I do not like Bret Kavanaugh for a Supreme court justice. I do not think religious rights or corporate rights should ever trump individual rights.

I am also an abuse survivor at the hands of a domestic partner and at the hands of my society. I did not recognize it as such at the time and I ask no redress for it now. Having said that, I am disturbed by the accusations recently aired against Bret Kavanaugh. Having been made they need to be addressed, and some people will be unhappy with any outcome that leaves the man able to walk the streets.

I get it.

It is all assault.

We are harmed by all of it.

We have also all been children once, and we do not hold children to the same standards that we hold adults too. We have held as a society, that mistakes made as a child should have consequences that do not cripple the adult we shall become. Going back thirty years into a person’s past and judging them by the standards we would apply to the adult they are today strikes me as both not fair and as a blow to many things we have been taught about this being a nation of law. We do not allow Ex Post Facto law in this country. Or at least that is what I was taught, and I thought that was still the law.

Was I wrong about that?

There is another concern that I have, and that is the way a week accusation that does not lead to the discovery of a pattern of misconduct can discredit many men who did something stupid rude and WRONG as children, and have as adults been the men we want them to be. Much more than that, I worry that we risk discrediting and devaluing the testimony of many more women who have been hurt, assaulted and more.

Now that we are beginning to look at sexual assault as the crime that it is, are we going to discredit that look with first, the idea that it is all rape or the idea that no blood no foul? If we treat it all as heinous rape, everything from not taking “no” for an answer to brutal physical assault with grievous bodily injury, then we make prosecution extremely difficult. We let men walk without consequence because we have no proportionality. No blood no foul is hardly any better. We are to close to that for well-positioned men who face little or no consequence for the first dozen accusations.

I opened by saying I am uncomfortable with this because I don’t have a well thought out answer beyond this.
1) All accusations should be investigated, quickly and discreetly Not zero tolerance that applies only to low paid employees.
2) No one is exempt not even managers or executives.
3) Consequences need to be fair, real and not window dressing.
4) Recognize that anyone can be hurt. They all deserve support and healing even when the offense can’t be prosecuted for whatever the reason.

I could use some help with Spanish as it might have been spoken in 1720 around Lamancha Spain.

What would a Spanish speaker of the time call each of the four horsemen?
That sort of thing. The story is in English but some of the characters are educated people from a town in Castle Lamancha and I want to get the ideams correct.

Has anyone got any suggestions?

I finished the first and second edit of In Quest of Humanity. I need a break from that story for a while.

I have a new ergo keyboard at work. The upside is I am learning to touch type. at this rate, I may even be good at it by the time I am 75. No, my spelling is no better. I get more words on the page, just as many are misspelled. The surprise is how the skill is transferring to my laptop keyboard and how it is my left hand that shows the most improvement.

ZZ

Woo Hoo!

93308 words and the first draft of "In Quest of humanity" is done!

Now the editing begins.

I had been looking forward to a weekend of writing. Well, that was not to be the washing machine had other plans for my time. Youtube is a great source of information on how to do things. So after hours of searching and reading and reading and watching. I spent 30 minutes draining and taking the back off of my MAYTAG front loading washer to find everything inside abled WHIRLPOOL. ... The new pump will be here Wednesday. sigh

On the plus side of things, I did get some writing done. There is an exchange I have been working on for most of a week. With more revisions than I care to count. I like it now it does what the story needs it to do. 24 words when they are the right 24 in the right order can be very satisfying. With that, I have done most of the work of this chapter.

I suppose it is not really a thing. I started feeling bad way too soon for it to be anything I picked up there. But I think next year I too will be in a mask.

FYI the surgical masks I see on people, protect others from the wearer. They offer NO protection to the person wherein the mask. NONE at all. But they will do a good job of protecting everyone else from whatever you have.

To protect your self you need a NIOSH 95 or N95 for short That is the one that will protect the person wearing it from inhaling stuff that will make them sick. Well, that and lots of hand washing. The flu shot is also a good idea.

This year it is probably the flu that we are getting. Large groups of people [like at a con] pass it around. The flu shot this year is not much protection, but it will help to attenuate the symptoms [You don't get as sick and get better faster].

I am a nurse this is what I do.

Well another FC is in my past. This one started off slowly and with confusion. Saturday was not good for me at all. But Sunday was good and VERY productive. I attended a panel on writing that turned the con around for me. I got to meet three artists I follow, and I think my writing will improve for what I learned this con.

http://www.furaffinity.net/user/kacey/ I have been watching her work for several years now and I enjoy her clean stile,

http://www.furaffinity.net/user/valsalia/ This man is a writer with a comedic style and timing I do enjoy a lot. I expect to see a lot of Yinglett badges next year.

http://www.lastres0rt.com/ This is one strange story. It does not update often but take heart it is still active, and you probably want to rea read it a couple of times to follow what is going on.

I may even try my hand at visual art again [GASP!]

I now have the first 18 chapters of Quest for humanity posted and linked Most are clean but not quite how they will appear in the final book. All of these but 18 were finished before coming to Washington state and 18 was started before coming here. I have started writing again time constraints keep me from writing as much as I want to, but I am getting something done. I have 4 more chapters written and will post them once a week. By then I hope to be finished with the next two chapters that should take me to chapter 24 of a planned 26 to finish this book. the next chapters will be;

19 Naussaw
20 Charlestown
21 Ship Wrecked
22 The Spanyard
23 Not Just a Clever Animal [working on this one now]
24 The Lyberary
25 Forbidden love
26 Escape to a New World

I know the trope of devices throughout the house flashing 12:00 ... 12:00
and the idea that anyone over 40 is just not able to deal with electronix.

BUT

I wonder if instead it is a decision to spend my time on something else?

The clock on the VCR was not hard to set but frankly it was not worth my time to futz with, It did not add enough value to justify the 3 minutes needed to set it twice a year.

Radio synchronized clocks ... GOOD idea if you live in the midwest and can receive the time signal from Boulder Co. Otherwise not really worth the trouble to move it to a Boulder facing window twice a year and wait for a few days for it to synchronize. If it will at all where you live.

Winks, Huge, Nest, Echo, All really good ideas when they work. I want all of them! and more, some day when I have the time and energy to work on the problem until I can get it to work. In the meantime I chose to use the light switch not because I CAN'T make the cool electronics work but because I don't have the time to futz with it until I make it work.

I spend all day working with a broken application at work that I use to document my efforts at helping patients navigate the horribly broken thing we call health care in the USA. And most of the time I can't even get people to understand that something IS broken, let alone that it should be fixed.

After that a simple conveniently places light switch is about all I want to deal with.

Sometimes, when we find new ways of understanding why we are the way we are, that enlightenment changes our world. More often the old insights have all the validity they always did, and the new insights just open new cans of worms.

I have learned to see my struggles as academic. Spelling is very hard for me most of it makes little or no sense to me. I saw this as a barrier to my success in school and in the work place. So, I worked hard at it, very hard. With almost no success.

Then came along spell checkers. For years they could make little sense of my spelling and synonyms confused them, but they helped. YAY adaptive tech to the rescue. Now all I had to do was learn to type. Turns out I can’t put my finger in the same place twice without looking at it. It also turns out that with 108 keys it is an important talent. It also comes in useful when playing a piano or guitar. I have spent years trying to learn them too. Without success. I can play the radio just fine thank you.

I could work longer hours? I am salaried. I mean I am slow, but I do good work, it just takes me longer to do it. Turns out it is just about impossible to work harder enough. Even when they don’t pay hourly. They lock the doors 30 minutes after quitting time. And even when I work long enough to get everything done, and I put up with the crap better, and out last other people who get frustrated and quit, I am the one let go early with cutbacks. I am the one who never gets a cost of living rase.

You just don’t fit in hear. You make people uncomfortable. Could some of that be my transtasticness, or the emotional radiation from trying to keep all that hidden? “I have a secret, but I promise not to tell you what it is.” Is pretty creepy after all. Just coming out and telling people I am a woman who lived 50 years as a man turns out to be less creepy and puts me into a protected status.

Now I am in a trauma informed care class, aimed at teaching social workers and health care givers what sorts of trauma affect a child, how to recognize it, and how to treat it. WOW it is a wonder any of my children turned out sane, or that I am functional at all. Every week I learn something new about how screwed up my child hood was, and how I screwed up something for my children. It often is about what happened to you more than it is about what did you do.

So, goody I have this bleeding wound where I have ripped off 50 years of emotional tape. And a new set of insights to understand what happened to me. And a new set of insights to understand what I did to my children. May be an insight to why I never developed the kinesthetic sense to know where my hand is without looking at it. And why the emotional work I am doing to get through the class is making it hard to do anything else. Great, but I still can’t spell or type. I still have multiple systems to learn. And I still must keep up with my work load.

In short. All the old struggles are still there. The new knowledge helps understand what might have caused some of it, but so far mostly distracts me from mastery in my job. Dealing with text and learning the processes are enough work for now. I am too tired to take on any more, or my laundery.

My son just showed me something disterbing on twitter.

NPR for the last 20+ years has read the deceleration of independence each 4th of July. They tweeted it out this year starting with 241 years ago in congress...

What disturbed me is some of the reaction on twitter calling for the defunding of NPR for attacking the president. or expressing dismay that NPR was advocating revolution. This disturbs me because the reading was not instantly recognized as the declaration of independence by people who have the right to vote and presumably did complete school at least to the end of middle school.

zz

I am going back and adding navigation buttons to take readers through some of my work in order. Many of these were not posted in order and are missing chapters. so the navigation buttons should make it easier get through the book as I post its chapters. And in some cases find the chapters. Those I have posted are as they were first posted. Unless I do a major rewrite I do not plan on reposting chapters.

Usually I post as a word document. I have a few where I cut and paste the document into the description box. Please let me know which is easier to read.

ZZ

Wow it has been 10 months and I am still just amazed we have a house that we 'with the bank' own. At this point I am overwhelmed with projects I want to do. Garden accounts for about a dozen by itself. At least we are unpacked ...well almost. we have the craft room set up and that cleared out about half the garage.

We should close on Wednesday. The appraisal was Friday and we should get the results tomorrow. Fingers crossed

I went to the fare today had some fun my feet are sore, but I had to leave early ... I wore out the younger people that came with me I am slowing down some but not enough yet for my friends to out last me at a fare Snickers

I thought I had lost this. I wrote it when my father passed 10 years ago. I have polished it on occasion, but it is very much as i placed it in the grave with his ashes.

As the man came to the end of his life, his vision blurred and hearing diminished with age and illness.
He wondered how his life would end.

Taking Notice of a shape coming towards him, he squinted to get focus, but the image remained a blur.

“Hello friend,” said a voice that sounded both kind, and ageless “Would you like a blessing?”

“A blessing for me? After the life that I have lived?”

“Yes, a blessing for you, because of the life you have lived.
Now crouch down and jump as high as you can.”

The man did as he was told, and he jumped as high as he could.
When he did this, the wind caught him and carried him higher.
Frightened he cried out.

“Do not be afraid,” said the voice, “trust the wind to hold you, and blow through you.”

Closing his eyes tight, he gave himself in to the embrace of the wind.
It blew away the hurt of memories he did not want, and carried him even higher.

When he did open his eyes he saw himself where he lay.
Behind that he saw the sweep of his life, the good, and the bad, the near and the far.
It was all there, the good still had the power to thrill him.
The bad, now powerless, was there as well, but smaller than he remembered it.

Looking around he saw the people that had touched him in life.
Each of them carried a part of him, but no matter how many pieces were taken,
his life was never diminished, instead it grew to enrich all whom had touched him.
This gave him some joy because, in their hearts, his memory was safe.

“Ahead lay things you cannot yet imagine,” said the voice.
“Are you ready for an adventure?”

“Yes.”

As humans we formulate opinions, and we work to fit in where we are, with the people we find ourselves living and working with. Weather it is school, work, or military, we need to fit into the places we find ourselves. Sometimes people are genuinely working with the best interest of the group in mind, and still do great harm to some individuals. They let their perception of the value of the end, they have in mind justify the means they employ to get there.
To get along in a society, we often have to balance our own self-actualization with what the larger groups we are in, will tolerate. So far there is no need for a malicious intent to do great harm. There simply needs to be a lack of empathy, a familiar to perceive the harm of our actions. One is harmed because they self-regulate to fit a mold not of their own making so the larger community will not be uncomfortable. The other is harmed because the larger community enforces its norms upon its members. Some means of expression and self-actualization do a degree of harm no society can tolerate. Murder is not a thing any society can easily tolerate. But not many behaviors or expressions rise or better said “sink” to that level. Most behaviors and expressions can be accommodated.
I have been harmed by the norms of society, and that I know this buffers my responses. There is nothing in the religions of Abraham to condemn Gay or BDSM or Trans it just is not there. So when someone tells me they cannot accept my life choices because of their religious convictions, I am not convinced. And the reason is, because they are using someone else’s interpretation of the text. I will leave it to other scholars to pars the text of Paul in Romans 1. For my part I will take a breath or two and ask … If my expression is harmful, how is it harmful and how are you harmed? If you are not harmed than what is your responsibility to chastise me built on? I am NOT interested in any religious arguments not backed up by something outside of religion. Circular arguments are not convincing.

Why does the lady cry?

She cries for the love she has lost, and the friend she will always have.

She cries for the time she might have had with her lover, had it not been for children, family and friends.

She cries for the passion her lover has with their new love, and the hope it is all they want it to be.

She cries for all the close time she had with her lover, and the time she will not.

She cries for all that she learned while they were together, and all she might have learned.

She cries for what was, what might have been, and what is yet to be.

But mostly she cries for the passion she did not let herself feel when she had the chance.

Her tears are of pain and joy and wisdom hard earned.

Her life is forever changed by this love as it has been and will be by others.

If there is a lesson to take, it is this, when in love go all in and give everything you have early and often. When it is done let it go, cry it out and keep the friend. You may never get another chance, and holding back will not shield your heart anyway. Only that way can you share in the joy of your best friend finding something wonderful. Only then can you be open to all the joy yet to come.

ZZ

I am recovering from my bilateral nut chop and I feel more at peace with myself than I can remember. It has been 8 hours so I don't think it will be the drugs talking.

All went well and they would not let me take them home in a bottle. I have a friend of ... interesting taste ... who wanted to dry them and make ear rings of them.

Mostly I am struck by how much at peace with this I am. Well that and how my throat hurts more from the ET tube than groin hurts from surgery.

This is not the end of the process just the first surgery. There is much remolding left to do.

ZZ

Autumn came gently to the pacific North West this my first full year here. The days have slowly become cooler and the trees slowly coloring with reds gold and browns, a few still fully green while others have finished their transition to their winter fashion. Tennessee often had the most spectacular autumn color I have ever seen, with all the trees, maple, poplar, hickory, and elm all in color at the same time. Spectacular as that was it was also over in three days. Here fall is shaping up to be a season of its own. Whether or not it proves to be a gradual slowing down to the winter pace of life or simply life as usual in new colors remains to be seen. Either way the long gradual autumns of the west are something I have missed in my years of travel.
Work is sorting its self out into something I can do and not louse myself to. Like so many jobs in nursing the learning curve is steep, frantic, and filled with pitfalls. The worst of that is past and I like the people I work with. I help people get what they need, either to get into long-term care, or something less acute. As I get ahead of the curve I can begin work on the proses improvement project I was hired to do.
The rains of autumn have arrived mostly soft and gray, like birds flannel pajamas. Increasingly I find myself on the covered porch with a hot tea listening to the rain, or down by the water with a bowl of clam chowder and good friends. The new apartment is beginning to take shape as we accumulate furniture, and get our artwork hung up. Susan and her husband have their own place witch takes them out of our place. It was nice having them here for a while and it is nice having them nearby. It is also nice to have the house ourselves. We had a house guest until November but a house of 4 is much easier to manage than a house of 8. He has since returned home.
We have been together a year now. As we settle into our relationship and get to know each other, I am very happy to have them both in my life. Brookline may be the most sensual person I know, she can be moody at times, but I may be the master of moody. She and I understand each other in some very interesting ways, and we can lean on each other. Debora who was John and is now Joyce is silly, loving, and full of energy. She can turn anything into a pun and enjoys weaving some obscure fact into her puns. Together we are a bit weird even for here but no one seems to mind and we love it! We are beginning to explore the area, and make connections to a place. I would follow either of them and they have followed me to and from Texas, but this is a good place to build a life, and I would like to spend several years here. Merry Christmas I hope your last year has been as good as mine.
Zelda

Well still looking for work. Still hanging in.

Every one says they are desperate for nurses yer they are not hiring. Getting a bit discouraged.
I am a very good occupational health nurse [20 years of practice], a good informatics nurse but that is almost an impossibly broad thing it is hard to pin down what it is.

The question is do I keep looking for a place to belong or give up and settle for a place I can fit in.

If all I can do is to fit in [I think for most of us that is all we ever get] I can retire in 2.5 years, and fill time and space for that long. But if I can find a place to belong, I would like to work the next 10 years, and be the best at what I do.

I know excellence is a frightening thing to most employers. We here a lot of talk about excellence, but I have only worked one place that tolerated it. Floor nursing simply does not have the time to allow it there is just too much to do, to do any of it well.

I have 3 interviews pending and I am a very strong candidate for all of them. After that there are some jobs way out of state, or I go back to floor nursing for a while and bail on it as soon as I can retire.

ZZ

I started a new job last Monday and yesterday it came to an end.

It was to have been a 2 month temp job and I just could not get up to speed on the home health paperwork fast enough. Some of it was a comedy of errors out of my control but the expectation was that I get them solved, and I did not. Biggest problem I had was making scene of the apple I pad.

Well onward and upward.

ZZ

We have an apartment! it is a bit pricy but very nice very privet and well you might say a bit Swank We move tomorrow and Sunday and I start work Monday busy busy me

ZZ

I had a great interview today. I think I will get an offer soon. I do hope so. I am running out of money.

ZZ

I am looking for work and running out of savings we louse the place we are in next Sunday, but some how I am not discouraged. Concerned yes, but I am good at what I do, very good at what I do. My references are solid as they can be. Something will come along and it will be something good.

But just in case if you know of anything in the Seattle area let me know

ZZ