jOsLyN's Xanga

what marriage means to me...

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:44:08 GMT

I posted this on my other blog, but I feel pretty strongly about it so I decided to post it here as well.

In light of the recent vote in Maine revoking the rights of same sex couples to marry I thought I would post a little about marriage.
First of all, I feel marriage is mostly a religious institution. I was married in a church, by a pastor, and there was prayer and religious song singing and etcetera. My husband and I, though neither of us are really religious now, were brought up as such and our families and communities are. So thats how we did it. It was a good, beautiful day and we were with the people that mean the most to us and I will always remember it fondly.
But in addition to the church stuff we also had to go to city hall and get our marriage license and then take it back after the officiant signed it and get the state seal on it and now it is filed away in a cabinet somewhere. However, despite the fact that the church wedding was the "event" the city hall stuff is what made it official. Had we not been from the background we had or not cared about having the wedding, we could have just done the city hall part. No one would have asked us about our religion or beliefs of any kind and no one checked to make sure we weren't related or anything like that. My point is, it doesn't matter what you believe to the government.
So why, OH WHY, are we forcing the religious beliefs of some onto the government regulations concerning marriage? I heard a quote on NPR today to the effect of "The people have spoken and clearly no matter what politicians choose to legislate to be popular, the people do not agree with same sex marriage." Really? How does this make any sense? And since when do we leave the rights of the minority up to a majority vote??
Here's my real beef. I feel like some people NOT being allowed to marry those they love undermines my marriage. In the words of Woody Allen, "I don't want to be in any club that would have me as a member." I hate that this institution that I am a part of is discriminatory enough to keep others out, based completely on religious beliefs that I don't ascribe to. It makes me feel like my marriage is tainted.
One day same sex couples will be able to marry (I believe this because I believe in humanity and I believe that people will eventually do the right thing, just like with slavery and civil rights and women's rights) and my kids will be reading the history books and learn that there was a time in my life that these people were discriminated against for loving one another. And what will I be able to say? That I was part of that club that was saying "gay marriage undermines marriage." That I was a plantation owner of our day? I am not an oppressor, I realize that. But how am I supposed to feel when it seems like I can so easily be lumped in with those who are.
My marriage is out of love, but our government incentivizes marriage with lots of financial benefits. But we are going to disallow a significant portion of the popualtion to have these benefits, not to mention the declaration of committing to one another legally, because they are in possession of the wrong chromosomes, or because people aren't comfortable with what goes on behind closed doors. Here's a newsflash: It's none of your business. The government can't tell me who to marry and they shouldn't be able to say who I can't. Marriage won't be of real value until it's available to everyone.

some kind of instinct

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:38:33 GMT

This is not a well thought out blog, just a thought I have been having recently.
I have always loved that i am an only child. When i was very young I sometimes wanted a playmate, but when I was around friends that had siblings I never got the feeling that they did much playing together, except Tiffany and Michelle, who I was always jealous of for having each other in a way that I would never have someone. But even then, I never really wished for a sibling because I enjoyed being with my parents and the relationship I had with them that might have been different if I had other siblings. I still feel that way about my relationship with my parents. But as I get older, and I think about my life in the future, I do wish I had someone else in my immediate family. I know my parents will be around for a long time yet, but what about when they aren't anymore. Who will help me reminisce about all the times from my youth? Who will be my family. I of course have close friends and in laws. I won't ever know what its like to feel like someone's sibling, but the closest thing I have are those friends and my brother and sister in law. They feel like my siblings, but sometimes I am afraid that since they have siblings, they don't feel the same way about me. They don't need someone like sibling because they have real ones. So who do I really have? I love my husband and I am so thrilled to have him in my life, but it's nothing like having someone who has no choice but to be related to you forever.
My best friend just had her second child and I could not be happier for her. I am so happy for her and her husband and her daughter and new son. I feel so much joy for them, because they are like family to me. I find myself envying their real family because they will always have something I don't. It takes me back to when I was little and I wanted to have someone like my best friends did.

Sweetest Day

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 17:27:22 GMT

Have you ever heard of this? It's called Sweetest Day or I think more officially "The Sweetest Day of the Year."
David and I went to a near by grocery store last week (Tuesday or Wednesday I think) and we saw a display practically blocking the door announcing that Sweetest Day was this Saturday covered with flowers and candy and cards.
We thought this was just something our local grocery chain made up to sell candy and flowers and a few greeting cards. As the week went on though we heard more about it around town. And then I saw a blurb about it on a news site I read today and was shocked to learn from Wikipedia that Sweetest Day has been around since the 1920's! A whole holiday I have never even heard of.
Apparently it was started by the candy companies. Big shocker, a holiday invented to sell stuff. But apparently the companies promoted this holiday by giving away candy to "newsboys, orphans, old folks and the poor." It's supposed to remind us to show love for our fellow humans, and kindness to the sick and unfortunate. Also, to sell candy.
I guess this is mostly celebrated in the Great Lakes regions (where the companies that started it were located) and people get pretty excited about it. I guess it's cool that there is a regional holiday that I have discovered from moving somewhere new. It makes me a little sad that it's just a commercially concocted sales scheme, but what are holidays for?

"summer's gone the way of spring and winter's waiting in the wings"

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 03:18:01 GMT

Why do I keep talking about the weather? Because I love it! I was right about the not warming back up by the way.
I have been doing a lot of knitting, and I have a lot of plans for more. I have been wearing some of my finished objects which I need to take photos of. It's been good. It's getting colder here faster than I expected though, I hope I can keep up. David still needs a new scarf and mittens. And refuses to buy something that I could make (which means more work for me but is really cute that he likes my knitting).
We did some redecorating this week while my mom and dad were here. We built some bookshelves, did some rearranging and added a few accent items like some wall art and throw pillows. It looks great and I really love it. I feel like it's a home now. Especially with all the fall decorations out.
So last time I talked about how I always want to post things about issues I have been thinking about and I decided that this just isn't the forum for that for me. I will continue to post personal updates on here, but I have started a new blog if you're interested in reading some thoughts on issues you might not think about a lot. It's not politics (at least not government politics) but you might not agree with me on everything. I know you love me so it's ok that we don't always agree, but just wanted to give fair warning. Check it out at www.femiknitter.blogspot.com.

October is here!

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:18:37 GMT

And it's cold in chicago! Like it's barely getting above 60, and today I saw my breath. And I don't think its gonna warm back up :).
A lot of great things have been happening though. A had a great trip a few weeks ago for my birthday and when I got back I got a new job! I am now a part time employee at Nina: a well knit shop! It's a yarn store very near to my house. It's a beautiful shop and I love that I get to work there. I have so far been helping to teach people to knit, helping people decide on yarns for new projects, and doing some sample knitting. It's so cool!
My Dad is back in the states now and they are coming to visit next week. I am so excited to see both of them and to hang out and have a really fun time. David has a couple days off from work and he and Dad are going fishing one day, and the day he's at work Mom and Dad and I are going to do some rearranging in the house. I promise I will finally take pictures and put them up.
This weekend David and I are going to clean up the house and put up our fall decorations. Yay for fall decorations! We are also going to a birthday party this weekend for our new friends' son. He is turning one. So it should be a fun weekend.
I always think of things I want to blog about and then I open up an entry and it all flies out of my mind. Oh well, maybe next time I will have something thought provoking to say.

xanga features

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 03:18:26 GMT

due to the amount of downtime i've had lately i've been reading a lot of online content. sometimes i peruse the xanga frontpage features. have you ever read any of these? i mean, xanga has been around a while so you would think there would be some users who could formulate a thought and maybe even site some evidence (besides personal experience) to back up their observations or ideas. i really feel like these posts are all written by people under the age of 20. in addition to being unfounded ideas about an issue, it seems like the features try to tackle the 'big issues' in 3 paragraphs, and they not only fail to scratch the surface, but they fail to even adequately name the issue. it doesn't call positive attention to an issue to trivialize it by oversimplifying it. an example of such trivialization: a post titled 'female stereotypes in entertainment' talks about how the author has noticed stereotypes in the media he or she has been exposed to, and goes on to come up with two whole stereotypes and where he or she 'believes' that they stem from. some quick research would go a long way. and they always end the blog with (what sounds like it's added afterword by an editor) a question to ramp up the comments that makes further light of the issue. in this case it was 'which stereotype is more annoying?' come on.
i've commented on a few of these posts, but after a couple of comments i felt like there was little point. does anyone on xanga post anything deeper than 'which one is more annoying, damsels in distress or women who rescue themselves if not the man too?' come on. obviously gender stereotyping is a deeper issue than two paragraphs. obviously eating disorders are are a bigger issue than you can solve by posting a secondhand account of it. teen pregnancy will not end because of a xanga post. and it's one thing if these issues are personal to someone, but it seems that frequently they are not.
a wise person once told me to write what you know. people would much rather read an impassioned account of your day to day life than a boring and oversimplified account of a 'hot button issue.'

a perfect season

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 03:54:56 GMT

i am sosososososo so SO so so so excited about this fall. i usually do love this season. every year i get excited about it. the fall season starts, for me, with my birthday. labor day weekend usually. everyone loves their birthday and i always thought mine was really cool because it sometimes falls on a holiday or pretty close, but not a big holiday that would overshadow it like...any other one basically. no one even knows what labor day celebrates, its just an excuse to get a extra day off work to celebrate my birthday! and then the weather starts to get cool. i get to wear jackets and sweaters, jeans and scarves and handknit woolen goods again. the air is so clean and clear and the sky gets soo blue, and the grass starts to dry and turn brown, and then its october. my favorite month. things really cool down and the leaves start to turn (if we're lucky in kansas, but i think here in chicago i can count on the leaves turning pretty colors) and i start knitting more to make all the things i want to keep me warm this winter. i get out the fall decorations for the house and then halloween comes and we get to eat candy and think about what we would dress up as, given the chance, even though i don't think i've worn a halloween costume since grade school. but its fun to think about. things start getting chilly, like needing a coat chilly and we finalize plans with family for the big dinner. we get together with loved ones we eat so much that we basically pass out in the living room, but its ok, we're allowed to on this day. then we decorate the tree and i start getting really excited about what things i need to knit for christmas gifts. and i knit like a crazy cat lady and snuggle in the house on cold dark evenings and wait, maybe heading out a few times to get some small non-knitted presents for people. we find our loved ones again to share food and presents with them and catch up and be cheery and watch the lights twinkle. finally, the season is almost over, but we plan one last shabang for the season. we have a silly, great, crazy time and count down to the end. and even though it feel like something's ending, something new begins.

its so magical, fall is. it has a crazy power over me to give me the chills and make me shriek every time i think about it. this year i'll be kicking off this season with a trip to go see my mom and friends in the mo-kan region. hopefully i'll see you then!

my childhood pals

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 00:46:58 GMT

Michelle, Dayna and Tiffany (who happen to be my three main readers, I think) and Michelle's daughter Juliah came to visit me for a few days this past week. We had a good time doing some of the things they wanted to see in Chicago. We went to the Hancock tower and had dessert, we went to Navy Pier to see the fireworks, we went to the Feild museum and just to some random shops and things. What I like about my friends is that we are all in different places in life, and we all, despite having been raised in the same small town in the same church, have different views and outlooks on life and the world. And we still get a long pretty well. We may not really have a lot in common as a whole, but we all have little things in common with all the others in the group. And whats stronger than that is that we have something thats not really definable that keeps us together as friends. Even though Michelle has two kids and Tiffany is newly married to a man from a far away land and Dayna has a real job and works full time, and I am moving all over and trying to go back to school, we had a good time together. More than the places we went or the things we bought, I enjoyed our conversations about what we thought about love and life and people and all those sorts of things. We don't often agree, but I like the fact that as humans we are able to love people even if they don't think the same way we do. Gives me faith that maybe we can all get along in this big crazy world. Even though we'll never see everything the same, we will all always have something in common.

On Being Grown Up

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 01:46:25 GMT

I have pretty much every reason to feel like a grown woman, but the truth is that I don't always. Or even usually really. The process of moving here made me feel like a baby. I felt so helpless and afraid and we needed a lot of help. And our parents were happy to do so. It made me glad to have someone there for us, but it was also really hard to accept help when we are pretty used to being independent. It made me feel young because I knew that we had family all around that wouldn't let us starve or live on the street or anything. But it made me feel young. Not in a youthful good way, but in a dependent way.
So it's a weird feeling to get here and suddenly feel really old. I guess it's because I feel like that safety net is a little farther down now. A lot of being a grown up has to do with money, which I hate. I pretty much handle our finances, which most of the time doesn't bother me, even when things are tight. This has been a different experience altogether though. There was a huge gap in our pay and we had the costs of moving, moving to a city thats really expensive. Worrying about money makes me feel like I'm a million years old. It makes me feel elderly and worn out. Spent.

I guess this is what I am trying to say. My mom flew here to visit me last week. I picked her up from the airport and she came to my house and stayed in my spare bedroom. Then I took her back to the airport and saw her off. For the past few years I have lived a couple of hours from my parents and David's parents and my grandparents, but still in the same...world I guess. They could come up for a day or we could go visit for the weekend and just feel at home. Leaving my mom at the airport was hard. I have never done that before. Maybe it's a little silly but it made me feel something had changed and my family are just going to be visitors now. I know they'll always love me the same, but it's just hard to feel separated.
I do lots of grown up things: I pay the bills and do my own laundry, I've bought a car and furniture, I've lived in two townhouses, a house, and two apartments of my own. But until now, I've always felt a little bit like a pretend adult. I guess a girl's gotta grow up sometime, but I didn't expect it to catch me off guard when it happened.

summer fun

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 18:07:32 GMT

In Chicago, on any given weekend in the summer, there are always at least a couple free street events going on. They have neighborhood festivals, music festivals, art fairs, craft fairs, food festivals, ethnic heritage festivals of all kinds and a bunch other miscellaneous events going on.
Yesterday we went to a nearby park where they were having a little event there. It was a travelling bicycle festival put on by New Belgium, makers of Fat Tire amber ale. So there was lots of beer and lots of bikes. There was food and drink and they had performers. It looked like and was set up kind of like an old fashioned circus. I love the circus, but this one didn't have any animals, and thats usually the best part. I guess the point was to promote bicycling as a main form of transportation. It really is here in chicago, at least in the summer. David rides his bike all the time, and there are tons of people on bikes whereever you drive. I don't have a bike yet, but I want one. Maybe next spring. I like this one:

So pwetty.
Not much else new here. I start work Tuesday and Mom's coming this week to hang out and see the town. Should be a fun week. Hope you guys have a good one too!