I grew up thinking of myself as privileged. Heck, my childhood was privileged compared to most of the village we grew up in. That we were one of the biggest targets of “stealing wash from the line” was a clue, because we had better clothes.

In a place and time where people often wore clothes remade from clothes their grandmas had (Mom bought a knitting machine to fill in the blanks between her contracts to design garments for such people as the wives of famous soccer players to take on world tour and/or the richer persons from the region. While mom consistently made more than dad that was only because dad made VERY little. And her income was as irregular as mine is. So a knitting machine, with which she could work for the village and not just the occasional rich person meant regular if tiny pings of income. I was pretty old before I realized what it meant that this job came with “undo and dye old sweater yarn” preliminaries. Yep, people were that poor. Wool often got made into three and four different garments, until the yarn held no longer.)

But dad worked a white collar job and had white shirts (five, so that they could be washed/starched on Saturday wash day. Ironing in the early days, when I was very little was done with a coal-filled iron. On white shirts. If you got a smudge on, you had to start from the beginning. And startch… let’s not go there.) And mom had his pants made by a real tailor, again, in a time and place where moms made most of the clothes. Inexpertly.

OTOH I had a huge wardrobe, both of everyday clothes (since mom was convinced that air on my legs made me ill, I wore pants at time and place no GIRL did that) mostly cut down from dad’s and my brother’s and of special dresses, which mom made mostly I think because she could make much of tiny (expensive) scraps of fabric.

So, that, and the fact dad had a real job, paid in money, and the fact we owned land and houses made us way wealthier than other people. And we took baths. Every week. With store bought perfumed soap. Which just shows you how posh we were. Our laundress loved doing our clothes “because they smell good even when dirty.”

As for the rest, we had our chickens and rabbits, and our own wine and potatoes. So we were rich.

My first culture shock was when I entered elementary school and found the language I spoke was not only different from most of my classmates but was considered low class.

Mind you I knew dad – white collar job – spoke differently from grandma and grandad, and everyone spoke differently from mom (there was a running joke about making a mom-ctionary) but I had no clue the way I spoke was considered low IN THE VILLAGE. After the class burst out laughing when I used the wrong word to ask to go to the bathroom, I weighed my words carefully and used only those dad would use. Over time my vocabulary became almost entirely his, which didn’t save me from being ridiculed in college.

Why? Apparently the village has a completely different accent from the rest of the North. First time I opened my mouth in college, the teacher looked like he couldn’t believe what I was saying, then said “Are you from Aguas Santas?” For the rest of the year I was “the young lady from Aguas Santas.”

Look, this isn’t claiming hardship or victimhood. The way to deal with obstacles in my book is to fight them. It’s who I am. I was born crosswise to life. The more I’m told I can’t the more I want to do something.

But the reason my accent stood out is that there weren’t too many of us around.

Portugal when I came along had education like ours is becoming. If you wanted to enter college and do well, you’d BEST go to the good private schools. (There was no homeschooling.)

I knew a family who, in deference to the fact that they only had little money and many kids sent the boys to private school and the girls came in with us in public school. (Yes, sexisss. Or bowing to the realities of the time and Latin culture, where men were still expected to make the most money in the house. Though expectations weren’t always the truth. See my mom.)

So each level of education you went up after the mandatory 4^th grade I found myself with fewer and fewer people like me.

It wasn’t as bad as in my brother’s time, mind – or perhaps it was that he was a boy – who complained he was the only one in his high school senior class who didn’t get a car for his birthday. (He wasn’t so much complaining. He knew DAD didn’t have a car, but took the bus to work. He was making a joke about being a fish out of water. We immediately got him a matchbox convertible for Christmas. He still has it, and shows it off to people as “my first car.”)

And often, in frustration at our classmates’ stories of their grandparents we mentioned ours were both bankers, a terrible pun based on the carpenter’s table – banco, same word as for money bank – since both our grandfathers were in fact carpenters.

Mom’s dad – who came from money but blew the family fortune on women of ill repute and poets ditto – had an entire routine he worked up when we had classmates visiting the house and which embarrassed mom mortally. Now, you’d have to know he was better read than most of our professors, and spoke Latin and Greek so by then our classmates were openmouthed with awe. I wonder how many of them took the routine at face value. The only part I remember was “And my children were kept barefoot summer and winter, which many health experts say is the best way to combat weakness of the lungs.”

So I was RELATIVELY privileged in relation to the village, but conscious of how other people lived, and also that I was a pauper in rags compared to most people outside the village and also still conscious that my parents had had it much worse growing up. (My dad walked to the city for everything over 4^th grade. His bookbag was made of cloth by grandma. He was even more of a fish out of water because in his time only the children of white collar workers were groomed to be white collar workers. Now, mind you, on his dad’s side there were doctors and engineers and lawyers, but grandad had (I think) same issues with words as younger son (from interaction with him, even in later years) and same sensory issues that made writing and reading difficult. In those days and with a ton of other kids, he was assumed to be “stupid” and apprenticed to a carpenter. His family was rich but we weren’t and in grandma’s family – where grandad moved upon marriage – dad was the first to attend anything past 4^th grade.)

There were moments when I realized the world I lived in wasn’t even what my classmates lived in. Like, my clothes were usually avant-garde and stunningly original. By the time I hit college and had stopped shunning dresses and skirts, my mom took great pleasure in designing clothes for me, and all I had to do was dream up something and she’d make it because she was retired by then (heart issues don’t do well with deadlines.) Those who know my older son will giggle at the fact I MOSTLY wore thirties-style clothes with some improvements/modifications.

BUT in college that cut no mustard, because my clothes were not designer. People would show off and squee over clothes not according to how they looked but to the label. And each of those cost more than my parents paid for my entire wardrobe.

What I’m trying to say is that I was both conscious of privilege and OBJECTIVELY what my brother calls “poor as Job.” (Though the only time our beasties died was when mixie swept the village. We lost all our rabbits.)

Like my kids, never thought of myself as poor. Because what money there was went to books, and I could never be persuaded to give a good g0ddamn about designer labels. I had what I wanted to have and if what I wanted to have was trips abroad, it just took being a little more creative.

And because I never let school stand in the way of my education (thank you, Mark Twain) I could easily out compete people from “the best schools.” Partly, frankly, because it was simply expected. There was never “oh, you had a c, you poor thing.” Dad put us in school with the assumption we’d be the best, even though at the same time he and mom thought I was mentally retarded, because that’s what idiot doctor told them when I was born extremely premature. There was this “if you can’t get it at first, work harder” which btw was the treatment offered for both my lack of hand-eye coordination and my digit dyslexia. Weirdly, over time, it worked.

To me it was a matter of course to out-compete people who had come from private school. Dad expected it, after all. And he couldn’t be wrong. It’s only in hindsight I realize in saying “you will do well, and you will enter college” (In brother’s time by exam, in mine by exam and grades, but both only admitting half of one percent of those who tried. The others went to professional training of various kinds.) my parents were shooting at the moon.

When my brother first got good enough grades to enter high school, mom didn’t have the money for the books (which used to cost like college books here) so she tried to get them used from my aunt whose son was a few years older. Aunt, who came from money said “if you can’t afford the books, send him to learn carpentry.” Fortunately mom got a job in and bought the books.

Even in my time when things were supposed to be more inclusive, when I b*tched at the cost of a book my Sociology professor insisted on, I was told that “The children of the poor shouldn’t aspire to college. They should become seamstresses.”

I’m saying this not to show that I was a poor victim. Mostly such slights infuriated me. I’m saying this to show that I was a fish out of water both above and below my “station” at the same time, and therefore keenly aware of how strange people both positions were.

The assumptions of the other kids in the village (none of which I was ever really close to after 10 or so. My best friend was from an “outsider” family and way better off than us) baffled me. Like when they spoke of being beaten for eating fruit their mom had bought for company. Mom always had fruit and it was a “grab at will.” “For company” was the good cheese, the chocolate and the “bought biscuits.” Or their casual assumption that of course their parents would file papers saying they were developmentally disabled so they could work in the factories at ten.

And the assumptions of my classmates baffled me, the more so after 9^th grade when, by grades, I got tracked to the “college preparation” track. Vacations abroad, really? Designer clothes? Eating at restaurants more than once every few years? WHAT?

This was exacerbated by being in languages where a lot of the people had ties abroad and came from very wealthy families.

I swam between these cultures, able to fake it (mostly by misdirection and not mentioning my vacations reading atop the garage, mostly, when it came to college) but never belonging and therefore seeing all their assumptions as a little nuts.

Becoming American was relatively easy because the “rules” are more permissive and laxer and coming from nothing is not a problem.

This long preamble is to explain why the comment left by the Fail 770 troll was bizarrely odd, but showed what is going on in their heads.

One thing you have to understand is that the establishment in SF is incredibly sincere. What I mean is they REALLY want to bring in the “victims” they perceive and give them places of honor. They do. And they want to read about “exotic” things and places, and people they consider victimized heroes.

The other thing you have to understand is that entering SF as an author (what, as an ESL for whom English is a third language and who had no contacts in the field? Bah, it took a little long, but listen, I entered college in Portugal. Coming from the village, and often not owning any of the books I was supposed to have because they were too expensive. If I had a motto it would be “I contrive.”) was like entering college in Portugal.

Most of these people –Definitely MOST of the editors – came from families where ALL generations had gone to college as far as they remembered (kind of like my husband’s family. It amuses me that paternal grandad would have bowed and scraped and been speechless before my inlaws.) More than that, they’d gone to prestigious colleges. For 99% of them, if they had an ancestor who worked with his/her hands, it was buried in the mists of time.

There were exceptions, of course, but those were often “fallen from grace” families, like my paternal grandfather’s.

Some of the older editors were the first in their families to go to college, but they behaved and integrated as being more papist than the Pope. They had something to prove and were too la-di-da for words, and would never admit to a childhood of scrimping and saving.

And almost none of them had ever known many people outside lower middle class.

This is understandable because in America you usually move only within your “class”. (We don’t, but we’re weird.)  Unless you’re an odd, or military or another group that walks between worlds.  Your business associates and neighbors, in the age of suburbs seem to all have “close enough to mine” backgrounds.  (Where “mine” is whatever yours is, not mine obviously.)

What I mean is these are people who not only have never associated with persons of other races and cultures (except those who went through the same schools and thus while externally different are exactly the same inside) but to whom “lower class” or “poor” is like the other side of the moon. They know it’s there but they’ve never seen it.

They exhibit great nostalgie the la boue because they have never experienced real mud and real hardship, so to them this is interesting and exotic, and they don’t realize it reads dreary and grey to us.

They casually demonize the working class they are trying to help (and they really think they’re trying to help them, mind) because they’ve never had to do menial, back breaking work, and they project themselves onto the poor. The poor are, of course, just like them, so the only way to explain that they are poor is that they have been misled, told lies, and stolen from by the rich.

Marx fits into this type of mentality like a glove. To a person unable to understand true human variety of drive and need and guilt, Marx “explains everything.” Like, say, generational poverty.  It never occurs to them that so does a horrible culture.  Oh, they also fail to understand “poor” isn’t the same for everyone.  My brother and I might have been “poor as Job” compared to our classmates, but we were wealthy and pampered beyond the dreams of avarice compared to our parents’ childhoods. I doubt this distinction would even be apparent from sufficiently above us.

These are the people who favor raising the minimum wage because in their world this means that poor people will have more money, completely missing the fact that most poor people will lose their jobs and most jobs that aren’t worth minimum wage but still need to be performed will go to illegal immigrants who will become an unassimilated under class in our midst.

Meanwhile, never considering drive or need (which weirdly is different for everyone) to succeed, they explain poverty (besides by theft from above, which two seconds thought would show makes to sense) they assume that people of other races/classes must be stupid and need help from above.

Oh, they don’t ASSUME it ALOUD. No, it’s just built in in their cures. Say, why aren’t there more minorities in science fiction? Oh, because people want to read about people like them, and if you don’t PORTRAY minorities, then they won’t read the genre.

Cupcake, as a kid from the village I read American SF with no issues. Minorities and the poor are no more stupid than you are (in general) and don’t need you talking down to them and trying to be like them so they’ll like you. In fact, Sweetie, having someone who has Latin blood three generations back, if that, write coy little stories about the plight of speakers of Spanish and Portuguese does NOT in fact attract me so much as make me want to break into the village patois, “Oh, morcona, deixa-te das fitas. Anda ca pra minha rua, que eu dou-te um pimpim que ate ficas a deitar verniz.”

Our lotus eaters in publishing (and entertainment and academia) don’t understand that. Their need to relate only to those who are “good people” i.e. who’ve internalized their version of the world as they think exists, means they lionize external minorities who have the same internal make up they do.

People like Larry and I? We’re utterly baffling. They can only explain our inability to conform to their internal picture of the world by refusing to go on about victimhood and refusing to stay in our assigned places by thinking we’re evil and class and race (and in my case gender) traitors.

I remember the precious flower who told me I didn’t like current feminism because I grew up with the gains of feminism. Poor darling didn’t know I grew up in a time and place where a woman needed her husband’s signature to get a job, where “family passports” were a thing, female suffrage wasn’t and where EVERY teacher told me of course I wasn’t as smart as the boys. Yes, in public. Aloud. I’m here to tell you it didn’t break me. I just made sure I was better than every boy. It is BECAUSE of my background that I don’t think we do girls any favors by protecting them from “micro aggressions.”

Humans who haven’t been ruined by wealth and Marx (a lethal cocktail) thrive on adversity.

And it is because of my background that I do see the good intentions AND the bafflement from the left side of writing, entertainment, politics.

They’re trying to help us, honestly. Why aren’t we grateful? (eh. “You should be thanking me.”) They want more minorities and poor people in science fiction, because that’s the decent thing to do. And of course they don’t want minorities and poor people who don’t agree with them, because, as Marxism explains they’ve been colonized by the oppressive culture. And why would you want to propagate the oppressive culture.

This is why no matter how many times we explain to them that we are not sexist or racist or homophobic, they come back to the same. Because if we weren’t we wouldn’t oppose them.

And that’s why we must want to take sf to “the fifties” which never existed outside their heads. (I suspect and have heard from people who lived it, the fifties were more like the village than like June Cleaver.)

They’ve never read those books, of course, because they’re full of false consciousness and might infect them, or something.

It’s not the lotus eater’s fault. They are the 1% of the 1% who had the money, the contacts and the connections to either be NY editors (Baen excepted, as always) or to be picked by their former college roommates/distant relatives/friends of friends as the next best thing.

They all speak the same new-Marxist language, and they all want to improve the world.

Those of us who climbed hand over hand into being published and who refuse to hide our origins and cater to their monolithic world view are like a fart in church. We disrupt their perfectly formed, carefully maleducated perceptions.

They don’t understand that in a world of online and indie publishing with no gatekeepers, and the inability to shut us up/keep us from the public by having a word with someone, we’re the forefront of a coming wave.

The poor things don’t understand they’re the French court circa 1780. Aping the revolutionaries in the US and trying to be hip and speaking truth to imaginary power. All unaware of the coming change.

Ça Ira

The Israelites of old had a custom whereby — to stop the psychological consequences of sin — they put their sins onto a goat and drove it into the desert.

Of course it wasn’t fair to the poor goat, because it was just a dumb animal, driven into an inhospitable environment and if it survived long enough it probably became dinner for some wandering nomad.

I mean, PETA would be all over them, but it was a sophisticated way to save the community.

Fortunately for them the goat didn’t have access to the internet and its store of misbehavior that never goes away.

So, on Dave Pascoe’s (#3 auxiliary, backup adopted son) posts he had a throw away line.  It’s early in the morning and I’ve only had half a cup of coffee and I’m not going to look for it just now, but if I recall it was something like “the accepted wisdom is that they’re thinking of making the worldcon attending membership the only one with a vote.”  Of which there was a lot of talk in the wilds of March when the Puppy Punters were in a fever.  No use looking of course, because they scrub regularly (which is why it’s a good idea in an argument with them to capture stuff, and why it’s a bad idea for them to leave comments on my blog.)  Note he didn’t say there was a proposal for it or that it really went forward (though arguably the effect of Pluribus Hugo which is on the agenda for WC WILL make it harder not for agendas to make it but for anyone without an agenda to make it.  It’s amazing isn’t it how their proposals always have the opposite of the effect they claim to want?)

Well, the puppy punters must be in a fever again (why it’s like full summer moon with them.  I wonder why, don’t you?) because poor Dave got an invasion of trolls on that one in-passing line. And one of the trolls revealed the new party line.  (Guys, seriously, if you’re going to train and aim trolls make sure they have more than two brain cells to rub together.  Yes, I know how hard that is, because then they don’t buy your fifth hand pre-disgested pap “Oh, the puppies are neo nazis and extremists and reprehensible” say.  But at least try not wind up the true idiots and send them off to reveal how you’re trying to turn the narrative.  Just some friendly advice from a woman who owns her own piranha tank and scorpion pit.)

I had before been seeing pictures on facebook from people on the other side with a cutesy band saying “we are all sf” and from that I had deduced that “wrongfans” was all old and busted and the new hotness was “we are all SF” (the Kumbaya is implied.)  And I’d raised an eyebrow, but we were doing the final push on the house, getting oldest son moved to his own place, trying to figure out where money comes from for younger boy’s upcoming tuition (not his fault, we borrowed from him to get the house ready.  Yeah.)  and I hadn’t paid much attention. [Update: I’m told in comments this is Lou Berger’s initiative and he means it.  That’s fine.  I have nothing against Lou who’s never done me any harm and seems like a nice guy, but a lot of the puppy-kickers are hiding behind it for their projection screen.]

Then the little troll that could left this nugget (and ran away, because that’s what most of the envoys of Fowl 770 (bock, bock, bock) do.)

The Sky is Falling – Amanda S. Green

At least that is the way it might seem if you were paying much attention to those very vocal few who have made it their life’s mission to denigrate anyone who might even remotely be associated with Sad Puppies 3. Oh how they have rallied these last few days to not only vilify Lou Antonelli but, even in the face of the one man who could reasonably be seen as having an issue with him accepting his apology, they continue to attack and demonize him. This has resulted in at least one contract being cancelled for Mr. Antonelli and even that is not enough to satisfy those who have taken to social media to attack him.

And, like with so much of what the Anti-Puppy crowd has done these last few months, they have taken Antonelli’s actions and blown them out of proportion. Specifically, Antonelli sent a letter to the Spokane Police Department expressing concerns not so much about what David Gerrold might personally do but what some of those who follow him on social media might do. Was it a wise move on Antonelli’s part? No. But, to be honest, with some of the vitriol I have seen from both sides of the fence the last few months, I can understand why he might have felt concerned.

As is the way of so many things in the day of the internet and public records requests, the letter and its contents became known. Having had time to calm down and think about what he had done, Antonelli issued an apology to David Gerrold and Gerrold accepted the apology. But that wasn’t the end of it. Oh no, not by a long shot.

Some of the more vocal of the Anti-Puppy crowd have fanned the fires. They keep referring to what Antonelli did as “swatting” Gerrold and Sasquan. It is another example of how they have found the best hot button word, one we all associate with bad behavior and danger to those involved. But, are they right? Did Antonelli “swat” Gerrold and Sasquan?

Not only no but hell no.

From Wikipedia, “Swatting is the act of tricking an emergency service (via such means as hoaxing an emergency services dispatcher) into dispatching an emergency response based on the false report of an ongoing critical incident.” It has happened when police have been called to someone’s home saying a robbery or kidnapping is in progress. It is often associated with gamers doing it to other gamers or fans, very disturbed and misguided fans, doing it to Hollywood stars.

But note one thing, it is the “false report of an ongoing critical incident.”

Ongoing.

Critical.

Incident.

Hmm. I don’t quite see how a letter qualifies, especially one expressing concern over potential actions for an event that is not taking place for weeks from the date of delivery.

The Business Insider gives this example of what SWATTING is:

Imagine you’re at home playing a video game, broadcasting your gameplay online for your followers to watch on the video-streaming site Twitch. Without warning, the door to your room is busted open and SWAT officers are screaming at you to put your hands up and get on the ground — all while thousands of people online get a front-row seat to the action thanks to your computer’s webcam.

And yet there are those who continue to claim that Antonelli’s letter and his subsequent comments on a podcast constituted SWATTING and Antonelli is the lowest of low.

From the podcast, here are the few sentences the group takes issue with:

“I personally wrote a letter addressed to the police chief in Spokane and said I thought the man was insane and a public danger and needs to be watched when the convention’s going on, and I mean it. I attached my business card. I said this guy’s inciting to violence. Somebody—a weak-minded might attack somebody because of his relentless strength of abuse. I think, honestly, I think he belongs in a secure psychiatric facility.”

Personal opinion? Yes.

Prudent and wise? Probably not.

Ongoing critical incident? Not a chance.

But let’s look at this from the other side of the coin. Irene Gallo called Puppies of the Sad and Rabid forms “extreme right wing and neo-nazi”. She also said they were “racist, misogynist and homophobic.” Others have suggested that Brad Torgersen be muzzled by his editor or have his contract dropped. But where is the outrage from those who are so worried about everyone being treated equally when the livelihoods of writers and artists are being threatened by such accusations?

Oh, wait, we don’t matter. They don’t care that such accusations could cause someone with a security clearance to lose that clearance and, thereby, their job. They don’t give a rat’s ass about calling on editors to muzzle their writers for expressing a personal opinion that the other side doesn’t approve of. But let us call out Irene Gallo or anyone else for what they say and we become the big bad enemy.

And this is all over an award that most of the reading public doesn’t even know exists.

There really are times when I feel like I am standing along the edge of the playground watching a bunch of three year olds – my son was much better behaved at that age – pitching a fit because they can’t have their way. Worse, it makes all of us look bad to those who wander past our social media posts and see this sort of BS.

I refuse to apologize for supporting Sad Puppies 3. I was honored to be included on the recommended list of authors, bloggers, artists and more Brad put together. I will never apologize for believing story and character development are more important than message in fiction. The vast majority of readers want to be entertained when they pick up a book, not preached at. That doesn’t mean a book can’t have a message. It just means there has to be more than just a message to it.

Then again, unlike the other side, I had no problem reading everything that was on the Hugo ballot – and yes, I lost a lot of sleep making sure I did just that – and then voting for what I thought was the best. I did not stomp my foot and grit my teeth and put “No Award” above any nominee just because it was by an author I might not agree with politically or because they were off of the Rabid Puppy or someone else’s recommended list. I didn’t even vote “No Award” above something with a message just because it had a message.

But then, I also recognize that Antonelli’s comments and his letter weren’t the most prudent thing he’s ever done but they also do not deserve the vilification he has received as a result.

So here’s the deal, folks. I don’t care what side of the issue you’re on. Grow the f*ck up. Antonelli apologized. Gerrold accepted it. They were the parties involved. No one else has a dog in this show.

I’m not holding my breath. I’ve seen too much of the other side to think they will act like the responsible adults they claim to be. They smell blood in the water right now because Antonelli apologized. They view that as weakness and they will do everything they can to exploit it. After all, now it is SWATTING to send what used to be viewed as a crank letter. At least in their eyes and as long as the letter concerns them. But how many “concerned” communications have their side sent to Sasquan’s concom, how many “concerned” conversations have been had that say basically the same thing as Antonelli’s letter? Even if they haven’t sent such “concerns” to Sasquan, you can find similar on their Facebook or Twitter feeds, in their FB comments and on their blogs.

Yes, my friends, the double standard is alive and well and living in the science fiction and fantasy world.

Mostly because I’m tired and undercafeinated and I have an article and three short stories overdue.  But my guest poster failed me, and I’m not willing to run some of the guest posts in the back burner, because it’s so late, and I hate to short my writers.

However, I have a post percolating and don’t want to put it here.  So, instead, you get a collected bag of random musings.

So, yesterday we decided to go over to the other house to meet realtor.  Children, don’t try this at home.  Because Dan sort of immediately looked at the faucets and said “These have to change” (Okay, there were other points, such as that the faucets were on sale at home depot and…) So, 8 hours later…

In my defense I didn’t do much except keep Dan company.  I’m still exhausted.  Realtor will probably work out.  He’s a geek and we’re geeks, so…

So, what have I been up to other than the house and moving Robert out? Not a heck of a lot, obviously.  On the slate for today is finishing the black tide novella and writing an overdue article.

Of course I get to kill people who annoy me in Do No Harm, the Black Tide Novella:

The TV was set on news and all the anchors sounded hysterical. Though seeing Emerson Cuiper go full zombie on camera before chasing the other CNN anchors around had been completely worth it. And it was a sign of how jaded they’d got in the last few months that it warranted no more than snorts from a couple of the doctors and Lucas Fiacre, one of the Physician’s Assistants saying in his best camp voice, “Oh that is nothing to brag about,” when the news anchor tore all his clothes off.

Tomorrow I do two more short stories, then I finish Witch’s Daughter (comes after Witchfinder) this week, so I can put it up before the end of the month.  And then I’ll pivot to finishing Darkship Revenge.

Meanwhile this morning I discovered the horrors of having given my kid all five pounds of Kenyan Peaberry.  I’m on tea until younger kid wakes and I can get taken to supermarket.

Oh, the eyes.  Got new glasses prescription, even though it hurt because, money. BUT because I haven’t driven in over a year and because my prescription was so different, I’m giving my eyes time to adjust and then will start driving in neighborhood till I’m adjusted.

Oh, and speaking of driving — yesterday JUST stopped in time (my husband, driving) to NOT run over a dog that ran across the street in our old neighborhood.  If we’d hit him it would have ruined out week, probably broken his owner’s heart (beautiful, well cared for animal) and probably damaged the car, since it was a big dog.

I know pets escape — have had that happen with our cats — but today be extra careful with yours and give your pets a hug for me.

And speaking of pets — we still have Robert’s cat until after his retreat in the mountains — and the little bastage is doing the faithful dog thing and refusing to eat.  Sigh.  One more week.

Speaking of depressing — what the heck is it with even sensible people falling for Trump?

1- Item, he was a big Hilary supporter.

2- Item, he doesn’t rule out running independent

3- Item, Ross Perot spoke the same kind of populist rethoric, ran indie and gve victory to Clinton.  Amazing how this happens when a Clinton runs, isn’t it?  Heck of a coincidence.

4- He only gets away with speaking as he does and not getting destroyed in the media — yeah, they can.  They did to Palin and, oh, yeah, the tea party — because they are in on it, wink, wink, nudge nudge.  Which is why the other republicans aren’t doing what he does.

5- Trump is the only person I know — yes, even more than Jeb Bush — against whom the levels of cheating needed to elect Hilary will look like “no fraud.”

6- If because of this we elect Hilary, or worse Sanders I’m going to be seriously upset.  We don’t need our very own “Chavista” regime.

I’ve been looking at you tube for folkloric dances from Portugal.  A friend asked if I was nostalgic.  Not really.  Most of these were things I didn’t know about.

It started with # 1 son mentioning the Stick and Bucket Dance in Lords and Ladies.  I told him I knew exactly what that looked like because the Portuguese have their own version.

Tell me you can’t hear “dance you b*st*rds” in the background of that.

MOST masculine men in skirts you ever saw.

That led to this,

which for inexplicable reasons is known as “Storming the Castle” and why in heck do they have castanets?

Robert rather liked the first one, which he says should be headlined “and then we fought and stuff” but was bewildered by the second.

This led us to THIS link, which bewildered us both:

This group has much prestige because of authentic attire from “the time of Roman occupation.”  To which my son sneered “Yeah, for slaves and foreigners.”  Which is about right.

Anyway, this trip down the oddest nooks of Portuguese ethnography is because Portugal has discovered its past.

“What?” Younger son asked.  “But they do nothing else.”

Unkind, if to an extent true, because Portugal keeps ruminating on its past.  However, it’s usually its discoveries and such, iow the “progress” side of history.  Nowadays people seem to be fascinated by the “murky” past of Portugal.  The stuff when Portugal was the welcome mat of Europe where everyone wiped their genetic material.

This fascinates me because it’s the sort of history they DIDN’T teach in school.  Murky, both explaining and buried in quotidian life.  It’s interesting as heck, not that I want to revive it.

But there are things, such as when I was singing a medieval song that my mom sang to me as a baby and my son stopped me and said “you know the unknown lover is death, right?” and went on to explain the markers and suddenly the song made sense.  (There is nothing about it on line, in fact the one version online was collected from the south and adds a king and a shepherdess becoming queen, things from the renaissance, not the Middle Ages.)

In the middle of discussing that — back when we were fixing the house — my son sang this which is creepy enough to form the “spine” of an Urban Fantasy or a thriller.

That’s what’s going on in my head this morning, and why I couldn’t write a proper post.  I mean, the whole melange.

And now I’m going to have caffeine and then work.

The house is done.  I’m still sort of spinning sideways from the brutal slog yesterday turned into.

I’m leaving now to meet with realtor.  If he doesn’t work out, will get others and interview them, of course.  MEANWHILE the brutal, hard scraping, sanding and waxing are done.  The back of our car and the garage over there are still full, but we can deal with those little by little.  This house needs cleaning (desperately) but not TODAY.

I might post again later.  I had this line going through my head that started “Why do uplifted mice always wear only shorts?” which indicates I’ve been reading way too much Disney while wiped out and I might play with it.

Or, having gritted my teeth and bought the newest PF Chisholm at the extortionate prices her publisher charges upon first release, after realtor I might curl up in bed and devour it.

And after tomorrow I’m all yours.

*Okay, so I got almost everything done yesterday and I’m tempted to say since today is mostly detail and fetch and carry that I’ll be back by early afternoon.  OTOH what these last few months have taught me is that little tasks can eat a whole day, so no promises.  I could still be at the other house at 2 am.  BUT it will be done and we’re meeting with the realtor tomorrow early.  So.  If you guys wish I CAN post photos of cleaned/painted/wood-stained/staged rooms later.  I mean, you should know what ate at least three books worth of time.

Going now.  It’s going to be a rough day because I’m starting it tired.  Keep fingers crossed for me.*

Help, there’s Slang in my History! – Alma Boykin

Twice, thus far, I have encountered books written by historians who lurched way too far in the “popular” direction while writing popular history. In one case I finished the book and just made a mental note to not write like that. The second case stopped me cold one-third of the way through the book, which I then deleted from my e-reader never to be touched again. And it led to much ranting and uncharitable thoughts aimed at both the author and whoever did not tell this individual, “This is excessively hip even for the American market.”

Looking back twenty years or so, the first book gave me the sense that the writer was trying too hard to be cute. She had written a light history about consumer culture during the time of Louis XIV and XV. She argued that many features of what we consider basic marketing and fashion began during this time and were centered on the court cultures of the two Louis. She then proceeded to walk through different case studies and examples. Some I don’t know enough about consumer history to judge, others seemed reasonable (the furniture showroom idea, for example, and the concept of fashion seasons.) She didn’t make any glaring blunders with the material I already knew, so I was inclined to take her arguments as pretty reasonable. But her little asides and winks bumped me out of the book on several occasions.

I’m not an expert on the aristocratic culture of 17^th and 18^th century France. I do not speak French. But I am pretty certain that no duchess or countess would have described herself as “fashion-forward” or have referred to Madam du Pompadour as being a “fashionista.” As memory serves, there was another place where a jeweler was referred to as the “Cartier” of the time. A few “Sex and the City” references may have been tossed in as well, in one case almost appropriately when the author interviewed a modern shoe designer about the goings on in a Fragonard painting.

The problem with this sort of cuteness is three fold. First, it makes me question the author’s respect for her topic. Just how seriously is she taking the material if she makes little winks and pop-culture shortcuts instead of using more appropriate terms? And if she’s not serious, why should I bother reading any farther? Second, ten or fifteen years from now, a reader might not get the references and will be thrown harder out of the book. Third, the book was packaged and sold as a moderately serious cultural history, not light pop history. If I had not gone through her endnotes and seen a goodly number of primary sources and academic monographs, I would probably have blown off the book and the author. As it happens, the author did do her work, is a decent historian and writer, and the book offers some interesting arguments about the origins of upper-tier consumer culture.

But the second one, oh the second one. My knowledge of Eastern Europe has some large holes, including Romania/Transylvania. So I went looking for histories of that region (that cost less than an arm and a leg). As you would imagine, the field is rather sparse, so when I found an inexpensive volume that had decent reviews and claimed to cover the history and culture of the region from Roman times to the early 20^th century, I got it. The monograph started pretty well, with an outline of the topic and the author’s difficulties with the Communist-era historiography. Cool, this was what I was looking for, and so I dug in.

The first chapter had a few rough spots, but the footnotes held up and I’m willing to grant a lot of leeway to people writing in a second or third language when it comes to a few problems with almost-but-not-quite vocabulary and terms. They did not interfere with the story or the author’s argument, and I got what he was trying to say. Then the Romans arrived and the book started to get shaky. Not the facts and dates, no, but the interpretation and the language. Trajan waged a three-stage war against the Dacians, the people living in what is now Romania and Serbia, in the early second century. No problems there, until the author compared the results of the First Daican War to Pres. Bush’s speech with the “Mission Accomplished” banner in the background. That jarred, to put it mildly. It may have seemed catchy and current, but it really stuck out of the description of the campaigns, and made me a little concerned about what else might be coming. But perhaps it was a one-off comment.

Then it got worse. The Roman soldiers along the eastern limes, the frontier border between Roman Dacia and the barbarians, were “meat puppets” and a few other slang descriptions. Right there I stopped reading, closed the e-reader, and went to do something else. A day or so later I returned to the book, hoping not to encounter any more egregious abuses of historical writing. Wrong. The author continued to incorporate American slang and references when they really added nothing to his discussion about the re-organization of the Dacian countryside following the withdrawal of Roman civil authority and military forces from the province. The tone of cute asides and “well of course people didn’t abandon the land, they just relocated, stupid,” although aimed at earlier historians, grated too much for me to keep reading.

Now, I should add that the history of population movement and “who settled where when” in the area from, oh, south of the modern Hungarian-Slovak border to Corinth in Greece is a very hot topic. First, there are several periods without a great deal of records, if any, and archaeologists have to try and piece together what they can. Second, a lot of ethnic pride and nationalism is wrapped up in “who got here first,” and who should be where now. Romanian and Hungarian historians argue over Transylvania until they are blue in the face and/or cause nationwide pixel shortages. An ethnic Romanian arguing for multi-thousand year cultural continuity (and land claims) is going to be pretty vehement about the inaccuracy of claims to the contrary. That said, there are ways to express that without, in essence, calling the other side ignorant poopy heads.

I gave up on the book. Despite the author having done his homework, despite providing information that I might find useful, despite including recent research in an area that is very difficult to learn anything about, the book failed me so hard that I quit. The combination of pop references and slang, along with the rather snide tone the author took when discussing Late Antiquity and historiography, pushed me out never to return. If I were rating the book I’d have trouble. Four stars for factual material, perhaps five, at least for the portion I read, but one star for writing style and presentation. Or even zero stars, since that style pushed me out before I got to 500AD/CE.

As a writer, that first encounter with the French cultural history book made me wary of too-cute terminology. I try to keep the informality to an appropriate level based on my audience and the topic. Even in fiction, or perhaps especially in fiction, I tend to avoid slang. The most recent collision has just reinforced that policy, and made me very wary about keeping anachronisms out of my writing as well as out of the story. No medieval “Club Fed” references, no Romans asking for coffee or ancient Irish queens pining for chocolate, Goethe or Bismarck won’t have an assistant look up a bit of information from a database, and I will never, ever, ever imply that a historian with whom I disagree is a poopy head. At least, not in print.

There are in Portugal a set of churches known as unfinished chapels.  You’ll have to forgive me, because it’s been a long time and other than being taken there on the annual “tour” which is mandatory for every Portuguese elementary school child, I don’t remember anything about them, not even where they are.

You’ll also have to forgive me because this post will also be a bit of an unfinished chapel — a lot of thoughts thrown together.  Bear with me.  I should be more myself tomorrow.

I have the vague idea the churches were so elaborate, and required so much carving and gilding, that the king worked on them as treasury afforded, but died before they were completed.

I suspect my fans are starting to think of the house we’re leaving this way, and I’ll admit there have been moments there, in the middle, when I thought so myself.  The dreary amount of little crappling (totally a word) stretched to infinity and I couldn’t see it ever being done.

But I remember this phase from the house in Manitou, which was smaller, and which had less to be done to it, and which I finished alone.  It took close to a year and most days I came home so tired I just wanted to cry.

The tired is still here, but fortunately I did not do this house alone, as Robert (and the other guys as they could, but mostly Robert) helped me for over-full time for three months.

It occurred to me yesterday this was a lousy run up to medical school, as he fell asleep in the middle of talking to me in my office, having come back for odds and ends he forgot to take.  On the other hand, the same dogged sense of what’s right and caring for those who need it led him to help me beyond his natural limits of energy, as it leads him to medschool.  All I can do is hope he gets a lot of sleep between now and start of classes.  (He told me, btw, he wasn’t asleep but thinking.  First time I heard thinking with so much snoring.)

But it is now near the end.  Even Robert, looking over the house, said “It’s all over but the shouting, isn’t it?”

In fact it would have been done a month ago, if my body hadn’t given up on me now and then and forced me to take weeks off.

In the end we had to contract a bunch of things out, because the alternative was my taking months to learn how to do them, and therefore we bled money and I will request your thoughts and prayers that the house sells fast and also that I recover fast and can write, otherwise we’ll be in a world of trouble.

What’s left, after I spend today and maybe tomorrow morning– but I think it will be done today — cleaning is the almost-fun stuff of dollhouse playing.  Setting the table for high tea, with a large vase of roses, putting pictures up, getting a potted plant for the fireplace.  That sort of thing.

As for the unfinished chapels of my writing — those worry me even more than the house.  I know they’ll never be done.  At least, barring Alzheimers (and sometimes not even then.  Enid Blyton spent her last years writing novels and forgetting she’d written them.  Her daughters found them all over the place, after her death) I expect to die with my fingers on the keyboard and mid-plot.  (I count on you to harass younger son, the one who writes most like me, into finishing them.)

Right now they worry me because several of them, including, yes, the Dragon trilogy and Darkship Revenge, are trying to beat a pathway out of my head.

So house will be done this weekend or bust, and Sunday I’ll likely be passed out.  This should have been done a little at a time over the last several days, but since the workmen were delayed, and I was really tired, we devoted our time to moving the boy out of the house, instead.

And in keeping with the scattered nature of this post: that annual bus trip in Portugal.  It wasn’t a field trip but the “excursion” that each year in schooling did, on touring buses.

The excuse was to hit all the patriotic or significant sites.  As an history nerd, I always fought for the inclusion of battle sites or significant Roman ruins, to my classmates’ annoyance.  (They preferred to hit places known for their “historical” sweets, or go to parks.)  In fact, I think it was a way of showing the country to people who, mostly (3/4 of my class) finished schooling in 4th grade and who would settle in, immediately after, to live in their little village all their lives.  (Porto was 20 minutes by train from us, and brother and I attended High School there, but until late in life when my parents undertook to show her more of the country, my grandmother had been to it exactly 3 times.)

In fact my parents stopped paying for my “excursion” in fifth grade, and I stopped going/engaging in the planning.  The magnet high school I attended didn’t have “excursions” since most of the people there came from families who vacationed in Switzerland and France.  (I vacationed in my backyard until the boon of an Euro-rail pass and menial jobs on student working visas abroad.)

More on this later.  A scattered thought in passing is that because most of the students ended schooling in 4th grade, they (we) were treated as little adults at that age (most girls and boys would be working the next year.  Yeah, it was against the law, but there were ways to get around it.)  So the castles had no railings to protect idiots who chose to pitch down from towers, and no one did.

Imagine my surprise going back to find railings defacing castles and Roman ruins.  You see, in euro-socialist Portugal everyone goes to school through 12th grade, whether they have any interest in it or not, and few have jobs on coming out, because guaranteed employment and no firing for those already hired, no matter how incompetent, means no new employees.

On the more on that — Son who has always assumed we were reasonably well off (so did I) even if we go through tight periods like during this house selling gamble.  I mean other than in the two or three tight periods in his life time, he’s never lacked for food or clothing, he’s had a computer since he was three (Dan’s company was upgrading and sold them for a song) and there was always money for books and lessons.

He’s met some of his classmates and found out he’s a pauper.  Apparently most people who make it into the school come from private schools or at least private tutoring and have toured Europe as a matter of course.

I told him it’s okay as my brother and I did the same, and attended college with people whose pocket money was about the same as dad’s salary, which didn’t prevent us from being the best in class and not even from having friends.  (I had a slightly harder time, because girls DO care about their labels.)

I suppose the motto of this household should be the same as Avis’ “We try harder” (Or like the t-shirts printed by the factory dad worked for, which were miss-corrected by someone with one year of English and were printed with “We Tries Harder”.  Yeah.  Avis weirdly didn’t take delivery and so I wore the illiterate t-shirts all through my weekends and free time in my teenage years.)

And now I’m going to try harder at doing the final cleaning on the house.  And tomorrow we’ll meet with realtors and walk them through.

And Sunday I shall rest.

Perchance to Dream – a blast from the past post February 2011

In the last day, I noticed a lot of postings on Facebook about the shuttle. And this made me realize something about space, and what space means.

I haven’t been exactly paying attention. Whenever a novel is done – let alone a novel that was delayed due to my stupid body, once more, reminding me that these things come without warranty – there’s a lot of things I’ve been putting off that have to be dealt with. Particularly when I’m plunging straight into another couple of books that need to be finished, both of which are ready to enter ‘final phase’ (the phase when things are coming together and I work in a sort of white-hot haze.)

So, in the last couple of days I verified that my kitchen does, indeed, still have a floor by removing all the fur and grime that had accumulated over it; reduced the waiting Everest of laundry to a mere Pikes Peak; did grocery shopping; made sure the kids are still alive (you never know, and zombie children are such pains); cleaned the cats water fountain; removed approximately three Haveys from every surface in the house, including the floor (a Havey is a measurement of fuzziness. It equals about an inch of fuzz on everything.)

As has been obvious from this blog, I’ve logged on to the net maybe twice/three times a day, if that, and I haven’t exactly been thinking about the internet.

Even so, I couldn’t avoid postings on the shuttle.

. Perhaps it is a function of the type of friends I have, but for a day, posts on the shuttle seemed to overshadow even the endless political postings by people who should know better about what they put on their professional Facebook pages (Hint, if you feel free to put it up in a place where your potential bosses will read it, you’re not talking truth to power. You ARE the power.)

It reminded me a lot of the moon landing. For a moment, for a blessed few hours, we looked up from the ball of mud as all eyes turned to space and to what we all knew in our hearts was the next movement for our species. Remember, I wasn’t an American then, but I felt it too. And it wasn’t just me. Within a week our elementary school teacher, in this tiny one-room school house, started talking about how lucky we were to be living in a time when we might grow up and go to space. At various get togethers arranged for kids, the various, insanely-cheerful songs of the row your boat variety suddenly included references to the lunar age, to man of the space age. (Oh, I’m sure some Soviet scientists were furious that day. Bureaucrats even more so. But doubtless even they were in awe.)

The difference of course, is that the moon landing was a first and everyone pays attention to a first. So you might think it means nothing. It doesn’t explain the attention paid to the shuttle, because we’ve been expecting the end there – we know it’s an expensive program and it’s being shuttered.

And yet. And yet there’s something that calls us to space. In Space Engineers, Simak posited that we always longed for the stars, because we’d known we come from there. Of course if I wrote anything suggesting that, it would get buried under screams of outrage – even if I wrote it metaphorically, so I won’t. Beautiful and chest-expanding as that idea is, the explanation is much simpler.

As some of you know when I’m sick I read biology and anthropology manuals and sites. (Unless I’m REALLY sick, in which case I read about dinosaurs. It’s like comfort food.)

Our species – all species – have two modes: expand range or die. As my friend Dave Freer put it, we’re a species of colonists. It’s what we do. Every human race, every human culture longs to expand and most of them have, with varying degrees of success. Expansion is healthy both for the new culture and the one left at home. Innovations are bought back; inventions are sparked; restless young men are given productive outlets.

Are expansions within Earth and into someone else’s territory different? To an extent. It could be argued, though, that from the very long term perspective those expansions have, ultimately, been for the benefit of humanity in general. (Yes, I could expand on this, but not at six in the morning on a day when my to-do writing list is overflowing the page. Also, I suspect to explain it in detail would take a book. However, take the fact that as a whole humanity is now – at the end of expansionary movements and wars of conquest that started in the paleolithic – not only more numerous but more long-lived and healthier than ever. Then connect the dots.)

Whether our expansion is a good thing for anyone else, frankly, is a matter of total lack of concern to me. I know it’s chauvinistic and irredeemable of me, but when it comes to choosing between my own species and hypothetical blue aliens with linked in pony tails, I’m going to choose my own species. And no, I don’t care how ecologically sound these hypothetical aliens are, or how loving-kind or how perfect. Heck, I wouldn’t care even if they stopped being hypothetical.

Yes, I know, you’re looking at me in horror. But there are things that are so basic, so simple, so fundamentally gut-right that it takes years and years of education and an exquisite attention to moral formation to make people ignore them or think otherwise. Arguably our system does just that to people, just now.

And that’s insane, because even herbivores fight for their herd. You never see cornered antelope go “Oh, look, it’s much better for our herd if we let the lions eat the weak and the old. I mean, it’s not like they can live forever. And what right do we antelopes have to take over the area? Everyone knows we overgraze and destroy bio diversity.” The reason antelopes don’t do this is that they haven’t spent twelve plus years listening to how the species they belong to is harmful and useless and should go extinct for the sake of higher values of a nebulous kind. Lucky antelopes.

I did spend sixteen plus years listening to what horrible creatures humans are. I’ve also read countless books to the effect. But, aw, shucks, as my parents found out from the moment I could move around and say “no” I’ve never taken suggestion well. Also, I’m a mother, (no, not in the sense you guys call me that) and I’m selfish. I’d like to see my line of descendence stretch all the way into the future and if possible to the stars.

Those posts yesterday proved that despite schooling, despite instruction, despite the fact that the rest of you aren’t as tri-plated irascible, stubborn b*tches as I am, (which is a good thing. A world full of me would be terrifying, not to mention boring) most people at a gut level feel the same yearning to push our species past the ball of mud and on to new and bright frontiers.

Oh, we know it won’t all be blanket trees and candy fields. If anything we know the dangers far too well. We know in this wave of expansion as in many others, men and women will die, and we’ll lose some of our true best and brightest. Doesn’t matter. In reaching beyond one simple planet, they will bring a better life to the vast majority of us. A life so rich, so free, so full of security and abundance that we can’t imagine it, and our ancestors would have called it heaven.

And that is why I’m talking about it in the future, despite the last decade or so of our being assured this expansion would never happen; despite the last two decades of our being hectored on how this was a pipe dream and we had to learn to be good stewards of this one, tiny corner of the galaxy.

Look my friends, here is wax. Block your ears against the siren song of the nay sayers, the guilt-trippers and the scared sisters who always, always prefer their fireside to the discovery of new lands. Their ilk has always existed and always will. Someday our descendants will come back from their distant space colonies, conquer their descendants and bring them the innovations we discovered meanwhile. And then some of their descendants will join in the expansion to another galaxy and – if it’s possible we’ll find a way – another universe.

Oh, things look nasty right now, but the way we’ve been doing space is expensive and not very efficient. If there’s one thing we’ve learned in recent decades (since we went to the moon) is that not only isn’t big government necessary for big projects, big government is usually an hindrance to big projects, (it tends to be staffed by all those fireside sisters.)

So, government is broke and won’t be doing much for us. That’s fine. Not a problem. Le us do for ourselves. Let us try many ways to get into space. the best will succeed, and after that we’ll continue trying.

Look up into the skies at night see all those stars? Your descendants (direct or collateral) and mine will walk in planets circling them. They’ll be born and die, war and marry in worlds we can only imagine. They’ll change, they’ll grow, they’ll understand more than we can know.

And they’ll dream of bigger things.

When I was little, the world was immutable and safe.  No, really.  Even though I was very sickly and always at risk of death, so I always understood I was mortal, and also was very versed on what happened after death, because in those nights when I lay awake struggling for each aching breath, I reviewed all my options.  (I had come to the conclusion that as final judgement went I’d best cry a lot and throw myself on the mercy of the court by the time I was four.)  I would lay awake waiting for light to filter through the interior window (to the living room where light came in through the glass on the doors.  It was a shotgun apartment) sure that if the sun came up I’d be better.  Weirdly this was often true.

BUT other than the ever present fear of dying — and that wasn’t unsafe as such, as grandma’s stories gave me a map for what was on the other side, and I didn’t doubt her — the world was secure and immutable.  Oh, and things never wore out.

There were things like my old diapers we used to do the dusting.  They’d always been there, they’d always be there.  I had the same favorite pajamas (red flannel) from three to twelve.  How is that possible, you ask?  Mom must have added patches and layers very carefully, as I never noticed, but the pajamas grew with me, and were still my red pajamas.

I remember my shock at about 16 at realizing things could change, even fundamental “we’ve always done it this way” things.  My bath towel wore out and opened a hole.  And we changed our tea pan.  (No, I mean that.  It was a tea pan.  We made tea in a little saucepan.  I have no clue how that came to be, but my guess would be that mom got tired of teapots rusting out, the same reason I have a glass teapot.)

At twenty two I got married and spent a whole year in utter panic, because there were no “safe” touchstones.  If we failed to pay the rent, we’d be thrown out, but more importantly than that, I had NOTHING I was used to.  Everything was new.  And I was in a new country, which meant … everything was different.

Imagine my shock at realizing we’re now the pillars of the world surrounded by things that have always been so, even if we’ve moved a lot in our married life.

My older son has moved out, and I tried to pack things to go with him that will continue that sense of security, like the towels with the American flag and puppies.  Because those have been around since he was three.  And some of the “usual” bowls, and I’m ordering him replicas of some of our stuff, like the teapot.  Because to settle in it’s important to bring some of your roots with you.

But the way things change now, it seems so fast to me that I’m never shocked, in packing and moving, to find things I don’t remember at all.  Things I used/happened for only six months seem to leave no mark in my recollection of events.

And I am shocked when I find things that have been around forever.  Like, in one of the visits to Portugal I must have brought back (have vague memory) some of my nephew’s old diapers (best thing to polish furniture.)  Yesterday I was polishing furniture with this diaper and reflected that my nephew is now well over thirty, and this diaper is still around.

We are of course in a time of great change, as a family, with the move and my surgery (If I’d known I needed it, we’d have waited for the big move.  Ah, well, maybe it’s all for the best, as I needed to get out of there) and the kids apparently both moving out (though younger might wait till next year, depending when other house sells.)

And in the midst of it, I’m aware, as I was in my first year as a newlywed, that there are no certainties.  The world moves, and us with it.

The pillars of the world just aren’t there.  We float free through space and the price for freedom is insecurity.

Something that strikes me again and again when I go to Portugal is that they can’t seem to understand that the reward of insecurity is freedom.  They know, for instance, that if they get ill and can’t afford it they’ll have the crappy level of national health coverage everyone has.  It sucks, and misfires often and of course you can’t sue, because it’s the government, but they know it’s there.

In the same way they know they won’t lose their jobs, or if they do they’ll have almost the same in unemployment.

The reverse of that coin is that health care IS crappy (not in absolutes.  when it came in it was better than the competition which was village healers.  The thing is it hasn’t got much better, at least not in terms of response and responsibility, so well, everyone who can afford it has private insurance as well.  So they pay for the public health care through their taxes, and then must pay again if they want, you know, decent care.  (There are exceptions, my SIL works for the public system and is a devoted and excellent doctor who puts her patients ahead of other considerations.  But you have to be an idealist and a little crazy to do that.  Most doctors do the “required hours” for the government and then have their REAL practice.)

And not only does high unemployment payment sap any interest in finding a less than fabulous job, but jobs are hard to find, because it’s so hard to fire non-performing employees.  Also, businesses don’t get started because there are so many regulations, unless they happen under the table.  Sometimes it seems like everything in Portugal that matters happens under the table.

And yet, they shudder at the idea that when Dan lost his job we had to pay 20k for the first son’s birth.  (Until he was three, we were paying for him in installments.  We used to tell him it was so he wouldn’t be repossessed.)

And they shudder at the idea that if we’re both unemployed, as happened in 2003, we’ll have to scramble to support ourselves.

But the thing is, I look at our lifestyle and it’s … well… a lot more comfortable than theirs.  I was going to say “forty years ahead of theirs” which gives you an idea.

There is a price of course.  The price is in the lack of certainties.

I’d like the certainty of course.  The red pajamas were comfy and thinking the world has pillars is very cozy.

But I wouldn’t want it at the expense of empowering bureaucrats who make my health decisions for me and who impair the economy to the point that we know exactly what we’ll have tomorrow: a little worse than today.

Of course, we don’t have much choice just at the moment, but we’re Americans and it is important to realize that trading freedom for security is a trade and not just a high faluting trade of ideals, not just “give me liberty or give me death” but a practical trade.

You can have security or the freedom to make material progress.  You can have security or social mobility.  You can have security or the ability to start a business.  You can have security or the ability to invent and create.

It might seem a little silly to say I still prefer freedom to security in those circumstances, but I do.  A better mousetrap or a glass teapot are worth it.

Not only that but the security we’re talking about is not the security from lethal attack.  It’s more the certainty to know there will always be a little red pajamas waiting for you.

I’m old enough to survive without a little red pajamas.  It wouldn’t fit my increased mental appetite anyway.

I choose liberty.

I know, how meta.  BUT I have to be at the other house for workmen.  (The first one to make the Good Omens joke gets hit.)

I’ll be back in two or three hours, and then there will be post.