Tag: rambling

Just had to get a chuckle at how much I associate the pawpaws with my Papaw. (Well, before almost breaking down from a sneak grief attack.)

I don’t know that I’ve had any pawpaws–or persimmons, either–since he died.

He always pretty much used hunting as an excuse to take the dogs out hiking. Kind of a shame he apparently didn’t feel like he could just say he wanted to spend the day enjoying the woods, but there you go.

They didn’t really need the meat anyway, and he rarely came back with any by the time I came along. But, he knew where to find all the good fruits and nuts, and usually did haul back some of whatever was in season. I was a particular fan of the pawpaws, so he made sure to bring me plenty whenever he could.

Of course, I’d be happy to see him without any tidbits, but that reminded me.

(Also, I had to get a bit amused at that person apparently rediscovering some traditional growing methods. You’re unlikely to have much luck cultivating a lot of things, including native fruit trees, unless you do plant more where they already like the conditions and want to grow there. Maybe especially where there’s that level of biodiversity, and the variety of conditions to go with it.)

I probably should say that most of the time it’s safer to go up a shoe size if you’re in doubt.

Just remembering that time I was in a friend’s wedding, and she decided we should go for these matching dyed pumps. As happens with wedding parties.

That maybe wouldn’t have been so bad if the shop had my size in stock when we went in to try them on. But, of course the closest pair was a little tight.

“Sure, let’s go ahead and order in the size up, I’m sure that will be fine.”

Spoiler: It wasn’t fine. And it was too late by the time they came to try something else. I would have been better off with the ones I tried on.

The Sasquatch-sized pair they ordered in seemed to be a different brand, with different sizing. So I got stuck in heels that felt at least 2 sizes too big. They didn’t really want to stay on, it was that great a fit.

So, I tried insoles and stuffed the toes with paper. Which put a lot of my weight onto the toes crumpling themselves down against the toe paper, instead of on the balls of the feet. Besides the blisters.

(And of course I forgot to pack along comfier shoes for the reception. It was too cold to just go without, though I seriously considered it anyway. So it was pretty much all day stuck in those horrible shoes.)

I’m not sure if any toes actually ended up broken, or “just” dislocated. (Thank you lousy collagen. 😩) There was a lot of bruising, and walking was not easy for a couple of weeks afterwards.

Now I would just say, “Sorry, I’m just going to have to wear non-matching shoes. These are not working at all.” Even if I didn’t have diabetic foot issues to keep in mind.

That was over 15 years ago, though, and I felt like I needed to good sport my way through in horrible shoes.

Also a cautionary tale, I suppose. Please don’t do that. 😱

I didn’t add explicitly in that little history infodump earlier, but yes that helps illustrate the moral backdrop leading to the gradual development of racialized chattel slavery in British Virginia. Whose system a number of later colonies drew from.

(Slightly different progression: Indian Enslavement in Virginia)

The system was already reprehensible, so the people in charge had to keep upping the ante even further.

More interesting reading: Why Did Virginia’s Rulers Invent a Color Line?

(In short: Divide and conquer tactics to avoid larger scale revolt against the whole abusive setup. And it unfortunately mostly worked.

At the turn of the eighteenth century, Virginia’s rulers faced a problem that no other New World colony had ever faced before, nor ever would again. They had about 15,000 adult colonists. Of these, roughly 9,000 were involuntary laborers. About 7,000 of the 9,000 Virginians held in bondage were of European descent and 2,000 were of Native American and/or African ancestry.17 In order to suppress rebellion, Virginia had to create a free yeoman class virtually overnight. They did not have enough time to grow one. They did not even have time to train one. Somehow, they had to split about 5,000 instantly recognizable yeomen from the total forced-labor population, so as to wind up with just as many Virginians with a stake in suppressing servile insurrection as there were in fomenting it. Again, what was unique was that 7,000 of the 9,000 Virginians held in bondage were Europeans.)

That site has some other interesting essays, BTW.

More history which kinda helps explain why things are how they are now.

[ETA: This also helps illustrate why I have absolutely no patience with the folks who want to bring up the existence of indentured servants they usually have no connection to as some sort of bizarre racist gotcha. That was not a good situation in any way, but things just kept getting so much uglier from that baseline of exploitation.]

Well, my mom preferred to fill up jugs from a spring if she could. The worst that’s going to happen if you leave that sitting for a month is possibly a little algae visible on the container if it’s exposed to light.

But, most people just don’t have ready access to free spring water from cleaner sources than a lot of the commercially bottled stuff. Chlorinated water is a pretty good second, unless what’s coming out of the tap has a higher bacterial count than it should to begin with 😨

Reminded with coming from a background where racist fuckwits will actually go, “Hey, that man can’t possibly be $ETHNIC; he has arm/facial hair!” (Bzzzt, wrong 😩)

Really coming closer to that stereotype, nobody even seeming to notice when I stopped shaving my legs because it hurt my back. Expected funny looks from rude people out in public, have still noticed none over maybe 10 years. And what I do have is dark. But, then, my biodad has about 6 chest hairs.

Anyway, apparently one day this Greek guy Mr. C used to work with suddenly grabbed his arm and was like, “Wow! Your arms are a lot hairier than mine, and I never noticed before!”

Very possibly so, but it’s all light reddish and doesn’t stand out against his skin tone that much until the light catches it right. Unlike the coworker’s. He thought it was funny enough later that he even mentioned it.

Plenty of variation there, yeah. Beyond the basic issue of artistic choices.

I mean, I had a fair few teachers who never should have been dealing with kids. Nurses too, with sick people (especially kids). But, they had been pushed into those fields as the main options even open to them at the time. No matter how badly suited they were to the job.

Which, of course, never should have happened, and other people should not have been subjected to the results.

Younger people who do have more career options? That’s not even a factor, which makes it even worse in some ways.

That mention of not only a fair few autistic/otherwise ND people ending up in certain fields, but that also meaning that other people in those fields may be kinda used to dealing with us, reminded me of one conversation with Mr. C a while back.

Years ago, he was running a game at some con, and an acquaintance’s known-autistic little brother wanted to join. Apparently the adults defaulted to “are you sure that’s OK?!” 😕 Sure, why not.

The kid had some trouble with his voice automatically going louder and louder as he got excited–which, you know, so do I. Over time I have learned to keep a better watch on that (as most people will), but sometimes it still helps if people around me keep that in mind and maybe nudge me if the volume has unintentionally crept up to a bothersome point. Which is exactly the approach Mr. C took! And the game went fine. No big deal.

That apparently surprised the kid’s family. It sounded like gently reminding him that his voice was creeping up was…not necessarily an approach they’d been using 🤔 Which surprised Mr. C. Just from what he said, I felt pretty sorry for kid living with people who did seem to be trying, but just not really getting it. Even at that simple example level. As is unfortunately common, and winds up doing a lot of harm.

Anyway, the punchline to that bit of background story? “Well, I did work with the Swedish Youth Science Federation for years. I mean, dealing with autistic people? That’s just Tuesday!”

I just barely controlled myself from “Dude, you are nowhere near the same universe as NT yourself. No wonder it doesn’t seem particularly unusual to you.”

(Not going into a lot of details, because privacy. But, if he’s not at least a cousin, I would eat my metaphorical hat. I actually started looking into it myself after I moved in with him, and in some ways he reminded me that much of my engineer dad who had recently been diagnosed. Pretty quickly started seeing unexpected commonalities with my own experiences, reading stuff from autistic people. But, trying to understand better what might be making him tick was what got me started there.)

But…he just doesn’t see it that way at all? It’s amazed me for years. As far as he’s concerned, he seems to think he’s as close to NT as pretty much anyone he knows.

And I was struck by the idea that this may really be so. From the perspective of someone whose main social circles from the time he was a kid have largely consisted of other people with the Youth Science Federation, other people who practically lived in the computer labs in college, other people pursuing somewhat unusual special interests the whole while–and then working in IT for his entire adult life to date.

I mean, at the risk of falling into stereotypes? In settings like that, I am highly unlikely to stand out as the most obviously unusual person around. (With enough experience of my own to say this with some confidence.) Never mind him.

And no wonder he hasn’t yet been put off dealing with my weird ass 🙄 “It’s Tuesday!”

Another place where context and frame of reference likely matter quite a bit. I was just prompted to make some more connections there.

At first, I assumed that my partner might be allergic to shrimp/shellfish in general.

Nope, he evidently just got hold of some bad shrimp one too many times when he was in college. At the end of the night, one pizza place would let people have as much of any toppings they wanted that shouldn’t just go back in the fridge for the next day. So, one time he got a pizza loaded up with shrimp that should have just gone in the trash before that 😧

No lasting harm done, thank goodness. But, come back at least 25 years later and he can still hardly stand to look at shrimp.

Can’t say I blame him, but not quite what I would have thought at first.

(Similar with ketchup, it seems. Some diner type place left it sitting out long enough in the hot kitchen that he got some on his food which was pretty spectacularly fermented. Didn’t even get sick that time, but the experience was offputting enough that he hasn’t voluntarily eaten any ketchup since then.)

clatterbane:

Related to one post from a little while ago, I was reminded of a quote from something I reread recently.

From Every Day Is a Good Day, edited by Wilma Mankiller. With this specific quote coming from her intro to chapter 6:

The women at this gathering speak of love in grand, sweeping terms that embrace the natural world, family, clan, community, and nation. Love is not limited to immediate family or to a romantic partner. It is not doled out in small increments to a socially prescribed person or group of people. It is all encompassing.

LaDonna Harris speaks eloquently about the high value she places on her relationships with others, which she describes as “not letting go of people,” even her adversaries. A Cherokee traditionalist echoes this sentiment and speaks of the need to “live and care for one another in such as a way as to ensure that there will be no reason to let go of others.”…

The larger society’s endless conversation about whether gay and lesbian couples should be accepted and granted rights to marriage, adoption, and other rights was nonexistent among these women. They place a very high premium on respect: respect for oneself, for others, for all living things. It is highly disrespectful to label another human being and define them based primarily on their sexual preferences. These women care more about the human decency and dignity of people, and whether they are a contributing part of the community, than about their adult relationships with others.

(And that would be with some longer term different ideas about what constitutes a valuable contribution to society, yeah.)

I included the longer part before the bit directly discussing labels, mostly for additional context.

But yeah, I have also encountered some people who wanted to assume that a statement like that is exactly the same as the “don’t let yourself be defined by X!” discussed earlier. Very possibly because that invalidating, othering approach is most of what they have encountered up close.

(Very much like the difference between people honestly trying to understand and relate to someone else’s experiences, and the dismissive deliberately not getting it “Oh, everyone does that! And you are making me very uncomfortable by even talking about this, jfc leave it already if you don’t want to totally alienate everyone around you. Weirdo” versions. Not at all the same scenario, but I do get the idea that a lot of people are mostly used to encountering the dismissive kind.)

When, yeah, that “don’t let yourself be defined by X!” behavior is one indication of exactly the types of disrespectful “boxes are more important than actual people” attitude being objected to there.

I mean, similar is part of why I have gotten more and more personally resentful of feeling pressured to choose from a certain assortment of boxes. And a good bit of the reason it’s hard to even try to talk about some of this stuff, even if you do make it very clear that the last thing you want to do is dictate how anyone else needs to be navigating or even relate to any of it. That’s still not what some people will hear.

I can understand why certain approaches do appeal to some other people. Not that it would even matter if I didn’t understand at all, because it’s their lives and experiences to make sense of and manage the best they can! The same approach is not going to make sense for everyone, though. It just won’t. And that doesn’t mean anyone is necessarily wrong.

Plus, pegs. It’s hard to even start talking about some things when you are coming at them from a sufficiently different perspective that you’re not necessarily even talking about what a lot of people would assume based on some surface similarities. More complicated when those things are also heavily enough politicized that pretty much everyone involved has been hurt in some way(s).

Not just thinking about the main subject of that quote here, but that’s definitely one aspect where it’s relevant.

Reminded of this again, with some framework that just doesn’t make much sense to me in the first place.

With one reblog from earlier getting more notes, I couldn’t help but think about how I still keep getting surprised at some pretty big differences in perspective.

Also reminded again of this one guy I knew when I was in high school and college, and really hoping things have gotten easier there.

Buck was personally a pretty committed vegetarian–and also hunting buddies with a friend’s partner. While he was living mostly off potatoes, peanut butter, and whatever he could grow? He was also hunting and fishing (besides doing most of the gardening) for his family, with both his parents the “broken down by shitty jobs” kind of disabled by that point.

Not always hunting in season, either, BTW. Partly because they were some of the only people I knew without electricity a lot of the time. So, they couldn’t easily just freeze his limit of deer for the rest of the year like most other people relying heavily on hunting.

They were struggling about the hardest of anybody I’ve known, and that’s saying something. Hopefully at least one of his parents eventually got approved for disability benefits, but they were pretty much stuck in limbo at that point. I don’t remember if Buck was the only or just the oldest kid, but he was pretty much keeping the family going in his late teens/early 20s. Not at all a good situation, but he stepped up to a point that nobody should have ever needed to.

Anyway, I had to think about that again. And also some of the likely reactions from people who just have no frame of reference to get basically any of it.

Back around to the multiple kinds of segregation in the US encouraging that. Plus, of course, widgets.