A new page

 An excerpt from Jane is here.

What's Happening!, and How to Choose a Guy

So, this family with whom I'm friends just all got their vaccinations.  Both the shots.  Of course, the first thing they think of is to go visiting their kids!  But they're driving, so---I suppose it's less dangerous than taking a plane, as long as they don't go into restaurants.  And guess what?  I'm house-sitting for them!

They gave me the password for their wireless router, and everything.  (Actually, I've had it for some time, because I've spent weekends here in past years.)  The biggest responsibility I have is to look after their dog and two cats.  I love these furbies, so that is not a huge deal.  Already, these little guys are actually asking me where the regular inmates have gone!  At least, that's what I think they're asking me.  I must write a story with a lot more pets than any I have written.  There's Lita, in the Helen story, but she doesn't really do much.

Before they left, my friends were all, oh, you're going to be bored out of your mind!  I said no, what do you think I do at home?  It's no different, really!  And anyway, I said, I'm going to get on my computer and blog.  The problem is, even at home I don't blog too frequently.  I've been here two days already, and this is the first time I'm blogging!

Guys
By now, most of the readers of this Blog would have suspected that I was either an out-and-out lesbian, or bisexual.  I never obsess over guys; it's only women and girls that catch my attention.  Even in my stories, the male characters are usually older, and sort of formulaic.  I think that, with a little effort, I could write in a male character who was a lot more three-dimensional, but it would not be any fun for me, and being so terribly spoilt that I only write stories that are fun to write, I would not probably write a story with a guy in it, and certainly not centered on a guy.  (To my horror, I recall that I have started a story where the first character who appears is an older gentleman!  Well.  We must wait and see what happens to that one.)

Do I hate men / guys beyond salvageability?

I haven't written much about my parents, and that is because I'm incognito, and the more I say about my parents, the easier it would be for someone to recognize who I am, which would lead to furious and undisciplined second-guessing of the motives behind various of my stories, which is not a happy prospect.  (But interest in my stories has seriously declined, so I'm going to relax my self-imposed discipline somewhat.)

Both my parents were awesome!  They were literally awesome.  Each of them was a teacher at various times of their lives, and their students venerated them.  (I wish my students would even try to get back in touch with me, and at least say Hi!  I guess it's difficult to get back in touch with part-time faculty, unless you really wanted to.)  My mother was a lovely woman, but very reserved.  But then, a teacher has to suppress her tendencies to being reserved, and be outgoing with her students, so that's what she did.  She could do everything (except knitting), and she used to be a Girl Scout, and in her day, Girl Scouts seem to have done a lot more than they do now.

My father was a jolly gentleman, very outgoing, very generous.  He had a great sense of humor.  He could not sing as well as my mother could, but he was good at leading community singing, though he did not have as wide a selection of songs to present as my mother did: she had all her Scout songs, as well as church choruses, and a lot of songbooks for schools, from which she could pick out interesting and uncommon songs to present to any group.  But it was always my Dad who was asked to lead the singing!  So there you have the tragedy of our culture; a woman has to be beyond merely exceptional to be invited to lead any activity.  I am far from being bitter about the limitations of our society; actually, women have been ingenious for centuries, to contribute to their local culture, despite the preference to have men do it.  For instance, my Dad would come to my Mom for ideas for his sing-alongs, and she would help him.  The sing-songs were always brilliant, and everyone was amazed at the songs that they learned, songs they might have heard long ago, and forgotten!  But they were all from my Mom's song collection.

Reading the current rash of feminist journalists, writing about the psychological shortcomings of men, and the weaknesses of women who admire men, one could get the impression that the only right-thinking women are lesbians!  This suspicion is confirmed when we look at some of the really amazingly feeble-minded men who are making the news out there.  And not just one or two; entire states.  For instance, there is a woman in Texas, who was released from prison early for committing a felony: falsifying tax records for a client.  She was still under probation for that felony, so by Texas law, she was not permitted to vote.  Nevertheless, she cast a provisional ballot, which was not counted, but discarded.  She had signed an affidavit to the effect that she believed she was a legal voter.  Now, the affidavit was clearly false.  But she is being threatened with five years of jail, because she attempted to cast an illegal vote.  To my mind, attempting to cast an illegal vote should be a lesser crime than that of casting an illegal vote.  In any case, sending her to jail would be a punishment out of all proportion to the offense.  It is all guys who carried out this agenda of punishing this black woman, while a number of white citizens of Texas have been given lesser punishments for the same offense (as I understand it).

Yet, all around us there are guys acting compassionately, justly, kindly, generously, thoughtfully.  I never liked Joseph Biden very much, but we have to go beyond the surface.  There were multiple killing sprees since Biden took office---I think about five---but he does not issue an executive order to confiscate weapons, or anything on those lines.  I think this is admirable.  I hope he is waiting for legislation.  I think a law ought to be passed in congress that guns ought to be licensed.  That alone might keep guns out of the hands of people of less than robust mental capacity.  It might keep guns out of the hands of half the Republicans in Congress.

To get back to what sort of man a militant feminist might approve of: perhaps the days of "strong men" are gone.  There is often a dark side to men who are forceful.  Sometimes they are bullies; they are often stubborn, and they often disregard the thinking of women.  I do not have statistics; perhaps lots of forceful, strong guys are reasonable, and willing to listen to logic from women.  Once we eliminate the bullies from our set of candidates, and eliminate the guys who listen only to other guys, and eliminate the guys who are willing to take shady short-cuts, what's left are the guys with whom we can work, and of whom we can be proud.  And hopefully they're good at leading singing, and their humor is not offensive!  And it couldn't hurt if they look decent.

No, I do not hate men; don't put me down as a man-hater.  I don't want to give examples of guys whom I can stand, lest it give me away.  As I said, Biden is doing very well, and I think his not dealing with firearms with executive actions is a smart thing to do; that has to be done through legislation.  Ideally bipartisan legislation, but, whatever.

It is sad that all progressive ideas have come to be labelled 'Democrat'.  Once this sort of thing happens, the people must replace the opposition party with one more likely to keep the train of Congress on the rails with more reasonable brakes.

Kay