Just an old thing in my drafts I started working on about migraines and decided to leave as is:

When you have a migraine, there is not much you feel like doing.

 

Bzzzz

Sometimes when you sit there and think “I should do some art” all that happens is something like this: A very quick sketch of a bee. With “Bzzzz” written. You know how some people say “It is what it is.”? And some other people get annoyed by this, but people say it anyway? Well, I don’t mind the saying, myself, and this definitely is what it is.

I made this one day when I just sat down and thought “I am going to make some art, and I don’t care what I make. I just need to make something, anything.” It is not great art, or even good or average art, but it is cute and silly and I ended up liking it.

In 2019, as most years, I thought I was going to write a lot more often than I did…

I believed, early on in 2019, that I was going to write a lot more blog entries this year than I did.

The reasons it did not happen may or may not matter to you. If they do not matter to you at all- more specifically- if you think all such reasons are only “excuses”, a word which you say in a dismissive or even contemptuous tone, then this is probably not the blog for you. You can read it, but you’ll probably just get really annoyed with me.

For those who would care what reasons I may have but would not wish to read them- I make mention of a few, but will not be actually detailing any reasons in this entry. Do not be worried that I will do so!

I am mostly just talking about the words “reasons” and “excuses” and hoping I figure out how to truly improve things in the future.

As for excuses- An excuse really should be a reason for doing or not doing something that is, well, excusable- like an excusable absence from work or school. But so many people use the word “excuses” with a negative tone.

Reasons and excuses can be similar, but the way “excuses” is often used- like in the phrase “you are full of excuses”- is often meant to imply the excuse-maker had no true extenuating circumstances. It is used in ways that imply that excuses are not… wait for it… excusable. That phrase “you are full of excuses” often implies that the person saying this has the idea that someone was intentionally lazy, or willfully contrary, or just, you know, some major level of intent to simply not do the thing they were supposed to do.

An excuse is not inherently negative, but there are indeed many who use “reason” positively and “excuse” negatively. (Or, you know, “reasons” for their own issues and “excuses” for someone else’s…)

I personally understand things like poor executive functioning or poor planning skills to be valid reasons (or valid excuses) that things do not happen, that are not a matter of being lazy or stubborn. These two things are part of my reasons, or excuses, but not the entirety. I am sure I did goof off or what have you from time to time, but there was also a lot of life that happened, and my brain just not being optimal for many tasks I wanted it to do. But- at least for today- I am not going to write a post detailing any further why I have not written more. I need to think about it, make plans to deal with it more effectively, but I do not need to think or write about every aspect of “why” right now.

I just want you to know, if you are actually reading this, that I intended for you to have had a lot more words from me to read during the year of 2019; that none of those words were supposed to be about why I do not write more; and on some levels I do regret this.

I can just do another post like this, too…

I can, of course, do one of those posts that says “I’m doing a post just to let you know I still exist.” I certainly have done that before.

If I did one of those every month it would seem like I don’t have anything to say about anything except for just that I exist.

But every once in a while it can be used to just let people know you haven’t quit at least wanting to blog.

Some people probably think it’s a lazy post, but others will understand. You want to let people know that you are OK. You want them to know that you want to blog.

Maybe you got too sick to blog, or you got too sick to remember to blog.

Maybe you weren’t too busy to blog but too busy to remember to blog.

Maybe you meant to do it that day and kept realizing you needed to do other things you might forget to do if you didn’t do them right now. Next thing you know it’s midnight and you didn’t blog. So you figure you better do it tomorrow because you need sleep. Then it doesn’t work out again, repeat, etc.

If this were your job you’d have a schedule but it’s not your job. You would like it to be your job but people either laugh, roll their eyes, or just say, “Yeah but that’s not realistic.” You maybe even feel like you shouldn’t be trying to do it, because of skepticism from others. By “you”, I guess I mean me, by the way. But you might have some similar experiences.

Anyway, just keep trying, I guess.

Blogging about Blogging so I can blog about something…

Having the time to blog might to some seem a major factor in being able to blog regularly. But these days you could write and publish a blog post while sitting on your toilet and no one would necessarily know or care. For the record I am not sitting on the toilet right now, but it really wouldn’t matter if I were, would it?

Right now I am sitting with a few of my cats waiting for some stomach meds to settle stomachs before we eat breakfast. Ambrose takes 1/4 of a Famotidine (Pepcid) and I take Omeprazole (Prilosec).

That may or may not be anything significant to the wider world, but it is what is happening right here right now.

And there is what I realized the key is.

It doesn’t matter if it is significant.

What matters is it’s what I feel like writing about.

It cooled off enough to turn the air conditioner off last night and I clearly hear the birds outside since windows are open a bit.

I will have to turn it back on by noon or so I’m sure. I don’t breathe well in humid hot weather. Neither does asthma kitty Misty, and now that Ambrose is getting very sick, neither does he.

I will need to write here about his illness.

Anyway it’s about time to get some breakfast.

In the 1980s videos were made with video cameras

Actual cameras, either a separate camera connected to a video recorder, or a camera and VCR combination in one unit- the camcorder. Oh, and oh yeah, you recorded that video onto a tape- which essentially is this super long plastic ribbon coated with magnetic particles. It’s a miracle they worked as well as they did.

So, now…

That I could just pick up this tablet I am typing this on and make a video is still amazing when I actually think about it.

That the tablet I am typing this on exists is in itself still amazing when I think how recently a device like this would be used by characters in a sci-fi show.

That I can pick up a phone that does what this tablet does and is also a phone feels like it should be blowing my mind every time I realize that it’s true.

There is not a video here though. Just some thoughts about making them.

Thanks for reading.

Bye, for now.

I wonder if this still happens… I bet it does somewhere.

I was thinking about many of the jobs I didn’t get in years past.

On one design art job, at the interview the man who was interviewing me literally told me I was too pretty to sit behind a computer all day. He was an old man and this was the mid 1990’s, but I was still taken aback that he actually said this. He also said I’d get so bored doing this work and indicated I should think about being a receptionist where people would see me. I said no I’d rather be at a computer because it’s what I like- and I’m shy about greeting people and stuff like that. He said I’d surely pick it up easily, as though I were looking for a pep talk on my potential for being a receptionist instead of trying to say, hey! I actually like computer work !

I left before knowing if they had a receptionist type position open or what because I was creeped out by then.

Edit: obviously I know general thinking of women as just their looks still happens… I do wonder though how many men could still be saying a woman is too pretty to sit at a computer given the prevalence of computers everywhere these days, including at the reception desk. That’s what my post title means.

Look at this beautiful donut. Just look at it. Yes that’s right. I’m just blogging a picture of a donut. Because it’s actually indeed pretty.

Edit: I do not see a way to add alt text to old posts, so I will describe the donut:

It is frosted in a green the color of fresh spring grass, and covered with multicolor flower shaped sprinkles, in yellow, pink, pale blue, light green, pale orange, and white. A few stray standard sprinkles appear too. The donut sits on a small white plate with a brown stripe around the rim. The plate sits on a dark green counter top.

Do you ever…

Do you ever have people tell you not to worry about this or that because “It’s nobody else’s business anyway?”

I imagine you do.

Well you know what the problem with that is?

There are just so many people out there who decide to make everything about everyone their business, while of course insisting all of their own stuff is not your business at all.

That’s the problem.

I’m Really tired of the idea that health care is just some commodity

It’s my position that- regardless of any legal definition- if you have the right to life then a guarantee of being able to receive health care has to be part of that right.  You can have the liberty to refuse care but all possible care has to be available to all persons regardless of ability to pay or life for all practical purposes has ceased to be a right. Given how much said health care can cost it isn’t enough just for the care to exist to say it is available to people. It’s not like how you can buy generic store brand foods or get your clothes from a thrift store to try to cut your own personal costs down. You can eat what the nutritionists recommend, work out like a competitive athlete, and still end up with poor health. It doesn’t even have to be your own genetics that get you. There are car accidents. Criminals harm people. Corporations can dump unauthorized toxic waste. You name it, it can go wrong, and for someone somewhere it will.

If you say the Constitution doesn’t cover health care, you might as well say that this document doesn’t specifically mention things like the air having oxygen or water not containing poison. As far as I can tell it doesn’t, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need oxygen or that the government can simply say poison is good for you and make this true. I don’t have to be a constitutional scholar to understand that it couldn’t possibly cover everything, especially when technology is involved. Not only have many communicable diseases common in the 18th century been mostly eliminated here, but lives can be saved in a multitude of ways that would have seemed impossible back then.

You have people all the time saying that just because the founding fathers didn’t mention automatic weapons doesn’t mean that we don’t have as much right to them as simple handguns or rifles- so when it comes to being alive and staying that way, why can’t the same concept cover modern medicine as well as the old basic stuff like food and shelter?

And how are you supposed to be able to pursue happiness if you are unable to pay for a medication that is necessary for the continuation of your life? What if you might be able to technically remain alive but can’t continue to work without those meds? See I know some folks are going to say “get a job ” as the answer to everything but so many people do indeed have jobs yet still can’t pay for medical needs that such answers are laughable. Or they would be laughable if we weren’t talking about life itself often being what is at stake.

I’m so tired of folks acting like this can be just some intellectual political wonk discussion that emotion and ethics both can be left out of. If you honestly do think people have a right to live you can’t just act like health care is the same as a shirt or a toy or a chair. It’s not.