Disappointment: Learning 9

Once again, apologies for neglecting this poor little blog. Also, fair warning that this post may come off slightly rant-y, and is not meant to stir up pro-choice/pro-life debates, although at least one person on my facebook wall has already taken it as such. Ok, so here we go.

I don't know how many of you saw this picture circulating the interwebs, but it got a lot of attention. I had seen the picture in passing, but didn't know anything about it, other than gleaning the fact that it obviously came from a pro-choice rally of some sort.

Well, last night I learned more about the girl who was holding the sign. Turns out she is a 14 year old girl in Texas. It also turns out that a whole bunch of strangers online started calling her a whore, just because she was holding this sign. There were other comments too, such as the ones saying her parents should be arrested for child abuse or that her dad probably has all her friends come over to play abortion clinic. Truly awful stuff. And this nastiness from strangers wasn't limited to anonymous internet people - A grown man shouted in their faces at the protest that she and her friend were ugly, should shave their heads and become lesbians, and that no man would ever want them. An adult man shouting nasty insults in the face of a 14 year old girl. And all that nastiness is why she wrote this response.

I find her response to be incredibly classy. Even more incredible considering it's coming from a 14 year old girl, and she's questioning why grown ups are the ones calling her nasty names. I think that's a great question. I think her response highlights so much of what is wrong and missing from our dialogue, or lack thereof. How adults are unable to disagree appropriately, a skill we try so so hard to teach our students. But how will that skill really sink in when the role models they have all over internet and media and in real life sink immediately to nasty vicious name calling instead of discussion?

So I posted her response on facebook with the message that regardless of what you thought of her sign, we should all be able to agree that no one should be calling her a whore and that her response to such insults was incredible. I truly believed that. And then this morning I find a comment from a family member, who I like very much despite differences in opinion on various topics, who replied that while the term 'whore' was incorrect, she was really a nazi indoctrinated baby killer.

It left me speechless and angry, and I dashed off a couple of carefully worded comments in response, but my blood was still racing and he had not replied again, hence my blog post here. I have to wonder if he even read the article? Does he even hear what his words sound like in his own head? I have no idea how to even communicate with such a person. Feeling pretty disappointed.

Wood: learning 8

Ok, I'm behind on this challenge. So Phyl picked up a second job working in a warehouse a couple weeks ago so that we could put all the excess money toward student loans (yay paying loans off early!). His job is basically to sort and grade many different sheets of plywood. Today I learned something about that from a factoid he just posted on Facebook during his break. Apparently birch and maple are very similar and hard to tell apart. One difference you can look for is that birch is fuzzy to the touch.

And now you know!

The Dentist: Learning 7

Today I went back to my dentist for the third time in the last 5 months to have the same filling put back in my tooth. Now, this makes it seem like I have a lazy dentist, so let me back up and say I LOVE my dentist office. I've never been super afraid of dentist offices, and having 4 years of braces in high school/college has left me resigned to letting dentists and orthodontists do whatever they want to my teeth, but I am always rather tense, especially when they bring out the little drill. Everyone at my dentist office (Southern Indiana Smiles, if you're wondering) is always so friendly, they learned my name right away, and do everything they can to make me feel comfortable. And both times I've had to go back to replace the filling after it's fallen out they've done it free of charge and gotten me in for the appointment super quick.

So today I learned a couple new things about what can make a filling come out of your mouth. I always thought it was just eating too much sticky stuff. Now that didn't make sense with this filling for a couple of reasons. Number one, I haven't eaten very much sticky stuff and don't even chew gum. Number two, the filling is on the outside of my tooth on the gumline, not on top where I chew. The dentist wasn't positive what makes this specific filling so tricky (I got 3 other fillings at the same time which have all stayed in just fine). Her hypothesis was that something about my saliva was reacting with the bonding material in a bad way, so they took extra steps to keep my saliva away from the filling this time. I had no idea saliva was that powerful! I knew it was the first step in your digestive process, so obviously it has some dissolving properties, and I knew it was bad for chapped lips, because if you lick your lips when they're chapped they get worse, but I didn't know it could make my filling come loose. Hopefully it's nice and dry this time. The other possibility was that I might grind my teeth without realizing it, because apparently teeth grinding also weakens the gumline, which is where this tricky filling is located. My mom is a teeth grinder, but I have never noticed it myself, and they took a little impression and said it wasn't likely I grind my teeth from what they saw.

So that is what I learned at the dentist office today. Hopefully I will not need to go back until my semi-annual cleaning next month!

Pickles: Learning 6

Phyl is a good cook (usually he is the one making dinner). However, he also likes to play around with weird food combinations, which leads me to this post. He made cheeseburgers, and as usual his had many more additions than mine. Then I did a double take. "Did you put cucumbers on your burgers?" I asked, as though he were crazy. "Yes," he replied, as though this were perfectly normal. "Cucumbers?"  I repeated, still with a you're-crazy undertone. "What, they're just like pickles," he replied.

Which led to a further conversation about how pickles are made from cucumbers. He said it was just vinegar. Turns out it's vinegar plus lots of pickling salt and different spices to make the brine. So that's what I learned.

But the real question is, should one put cucumbers on their cheeseburger? Chime in in the comment section.

SCOTUS: Learning 5

I'm going to do a quick and blatantly obvious learning post today, since everyone who isn't under a social media rock should be aware of this learning today.

The Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act! Hooray! I learned that while this doesn't make gay marriage legal across the country, the federal government now recognizes ALL legal marriages as defined by the states. So if you live in a state where gay marriage is legal and get married, you can file your federal taxes jointly and your spouse won't be deported if they're from another country and take advantage of hundreds of other benefits as well. Presumably the federal government will also recognize your marriage if you get married in a state where gay marriage is legal and then move to one where it isn't. Which will cause all sorts of interesting legal logistics, I am sure.

The Supreme Court dismissed (that may not be the correct legal term, as I'm going by paraphrased memory here) the Prop 8 Case, which means that gay marriage is once again legal in California, because it reverts to the lower court which already struck down Prop 8! Hooray! I learned that if the Supreme Court had actually issued a ruling striking down Prop 8, gay marriage would now be legal all across the country no matter what state you live in, which would obviously be ideal. However they said the private citizens group that was fighting the not-so-good fight to uphold Prop 8 didn't have the legal grounds to bring the issue to court because they could not demonstrate how the law harmed them (EXACTLY! My gay friends getting married does not harm my marriage in the slightest!). So there is still a lot of ground to cover, but significant historical progress made today. And I learned about it.

Kroger: Learning 4

Today I felt like I'd spent too much time cooped up inside at home, so I decided to walk to the library and post office (have I mentioned lately how much I love being able to walk downtown from our home? because I do. That is my absolute favorite thing about Bloomington and a major factor in not moving to a nice apartment, because the ones we can afford aren't as close to downtown as our trailer is. but I digress). Anyway, I passed by Kroger as I walked down the B-Line and learned that it was finally open again! I say finally as if this Kroger being closed for a few weeks has greatly inconvenienced me, when really there are three other Krogers also in Bloomington within an easy ten minute drive. I just got spoiled having a Kroger right down the street.

So I stopped in and looked around. The construction isn't done yet, but we're allowed inside again. The store is a little bit bigger and the layout has been changed to be more like the modern stores. What struck me most though, is how pretty the store is now! The walls are all painted pretty colors and have graphics and modern signs. The outside of the store also got a paint job, covering up the old graffiti on the wall. Of course, there are already a couple new graffiti tags up. I generally disapprove of such, but this one made me laugh and I thought it was rather clever.

Also saw this cute little bunny nibbling on sidewalk grass by the courthouse.

UnPlugging: Learning 3

Many of my friends are able to honestly say that they do not check facebook very often - maybe just a couple times a week. I admire that and must admit that I check facebook constantly every day. It is my go to website on my computer. If my computer is next to me and I have nothing else to check online, I check facebook, even if I just checked it 5 minutes ago. No lie, I have been on facebook, realized there was nothing new to see, and then typed facebook.com into my address bar while I was still on my newsfeed in the first place!

So when I came across an article on unplugging at one of my favorite blogs, A Practical Wedding, I was intrigued.* I did give up facebook for Lent one year in college, which was an interesting experience. I have a hard time giving up facebook altogether now, because even though a lot of what is on there is nonsense, I do legitimately communicate with family and share pictures through it. So it's not all bad, but the amount of time I am on facebook is definitely bad. I don't like the fact that I waste hours on the internet mindlessly, but it's a hard habit to break. I learned that I am far from the only one who feels this way, and that while there are wondrous things the internet can do, unplugging can do wondrous things for you as well. 

Alexander Nazaryan described his Internet usage in a way I can definitely relate to: “I don’t want to call it addiction, to trivialize the suffering of alcoholics and compulsive gamblers. It is more like reliance, a psychological craving that will only be satisfied by the calming swipes of my finger across the smooth, shimmering screen of a device." Yes, my current websurfing is mostly out of boredom as I'm on vacation, but when I am checking facebook every 5 minutes after school despite having a ridiculously long and super stressful to do list? That is exactly why (although he described it in a much lovelier way than I could). 

So what's a person to do? I can't, at this point, bring myself to entirely give up the internet and ipad games every weekend altogether, the way Meg is doing over at APW. However, I am trying to be more intentional about taking time away from the computer. We gave up internet and cell phones during our cruise for 10 days out of necessity and that was wonderful. When we went back home for a very short weekend trip yesterday I left my ipad at home and didn't worry about checking facebook in between seeing friends and family. I'm taking time out to read books instead of mindlessly read my facebook feed (for some reason this is much easier to do on summer vacation than during the school year). I'm trying to actually cook some of the new recipes I'm finding online instead of just admiring them on pinterest. And when I feel like I just need some sort of 'noise', I put pandora radio on my ipad instead of playing a game or searching for a video on youtube and go do some organizing project or something productive around the house. I still spend a lot of time online and usually check facebook just under a gazillion times a day, but I'm learning, slowly, to try to make my internet time a little more intentional and a little less mindless. 

* [Sidebar: You may be asking yourself, why does Sarah still read this wedding blog when she got married 2.5 years ago? or, why does a wedding blog have a fascinating article about unplugging? I'll tell you why. This blog is not just about making favors no one cares about and giving you frighteningly unrealistic budget templates *cough*like theknot.com*cough*. This blog, while it does talk a lot about sensible and practical wedding planning advice, is also about marriage, life, and starting a business. They even talk about divorce. It is also written by a fabulously sassy, independent, smart, witty feminist and is one of the only places on the internet where I can click on the comments and actually get a thoughtful, caring, considerate, smart conversation with various viewpoints and advice. Okay, end sidebar.]