Darkoshi

The local news is on TV (ABC, CBS, and NBC) here at 7pm and again at 11pm. I try to catch it when I can, at least the news part of it, not the weather or sports parts. It's on at 6pm too and at 10pm on another channel, but I hardly ever watch at those times. The tone of these local news broadcasts is usually pretty calm. Watching the local news doesn't bother me unless the content itself is quite upsetting. (There is a trend however, when reporting on weather events, to perhaps over blow them. All these "alert" days, as they call them.)

The national news is on TV here at 6:30pm. I like to catch it when I can too, depending on my mood. In recent years I started noticing how the tone of these newscasts affects me. The tone of voice used by the newscasters from the major networks, as well as the video clips shown (often the same thing repeated over and over again like a clip of an ambulance driving away with lights flashing), and even the intro music (boompa-da-doom type stuff), almost always seems to shout *URGENT* *IMPORTANT* *DANGER* *CRISIS*.

I know this is done precisely because it makes people feel that they should watch the broadcasts. But it affects my mood negatively, riles me up, and can be emotionally draining.

So recently I've started watching the PBS News Hour instead at 9pm, on those days when I can catch it. Those newscasters tend to talk calmly, which is such a nice thing. The PBS News Hour used to feel rather boring to me in comparison to the other news shows, and I rarely watched it. But now I like it.

words swirl
anger spreads

music doesn't distract well enough
but time will flow

on and on

I'm reading Ancillary Sword, the 2nd book in the trilogy by Ann Leckie.

I discussed some of the gender aspects of the book in the comments in this thread.

But there's another aspect of the book which I've realized speaks to me: ( Lack of emotional display )

Not sure how to explain it. There is more I want to write. I may continue this post later.

I got teary-eyed from what I read today. It wasn't even at the sad part; it was during the reading of the letters and the giving of an apology... In the same places as where Harry was beginning to feel like crying.

While reading the ostensibly sad part last Friday, I felt at first dread, then dismay, then uncertainty. I'm still uncertain. Because in movies and such, they almost always come back.

I'm still uncertain about the defense professor, too.

Dang, what a good book.

A month or 2 or 3 ago, I realized that even though the book is nearly 2000 pages long and it seemed like it would last me forever, I had reached over half-way through. Which meant that someday it would really come to an end. :(

I know it's not true, but it seems like *everybody* got to see totality except me (and of course my mom and Qiao, who were with me.)

I know I'm lucky to have been able to experience as much of it as I did experience. To not have even had to travel anywhere to experience it. There are surely people who traveled far from home to see it, and had clouds get in the way; that would have been even worse bad luck. And I'm sure there were many people who were in the path, but were unable to watch it for other reasons.

What with the weather forecasts, it's not like I was really *expecting* to be able to see it. I knew it was a long-shot. It seemed, though, that even if I were to drive somewhere else with a better forecast, it would be just as much a matter of luck, along with the risk of being stuck in traffic during the actual event.

But that break in the clouds here as it was getting closer to totality really made it seem like we were going to get to see it after all... and then... that big dark cloud, sob.

I'm glad that on Monday evening, there was one announcer on TV, who when the others were talking about it, said "well actually I didn't get to see it; in my area it was raining". It made me feel less alone in my bad luck. He's one of only two people I've heard on TV who were in the path of totality, who said they didn't get to see it due to clouds or rain.

I wonder, if I had seen it, if it would have seemed really special, or just a neat glowing disk in the sky. I suspect that latter, because nothing feels really special to me. So it's not like I probably even missed a great experience.

Oh, man. There's a pretty good video of it on this page. But apparently, totality was even visible in Charleston and on the coast, though the weather map had been showing the worst cloud cover there. ::sob, I'm cursed::

... oh, wait. Here's some other people who had clouds. See there, self, you're not the only one with disappointment.

..

I saw the crescent moon this evening, around 9pm. Sunset was around 8pm.

Reasons I post things online:

- to solicit answers/information on things I don't know
* to get answers

- to provide information to others
* to feel helpful & useful

- to entertain others
* to feel appreciated & useful

- to describe myself and/or my experiences
* to let similar people know that they are not alone & to thereby feel useful
* to get feedback from others; to feel less alone; to feel that others like me

- to express my emotions
* to understand them
* to remember them later
* writing about them helps the emotions to pass
(but why do I feel like posting those kinds of writings online?)
* to feel heard
(why do I want to feel heard? with emotional things, I often don't even want any feedback, so why?)
* to feel like I'm leaving a visible mark, no matter how small, on the world
(why do I want to leave a mark?)
* to transform emotional pain from something internal and transient into something external and permanent?
(buy why? what do I gain from it?)

I want to feel awed. Not by a stranger's physical or mental skills, but by something more personal. Mystical. Magical.
I want to feel that sense of belonging, contentedness, which I've only felt in a few ancient dreams and fantasies.
I want to feel gleeful excitement.
I want to have fun.

This relationship soothes some of the pain but does not heal the wound.
I am still alone.

I want to feel something, something other than pain.

A cucumber I had in the fridge got bad. I had to throw it into the compost pile yesterday. It was an organic cucumber. A nice green firm beauty, to begin with. And it was even a gift, of sorts. Someone else had bought it for me, for us.
Later at night, brushing my teeth, I thought about it again and got tears in my eyes and a sniffy nose, and felt like sobbing. Imagining the nice happy cucumber growing in a field with the nice sunshine shining on it... and then when it was all nice and big and ripe, it being picked and travelling in some truck, and ending up in the store, and being bought, with such high hopes of cucumberness... and then I left it in the fridge uneaten for too long, and it got bad!!! (It still seems sad today, writing this, but not sad enough for tears)

I neglected it. The poor cucumber!

So anyway, while brushing my teeth last night, I felt a mixture of intense sorrow/guilt/cucumber-empathy, along with a logical awareness of how bizarre it was to be feeling that way. I was obviously over-emotional. I had gotten pissed off earlier too, from just hearing someone on TV speaking at the Republican convention.

Today I was thinking about it again, about how I could feel so sad over a cucumber. Cucumbers don't have emotions. It doesn't care whether it ends up in someone's stomach, or in the compost pile. So why did I feel so sad thinking about it? Maybe in my mind, the cucumber had a guardian spirit watching over it, and this spirit was so proud of the nice cucumber.... so maybe I'm sad for the sadness of this spirit, in having the cuke come to this kind of end? But surely the spirit would have more than a single cucumber to watch over, and surely the spirit understands that some vegetables go bad; it's just the way things go. Or maybe not, maybe... anyway. That was a rather odd thought-process too.

Ants are building a hill next to and over the water meter cover next to the street. Crawling all over it. That's where the main water shut-off is too, which I wanted to test before installing the new faucet, in case I run into problems with the valves under the sink. Guess I'll have to do something about that. I dislike using *-cides.

Trying to type one-handed while eating a popsickle is difficult and takes the fun out of eating the popsickle. ::goes off to finish popsickle::

I've gotten more used to using the weed-wacker to cut the grass. My arms don't go numb afterwards anymore, and I don't seem to have as much muscle-ache from it. I've also suppressed most of my emotional reaction to chopping up pretty plants and (weed) flowers. The first time, after I noticed myself wacking off the flowers, I felt like crying and quit for the day.

My dad's wife... does one call someone a step-mom, if they married when you were an adult, and you never lived with her while growing up?... kindly offered that they would pay for me to buy a washing machine for the house.

Yesterday, I washed 3 loads of laundry at Forestfen's, and hung it out to dry there. Then went grocery shopping and returned to pick up the clothes and some other items. All well and good except that I overlooked one bag of clean folded sheets and towels when leaving.

There are a lot of nice chirpy birds around here. The roosters still haven't returned. I hope they are off happy in the countryside somewhere, and not being used as gamecocks, and not killed for dinner, and not confiscated and killed by animal control officers. Or whatever other unpleasant things might happen to cute little roosters.

I watched the DVD, Caligula, last week. There was the sound of a rooster crowing in the movie, which made me perk my ear for a moment, til I realized that it was the movie. From the description of the movie, I thought it might be interesting to watch, to see what "porn" is like. Other than the background music to the DVD's menu, I didn't like the movie, though. If that is what all porn is like.... uggh! Even without the gruesome cruelty, maiming, and killing parts, the sex scenes on their own seemed gross to me. Or at the least, boring and distasteful. It makes sex seem totally ugsome, like it seemed when I was younger. And what is with the horrid female giggling sounds during the orgies... was that done to add to the movie's sinister-ness, or do straight guys find that erotic?

The calluses on my palms keep getting thicker, even after I try to trim them off with a razor blade.

Somebody and somebody broke up, and I wish they hadn't. But then, I don't want people to be unhappy, and if they weren't right for each other.... Sigh. And what about me? I don't know.

One of the bedrooms has a slight, pungent odor which bothers me. I can't figure out what it is coming from.

My kitchen cabinets are rather full. Even though I'm trying to maintain the mentality of having enough items to feed myself until the next time I go shopping, as opposed to the mentality of having all the items to cook anything I might ever possibly desire to cook.