F#15--Federal Government

In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I am registered as an Independent.  I consider myself socially liberal (for the most part) but fiscally conservative (for the most part).  This is why I didn't register with either party when I turned eighteen.  In fact, I voted for Ralph Nader in my first presidential election.  I think I have exclusively voted Democrat since then, but would probably vote for the right Republican if I could find him/her.

That being said, my brain is starting to hurt from all the nonsense going on in Washington D.C.  Besides the fact that the two sides of our government can't get out of each other's (or their own) way to create a real budget*, the White House seems to be imploding.  Under the previous administration, I felt like they hid these gaffes a lot better; it wasn't until the end of Bush II that it became clear-ish what was going on.

I think it all boils down to miscommunication and bureaucracy.  With Benghazi, I can't believe that the President and then-Secretary of State Clinton would willingly have let soldiers and the Ambassador die to...what?  I mean, this isn't the war monger president of before.  Obama doesn't want to drop us into another conflict.  So why?  I can only suppose that the requests for additional security just got lost in the red tape that is the Federal Government.  

This IRS-Tea Party scandal confuses me because I don't know why it's a scandal.  The whole purpose of investigating charitable organizations is to make sure they are actually charitable organizations and not political organizations.  If you put the words "Tea Party" in the name of your charitable organization, that's a red flag.  I have yet to see a person/group come forward with claims of being irrationally targeted that wasn't more or less connected to the Republican party (or their crazy cousin, the Tea Party).  Most of my news comes from NPR and "The Daily Show" so you'd think I'd have heard about it by now.

And then there's the AP thing.  This is the most infuriating, because the one thing that keeps us separate from so many places is that our press can say what they want about who they want, whether we, or the government, likes what the press has to say or not.  If there's a leak in your office, don't go hounding the press.  Figure out what information is getting out and track it back to the people who would have known it.  (In light of this post, I can assume I'll have some of Big Brother's eyes on me too).

*I can't even begin to express my outrage over the gun control legislation that didn't pass earlier this year.  I am not anti-gun; I grew up in a household with firearms.  I was taught to respect the weapons; I was taught how to use them.  Several years ago, I also got my pistol permit.  I don't currently own a weapon; I did not go out to purchase one in the post-Newtown craze.  And I believe that the Second Amendment is there for a reason.  But the part that a lot of right-wing people (some of my family and family-friends included) are forgetting is that there is a phrase about "a well-regulated militia".  Well-regulated, to me, means that people are properly trained, and properly recorded, so we know who has the weapons when we need someone to have them.  This President has never asked to "take our guns" and he's not asking to do that now.  He's just saying that the civilian population doesn't need military-grade weapons, and if you haven't hit what you were aiming at with the first ten rounds, you probably need to rethink the situation.  (Yes, I realize you can reload, but that does take time.  And time, sometimes, is what we need when there's a bad guy with a gun.)

F#14--Fear

This past week...well, really these past few months...have been filled with all kinds of fear, both professional, personal, and public.  Life continues as normal most of the time, but the fear still lurks while I'm showering, or driving home, or trying to sleep at night.

I was afraid for my students after the Newtown shooting.  High school students can be challenging, and they are sometimes their own worst enemies.  But they are still kids, and they deserve to be safe and protected in school.  They were worried in the days that followed; one student asked me if I would abandon them in the classroom if a shooter came into our building.  Now, I know that I can come across as a bit gruff, but the fact that this girl felt she needed to ask me was sad.

(Shortly after the Newtown incident, there was an incident at my soon-to-be-step-son's elementary school.  Nothing came of it, but it was scary to read about how close it all came.)

The public and the personal fears overlapped last week, co-existing as I heard about the Boston Marathon bombing.  Some of the fiance's and my various close friends live or work in the Boston area, and we had a friend participating in the run.  Thankfully, everyone we knew was safe.  But those waiting moments, checking Facebook and text messages to make sure everyone was okay, were nerve wracking.  

I've also been afraid for a friend who is going through a difficult time and there is absolutely nothing I can do to help.  And another friend can't find someone, which is so scary, and another thing I can't do a thing about.

While all these fears pile up, combine, and fade in and out, I try to live my normal life.  I clean my house, I pet my cats, I watch bad (and good) TV, and I hug my fiance a little tighter at night.  I can't let the fears take over, or I'd just curl up in a ball.  And then I feel guilty (leftover Catholicism?) for taking on fears that are not my own.

No big revelations in this post, but I wanted to talk about these big (and little) events.

F#13: Fandom

I am a geek at heart.  I love aliens, space ships, wizards, elves, and magic.  When I was younger, this was something I kept sort-of-secret, mostly because teenage girls who like Star Wars do not get a lot of dates.  (I actually didn't get a lot of dates anyway, so maybe I should have embraced this earlier.)

Now, as an adult, I don't care.  I wear my Star Wars and Doctor Who shirts to work; I drink out of my TARDIS coffee mug.  I participate in Renaissance Faires (another post).  Fandoms have brought me a lot of joy, and a lot of people, so I am not ashamed of myself anymore.  At least not for this.

I entered into the Star Wars fandom between seventh and eighth grade.  This was when the SciFi channel first got its footing, and they would air the Original Trilogy (then, of course, just the Star Wars movies).  I was visiting my cousin in Canada, and a friend of hers had taped them all.  I remember the commercial breaks feature Billy Dee Williams and Carrie Fisher.  Of course, the tape cut off about twenty minutes into Return of the Jedi, so when I got back home at the end of the summer, I begged my mom to rent it so I could find out what happened.  My mom would share with me that, as a tyke, I was terrified of the Ewoks, and that I burst into tears when my first grade gym teacher dressed up as Darth Vader for Halloween.  (Oh, if only we'd all known how my love affair with Darth Vader would proceed.)  After that summer, I was reading the books, getting magazines in the mail, and then there was the Special Editions, and then the promise of the Prequels. There was live-action role-playing online; my teenage bedroom was covered with Han, Leia, and Luke.  I strayed away from the books, and now I am waiting with everyone else to see what Disney has in store for us.

High School saw the development of three fandoms: The X-Files, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star of the Guardians.  The first two were shows I would watch with my mother, and the obsession never reached Star Wars level, I did set my schedules by both shows through high school and college.  The last on the list is a series of books, written by Margaret Weis.  A high school friend introduced me to them, and told me if I didn't read them, she would never forgive me.  Another love affair began, and this one ended up with a tattoo when I was twenty-three.  (Last year, I met Weis at a gaming convention in Boston.  I was all tongue-tied and fan-girl the first time I saw her, but managed to collect my thoughts enough to get a picture with her.  The exact words out of my mouth were, I believe, "I have a tattoo of Star of the Guardians on my back.")  The books are no longer available in print, but they do have digital copies available.  Which is a good thing, as my physical copies are pretty beat up.  I let a lot of people borrow those books over the years.

Harry Potter I got into when I was in college, but only after having seen the first two movies.  The first four books were out when I started reading those, but I still remember the anxiety between five and six, and then six and seven. I had not suffered as other fans had suffered, but getting The Deathly Hallows was an emotional event.

As an adult, I've branched out some more.  The same friend who threatened to disown me over the Weis books worked her evil magic again with a still-growing series by George R.R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire.  At least with Star of the Guardians, all four books are out.  Martin is still working on his epic, so I must wait patiently with the rest of the world to see what will happen in Westeros.  HBO gives us Game of Thrones for a few months a year, but I want to know what's NEW, not what has already happened.

My adult-self has also come to embrace Doctor Who.  When the show first started airing in the States, I gave it a go, but wasn't in love with it.  I must not have been in the right head space for it at the time.  Once my fiance and I started dating, and he started watching it, I gave it another go.  This time, I fell in love.  I am half a season behind, as BBC is not a pay-for-stream service, and I am dying to know what happens with Amy and Rory (spoilers!).

There are other series that I enjoy, but not with the same fervor of those listed above.  I was on the Downton Abbey wagon about six months before everyone else in the States; we just finished re-watching (for me, at least) The West Wing, in preparation for season two of The Newsroom this summer.  And, of course, there is the oh-so-trashy True Blood, which is just a train wreck I can't look away from.

All of these things, which made me such an outcast when I was in middle school and high school, have now brought me to some of the best people and experiences I have ever had.  It's still hard to explain some of these fandoms to the people at work, but my students have a surprisingly good grasp on them, which makes my job a little bit more enjoyable.  I now let my geek flag fly whenever I can, and I like to see just who it attracts.

F#12: Finances (The Sequel)

So now that jewelry has been received, it's time to officially begin melding lives, and that includes discussing who makes how much, and what sorts of bills we have that the other person doesn't know about.

I know lots of couples go about this differently: I have some friends who have completely separate checking and savings accounts and one person just writes the other a check when bills come due.  Other couples share everything: checking, savings, and credit cards.  I find this second thing somewhat problematic when it comes to buying each other presents, especially if one person (ex: my sister-in-law, whom I love) is a triple-checker of receipts.  My parents have a combination of the two: most of their money is joint, but they each have "their" credit card for surprises of the Christmas, Birthday, and Anniversary varieties.  

S.O. and I already have partially melded accounts, to avoid the first situation of having to ask for money directly.  But now, with a wedding to save for, and a new life to try to pursue together, for reals, we have to look at our numbers: who owes what to whom.  How much of this is "joint" debt, and how much of it is "solo" debt?  And how quickly can we collectively get out of that debt so we can start using our money for more important/interesting things than car and student loans (you know, FUN stuff)?

My goal as I try to crunch numbers, which makes my head hurt, is to low-ball our income and high-ball (is that even a phrase in this case?) our outcome.  Then, hopefully, we can eat for two weeks until the next paycheck comes in.  And occasionally go have outings with other people and not just stare at the cats (see first Finances post).

(Tangentially--freakin' electric bills!  Does anyone else just ask themselves how it's even possible to spend that much money on something one is not home to use for nine hours at a clip--at the least?)

Also, the numbers never fall quite right.  If one looks at the totally monthly income, everything is fine.  But to look at how the income is split, versus when the bills are due, there is always some sort of discrepancy. (Or maybe that's just us.)

(Tangentially the Second--I don't know why I am the person who is dealing with the bills, either.  Numbers...not so much my forte.  My mother was the bill payer when I was growing up, so I guess I just assumed the role because that was all I knew.)

So, if we can't eat, but we can be debt free, at least I'll look really good in my wedding dress. :)

F#11: Fiance

After almost four and half years of dating, my significant other has become my fiance. The official date was Feb. 24, 2013, but we had to wait a few days to go truly public so S.O. could tell parents and grandparents.

I don't know how I expected I would get engaged.  I dated another person for five years starting in college, and we broke it off because he didn't appear to want to get married.  When the S.O. and I started dating, there were a lot of factors that led to that sort of forward thing to be back-burner material.

I sometimes imagined a big spectacle, in front of total strangers, or family and friends.  But I also am someone who HATES spectacle, especially when I am the focus of it.  (Please, do not have the wait staff come over and sing to me for my birthday.  I will leave the restaurant and wait for you all in the car.)  I had envisioned a huge diamond, flanked by sapphires.  

What I got, of course, was much better.  In keeping with truth, I was having a bit of a "where is my life going?" breakdown on the night in question.  I was crying quite a bit.  The S.O. disappeared for a moment, after he was sure I was at least temporarily done with the sobbing, and reappeared.  After some words of encouragement, he did get down on one knee and gave me the ring I really wanted--my paternal great-grandmother's engagement ring.   I cried again, obviously, and then said yes.  So my engagement happened in our pajamas, in front of our cats, at 10:30 at night.

Given my phobia of spectacle, I did not make a big announcement at work.  I told one colleague immediately, because she was excellent at decoding Facebook statuses.  I waited until the Wednesday after to tell some more colleagues, but have been keeping it on the down low because...well, I get super red in the face and it's not a good look for me.  No one I work with seems to understand why I am not jumping up and down screaming this.  It's not that I'm not happy...I am positively elated that it is MY turn.  I get to wear the dress, plan the wedding, and cry the tears.  By previous generations' standards, I am positively an old maid!

So, the S.O. and I are getting used to rolling the words fiance/fiancee around on our tongues.  We are bracing ourselves for every conversation to begin with "What dates are you looking at?"  We prepare for debates over guest lists and locations.  But then I get to look at my left hand, and see Bomba's ring on my finger (a ring that fits perfectly) and I am so excited that it doesn't even matter.

F#10: Faith

In honor of, or perhaps inspired by, the retirement of Benedict XVI from the papacy, I thought I would write a little bit about faith.  

I was raised functionally Catholic.  I went to CCD, got confirmed, attended Mass perhaps once a month.  I went to a Catholic high school, more to get away from my small town K-8 education than out of religious fealty.  I also went to a Catholic college, but again that was about the feel of the campus and less about getting closer to God.

It's more complicated than that, of course.  My mother grew up in a dual-faith household, which was almost unheard of post-WWII.  Her parents had to drive all over the state to find a priest who would marry them.  She and her sister were raised Catholic as part of the bargain.  When my mother and father wanted to get married, it was the same thing...with less stress about finding a person to marry them.  My brother and I were raised Catholic to appease the Church and my grandfather.

My mother and I had become disillusioned with the Church as I went through high school and college.  As a young woman, I was having trouble with some of the rules that wouldn't let me do what I wanted to do.  (Like join the Knights of Columbus...I wanted to join the Knights of Columbus.  Ovaries and mammary glands excluded me from this.)  To be fair, I was also very much going through my King Arthur/fantasy fiction reading stage at this point, and the pagan/Wicca ideas rather intrigued me.  

I've never asked my mother why she decided she wanted to "jump ship," as it were.  We had trouble when my brother went to get confirmed, as the new priest of our church would not let my brother's godfather be his confirmation sponsor.  Four years earlier, my godmother was allowed to be mine, so we were a little confused.  I suspect it had something to do with that.

Anyway, when my maternal grandfather died my sophomore year of college, my mother and I decided to take the plunge.  We left the Catholic Church and joined the local Congregational church, following in HER mother's footsteps, and that of my father's family.  

Now, I don't go to church.  When I bought my own place, I didn't relocate to another congregation in the area.  I'm not sure why.  I rather like church services, as long as they're not too long.  Because, let's be honest, pews are not comfortable.  And in really old churches, as the Congregational ones tend to be, they were designed for discomfort, because the Puritans didn't want anyone enjoying themselves.  Or falling asleep.

But this doesn't mean I don't believe.  Some of the more religious Christmas songs make me cry every year, for example.  When I think about the beginning and the end of the world, I feel in my bones that there was Something to get the Big Bang going, and that Something will be there to clean up the mess when it's all done.  The idea of a vengeful, angry God doesn't make any sense to me.  Neither does an overly-involved one, however; The Watchmaker Theory seems to make the most sense, at least to me.

Sometimes I wonder if there's more.  Is it just one Him/Her/It, or did the Greeks, Romans, and Celts have it right?  The world seems to prefer balance, so I would think there would be more than one Something out there to make things run smoothly.  Of course, that flies in the face of a rather substantial book that is supposed to be the basis of my faith.  So I wonder if my belief in the other, the female, is left over from my The Mists of Avalon days, or what.

When I read the newspaper or listen to NPR, I am always amazed, disgusted, and awed by the bureaucracy of the Catholic Church.  That, perhaps more than anything, is what drove me away.  I abhor illogical, unorganized institutions, especially when the fixes are so simple, if the people involved just stop being so stubborn.  But with so many centuries behind them, I guess it's tough to move forward.

F #9--Finances

Sometimes, being a grown-up sucks.  Especially being a grown-up who decided to buy a house.  Money suddenly gets exponentially tighter, in ways one doesn't imagine it happening.

I'm not going to go into all the gory details about my debt.  Suffice it to say that I've joined those proud Americans who got themselves into a hole and aren't quite sure how to get out of it.

The first place I went, obviously, was the Internet.  Tell me, Dr. Google, what is the best method for paying down one's debt?  Answers are conflicting on this matter.  Some sources suggest tackling the lowest balance first; throw all the extra money at that so it goes away, and then move on.  Other places suggest tackling the highest interest rate first, because that's where a person is really losing the most money.  And then there's a third method, which suggests a bizarre mathematical formula dealing with both balances and interest rates.  This made my head hurt, mostly because numbers are not my strong point. (Obviously, right?  I'm writing a blog post about debt.)

The real problem is that being responsible about one's debt, doing the utmost to pay it off, can mean sacrificing a lot.  And I'm not just talking the canceled gym memberships or buying generic brands.  I've done both of those To really get debt under control, a person has to stop having a social life.  Because driving places, going out with friends, these things all cost money.  I suppose if I ONLY ever drove to and from work, and ate nothing but Raman, I would certainly save money.  But now I'm the crazy cat lady who never leaves her house.  That's not healthy.  On any level.  (Especially not for the blood pressure.  Again, my weird relationship with High Fructose Corn Syrup and Organic food is coming soon to a blog post near you.)

So, when money gets tight, where do YOU pinch pennies?  For those of you who have been in debt and gotten out, how'd that work for you?  If you're not in debt, how do you stay that way?  (I mean, besides "don't spend more than you make.")  How do you realistically keep it all under control?