Patriotism should be wholehearted, but not blind.

I love my country. I love our ideals, our lands, our people, and the fact that under ideal circumstances, everyone gets a say in how the country is run.

I am not blind to the multitude of problems in this country. We have shit we need to fix, to make up for, and to prevent from happening in the future. Our history is overrun with fuck-ups of hideous proportions and lasting damages. We often get too big for our britches, too narrow-minded for anyone's good, and too full of ourselves to listen to constructive criticism.

I love my country. But that doesn't mean that I can't acknowledge its flaws and strive to change them. In fact, the fact that I love my country makes me more inclined to strive for change, to better our country, to make my little bit of the world a better place, and hopefully make a lasting impression on others.

Because I love this country, I will vote my mind, rather than what others want me to. I will fight to the best of my ability to make my voice and the voice of others heard, especially those who are being ignored by those in power. I will lend my voice to causes I support, and try to be reasonable and thoughtful when dealing with those I disagree with.

I may roll my eyes at overly maudlin and sentimental patriotic songs. I wish to strangle those who have made "Patriot" not only an unconstitutional Act, but they've made it distasteful by repeated misuse of the word.

So fuck that. I am a patriot, and I'm not afraid to criticize my country to make it better.

I am an American. I am sometimes ashamed of my fellow countrymen, but never the fact that I am one.

I keep thinking. This can't be a good thing.

I keep wanting to try and write a romance of some kind. Dreamspinner, Samhain, or LooseId look like viable options for this. And I have ideas that could work for each one. For Dreamspinner I have any number of ideas for gay romances, mostly with mystery/suspense plots. For Samhain I've got a few supernatural ideas. For LooseId I've got some porny/sexy ones.

The trick is to write them now. I shouldn't think about what everyone in my life would think if I did write those, should I? I mean, if I manage to sell one to LooseId, what would my mother think?

I worry way too much about what other people think. But it's harder to ignore it when they're in the same house as me...

I keep trying to tell myself that I need to worry about first writing them, then finishing them, then polishing them, then selling them. And only after that do I need to worry about what people will think.

But it doesn't work. My brain always jumps ahead about sixteen spaces. Grr.

Reading

I used to read. Constantly. I used to read to escape my own existence, and ignore the problems that faced me.

I didn't read books about other people's problems, at least not emotional ones. I had enough of those hanging around without chasing other people's. I've never been that into catharsis, and "having a good cry" just makes me feel like a snotty wet rag, wrung out and tossed aside.

My sister had a shelf full of Lurlene McDaniel books, those depressing teen romance/dramas which feature incurable diseases (leukemia seems to be a popular one), tragedies like car crashes and other accidents, and the tragic deaths of those close to the protagonists.

I didn't get it then, and I still don't.

I don't read (and watch) to get glimpse at real life. I live it. I live every day with the same existence, watching those around me suffer from various ailments, waiting for bad news from aging family members (I dread the phone ringing early in the morning), counting the bills mounting up that are getting harder and harder for me and mine to pay.

Why the everloving fuck would I want to fill my imagination with things that I am already deluged with every day? Will that somehow mitigate the pain? It never has for me.

So when I read, I want something fantastic. I want something extraordinary, whether in the romances I do read, in the mysteries or the suspense stories I love, or in the fantasy and science fiction that brings me to other world and alien experiences.

I read to experience things that I never will.

I try to write the extraordinary and just feel inadequate. I'm not that special, though my imagination is pretty cool. Sometimes I just feel completely unable to do justice to the things that are in my head. And if I do them justice, will I ever make someone else feel free like I felt reading Bruce Coville, Mercedes Lackey, Anne McCaffrey, Elizabeth Peters, Nora Roberts, Robert Asprin, Tamora Pierce? I don't know.

I don't know that I'll ever have the courage to try. Another boring thing about me.

Homeschooling? But think of the children!

A huge pet peeve of mine is people denigrating homeschooling. There's a right way and a wrong way to do it, and it's not for everyone, but it's an alternative for those who are miserable in a conventional schooling environment.

I was not homeschooled, though I desperately wanted to be. I didn't have any friends at school, I only had tormentors and people who talked behind my back if they ever noticed me at all. The only time I was ever treated well in school was for about a week after Columbine, when people realized that sometimes people want revenge for the shitty treatment. But the goldfish minds forgot about that quickly enough.

But what gets me most is, almost without fail, the only thing people object to about homeschooling (or unschooling) over conventional schooling is: But what about the child's social life?

What. The Fuck. Even my own mother, who saw the hell I was put through, threw this excuse at me. I can't even articulate the rage it made me feel.

I contemplated suicide in the third grade because I was so miserable and emotionally abused I figured my world would be better off without me in it, since I was obviously worthless and just taking up space. I didn't for several reasons, but mostly they can be summed up as: I was too chicken to actually do it, and I wouldn't do that to my parents.

Yeah, school is a great place. Even completely ignoring the false and ridiculous standards of "education", issues with funding, and the way schools enforce inequalities in our social structures. School is: forced contact with tens to hundreds of children your own age but drastically different emotional and intelligence levels, and forced into competition a lot of the time, just for the teachers' attention and grades and recognition and "friendship" and it's all just BULLSHIT!

Yeah, mom, school did me so fucking much good. I still have to fight not to rage out when I think about the little shits I went to school with, and now I have a niece, and the schools are in many ways so much worse than they used to be. I worry for her so much, because I was so miserable. Her parents weren't too happy in school either, but they both work full time and I don't see my being able to convince them to homeschool her any time soon...

I used to be judgmental. And I judge myself for that.

So, before I got credit cards myself, I used to mentally sneer at those who accrued thousands in credit card debt. I thought, How hard can it be to not spend money? I mean, really. Did you actually need those shoes or that new couch?

And then I got credit cards.

It's such a slippery slope. At first, I was going to be good and not get caught in the credit card trap. I was only going to use the card for gas and groceries, so I could use the cards, establish some credit, earn some rewards points and pay it mostly down at the end of the month.

Ha.

Now, two-three (I forget) years later, I have over four thousand dollars on my two credit cards, and I find myself trying to pay them down. And then I keep needing to use the cards because I accidentally double paid my student loans, or my cellphone bill came out of my account earlier than I thought it would.

I have a plan to pay them off. The one with %22 interest is under $1,000, which is good. But the one with %13 interest has almost $3,300 on it, and that's going to take longer. I can get the first paid off before this year ends (as long as I stop needing the overdraft protection, damn it). But even paying $300 a month on the other one, it's going to be nearly a year before the other one is paid.

And all this on a little more than $600 a month income.

Whee.

Indescision or Ennui? A little of both

I sometimes get what I like to think of as "a little down" but what can probably be called ennui. The complete lack of motivation to do anything, much less to move in one direction or another.

I think part of the problem is also that I have too many directions to move in and none are more appealing than the others.

I could apply for a new position at work. I could find a different job, one that's full time and actually pays enough for me to live on my own. I could move to a different city to start over. I could go back to school. I could...

There's more, but they get wilder and more risky (and I am risk-averse to a ridiculous extent) the more I go on. Each of them sounds appealing, though, in those moments when I just want to say "Fuck it!" and do something crazy.

I think it's only because I live far enough outside of town that doing anything crazy requires at least a half-hour drive that I don't do anything crazy.

Eventually, I have to make a decision. I can't keep living with my parents and paying only the minimum of bills.

But first I have to pay off my credit cards, and my car, and hopefully take a chunk out of student loans. Until then, anything more extreme will have to wait.

It's totally both.

Past Times With Good Company

Every time I do a house sitting job, I know I can live on my own. Except for that whole paying bills thing. Still don't have enough money to pay more than I do now.

But I could live by myself. Especially with my cat Nefret, who loves being in the same room with me. If it was just us in an apartment, we would be happy. And if I felt social I could call someone, get on the internet, or go out of the house.

Even in the house I share with five other people, I still spend most of my time at home alone. This is not a slam on my family and housemates, I love them. But. Well, when you had a lonely childhood almost entirely due to other people shunning you, you learn to love your own head. It's even better because my head isn't the depressed and lonely place it was, since I filled it with songs, characters, writing, TV shows, and movies. Much better.

So someday, when I can afford to pay more bills, like say rent and utilities, I think I'll do just fine on my own.