Fully aware of the delicate nature of getting personal on the internet. Have started telling myself to cut it out, so we'll see how that goes. Meantime, things carrying on, most domestic and normal, some out of the crazy. Let's see. Both cats have been let out, though I couldn't exactly let Lou free without a collar of some kind. Ornery or not, he has nice fur and someone will take him, I know it. I've met some mothers, finally, at my first ever book-club meeting where there was a lot more wine drinking than book-talking, let me tell you. That was refreshing. The weather has been beautiful most of the time, hitting 80s and 70s (through dropping yesterday, so whatever) - we've been on the porch a lot. Abbott plays in his playpen out there, talks to old popcorn boxes and his play kitchen. Andrew's been building a coffee table from some salvaged wood taken from the piles that used to be the Section 8 housing across the street from the baseball stadium. I hung two hammocks in the backyard with neighbors. We watch The West Wing every night before bed, sometimes in the weekend afternoons when the baby sleeps. Lately in dreams Sam Seaborn is my best friend and we're sort of fighting crime - that's not a joke. My Etsy shop closed for good, which was sad at first but now sort of liberating. There have been some wonderful things to enjoy in these past weeks, and some sad things to ponder on.
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A good friend of mine told me of a horrible experience she once had with a misrepresentation in a magazine article interview, which she granted to a person she trusted after being told the article wouldn't have a negative spin on it. The interview was basically about her life, where she was, what she'd done, what she had or hadn't accomplished by that time. When the article ran --in a very high-profile magazine, by the way-- it was written not by the person she spoke with, but by whomever the notes had been passed to, and her life story became spun into something most people would be ashamed of. Her quotes were taken out of context and so were details regarding her state of mind, her moving and traveling habits and reason, and how many years it took her to finish college. Basically it made her out to be a loser when she wasn't.
She told me about it the other day in her kitchen, when I'd come over to vent that I'd had a hurtful encounter with some really bitter and "anonymous" people on an internet site devoted to taking down Etsy sellers they believe to be impostors. We talked about human nature and what it is about some of us that makes us so vindictive and hurtful, or self-righteous.
The magazine's web publication ran this article that was written about her --with her full legal name-- and when it did the comments that followed completely tore her apart. They ripped into her without a thought. The anonymity that surrounds the internet comment box is an invisible cloak. People say what they want and don't care to spell-check or use correct grammer, they just hate on whoever it is they're hating on. So much so, that these comments about my friend had less and less to do with the actual content in the article, and more and more to do with whatever personal wars these people were hoping to fight and win. Wars about people who are directionless and godless, who aren't saved by Jesus Christ, who waste the taxpayers' money, who have "Peter Pan Syndrome" and refuse to grow up, who live off their parents, always sleep in and always, always rent.
I have no idea how long it took her to shake this off, or if it's even happened. The virtual hate mail hurt her. We talked about teenage kids and how fragile their psyche is, how it's no wonder they consider and commit suicide in a world where so many people don't care about people, only about how they can most effectively and anonymously (read: safely for themselves) hurt them.
Anyway, happy thoughts to you.
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