Winter storm named whatever is here.

The places that are really impacted by this storm are up along the snow belts along the Great Lakes. The hills have us pretty protected from this thing. For the most part, we've got pretty low temperatures and a lot of wind. They're projecting gusts up to 55 mph. The kids are happy because they got to shovel the snow off of the walk before they went to school.

I have been hiding indoors because the cold makes me hurt. Thanks, meat suit and arthritis. I'm glad that the worst of this thing is north of us and that it is farther north than the next couple towns over. (Beloved works two towns north-east of us.) Because I've been hiding indoors, I have been doing things like working on finishing projects. I finished up the shawlette that I started back the day after Yule. I honestly thought I had enough yarn to make a full sized shawl when I started on this thing. I don't have a second ball of this yarn so it's going to remain a shawlette. It's just barely big enough to sit on my shoulders and keep the draft off of my neck.

It's a simple half granny square. The yarn is from Purl Essence Everyday's Rainbow line and the color way is multi royal blue. It's a very soft acrylic. It tended to stick to itself a fair amount as I was working with it. I'd almost swear it would felt if it weren't for the fact that I know acrylic doesn't do that. Ok yarn to work with, I suppose. It makes for some warm stuff. I made a pair of fingerless mitts out of the leftovers of a different ball of the same yarn in a different colorway. They kinda look like clown barf but they're warm.

My anxiety has been ratcheted up pretty high. My emotional flashbacks have been hitting pretty regularly over the last few weeks. I realized that it was because this is right around the anniversary of when I was suicidal in high school and my mother, being the wonderful person she was, slapped a butcher's knife on the table and said "If you're really feeling suicidal, do it right now." as we were waiting for my father to get out of work and all of us to troop up to the psych ward at one of the hospitals up in the city. I am still working through the trauma of shit like that and the anniversary of that always hits me in a bad way at the end of February on top of my seasonal affective disorder.

I also had a bad brain day yesterday that is lingering somewhat into today over the fact that I am disabled. I guess the term for it is "internalized abelism" or something like that. I am angry and hurt by the fact that my brain can't handle the 'normal' stressors of work and such. I want to go back to work. I want to be social. I want to go out and do things. I have this feeling like my body and brain have betrayed me. I also have been having echoes of the abelist crap that my parents said ringing in my head. Nothing quite so lovely as remembering your parents declaring that persons who were disabled were a drain on society and should be euthanized. They said stuff like that a lot. They were a real couple of winners.

Feminist =/= Feminazi

This has been percolating in my head for years. Surrounded by people who threw the term around casually, I was reluctant to say something against it because I'd be shouted down, at best. I then spent years attempting to ignore the term. But, honestly, I can't. I can't stay quiet because there are actual Nazis running around and there is actual fascism going on.

You say that extreme feminists are "feminazis" and I want to throat punch you. I'm being perfectly honest. It evokes a damn near violent rage out of me. Not because I'm one of those extreme feminists. But because feminists are not stealing men's property and destroying their homes ala Kristallnacht. Because feminists are not marching men into gas chambers and slaughtering them wholesale. Because feminists are not performing horrible experiments (including vivisection) on little boys or young men. Because feminists are not systematically rounding up men and branding them like cattle before shipping them off to gods only know where to starve and beat them to death.

You use the term "feminazi" and that tells me that you support women shutting up and tolerating rape because you think the body has ways to  'shut that down'. You use the term "feminazi" and that tells me that you support the patriarchal agenda to control women's bodies and forced birth practices, damn the consequences to the mother. You use the term "feminazi" and that tells me that you give a sly wink and nod of approval to the systemic violence against women who stand up for themselves. You use the term "feminazi" and that tells me that you think that rape victims have to prove a crime has been committed against them before the police will even begin to do their job or, gods help me, you think that the victim somehow deserved it because of stupid reasons like what they were wearing or where they happened to be.

Are there extreme feminists out there? Yeah, I met a few. But the term "feminazi" gets thrown at any feminist who stands up for themselves or some one else. Call me a "scold" or a "harpy". Call me a "bitch" or a "cunt". Go ahead. I could care less about those insults because they've been thrown at me for a long time with out the implication that I am ANYTHING like the Nazis. Rush Limbaugh invented the term "feminazi" for the explicit purpose to equate feminists and outspoken women he didn't like with the abomination that are the Nazis.

And before any Nazi apologist comes along and say that there were nice Nazis, there is no such thing as a nice Nazi. If you sit at a table with nine Nazis and you are not actively arguing with them over things like human rights, there's ten Nazis at that table. By associating and giving implied approval to their actions, you are one of them. The only way there can be only nine Nazis at the table is because the tenth person is forced to be there under duress.

Take your "feminazi" term and march right off into Hel. I've been called that many times. By some people who were once close to me. No big surprise, they happened to be people who admired Adolph Hitler and said that he was trying to do a good thing by uniting Europe, he just did it the wrong way. Like the mass slaughter of innocent people was just a mistake, whoopsie boom.

Halp.

The pile of papers I have to file are about to eat me. They'er joining forces with the mail. I believe I am doomed. I'd post a pic but I can't find my phone in the pile. They ate it earlier, along with half the desk.

Ugh.

I don't know what to write. I'm not doing horridly but I'm not doing well, either. I haven't been sleeping well. I have been having bad nightmares/flashbacks to living in my parents' house. My anxiety has ratcheted up kinda high despite the medications I am on. Something about February makes it really hard. Maybe it's the fact that I'm in the dead of winter here. Maybe it's the fact that there are multiple trauma anniversary dates in this month. I don't know.

I've been struggling to write. It's been hard to get myself motivated to blog because I feel like I'm just writing for no one to read. The relative silence that my blogs get depresses me. I am just tired of feeling like I'm nobody. I know that my feeling like nobody is a reflection of my boatloads of psychological trauma. It still is painful. Over the next month, I'm going to be practicing the Filianic version of lent called Moura. It's the final month of the Filianic calendar and the fifth season. Sounds a little odd, but it actually works if you look at the calendar structure. It's like an intercalculary month. Their calendar has 13 months. And there is a intercalculary date called hiatus (which is 2 days during a leap year) to make the calendar match up, roughly, with the Julian calendar. I prefer the Filianic calendar because its easier to keep track of, every month has 28 days and every season has 3 months, except for Moura which is one month of 28 days for the season.

I'm focusing my efforts on practicing self discipline. Among the things I am working on is building better exercise habits, building more social activity in my life, and doing more writing. It's also going to be a month of focused cleaning this way when spring arrives my home is ready. Right now, it's pretty much a disaster. I'm having a hard time motivating the kids to clean up their messes. It's overwhelming. I also have a ton of laundry in my room to get sorted out. I think I am going to be donating some of the shawls that I have in my collection to charity. It's frustrating, but I don't need so many shawls.

Monday Menu, Week of 2/3/2020

I'm not quite at 100% but I'm doing much better than I was two weeks ago. I'm just a bit woozy and only mildly congested now. If only this cold would go away for good, I think my blood sugar levels would drop back into the normal range. Right now, they're mildly elevated and it's been making me tired and cranky. For some reason, if my blood sugar levels are around 200 mg/dl I feel ravenously hungry. The fact that I can't eat something because it will make that go higher just makes me cranky and grumpy. Nothing like feeling super hungry and being unable to do anything about it. Like I said, when this stupid cold is done, I think it'll drop back down to 175 or 160. My goal for this year is to get myself down to 130 as my fasting blood sugar level. I don't know if diet and exercise can do it, but I'm going to try. My weight is stable but my pants size is dropping. I guess even a little bit of walking every day adds up to gaining some muscle after all.

Here's this week's menu. Breakfast is oatmeal and an egg for me. The kids have breakfast at school as well as lunch. My lunches are going to be leftovers again. And Beloved's got his sandwiches and ramen as per usual.

Sunday: Pizza
Monday: Burgers and salad
Tuesday: Tacos / taco salad
Wednesday: Meatball subs and salad
Thursday: General Tso chicken / chicken nuggets
Friday: Pork chops with mashed potatoes and California mix veggies
Saturday: Chili