Friday, February 21, 2020

ForcedGratitude

Sometimes I feel like hot garbage. Honestly it's not infrequent. But even though I don't feel well I'm going to do this gratitude thing because I know it helps. Buckle up buttercup, we're doing this thing.

I'm grateful once again for diet coke. At this point it tastes good and is refreshing. Do I have a diet coke problem? Almost certainly. I still like it though :)

I'm thankful for Major's Burgers in Liberty Hill. Great food. Local place. Family owned and run. Such good food. Plus the wait in the drive thru is usually long enough to get a game of DotA Underlords in, which is fun.

We went on a hike today. We were safe and carrying my fat daughter didn't hurt my back as bad as last time. Progress!

K, going to bed. Thanks y'all. I hope you're doing super well. Gl hf and all that.

Tuesday, February 18, 2020

Tuesday at 29

I look back and recognize that I have changed a lot in the past eight years. I think this is a good thing. Despite spending a large portion of my time feeling anxious and depressed about everything, I do like who I am. That's a good feeling.

One of the things that changed between the eighth grade and now is how I feel about racism. I guess I didn't think it was a big deal back in the day. Specifically: I thought that individuals were probably racist but that this wasn't a serious problem.

Here's where I'm at now. Of course, I will continue to learn. But dang, I don't actually care about your individual racism. Like, whatever, you do you buddy. But what I do care about is the systemic racism that we have baked into our society. We, err, aren't set up to give everybody equal opportunities for success. This is *probably* a function of everybody's low-key racism in action, and *hopefully* not a function of a villainous cabal of billionaires (looking at you, Bloomberg).

I guess I just don't understand why

  1. We're having such a hard time convincing our white friends that systemic racism is real
  2. We're having a hard time convincing ourselves we should do something about it
Like, what the fetch is so hard about this? "Oh hey, we incarcerate black guys at an incredibly disproportionate rate, what's that about?" and "Oh wow, we give black guys way harsher sentences than we do white kids. Why is that?"

I think this makes sense when you take a historical look at things. We spent hundreds of years convincing ourselves that black people were less-than-us because it justified slavery. People can convince themselves of whatever they want to when it makes them a dollar. We then had a big fight about whether or not slavery was a good thing. Some people died I guess. But, shoot, losing the war didn't change the South's mind about stuff, it just wrecked their little country. 

We then spent a long time legally treating black people like garbage. Then we made that mostly illegal, but that didn't change anybody's mind-- it just sorta changed their actions. 

So yeah, when you look at a system that recently treated black people as legally less important, it's easy to see how the inhabitants of that system still carry vestigial ideas around with them. 

The evidence is just pretty overwhelming. And I don't understand why people get all defensive about this. "Yes but my great grandfather was a slave owner and was not a villian". Listen lady, nobody cares one bit about your grandfather. What we care about is systemic racism and what we are doing today to not be super villains. Let's make the world a better place and stop getting defensive about your racist grandpa, k? Nobody cares. Really. Seriously. Just stop. 

It's okay that we're calling you racist. It's fiiiiiiiine. Nobody likes you less because of it (jk we sorta do). What we really want, though, is to fix the system so we can live in a more just society. Does that hurt you at all? Nope, sure doesn't. Is it better for you? Absolutely.

So hey, it's okay that your grandpa was a racist super villain. It's completely irrelevant. Let's just fix the problems we have now because of the issues we created in the past. 

I feel like I generally do a decent job of understanding other people's view points. I'm really struggling to understand the fragile white resistance to fixing systemic racism though. Like seriously, what do you have to lose here? Why are you afraid of not incarcerating black men at a disproportionate rate? Help me see?

Anyways y'all should clearly vote for Elizabeth Warren. Peace. 

Monday, February 10, 2020

NormalGrat

I'm grateful that our car started acting funky on our drive tonight. That wasn't great, but it WAS great that we discovered it today when I was here and not tomorrow when I'm stuck an hour away. A gentle blessing.

I'm grateful that the waffles I made with E today turned out so dang good. I usually suck at waffles and today's were very good.

I'm grateful I get to go to work tomorrow and eat great food that I don't have to prepare or do dishes for. 

I'm grateful for medicine. E is sick today. Fever, bad ear infection, threw up. Poor kid. But the grape ibuprofen mostly helps him feel better.

Grateful that E is, I dunno, becoming a person? We're at the "emerging behavior" portion of parenthood. Dude had to throw up this morning. I was asleep on the couch. Dude walks to the drawer, gets an emesis bag Kate had from last pregnancy, and comes back to throw up in it. Super impressive that he knew where that bag was. And what it was used for. And that he knew he was going to puke. Like, holy fetch Batman. I had no idea my three year old has all that in his brain. I'm struggling to find my shoes on a regular basis and he's over here throwing up in some obscure vomit bag only he knew how to find. Impressive.

Sunday, February 09, 2020

Been a While Grat

It has been too long. I've been a bit lazy. I'm starting to feel the effects of not writing though. I always feel so much more whole when I'm writing and journaling. I'm not entirely sure why that is. It's like the reverse Tom Riddle dairy over here. My soul becomes more unified when I write. Please, don't stab my blog with a basilisk fang (I know you were considering it Sly Pig).

Grateful. Still a little irritated by how dang effective this exercise is. The results of explicitly celebrating the good things in my life have been very positive. Less depression, which leads to me being a better dad, husband, employee, etc.

Skipping this exercise for the last two weeks has contributed to more depression lately. Nothing terrible, but still worth noting. 

Let's get to it.

I'm grateful for discouraging meetings with my manager. We meet once a week unless I get lucky and dodge it. Invariably I leave the meeting very discouraged. I used to think that this meant my manager wasn't good. I'm learning now that discouragement is usually my response to failure or criticism. I'm starting to recognize the opportunities (and necessity) to improve. Specifically: my team lead is super organized. So organized. He's like a black market organ smuggling ring he's so organized. I keep disappointing him because I'm not. But this is an opportunity to learn! I need to become organized! And I wouldn't have this opportunity otherwise. So I'm grateful.

Very sleepy! 

But I've been kicking butt at work lately. I'm starting to work with my neighbors a lot more and I love that. I'm starting a book club with them this Tuesday. I don't care about the book, but I'm excited to get to know the coworkers better.

Must sleep. Will write tomorrow.