Keep Calm and Carry On.

Posted on September 11, 2013 by A Dreamer

That is all.

Posted in Musings | Tagged | Leave a comment

Please be careful with the extroverted introvert.

Posted on July 16, 2013 by A Dreamer

She spooks easily at times.  (But also not easy to spot, so I’ll give you a pass if you don’t see it right off the bat – most don’t.)

So, I was out at the beach today alternating between reading Scott Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamora (fun beach read – might actually be for the YA crowd now that I think about it – but still fun) and standing in the surf to cool off.  (Hot as balls with very little breeze.  Lovely water with no jellyfish, though.)

Well, I’m standing there in the water, happily cooling off, when this woman comes up to me and asks,
“Do you live here or are you seasonal?”  (I look around to see if she is actually talking to me and try to figure out if seasonal means “vacation” or “all summer long” – cause if it means “all summer long” then I definitely want to be seasonal.)
“Um, we’re just here for two weeks in the summer.”
“Oh, because I see you every time we’re here!”
Wait, what?  Jesus, I need to get a new hat, six new swimsuits and different beach towels by this time next year.  How the hell else could you recognize me?  Lord knows my body shape is schizophrenic at best – maybe it’s cause I’ve said “fuck societal expectations” and wear my two piece suits anyway even when some would say, “Please, don’t – think of the children.”  How the hell do you recognize me?

I stumble through, “Oh, wow, I don’t ever really recognize anyone from year to year…I kind of get tunnel vision when I’m here cause I’m just focused on being at the beach and stuff.”  (Seriously, I am more likely to recognize someone in one of the restaurants from one year to the next than people on the beach.  OK, I’d probably recognize the dogs if they had any.  But folks on the beach are just…folks on the beach.  I assume I look as identical to them as they all look to me.)
“Oh, we’re the ones with the two tents over there!”  (True, they have two tents on the beach during the day.  Big family.  I think some of their stuff was confiscated by beach patrol last year for leaving it out too late into the evening.)
“Oh!”  (There are people with tents every week, so it might have been another family last year with tents.)

We had a very nice chat for a couple minutes and she talks about how the people that come on the same weeks kind of end up getting to know each other…  And I have no idea how to explain to this woman who happily came all the way from Texas to spend her vacation with a good dozen family members that my favorite part of vacation is getting to spend an inordinate amount of time by myself.  (Seriously, the idea of vacationing with that many other people makes me break out in hives.  Just ask my ex-husband any time the subject of “the whole family getting a beach house” came up.)  I consider myself fairly introverted, but I don’t spend all their my inside, and I do like meeting new people and hanging out with friends and such – just in somewhat small, controlled doses.  For me, surprises are very much no bueno.

I’m really not sure if the conversation ended awkwardly or not – it probably did – but it ended and we went back to our respective beach towels.  However, I couldn’t help but notice that her teenage son standing next to her during the conversation kept giving her looks of, “Mom, just because she is reading on the beach by herself doesn’t mean she’s all kinds of lonely, she’s just reading on the beach by herself, for heaven’s sake, it’s OK to just read by yourself!!”  (Thank the goddesses for teenagers who get “I just want to be left alone, OK?!”)

Mind you, I don’t mind chatting on the beach while chilling my toes.  I will be the first to scoop up a kid who has faceplanted in the surf if I am the closest adult-type-person.  Or have a conversation with the four year old who is fascinated by the lady in the cowboy hat and wants to run over and say “hi”.  We’re here two more days and if I see them on the beach, I’ll certainly give a wave and a hello.

But when someone comes up and says, “Oh, you’re here every time we’re here!” is a tiny bit unnerving – especially when you think of the beach as being your ultimate anonymous spot.

Damn my taste in identifiable beach hats.  Seriously, it’s got to be the hat.

Photo on 7-16-13 at 9.56 PM #4

Posted in Musings, OBX, Personal | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

I don’t even know what to say.

Posted on July 13, 2013 by A Dreamer

I just genuinely don’t know how you can claim self-defense in a shooting after a police dispatcher tells you that no, you shouldn’t go following someone, no matter how out of place they may seem in your precious gated neighborhood.

I just don’t get it.  And I don’t get how a jury can agree that it is self-defense.

And a woman in Florida was sentenced to 20 years in prison for firing WARNING SHOTS at her abusive husband – against whom she ALREADY HAD AN ORDER OF PROTECTION.  Aka, a RESTRAINING ORDER.  Warning shots somehow didn’t qualify as Stand Your Ground.  She was black.  George Zimmerman was not.  Maybe if she’d just killed him, it would have been OK?

What.  The.  Fuck.

Guess it’s just open season in Florida these days.

This is why Florida has it’s own tag on Fark.com.

Posted in Florida, George Zimmerman, Justice System, Marissa Alexander, Trayvon Martin | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

At the risk of sounding a bit hyperbolic

Posted on July 12, 2013 by A Dreamer

I am genuinely concerned for the safety of the women rallying at the Texas statehouse this evening.  They have already called in a shit-ton of state troopers in preparation for the vote on SB2, which I don’t really like in any way, shape or form. (Are they wishing now that they had checked the women for things other than feminine hygiene products?  Or suddenly realizing, “Oh shit, they’re gonna be pissed.”)

I can just see some MRA types coming out of the woodwork at the end of the night and deciding that if these women really want equal rights, they can take a beating just like a man.

Yes, I have that little faith in humanity right now.

Posted in Politics, Reproductive Rights, Texas, Women's Rights | Leave a comment

Even the dog slows down

Posted on July 7, 2013 by A Dreamer

I love that everything moves a little slower at the beach, and very few people mind.  I know I don’t.  Went out yesterday on an trip up to the shops yesterday and being a turnover day, the traffic was bumper to bumper and running about 4 miles an hour.  Back home I would have been sorely tempted to get out of my car and punch someone.  Here?  Roll down the windows and crank up the tunes.

The dog even gets it.  If he gets on the leash at home, he’s on a near dead run for the first quarter mile.  Here we go out for our morning walk and he happily meanders.  He stops to literally smell the roses and flowers and whatever that thing was that he then decided to roll in.  (Thankfully whatever it was, only he could smell it.)  We go whatever direction he wants and it is unhurried and relaxed as he walks along with his eyes wide open and ears straight up, taking in everything.  No rush to see that other dog or the little kids coming the other direction – they’ll get to him in good time and he’ll get properly fussed over and told he’s cute.  Slow works just fine at the beach.  Fast just seems counterproductive.

2013-07-06 12.10.50

He also likes to bake on the deck.  He doesn’t understand why we make him come to the covered porch or inside…

Posted in Beach, Happiness, Moxley, OBX, Pets, Travel | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

There is just something about the beach

Posted on July 6, 2013 by A Dreamer

I wish I could put my finger on it so I could properly recreate it back home.

I can sit on my porch and write all night at home, or sit in the sun and read.  I can shop, sightsee, drink beer and eat seafood at home.  The only thing I can’t do at home is splash in the surf and get sand in my swimsuit – and I don’t think that is the exact thing that makes the beach work so well for me.

There is something about the act of simply being here that does it.  Maybe it’s the air, or the sound of the surf when the wind is right, or the fact that everyone actually slows down for a little while.

Whatever it is, if I could bottle it, I’d have enough money to move here.

Posted in OBX | Tagged | Leave a comment

It’s been a hell of a week.

Posted on June 28, 2013 by A Dreamer

I had a lovely draft on my iPad, and WordPress doesn’t want to cooperate, so I’m looking at the notes I have on one device and hoping I can get the full ideas over onto my laptop and then the net.  (This is an excellent defense of Neil Gaiman’s habit of writing things down in longhand on paper with ink.  And a reinforcement of my need to do the same, even if I am not writing with a fountain pen.  Just write.)

That all being said, holy shit, lots going on this week!

Edward Snowden.  Damn, if this isn’t a “let it go, man, cause he’s gone” situation, I’m not sure what is.  Ecuador is offering to pay $23M for human rights training in the US and giving up preferred trading status over the Snowden affair.  We’re not necessarily BFF’s with Iceland as it is either – it’s OK, but not undying love – considering that they kicked out our FBI agents because they lied about their reasons for entering the country, they might be more inclined to grant him asylum as well.  Between Hong Kong “letting him go” and Moscow keeping him in the transit areas, I do believe this might be the rest of the world saying, “We’re a wee bit sick of your shit right now.”

To be perfectly honest, and at the risk of adding another page to my FBI file:  I suspect were at a point – not necessarily permanent by any means, but a reality for the present – that the rest of the world is getting a little tired of dealing with our shit.  (As I said above.)  And I can’t say that I don’t understand – I do – honestly, we don’t run the world and other countries are getting tired of us acting like that is our job.

He’s gone.  Let it go and do the best you can to minimize the damage.  He’s not going to set foot on US soil anytime soon.

The Voting Rights Act coming up in front of SCOTUS.  Oof, yeah, that’s the best I could come up with.  I’ll be honest, I still don’t quite understand how they struck it down, mainly because I identified more with the dissent rather than the majority ruling on this one.  All I can say right now is, if you actually give a shit about every eligible voter being able to vote regardless of race, creed, color, political affiliation, choice of automobile, presence at farmer’s markets, pet ownership, favorite vacation spot, or preferred watering hole – then you need to contact your local voting rights organization and ask, “How Can I Help??!?“*

Oh, dear lord, Texas.  (I don’t have links, cause it’s late and I’m tired – but google it, you’ll find them.) Senator Wendy Davis fighting SB5.  Senator Leticia Van de Putte bringing forth the parliamentary objections to continue her fight – just to stand up against men who will absolutely NEVER, EVER face the situation of being pregnant and trying to figure out how to proceed.  And Governor Perry chose to use this as a platform to say that, “[Wendy Davis] hasn’t learned  from her own example” . – the same guy who vetoed the equal pay bill two weeks ago.  Oh, and to top off this super duper pro-life sundae? Texas just oversaw it’s 500th execution.  It’s an excellent example of prizing a pulse over a person.  Seriously – Texas is not a great place to be a kid.

I’ll be perfectly honest, I don’t even know where to start on the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin trial.  Starting off the defense with a knock-knock joke?  Because a dead teen is so funny?  Going after a teenaged prosecution witness? (Who wasn’t top notch day 1, but realized on day 2 that she needed to be as aggressive as the lawyer   Well done.)  Just a big fucking mess all around, but if nothing else, will hopefully require the state to be a bit more nuanced on the Stand Your Ground laws.

Paula Deen.  Hey, honey, free speech means that you are also subject to consequences.  Not from the government, but by others.  For everyone bitching about her abridgment of free speech – the government had no part of that.  Private companies can toss you to the curb for any reason.  Her failing ratings and employment lawsuit didn’t h elp in this manner.  If the Angry White People Tumblr is any indication, my local Target and WalMart will be blissfully empty every time I walk in.

The SERIOUSLY AWESOME BRIGHT SPOT TO THE WEEK??!?  DOMA IS DEAD!!  This means so much to me on so many levels.  And really, after everything else, it really was the saving grace to the week.  While this doesn’t legalize same sex marriage, it sure as hell opens the barn doors to some hard core litigation in states like Virginia to recognize it.  It was one thing to be DC married, but not Virginia married – but how can you be Federally married and not State married?  Also, this brings forth so many federal rights and benefits to same sex married couples, which is also so very important.  Yes, it will take a little bit of time to look at all the regs and make sure they are being applied consistently – but it is no longer an “if” but a “when” and a “when” that has legal backing.

The only sad thing for me on this is that I really wish my Mom was still among us to see it.  She worked for the government, and was incredibly pissed off when DOMA passed in the first place.  She had gay coworkers and hated the idea that they couldn’t be just as married as she had been to my father.  Wherever she may be now, I hope someone has passed her a sticky note with the news, and that she has the smile on her face that I suspect she would have.

Again, what a week.  I thought summer was supposed to be the slow news time?  Really, I should be combing through the laundry to find all my shorts and t-shirts for the beach right now.

* ACLU, League of Women Voters, NAACP, contact any of these three organizations and they will let you know how to help on a local level.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

So, looks like Edward Snowden wants to move to Ecuador.

Posted on June 23, 2013 by A Dreamer

Can’t blame him, I hear the weather is lovely there.

OK, I have to say I’m conflicted about the entire Edward Snowden thing.  I think domestic surveillance is something we need to have a long and uncomfortable talk about – a conversation that we should have been having all along.  (Trust me, I have been annoyed about domestic surveillance forever.  I didn’t like it when Bush was president, I don’t like it now.)  I don’t know if there is any other way he could have made people aware of what was going on, but he obviously felt very strongly about it, and he did what he did.  Criminal?  Probably a little.  Hero?  Goes a little too far.  Traitor?  No, that also goes too far.

When I heard he’d been charged, I wasn’t surprised.  Theft of government property, OK.  Espionage?  I don’t have the exact statute they’re using to charge him, but to in my mind, espionage is spying to provide information to an enemy of the state.  Given that his aim was to inform the US public, that makes us all an enemy of the state, and I don’t like that a whole lot.

But, where I have been most fascinated by all this is today.  I woke up this morning and BBC’s Breaking News alerts informs me that he’s left Hong Kong and headed for Moscow – and that Hong Kong had rejected the extradition request the US had sent.  About a half hour ago, it was announced that he would be seeking asylum in Ecuador.

Watching the governmental/political talking heads on TV this morning, I was astounded at the flailing.  How could Hong Kong “complicate” our relationship like that?  How could Moscow allow him to land like that?!  How could he go and consider settling in a *gasp* authoritarian country?  Why won’t he just come home and take responsibility for himself?!  He’s put us all in jeopardy!

Quick, get a fan, our guests have come down with the vapors.  But seriously, I couldn’t believe they were asking these kinds of questions and just shocked that things are progressing the way they are.

– Hong Kong can do whatever the hell they want.  If they didn’t feel the extradition request was sufficient, they can reject it – which they did.  “China must have had a hand in this!”  So what?  Hong Kong is part of China.  It seems that everyone expected that the minute we said “extradition” they would just put him on a plane back home, no questions asked.  Sorry, guys, the world is not obligated to jump just because we say so.  Sure, Regina Ip’s comment of “I don’t think we need to be concerned about any consequences.” is a bit of a “fuckyouverymuch,” but we don’t run the world.

– Seriously, is anyone really surprised that Moscow is helping arrange transit for him?  We don’t have the greatest relationship with Russia right now, and I am sure Putin is absolutely loving this.  (It also distracts from the whole Super Bowl ring story, which is nice for him.)

– We have our authoritarian moments, too.  We’re not perfect.  He pointed that out.  Maybe he’d rather be somewhere that he knows is authoritarian rather than being hypocritical about it.

– Why on earth should he trust anyone in a position of power in this country?

– On Face the Nation this morning, Bob Shieffer asked if the information Snowden leaked actually put Americans in any kind of imminent danger.  The answer was an unqualified, “No.”

I think what confounds me the most about this entire thing is that people are absolutely shocked that he did it.  I’m not.  We all have our breaking points.  Points where we can’t deal with the hypocrisy anymore.  Where we are just sick and tired of civil liberties getting chucked out the window in this nebulous concept of “national security” and speaking out against it makes you un-American.  When we stand up and have to say something.

Edward Snowden hit his breaking point.  It’s just that simple.

Posted in News, Snowden | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Well, this has been a hell of a four days…

Posted on April 19, 2013 by A Dreamer

Marathon bombing.  Ricin in the mail.  Fertilizer plant exploding.  MIT shooting, carjacking, and who knows what else.

Part of my brain wonders, “What unholy madness will tomorrow bring?”

And another part of my brain thinks that we’re insanely lucky that we haven’t been thinking that on a daily basis for a very long time. :/

I have a terrible feeling that “what’s next?” will become a near daily thought.

Posted in Boston Marathon Bombing, MIT, News, Ricin, West Texas | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Dear Media

Posted on March 18, 2013 by A Dreamer

In the wake of the verdict in the Steubenville rape case, I really appreciate the insights that you have given me!

I just came back from a great vacation. Good to know that if anything had happened to me, it would have been my own fault for traveling alone and daring to have a couple glasses of wine in the evening.

Also, I think it’s great that the concern here is over the fact that the two asshole rapists had such a promising future! No worries about the victim’s future, she screwed up by you know, just existing in the first place. Let’s not forget, if the rapists just hadn’t been caught, we wouldn’t have to deal with any of this messiness and they could have gone on with those promising lives and cured cancer or something. So kids, be more careful with what you post on social media!

Christ, and we wonder why there are men and boys out there that think rape isn’t a big deal. It’s only a problem if you get caught.

Posted in Media, Steubenville, Victim-Blaming | Tagged , , | Leave a comment