Not dead yet

So, in bad news, Facebook and all of its subsidiaries (Instagram, Messenger, etc.) have been down for over two hours as of when I'm beginning this post.  Withdrawal symptoms are happening worldwide.  Zuckerberg could have done less damage as a drug kingpin.

In good news, that outage prodded me to discover that both Blogger and WordPress have apps, which may help me start posting here and to my arts blog on a more regular basis.  We shall see.

For those of you who are new here, allow me to introduce myself.  I'm Samantha, I'm 51, and I live in Ohio.  I have eight cats (Mimi, Mercutio, Jasmine, Sebastian, Cosette, Olympia, and Ophelia are mine and Bobo is a long-term guest; I'm trying to stop there for now); ten American Girl dolls and a ton of clothes for them (Ximena, Bronwen, Allegra, Oliver, Deirdre, Nicholas, Lily, and historical Felicity, Samantha, and Ruthie; planning to get more); a few dozen Breyer model horses (probably ditto; I won't overwhelm you with a list of their names right now); a big, messy house called Twin Oaks; a 12-year-old minivan named Sylvia; a battered old baby doll named Carron and her two stunt doubles Josie and No-name-yet; a variety of other plush friends; and some houseplants which don't have names.  I also have a daughter who is almost 29, generally referred to as B (yes, one of the dolls is named after her), and a whole bunch of honorary nieces and nephews.  I have a long-term "apartner" named Durr who lives about three hours away.  And last but not least, I have a very pushy Muse and an extensive collection of art supplies, mostly fabric, that have been bought to placate her because I work full-time and have disabilities so I can't Make All The Pretty Things Right Now.  I am a medieval reenactor specializing in women's clothing, the bardic arts, and heraldry.

Any questions?

Let the River Run

In the midst of all this misogynistic, white-supremacist, anti-immigration violence, I take comfort in one thing.

In the end, they're going to lose.  It's guaranteed.

Why?  Because history is a river, and no matter how much you try, you can't stop it from flowing.  Even if you build a dam, the water will eventually make its way over, around, or through it.

As Dr. King said, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.  White people colonized all corners of the globe and forced their culture and religion on the people they found there, often through violence.  They've been on top for a couple of centuries, but they - we - aren't going to stay there forever.  Inevitably, the next thing in history will happen, whether it is another group of people rising to the top, more widespread equality for all, or the human race managing to exterminate itself.  Fighting against that is as futile as trying to stop a river by scooping up water in a ladle and throwing it back upstream.

The things these people are doing are terrible, and must be stopped at all costs.  But even if some "lone wolves" keep slipping through, their efforts are doomed in the long run.  The river will sweep them away, and they can either learn to swim with the current, or drown.

Hyperfocus

This may be a day for multiple posts -- writing helps to distract me from the dental pain.

Right now, I want to take a break from talking about my house plans to discuss an aspect of having ADHD.  That condition can be a real pain in the arse -- the inability to focus on what you should be doing or learning, the impaired executive function that leaves you sitting in bed for hours wanting to do something but unable to get started, the million unfinished projects lying around the messy house....  There are a lot of drawbacks to ADHD.  However, there's one thing that comes with it that makes up for some of the hassle, and that is hyperfocus.

What is hyperfocus?  It's being so deeply engrossed in what you're doing that you don't notice pain, hunger, thirst, bladder pressure, or really time passing at all.  The thing you're doing -- whether it's working on something or enjoying someone else's work (reading a book, bingeing a show, etc.) -- becomes your entire world for that time.  You're likely to not even notice that the dog is barking, the phone is ringing, or someone is speaking to you unless they physically remove the thing you're focused on, and if they do it still takes some time to mentally transition out of where you were.  That means, parents and teachers and partners of ADHD folks, that you can't just snatch the book from your person's hand and expect them to jump right up and get ready for dinner, school, whatever.  Breaking their hyperfocus is likely to leave them disoriented at first, so give them some time to reconnect with the rest of the world.

But when nothing breaks your hyperfocus and you get to your objective on your own -- be that finishing the book, making the thing, or whatever -- wow, is that a good feeling!  It's a real natural high, and I imagine it's the sort of feeling people are trying to get with cocaine and similar substances.  The air you're breathing feels fresher, colors are a little brighter and shapes a little more defined, you feel on top of the world and like you could accomplish anything.  (Well, at least I do.)  I'm getting a little bit of it just writing this post that's been in my head for days; as I mentioned at the top, it's making a noticeable difference in my pain levels right now.

Perhaps that "hyperfocus high" is Nature's way of rewarding us for breaking the chains of executive dysfunction and scattered attention.  I don't know.  But understanding it is important to understanding the life of an ADHD person, be it yourself or someone you love.  It's a great feeling, and remembering that it's possible can be a key to get yourself or that other person moving if the activity is one that truly interests you/them.  Don't look for it to show up for things that are unpleasant drudgery, but if you're doing "your thing", there's a pretty good chance that it will carry you away from this world for as long as it lasts.  Cherish those times -- people who aren't like us spend a lot of money and go to great personal risk trying to feel that way.  Aren't we lucky that we can achieve it to such depth, so easily?  I think so.

House Plans, Part Two

So, we've looked at the first three rooms of the first floor of my house.  That just leaves the northwest room and the kitchen tacked on across the back.  My long-term plan is to have the kitchen moved to the larger room and the current kitchen turned into a half-bath that opens off of the dining room.  However, I'm not sure how that will work given the placement of the doors in that room -- it may be necessary to expand the footprint of the house a bit, which will be *very* expensive.  I may have to have the expansion done, then pay that off, then have the other work as a second stage.  I won't know for sure until I start getting quotes.

The decor for both of these rooms is based on items from the Signals catalog in the late '00s.  For the bathroom, the focal item will be a framed poster print of this piece by Melissa Harris:

http://www.melissaharris.com/melissa2014new/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Anything-is-Possible1-224x300-e1407613496953.jpg

The walls will be a shade of yellow that harmonizes with it, and the fixtures and woodwork will be white.  I'm hoping to have a pedestal sink, if I can figure out storage for stuff like extra toilet tissue.  Ideally, there will also be space in there for at least one litterbox.

The art I want for the kitchen is proving to be more elusive.  There was a set of nine square canvas prints, all of which featured Blue Willow vases or jugs and flowers in shades of red, orange, and yellow.  I *know* they existed, but I can't find evidence of them anywhere online, and the catalog company inexplicably does not keep an archive of back issues in which I could find the artist's name.  Anyway, that's what I want to base the whole room on -- lots of nice, clean white, with blue as a secondary color (possibly Blue Willow tiles for the backsplash?) and occasional notes of fire colors.  Possibly a bright yellow Formica countertop -- an apartment I used to rent had one, and it was so nice and cheerful. 

However, oddly, I do not want my everyday china to be Blue Willow -- I think that would be overdoing it.  Instead, I'm hoping to collect a set of Butterfly Meadow for that function -- I already have two dinner plates, two luncheon plates, one cereal bowl, and one serving bowl, all bought at Ross Dress for Less.  The rest are in an Amazon Wish List that only I can see, with the intent being to have two large plates and two small plates of each different image.

I'm hoping to replace the current back door with a sliding glass door onto a much larger porch, which we will cover when I get to the outdoor stuff.

House Plans, Part One

I'm lying in bed tonight trying desperately to not come down with a respiratory infection, and I'm getting bored with reading Facebook, so it's time for a new post!  Today we're going to start exploring my project book, which is a black-and-white composition book with a sticker on it and a nice inscription given to me by a former co-worker.  In it are many pages of things I want to do, make, and buy, which may or may not ever happen.

The first page has to do with my plans for the first floor of my house, specifically the entrance hall, living room, and dining room.  For those of you who haven't seen it, the house is a four-square design with a little strip tacked across the back for the kitchen.  The northeast room is the entrance hall, which contains the front door, a very large window (for century-home definitions of large -- it's  a postage stamp compared to what I grow up with) facing east onto the front porch, a small horizontal window set high up in the north wall facing the driveway, and the staircase going up the west wall from left to right.  It is almost entirely open, through a large archway, to the living room in the southeast.  That room has a bay window facing out onto the porch and a high horizontal window in the south wall mirroring the one in the entrance hall.  Through a smaller arch is the dining room in the southwest, which has a window seat and three narrow windows looking south over the neighbor's driveway.  Both the dining room and the entrance hall have doorways into a room that one would think would be the kitchen, but isn't.  The refrigerator and microwave and a set of shelves I use as a pantry are in there because they won't fit into the aforementioned tacked-on kitchen in back, which has doorways to both the dining room and the extra room.

I have big plans for that extra room, but that will be a different entry on another day.

One thing about the first floor that many people don't immediately realize is that the woodwork is all painted, not stained.  Whoever did it chose such a rich, dark brown that it looks like walnut unless you get right up close to it.  The walls are currently a neutral off-white -- the house was a rental before I bought it -- and the floors are laminate.  My plan is to keep the woodwork as it is, and paint the plaster a nice stone gray, to create a medieval sort of look.  (Big surprise coming from me, right?)  I have Oriental-style rugs for all three rooms, and some bookcases from Target that are a notch above the super-cheap student style -- three in ascending size under the stair banister in the entrance hall, two tall ones back-to-back in the living room and dining room right next to the opening, and a small one in the dining room next to the kitchen door.  Those are where my non-fiction lives.  It's currently pretty jumbled -- eventually I'm going to have to pull it all off the shelves and get it in order, but I may wait to do that until I paint, since it'll all have to come down then anyway.

Currently under the high window in the north wall of the entrance hall is my old futon; eventually that will go up to the third floor and be replaced by... something.  Originally it was going to be my old roll-top desk, but that got left on the front porch too long, and was eventually given away to someone who could restore it.  Right now I'm sort of leaning toward an upright piano, if I can find one in decent condition for a reasonable price.  I took lessons, reluctantly, as a child, so I have some foundation in the basics if I want to try YouTube tutorials or something.  I also want a couple of Savaronola (sp?) chairs for that room.

I want to create a little more definition between the entrance hall and the living room, so I'm planning to get a couple of carved wood screens and attach them at either side of the opening.  Among other things, this will conceal the back side of my entertainment center, which is a corner style unit in the northwest part of the room.  Currently in the the northeast corner is a chaise lounge on long-term loan from a friend, but she and her hubby are getting their own place soon, so that may go away.  The long-term plan for that spot is a soft chair with matching footstool that belonged to my grandmother, but that needs reupholstering first, because cats.  The inlaid wooden chess table and matching chairs (also with shredded covers) that were my grandfather's stand in the bay window, although someday I'm hoping to have the budget and spoons to put a Christmas tree there at the appropriate season.  The couch, on the south wall, is a rather retro orange floral number that I got as a hand-me-down from different friends, but I have a microfiber cover for it, and I plan to replace the back cushions with large overlapping square ones, also covered in microfiber (that I'm going to sew myself).  Currently the coffee table and end tables are Kmart mission-style in a lighter wood than the rest of the room, but those will eventually be replaced.

Oh -- colors -- those two rooms are built around the living room rug, which has shades of burgundy, light olive green, tan, ivory, and black.  The entrance hall rug is primarily light olive, and the curtains in there are burgundy.  The living room curtains are green, the chair and footstool will be a black floral, the couch cover is burgundy, and the cushions will be black, tan, and green.  The chess chairs are currently upholstered in a dark yellow, and will probably be similar once they're redone.

The dining room was one of the reasons I bought this house, because I had a magnificent carved table that I had bought a few years earlier on eBay, and a coordinating sideboard from Craigslist.  "A dining room that my furniture will fit in" was one of the must-haves on my house-hunting list.  They fit nicely here, with a medallion-style rug under the table, brown faux-leather parson's chairs around it, and a reproduction of one of the "Lady and the Unicorn" tapestries over the sideboard.  Limoges did a series of plates of those tapestries and the "Hunt of the Unicorn" ones back in the '70s, and when I have accumulated all of them the latter set will go over the window seat, and the former set over the archway to the living room.  To either side of the door into the fourth room are hanging posters that I got years ago at the Cleveland Museum of Art with images from their armor court, and on the east wall over the thermostat are my SCA scrolls.  Eventually, a liquor cabinet will go under them.

The dining room mostly done in dark red, navy, and ivory.  On the windows are golden yellow Roman shades under navy curtains; I'm considering adding matching shades in the other two rooms in place of the cheap Venetian blinds the place came with.

In addition to the art in the dining room, I have an Uccello poster over the couch and a painting of a Spanish castle that my partner gave me hanging over the TV in the living room, and in the entrance hall are portraits of my paternal grandparents on the north wall.  Eventually, I'll have the usual collection of family photos on the wall going up the stairs.  I was hoping to do a set of four small medieval-themed needlepoints for the living room, but I only even bought the first one, and it's still unfinished, and now you can't get the others any more.  I have saved searches for them on eBay, but it'll probably take a long time to find them.  I can be patient, though.

So anyway, that's my vision for the first three rooms of my house.  It's going to take some money to make it happen, and quite a lot of work, but hopefully someday they will look to everyone else the way they do in my mind's eye.

Turning Over a New Leaf

I've been thinking for a while about starting to blog again, and trying to make it a regular habit.  Self-discipline is not my best trick (because Reasons, which I may or may not discuss at some point in the future), but I think I want the mental exercise of composing something more than Facebook posts once in a while.  I don't have any single topic in mind at this point, so my posts might be about my cats or my house or social justice or the SCA or my crafting business or, as the title of my blog says, whatever crosses my mind.  This is a public blog, so I will not be discussing my job, and I'm still on the fence about my mental and physical health.  We'll see.

What's on my mind tonight (other than how much I can't wait to turn off all the trickling taps in my house tomorrow morning) is my upcoming birthday.  I'm going to be 49 on Saturday.  The past ten years in particular have led to a lot of growth and self-knowledge, but I'm aware that there's still plenty more out there for me to pursue.

The hardest part has been gradually coming to terms with the fact that I'm not going to have any more children, and that I probably shouldn't anyway.  My image of my life always included a happy family, and yet here I am with one adult child who I didn't get to raise, living alone with my five cats.  There are things about that which I am never going to be okay with, but for the most part I have learned to live with it.

I've also had to adjust to the fact that I am not going to achieve the level of financial security that I was raised with, and that my lifestyle is going to be severely restricted by that.  I am fortunate to have a solid career in something I do well, but it is not a lucrative field.  My bucket list -- which takes up many pages in a black and white composition book -- includes things like travel and making elegant clothing, both mundane and garb.  I'm still working on the fact that those things aren't likely to happen, or at least not by my own doing and not for many years to come.

And more and more, I'm coming to accept that I am never going to be fit and slender again.  When I try to exercise, I pay for it for days, and weight gain is a side effect of several things in my life.  I've managed to arrest it by cutting way back on Pepsi, but reversing what's already there seems unlikely.  I'm having to curtail activities I enjoy because my body can't sustain effort for as long as it used to, and plan for rest periods.  I'm never going to get my sister to an SCA event (the deal was that she would go if I completed a five-mile run.)

Yet somehow, in the midst of these shattered dreams, I have found something that works for me.  I'm not married, but I have a committed long-term long-distance relationship with someone I love, while maintaining my own independence.  I don't have a houseful of children, but I have adopted nieces and nephews who are very precious to me but don't consume my every waking moment.  And I don't have a full, active lifestyle, but I find moments of fun here and there.

Facebook, oddly enough, has been really helpful to my journey of self-acceptance.  The friends I have found there, and the friends I know from other places who interact with me there, are incredibly supportive, and I feel like there are enough of them that I'm not burdening anyone person too much with my issues.  And a lot of the memes that go around are incredibly affirming.  They tell me that it's okay to like the weird things I like, that I'm not worth less because my body and brain don't always work the way "normal" people's do, and that there are other people who feel as passionately as I do about doing the right thing.

So, here I am, on the cusp of 49, firmly in middle age.  I have my house, I have my cats, I have my friends, I have my hobby.  Life isn't anything like I thought it would be when I was a kid, or even a young adult.  But you know what?  Life is okay.  You're allowed to be content with what you have, even if it's not what you always thought you wanted.  It's okay if the people you used to be close to aren't a big part of your life any more, because there are new people in it now who fit better with who you are now.  And it's okay to have dreams that don't end up being fulfilled.  "[A] man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a Heaven for?" to quote Browning.  I tell myself that the things I didn't get in this life will be waiting for me in the next, and I can be patient believing that.  It works for me, and that's all that really matters.

Anyway, that's what's on my mind.  Next time I'll talk about something lighter.  Maybe.

2016

It has been an unrelenting year in celebrity deaths, especially for geeks my age.  We lost the Goblin King, two Princes -- Half-Blood and Purple -- our new navigator, our Shepherd, too many more to name, and now our princess and general, while we were still reeling from the latest '80s pop icon to go.  I'm terrified of the next four days, that Death will try to grab a few more before the year is over.  I mean, yes, losing the beloved entertainers of one's youth as one ages is inevitable, but so many all at once, and so young in most cases?

Add to that multiple terror attacks, the civil war in Syria, murders by police, murders of police, and the UK and US both elevating racism and xenophobia to leadership positions in their elections, and it's no surprise that most of us can't wait for 2016 to make its blood-soaked way into the history books.  I wish I thought that 2017 was going to be any better, but all I see ahead as an American is corruption, greed, and hate as the incoming administration takes power.  It's going to be an ugly four years, although I don't think T%#@p will keep the job that long -- he'll either be impeached, or he'll decide it's too much bother and quit.  He's in a position to do a great deal of damage to the nation and the world in that time, though, and as a woman with LGBTQA+ loved ones, Pence isn't that much more reassuring. (On the other hand, he probably won't nuke New York because SNL made fun of him again.  His running mate, I'm not so sure about.)  The Constitution is going to be under assault from all directions, and there will be a majority-conservative SCOTUS to interpret it.  Irreparable damage will be done to the environment in those four years.  People will die because they will lose their health insurance.  Civil rights will be trampled -- hate crimes have already soared since the election.  There will be effects on children's health and education that will hamper them for the rest of their lives.  This, all this, is the legacy of our annus horribilus, 2016.

There are bright spots.  Lin-Manuel Miranda is still creating new material.  So is the Whedon clan.  So is Aaron Sorkin.  Carrie Fisher's asskicking Star Wars legacy seems to be safe in the hands of Daisy Ridley, and Carrie had Episode XIII in the can before she died.  There are at least four more films ahead in the Potterverse, and the MCU keeps raising the bar higher and higher.  There are artists from the '80s still alive and performing, as well as more spectacular new talents every year.  And there's a whole roster of younger, up-and-coming Democrats ready to take a crack at 2020 -- Booker, the Castro twins, Harris, Gabbard, Gillibrand, Duckworth,and Ohio's own Sherrod Brown, although I think that Connie would have a few things to say about that.  Did you notice that most of the people I named are PoC, women, or both?  (Some of them are even younger than I am, which is a little bit terrifying.)

Will all that be enough?  Will the art hold back our despair until a new leader comes, and will that person be able to fix the damage to our nation and planet?  I don't know, and that, as much as anything, stresses me out.  I know it's going to be bad, but not how bad or in what ways or how lastingly.  All I can do is work on my little corner of the world -- practice kindness, and try to make the world a more beautiful place, and pray that I and mine will survive.

No real conclusions here, just a review of where we're coming from and where we're going.  Get ye gone, 2016.  We'll clean up after you as best we can.