Sunday Snippets: Snow?

I love that we named the storm Hercules.

Beautiful images

Absolutely dead. I loved Power Rangers as a kid. One of my favorite shows as a kid.

Truth, because damn

Beautiful post from Monica at TransGriot

But the cure for those body image issues is pretty much the same. It's getting comfortable in your own skin, understanding that gender identity is between your ears, and confidently projecting and expressing to the world acceptance of your gender identity.

Holy Crap If I were the people on that boat and saw that picture later, I'd never leave my house again.

There have been great conversations on Twitter recently. 

While #SolidarityIsForTheAbleBodied shined a light on incidents of able-bodied privilege from across the globe, showing how ableism is a systemic issue in all political and societal respects, it also revealed something that has long been known by some, but that has been unrecognized by others: that FEMINISM HAS AN ABLEISM PROBLEM.

Also, see this one.

A great idea for pronoun usage

Gee, ya think? If you don't have the money, yeah, having a family just doesn't usually happen. I know the feeling.

The 11 Dumbest Things Said About Women In 2013 Let's be honest, god knows there was a lot.

Parents, Family, Children

Wow

I really feel for Adele in this instance. The utter lack of compassion and overt entitlement is disgusting from one of the few people who is supposed to love her unconditionally. I've seen parents who believe that just because they gave you life, that they own you. I'm reminded of the quote from My Big Fat Greek Wedding (yes, I love that movie) "I gave you life so that you could live it." Normal, sane parents do that. They bring children into the world because they have so much love to give and they want to share it with as many people as possible.

One of my dear friends sent me this link when it was first published and I kept pausing while reading it, to leave my work cubicle and cry in the bathroom. My father is nearly identical to Sugar's. I've written before about the abuse and all of the bitter ugliness that came after. It still comes, every now and then. A horrible, completely inappropriate email or a comment that makes its way through the family grapevine. But his pain barely touches me anymore.

It hurts to think that because of his anger, he will never know how wonderful my life is. He will never know any children of mine. I started watching the tv show, Castle, and watching the father daughter interactions on the show breaks my heart sometimes. I wish sometimes for that closeness, absolutely knowing that you can depend on someone.The pain of not having a father doesn't hurt nearly as much as it used to. Like anxiety, it comes and goes. I acknowledge the pain and then let it go.

Friends of mine having started having children and I see how they interact. Love and kindness spill out and over them. I look forward to that, with my own eventual children.

Adele seems to have plenty of good things in her life, but I wish her even more in light of sharing callous fathers.

And the dearest part of the letter?

It is on that feeling that I have survived. And it will be your salvation too, my dear. When you reach the place that you recognize entirely that you will thrive not in spite of your losses and sorrows, but because of them. That you would not have chosen the things that happened in your life, but you are grateful for them. That you have the two empty bowls eternally in your hands, but you also have the capacity to fill them.

Home

I came across this post from Ariel (of the Offbeat Bride/Empire fashion) and it left me with a lot to think about. Most people who know me know that my childhood home was not a happy place, for a myriad of different reasons. But I had never really thought about my home being a reaction to how I used to live.

The first place I remember growing up was in a two bedroom apartment in Bladensburg. We moved once my parents found out they were expecting my two younger brothers, to Hyattsville. The house had two bedrooms, which my brother and I got, whereas my parents got the loft like attic, with my newly born brothers' cribs lining the walls. Our places were always crammed with a ton of stuff. My parents moved trash once (forgot to empty trashcans) and we ended up inheriting family heirlooms, from both sides; my mother's parents moved out west and my father's parents passed away. Our attic in the last place we lived all together, College Park, was bursting. My mother had to make a map of the attic so we knew where to find items. Our hallways were lined with bookshelves and sentimental items. My parents bed rose a few inches off the ground because the space underneath was packed. My parents were packrats.

I know that with the show Hoarders, people think that spaces stuffed with a lot usually is one big issue. My mother collected much of what she did to cope with the abuse she was suffering from. She is also an antique & button fiend, but now that she is on the cusp of moving again, she purged a lot.

I had to move several times in my early 20's, both to and from college and to the various apartments I shared with my then fiance and roommates. I'm also a fiend of many things; books, postcards, tank tops. But I've gone the minimalist route as much as possible. Don't buy any books that you don't absolutely love or can get from the library first. Par down any clothes that don't make you feel like a million bucks. Etc. My reaction to my family home is not accumulate so much that I forget why I love it, that I forget to live.