Identify what is most important )0( Eliminate everything else
The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world. Dr. Paul Farmer
The suffering of others is not alleviated when no one knows about it.
There is no one right way to live. Daniel Quinn Ishmael
The only thing that you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right sort of people.
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. Kurt Vonnegut

Saturday, February 23, 2013

snob

It is still relatively early, sleep-wise, and I will not worry about throwing my entire sleep cycle off for a few days yet.  Barely after midnight, and even a boring book will not bring me any closer to falling asleep.  CoolCat keeps coming by to convince me to just give up/in, go to bed and let him cuddle.

We both like that, the cuddling, because it is cold here.  Even following the advice of my landlord about buying an infrared heater so that I will not have to use the furnace, my most recent utility bill, combined electric and gas, is two dollars more than last month's.  What the fuck?  We are still freezing our asses off and it cost me more money? 

I have no idea what I am going to do.  I cannot afford to live here.  I really cannot afford to live anywhere decent.  I will probably just stay here, hemorrhaging my savings until I am forced into doing something.  This past week, during therapy, I shared that I thought that I am finally ready to start unpacking my stuff and settling in.  Seven months here and I seem to feel safe enough to consider not fleeing somewhere else.  Where that could be, I have no idea, but I was starting to not worry about it.  Then, there was that support group thing where safety and self-defense are going to be part of the program and I thought, well, baby, you can get stronger and feel safer and all of this forward-movement stuff is just what you need.

The day was going well.  I awoke to a large snowfall and spent a very pleasant and heart-supportive few hours clearing the property of the white stuff.  I love winter...except for the freaking utility bills...and I especially love snow removal.  The sense of satisfaction is enormous.  Then I made my favorite soup and I really could not design a more wonderful day.

But, I cannot sleep again.  This is becoming a very disturbing habit.  No good can come from anything other than regular sleep. 

So, I am up.  Benadryl is becoming a crutch.  Going to bed and tossing and turning and having my head crammed with too much junk, and disturbing CoolCat in the process is not productive, and neither of us gets any decent rest.  Up, that is me.  Looking for boring stuff to read, stuff that I found, stuff that led me to some physics sites, stuff that is not boring and, truth be told, very interesting and some ideas of activities for me and the boys, but, here I am, still awake.

So, I went surfing, looking for some simple living or frugal living or stuff like that.  I found a site where I was a member a long time ago and I discovered why I stopped visiting that site.

I am a snob.  Something I would not choose to be or even want to be.  Do not think of myself like that.  However, I had to stop going to that site because I felt weird there.  The place is full of people with great resources who are, in my opinion, playing at being frugal.  I think that if your idea of frugality is spending your three-week vacation on an island instead of the couple of weeks that you usually spend staying in Paris at your favorite hotel, overlooking the Louvre, that frugality might not be a significant part of your personal philosophy. 

Ergo, I am a snob.

If you have to cut back on steak a couple of times a week and I find that amusing, I am a snob.

If you shop at the charity shops because a couple of years ago you were at one of them with a friend and you found a vintage Rudi Gernreich in your favorite mod colors and I shake my head, I am a snob.

One of the hallmarks of my own, personal philosophy is that I do not, as a general practice, judge other people.  Having spent the majority of my adult life under the microscope of one of the most proficient judges of the twenty-first century, I really do try to sublimate my natural snarky and sometimes irrepressible judging genes.  Most of the time I manage just fine.  But, although my on-line behavior is honest and all that jazz, sometimes I just cannot seem to avoid having these feelings ooze into the experience.

This sucks.  It is not compatible with how I see myself.  It is not how I live in my daily life.

Oh, yeah, sure, we all judge.  A complete stranger could be walking towards us and our view of her/him is instant, replete with every kind of judgement possible.  Age, gender, status, everything.  Honestly, I am pretty sure that we cannot avoid that whole thing.  What we can do is to choose to move beyond that, get over our perceptions and prejudices.  All that.  And, I also think that most people are good at doing that, the getting over themselves part.

On-line, my judging filters are all out of whack.  I rarely write anything anymore.  Frankly, no one really cares what we think anyway, especially how it applies to what the other person thinks.

Well, in the pursuit of squashing my snobbery and finishing the third season of BBT, a couple of hours have passed and CoolCat is here on cuddle patrol.  I want pancakes, but I will settle for settling down with my library book and a fuzzy sweetheart resting on my shoulder.  My judgement of that is that it is the perfect way to deal with insomnia.

2 comments:

  1. Could be the same site where I used to go too? I left because it was driving me nuts and mostly for the same reasons as you. I must be a snob too or maybe it's just I live in the real world! ;-D

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  2. Maybe. I just wish that I could stop judging. I do not say or write anything, but this crap is in my heart and it shames me that I cannot stop doing it. It makes me feel small-minded and without compassion and understanding for other people.



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