77 million reasons

I watch news reports from states bemoaning the lack of Canadian tourists and while some do touch on why we are so angry, most don't seem to understand to what extent we are royally pissed. 

Nevada for example voted 50% for captain bonespurs who threatens our sovereignty with his juvenile posting. Apparently we are supposed to suck it up and visit Las Vegas.

This is complete tone deafness. 

At this point you could pay for my airfare and hotel and I still wouldn't go on principle. I have 77 million reasons for it. 

I will begin to think about it after that putrid waste of skin is long gone.

Our goals

I very much like to read the comment section of gender therapist videos to understand where people are coming from. What becomes immediately obvious is that there is a lot of angst based on some metric or target people are basing themselves on. 

The most common question is "how do I know I am trans?" (as if it were some magic pill and only something you can answer) but there are many other variants. The focus comes off being yourself to some standard they are trying to meet. 

The problem with this psychology is that one is never satisfied and there will always be some flaw to be addressed. If you are always shooting for womanhood for example you fall more short of it than when you don't which sounds counterintuitive. The reason? You risk becoming obsessive and paranoid and don't relax into the self which then colors everything about you.

Men and women come in all shapes and sizes and once we drop ideas of "passing" (as someone else I gather?) we know we are on the right track. Instead we focus primarily on being genuine and authentic which increases our internal harmony and sense of calm.

Once I stopped shooting for "passing" (because I was scared) I succeeded more than I ever imagined because my only goal then became authenticity.

It turned out to be the primary thing that other people look for in us.

Lesson learned; the hard way.

Every once in a while

Every so often I get really lucky with shoes. I wear a woman's size 12 and thrift stores don't often have them but this time I hit paydirt. 

The perfect combination of comfort and feminine style in a shoe with a thick walking tread. All this for 10 bucks and the lady at the cash agreed it was a great find. 

I don't expect these finds everyday which is why I go often and take a look just in case. 

I walk a lot, so comfort is extremely important; more than style so when you can get both at a great price you count your blessings.

A young woman came up to me yesterday and told me how much she loved them :)

Nice to meet you

 

Maverick

Zohran Mamdani is astute, well-spoken and extremely smart which is why both the GOP and the corporate Democrars are worried about his platform. 

A sweaty and disheveled Trumpy Dumpty calls him a communist and house leader Jeffries is non-commital on an endorsement because Mamdani threatens the capitalism orthodoxy of the country. He wants to take things back to a time before Democrats were corporatist and still wanted to help the disenfranchised and the working class. 

In fact the reason he won the primary was that he reached out to voters who told him what their main concerns were. Some of those people were Trump voters in more conservative burroughs of NYC.

He is unabashedly progressive and wants to help make New York a more affordable place to live and improve life for as many people as possible. This is of course anathema for Democrats who take envelopes from big corporate donors. 

If Mamdani is allowed to start a fire which cannot be extinguished it will spell doom for many politicians which is why they are going to throw everything at him plus the kitchen sink.

Predictable

If I were to select a random sampling of the global population I would find repeatable patterns. Some people would have diabetes, others lung cancer and others would have red hair or be intersex (which have the same frequency of occurence at approximately 2%). 

There would also be cases of anomalies where the person is almost one of a kind in the combination of traits that defy any level of expectation. 

When we end up with levels of predictability in percentages with consistency it shows that these people are not accidents. They form part of not "things that can happen" but "things that will happen" with certainty. 

Historically, marginalized groups were painted as outcasts because they didn't fit within official political or religious narratives. Thus if you were gay you were expected to repent and agree to conversion therapy or perhaps an exorcism. Never mind that they belonged within a statically predictable norm. 

Abbey Stein grew up in a Hassidic community with no access to television or internet and yet was one of those predictable statistics with a story that matches many others.

The banality of cruelty

One of Lawrence O'Donnell's best...

It passed

Of course the big ugly bill passed because the GOP politicians are petrified of Trump and his mindless cult which is ready to take bullets for him.

17 million people will now progressively lose their health care and many will die.

Cuts to child nutrition programs, cancer research and other services being cut were always part of the plan. This is not an isolated incident and will continue the decline already well underway. As the public slowly begins to feel the cuts to their services they will realize they made a drastic mistake by voting GOP or not having bothered to vote at all.

In the end complacency is what does countries in and democracy dies as moral panics and injustice work their way through the society like a wildfire.

For the rest of the world the Trump regime is a pariah we want nothing to do with. We will be making other arrangements to distance ourselves and steer clear of the madness and the cruelty.

It will be sad watching all those personal stories of loss and grief as the realization sets in.

Don't wait for the world

Some people think they need to understand others or relate to them to be able to accept them which is pure idiocy. 

I don't need to be able to relate to the exact experience of someone who has been assaulted to have empathy for them. Just as I also don't need to understand why my niece is a lesbian to accept her. 

If we wait for the world to come to its senses we will be waiting a long time because it will never happen. You need to claim your space and live within its constraints. 

My mother wondered aloud what the bride's extended family might think of this woman they don't know (referring to me) at the coming wedding of my nephew in August. 

I told her that what people think of me is none of my business or my concern.

Voice

Finding yourself with too much time on your hands can be disorienting and I knew that many people I used to work with wouldn't take well to retirement. 

I just received news that a high level manager I've known for years went to work for another firm as a consultant. He is pushing 70 but his identity is too much entrenched in his career to be able to adjust to falling into the void. I had predicted as much and so the announcement was not that surprising. 

Retirement forces you into questions of identity. It begs that you answer the question "who are you?" If you hadn't already answered it beforehand. The constant obligation which spurs action distracts for a while until there are no distractions left. 

Those who think travel and hobbies fill that void are mistaken because they are not a "raison d'etre". They are activities which aren't helpful when we are awake at night, the mind is tempted to race and asks the deep questions about our purpose in life. 

I read that not everyone has an inner dialogue running in their head and I discussed this recently with my son who is a thinker. That voice which is constantly running in the foreground or background serves as the origin of my writing. 

It is also in the silent moments when it is the loudest.

NB: Happy Canada day to my fellow Canucks:) elbows up!

Cruelty is the point

Instilling fear so you don't say anything or push back against injustice....