I’ve been thinking kind of vaguely about fashion and modesty and the degree to which the way we present ourselves is for ourselves vs for other people. Because Sparkly was talking to me about modesty in Judaism, and I’ve been trying to do new things with my hair, and thinking aobut job interviews. No really coherent thoughts yet, though.

Man I am having an assortment of feelings

about the Queen’s Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner. I definitely did not notice/think about this in this way when I originally read these books.

(FYI this is about creepy relationship dynamics and includes mentions of death and severe injuries.)

So uh quick plot summary:

Continue reading “Man I am having an assortment of feelings” →

Brain felt distinctly less mush today, but I spent my un-mushy time this evening reading a bunch of stuff instead of writing.

Stuff:

The kitchen is basically in working order now, which is great. First big grocery trip here we come.

The last of the bookshelf-type-objects are in their final positions, so we can put Sparkly’s law books away now.

The cats seem happy. Semi-relatedly, we’ve put the anti-scratching covers back on the chairs.

My brain is soooo mushy but I can blame it on hormonal stuff now. Every morning for the last four days or so, I’ve thought to myself, “You better write that email/post that comment/etc. now, because by tonight you won’t have enough brain to do it,” and every day I haven’t done it.

At least all the moving and assembling of things is finally done, and we can sort of slow down now.

Brain still mush. Sad mush. We got a lot done today, though. Kitchen tomorrow morning, furniture moving-around tomorrow afternoon.

Also Sparkly had a good time at the event ey went to last night.

Likable (there are two ways to spell it and I pick this one)

The whole thing about Hillary’s likability grinds my gears so much.

Because: yes. Yes, the reason why many people Just Don’t Find Her Likable is because of sexism.

But people seem to be trying to fight this by arguing that she is actually very likable and people should like her?

?

Why would you let likability become the goal like that?

When likability is the ultimate standard by which people vote, what happens is the problem we are having now: people vote their biases. The most ineffably likable person, to most people, is the one who’s most like them.

Likability is the problem here.

“She is likable, you should vote for her because you like her,” is just pushing the problem one step away. (And how many people do you think are going to be successfully argued into liking her?)

Stop telling me that Hillary is a good person. Stop telling me that she deserves success. Stop telling me how much you like her. I don’t care.

(And like. No politician can be really genuinely likable, because they can’t be genuine. They have to plan and calculate everything they do, even the things they genuinely support and want to do, because they have to be prepared for how their words/actions could be misconstrued. Unless you actually know them personally, no politician is your friend who you know and like. It’s incompatible with being a politician. And it doesn’t matter, because if you think the policies they support are good policies, you vote for them and then hopefully policies you support become law! That’s how it works! You don’t have to like them!)

It’s really disconcerting to have worked to absorb these ideas of, like, “Everything you see/hear about politicians is carefully crafted for public consumption,” and “sometimes in politics you have to work with people you don’t like in order to get things done,” and then have people I learned these ideas from, people who know more about politics than me, be all “I just like her so much, I really want her to win because I like her.”

I’m going to vote for her but stop telling me how nice she is.