they justify that? Instead, I’m gonna go to the Goodwill one day soon and buy any old stupid 3×5 frame, then throw away the frame and keep the glass. That should set me back about 89 cents.

We left Michael’s empty-handed. Sadly, this is typical.

Monday, 05 November 2012

Jennifer completed work on the kids’ table today. Sort of. She discovered things didn’t work quite according to plan and now she’s contemplating various work arounds.

That’s always frustrating. Just when you think a project is done…it turns out not to be.

We had far more luck with our project concerning the Rubbermaid totes. We had seven of them in the garage. Most are filled with clothes from when our kids were littler, but there’s also one for camping supplies, and another for Jennifer’s doll collection.

For the past several months, the totes have been full. Overfull, actually. 

So, several weeks ago, Jennifer bought two new totes. And here’s why I wanted to finish the project: I don’t like two large, empty totes taking up space in our kitchen.

This weekend, I brought all the totes (except for the camping supply one) into the house and Jennifer reorganized them all, dispersing the contents amongst the nine totes. I brought some of them back out to the garage, but we needed better labels for a few of them, so four of them are still sitting in our living room.

And that’s the fun part: I draped a huge blanket over the two double-stacked sets of totes, and now Isla has a little hiding spot. She brought some toy dinosaurs in their with her today. She sat in there quietly for about a half hour, which makes this count as a “win” in my books.

Also, if you want more details on Owen’s broken bone, HERE YOU GO.

Thursday, 01 November 2012

Okay, so remember a couple of days ago, when I briefly mentioned my mild unhappiness with our home’s original chandelier? My wife says that I should show you the new chendelier, as a means of bringing closure to that earlier post. Here it is:

Due to my phone’s lack of quality-picture-taking ability, that’s the best your gonna get. I assure you, that ethereal glow is not inherent in the chandelier’s illumination.

And while I’m posting random pictures from my phone, here’s another one I gotta share with you…

I stopped into a small store today and, amidst the gift wrapping section, I saw copies of The St. Paul Almanac for sale. See them? They’re in the bottom left and right corners. Damn, I love how awesome it feels to see stuff I wrote for sale like that.

Friday, 02 November 2012

For the eighth time in as many Novembers, I participated in my company’s annual 6 kilometer run/walk today.

Last year, I tried. I went out and ran around the lake probably 20 times between July and November. On days that I didn’t do that, I often went for long walks. And on other days I visited the YMCA with my family and worked out there.

And it paid off. I finished the race last year with my best time ever, setting a new record a full two minutes shorter than my previous record. I also, for the first time, finished in the top third, by being #118 of 410 runners.

This year, I didn’t try. I haven’t run the course since last year, and I haven’t been on a treadmill in over a year. I did participate in a workout class sponsored by my employer, and I’ve been to the YMCA a couple of times…but that’s it. In fact, a co-worker from my previous department invited all of us former co-workers to dine together today, and I even joined them for lunch, overeating on a fish sandwich and fries.

My goal, then, for today, was pretty much just to make sure I didn’t do my worst ever.

The results aren’t in yet, but judging from the big clock I glanced at as I came down to the finish line, my time was somewhere in the middle compared to previous years. I’ll let you know when the results are published.

Wednesday, 31 October 2012

Today is Halloween!

Owen and Isla dressed as a Clone Trooper and a Teletubby, respectively. Here they are:

This is a somewhat staged photo, as Isla did not ride a scooter around the neighborhood, despite the fact that Po, her character, is often depicted with a scooter. Also, Owen kept the mask up on top of his head for most of the festivities.

Here’s a picture of them on their way to trick-or-treat:

Owen is using his Star Wars pillowcase for treats, and Isla is using a plastic jack-o-lantern.

This is Owen’s second year as a Star Wars character, having dressed up last fall as a Jedi. I’m hoping this is his last foray into Star Wars Halloween costumes, as I’d like to see him diversify a little.

First Jennifer took the kids around the block, then I took them around two more blocks. I brought them home, and Owen declared he wanted to go out some more. Jennifer said, “Well that’s good, because your cousins are coming over to go trick-or-treating with you.” So, we waited around for a few minutes, and then their cousins showed up. The two-year olds stayed inside, while Owen and I went out with Jay and Lyric.

There are some rather intense Halloween celebrants in our neighborhood, including one house with a cauldron of dry ice and adults in full, scary costumes. There was another one with a gigantic blow-up gothic carriage, grotesque pumpkins, and a guy in a joker outfit running around down the street scarring people. Another home featured a cemetary with people acting real creepy. Isla was too scared to even go up to one house. And I had to coax Owen into approaching another. One of the last homes we walked up to had a “Vote Yes” (regarding the marriage amendment) sign in the yard. I thought that was a little too scary for the kids, but Owen’s cousin wanted to give it a try. Alas, their gate was locked. Jay said, “Well, if you had a ‘Vote Yes’ sign in your yard, would you show your face?”