Weather

We've been having very hot and humid weather with heat advisories, which used to be called livestock warnings when I was a kid, and Minnesota was a farm state. Last night we had thunder and lightning and some rain. North of us there were funnel clouds, one confirmed tornado and hail the size of tennis balls.

Today was bright and coolish, and the next few days are supposed to be pleasant. There's a full moon tonight, not yet visible from our windows. A bunch of stuff I ordered online arrived: three DVDs, tea from Harney and Sons, a new messenger bag and a tote for me, and a Game Developer Barbie for Patrick. The doll is brand new. Patrick thought it was a wonderful idea and wanted it. Barbie is still in her box and hanging on the living room wall. I don't know how long she will stay there. She doesn't entirely match the decor.

Tomorrow I plan to exercise, run errands and maybe get some writing done. Hot weather takes a lot out of me, even when I am mostly inside with air conditioning. Now I feel better.

Dislikes

I really dislike the comments that say, "I love your blog; it's fabulous; and here is a service I offer..." It is preying on the need that most bloggers have for some kind of feedback and even (maybe) emotional support. I delete those comments, of course, but they leave a bad feeling. Someone was trying to con me. I was being offered lying praise.

Sticking with Your Raising

A facebook friend suggested that he is intellectually radical, while having a conservative temperament, and he thought I might be the same. (His actual statement was more complex, but this will serve.) I wrote this in response about myself:

This is a complicated topic. I believe this society is badly effed up and needs a radical change, as in it needs to be torn out by the roots and remade. As the old union song says, "We can bring to birth a new world from the the ashes of the old." This is not a belief that I came to through reason. This is the way I was raised. I was also raised to challenge ideas about art, since my father hung out with avant garde artists, who were very interesting people. I grew up in a house of the future, and this is not a metaphor. So what does this make me? Radical or conservative? As far as temperment goes, I'd say I am timid, which is not the same as conservative. (Remember that I grew up in the Midwest in the McCarthy era, which was also the height of the Cold War. That does not lead to a lot of confidence, though it does lead to believing ordinary middle class American life is poised above an abyss, and you cannot trust the neighbors. No wonder I loved SF.)

If you are true to your raising, are you conservative, even if your rising is in many ways radical?

Update

Weather here is gray and very humid. I have two stories and an essay to get out the door. That's it for now.

Wiscon

Patrick and I went to Wiscon over Memorial Day weekend. Traditionally, it has been a feminist con -- the only feminist con I know. However, there was a change of administration last year, and now it is an all-purpose identity politics con.

I am not entirely comfortable with the changes or the new, brash, young con members with their new issues and their new ways of dealing with issues. However, I figure this is my problem. Change happens. I can still go to the con and see friends and do a little non-political programming. The drive down is pleasant. We take Highway 12, a two-line which parallels the Interstate, going through small towns, farm land and some forest. Patrick and I both like Madison.

I figure I need to detach myself emotionally from the con and appreciate things like the drive down and the city of Madison -- and the friends I meet at the con.