urocyon

I felt like I needed a bath in Clorox after making the mistake of reading some comments on a commentary piece by Renee Martin at the Guardian, "On Canada's 'Highway of Tears': Violence against indigenous women is not only a crime, but a reflection of Canada's refusal to repudiate its colonial history".

Yeah, I usually avoid comments on larger news sites. I almost wish I had this time. I have noticed hostility before whenever colonialism is brought up, but the attempts at derailing and nastiness on this one are something special. (Throw together misogyny, willful ignorance*, and enduring colonial racism, and that's not really a surprise.) They seem bent on proving her main point:

These murders and disappearances will only be seen as the great loss that they are when Canadians acknowledge the value each indigenous woman has.

The way defensiveness and general arsiness overrides any sense of humanity is probably what bothered me the most. No colonialist attitudes there! *headdesk*

An example of the kind of internal sense even the not-so-blatantly-trolly ones make:

The cases mention raise several points for me -

1) Truck drivers and the roads they operate on are inextricably linked with the murder of lone, vulnerable women. This is true the world over.

2) Women from ethnic minorities are more likely to be poor and therefore more likely to be victims of this type of crime either because they are sex workers or because they are put in position where the only means of transport avaiable is hitch-hiking. Again, this is true the world over.

3) The Highway of Tears does not demonstrate Canada's "failure to stem the tide of violence that aboriginal women face". Rather, these are isolated and extreme cases. I'm sure most of the violence committed against these women is perpetrated by partners and family members who are themselves indigenous.

4) There is no clear, tenable link between these crimes and Canada's "colonial past". That's a leap too far.

Yeah. You get a lot of poor, desperate indigenous (now minority) women spontaneously appearing out of thin air to get killed by their Own Kind, or inevitably by truck drivers, in some kind of economic and social vacuum--no colonialism required. And that was from one of the less blatantly trolly comments.

And this isn't even the Daily Fail.

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* Like the bit that says:

According to the US Department of Justice, in at least 86 per cent of the reported cases of rape or sexual assault against American Indian and Alaska Native women, survivors report that the perpetrators are non-Native men. [similar holds for stalking, etc.- U.]

Sexual violence against Indigenous women is the result of a number of factors including a history of widespread and egregious human rights violations against Indigenous peoples in the USA. Indigenous women were raped by settlers and soldiers in many infamous episodes including during the Trail of Tears and the Long Walk. Such attacks were not random or individual; they were tools of conquest and colonization. The underlying attitudes towards Indigenous peoples that supported these human rights violations committed against them continue to be present in society and culture in the USA. They contribute to the present high rates of sexual violence perpetrated against Indigenous women and help to shield their attackers from justice.

Those factors don't somehow vanish once you cross the Canadian border. And with the hateful denialist shit that people feel like it's OK to say, no damned wonder the situation is the way it is.

Thank goodness for double glazing, though it's warm enough that I need some of the windows open.

The lot across the side street has been up for sale for a while now; ATM it's a parking lot and storage buildings of some sort. I guess development plans are in the works now, because a crew is out there taking down all the trees along the edge closest to us. We're getting at least 100dB on the patio, probably louder--besides the chainsaws, it sounds like they've got a giant diesel wood chipper going. And the acoustics are strange out there, making it sound louder out back than it probably does over there. (Besides my irritation because the trees were pleasant, and there's little enough green in Romford already!)

Max doesn't like it, Feist is scared, and it woke me up through the usual earplugs. They've been at it since before 9:00. By now, they've got most of the trees down. But, I'm more annoyed at this being a sign of construction soon to come. As disturbed as I am by noise and disruption, I was hoping we'd have moved before they started demolishing things and building another block of flats over there. Guess not. :/

Bit of a shame the earplugs aren't feasible when I'm up and moving around. Probably thanks to having a wonky enough vestibular system already, trying to walk with them in makes me dizzy and nauseated and prone to falling over. Ah well. At least right now there isn't much going on in the right frequency range to get the too-many-eardrum-perforations hyperacusis in my right ear driving me nuts.

Edit: Just about as I hit submit, the noise stopped. I was hoping they were finished, but there are still a couple of trees and the wood chipper truck over there. I guess it's time for lunch. I really, really wish I had some Xanax.



There was a row of trees to the left, mostly blocking view of the ugly storage shed things.

I am beginning to think that we've got a second dog, looking for one or not.


Our little houseguest. Complete with bone shards and a dish towel he managed to get hold of. ;)

Saturday evening, New Upstairs Neighbor (whose name I never even caught) asked us if we'd mind puppysitting overnight so he could go to his girlfriend's. No, not a problem at all. He said he'd be back in the afternoon yesterday; there's still no sign of him.

Pup is a nice pup, and has really been enjoying having an older dog to play with and more human attention. Max has been remarkably tolerant of Hyper Pup. My problem? Totally with his human. Somehow I doubt the guy got hit by a bus over the weekend, and is lying in the hospital somewhere.

Especially since it was hard not to notice that he's been dissatisfied lately, with the way he's been standing out on his deck and loudly complaining at friends on the phone. (Sometimes on speakerphone.) Apparently, it's to the point that he felt a need to tell Ingvar about it when he brought back a tool he'd borrowed and asked us to dogsit. He's been living up there not much over a month now, and his wife and toddler have left. Pup was apparently intended for the kid (new puppies and toddlers? not the best combo), and I can't help but suspect that he was expecting his wife to take care of Pup. He was saying that he wasn't well set up to look after a dog, and from what I've seen he hasn't been doing a great job of it lately. And losing his temper easily, apparently doing some displacement, and yelling at the poor thing. Yeah, I was paying close attention that it didn't tip over into kicking and the like. :-| Guy named a Staffie puppy "Rage", not the greatest sign ever. He was also telling Ingvar that he wanted to move back in closer to London, very soon. And New Girlfriend's dogs don't get along with Pup.

In retrospect, I'm not surprised he took off for a longer period of time. :-|

Oh yeah, and he didn't mention that pup, who looks to be about four months old, isn't house-trained. When he's outside, he'll go outside, but if he's in the house he'll just stop and squat so quickly it's really hard to get to him in time to move him outside. I'd had some suspicions about why pup has been spending so much time tied up outside on their deck, and yep. I have washed three loads with towels so far. And am not about to start in earnest into the process of teaching him to go out if he's going back upstairs. (I was hoping he'd get the idea reinforced by watching Max do so, but not so far.)

So, my overall impression? When he eventually comes back, to get his stuff if nothing else, Neighbor Guy may well want Pup to stay here. It would no doubt be a better setup for Pup, if not very considerate to us. At all. And the way he's been dealing with Pup lately, I would rather Pup not go back up there, rather inconvenient or no.

At this point, I have absolutely no idea what to say to the guy whenever he shows back up. Without losing it and yelling, myself--or being stiffly polite to keep from doing so--that is. I mean, really. How do you respond to that kind of behavior, without getting into a fight or coming across as a doormat?!

I'm trying not to worry about this, and focus on keeping both Max (lots of extra attention!) and Pup happy for now. Not much has changed for the cats, at least.

Update: Color me shocked. Unless the white van in his parking space belongs to somebody else, he's been back to collect it.

I'm having a serious disability frustration day today.

The neighbor who called the council on us over our previously-messy patio has, indeed, been gone. Yay! But, over the weekend we got new upstairs neighbors. I'm relieved that they do seem to be pleasant enough, but now I get to readjust to the noise overhead. I'm very aware that it's not them, it's me. It's mostly just normal walking-around sounds--with a running toddler--but they keep startling me. It doesn't help that even having people walking around over my head is only something that's been happening the past five years or so; guess I'm additionally spoiled by detached houses.

I didn't sleep well this morning, even with the usual earplugs, so am groggy and more prone to overload and pain amplification today. It's hard to concentrate on doing much. And I keep jerking and tensing muscles (the SSRI-triggered bruxism has gone wild), so the myofascial situation is not at all happy. Sometimes I get really, really tired of the combo of sensory issues and hypervigilance. With any luck, I'll adjust to the sounds within a few days.

Also, with any luck, I'll get past the "if I can hear them, they can hear me" hangup, and stop trying so hard to keep my verbal tics under wraps or at least quieter. That is very stressful, in itself, especially when you're at home where this is usually not a concern. I still seem to have a lot of internalized shame going over the Tourette-type stuff, and at some level still don't want people to think I'm weirder than they might already. It doesn't help that we did have a horrible neighbor up there before who honestly started trying to bully me with her stereo whenever vatine wasn't home, for whatever reason, so I really don't want to do anything to "set off" the new folks. (Ridiculous/victim-blaming/futile as it is.)

The really frustrating bit, though? After they talked to me off their balcony/deck a few times, I have been avoiding going into that part of the house. And I have been enjoying spending time on the patio in the sun, enjoying the plants and the pond, to decompress lately.

The thing is, I want to be a good neighbor and not come across as rude, and I really didn't mind, say, lending them the socket set to take the packing bolts off their new washing machine. But that kind of interaction with people I don't know is hard for me on a good day. Which this has not been, so far, for those purposes. The auditory processing goes haywire when I'm tired and overloaded, which makes for extra joy. And avoidance. My brain still has to work overtime to make sense out of Estuary English, too.

It also just hit me a few minutes ago that my nerves are probably even more shot because I have been avoiding going back there to smoke. (Yes, I am well aware that it's lousy for my health in a lot of ways.) Nicotine withdrawal is probably not improving my general sense of wellbeing.

Sometimes I get really frustrated, especially when things I was always made to feel ashamed of get in the way of doing what I want/need to do. It is a relief, in a way, knowing now that I really can't help it and this is not a matter of Not Trying Hard Enough to be socialize on other people's terms. OTOH, it's not entirely comfortable being reminded that these are real problems, and trying harder won't help me look more "functional". Talk about shame: Damn, that is really just the way I'm made! ;) And that even if I don't kick myself so much over just not having the gift of gab, other people are still prone to putting some funky interpretations on it.

I am also frustrated because sometimes I just don't have enough spoons available to try to come up with workarounds for things that I can usually work around. So, I'm trying just to distract myself with music, and roll with things instead of catastrophizing.

I was going to write something along somewhat similar lines, inspired by a couple of posts I ran across: The Class Dynamics of DIY Clothing at Red Vinyl Shoes, and craft pr0n and how it’s killing America at Underbellie. But, the spoons won't stretch right now. Maybe I'll get to it later. At any rate, the problem is not just classism, but also ableism. And internalized ableism, in my case. I keep feeling like crap and getting frustrated because I can't do nearly as much art/craft/DIY stuff as I would like to and keep feeling like I ought to do. (Though coming more from a DIY-from-necessity background.)

I made the mistake of baggying and leaving Heenara hair oil in overnight. I like the stuff, but its initially pleasant smell got so overwhelming that it kept waking me up! It probably didn't help that, thick as my (not-quite-shoulder-length) hair is, I had to use about 1/4 of a bottle--even clipping sections up and trying to get it mostly on the scalp. Lotta hair in the way, still. I ended up getting out of bed about 3 hours earlier than intended, and had to go wash it out even before coffee got made.

My hair did seem to like it, though.

So, now I'm feeling like a particularly overload-prone zombie (thanks, "sleep drunkenness"!), and need to get out shopping before long. I am still not fond of UK Sunday opening hours, oh my no. After I get back, it's nap time. Then, maybe I won't be so grouchy. ;)

Oh yes, I am also trying to ignore another little surprise this morning: some garbage on the patio. This time, it's not a gift from the upstairs neighbor--actually, I think he's gone! *crossing fingers*--but from a bag-ripping fox. Max was inside when it happened, overnight, and I've stood there and watched foxes do that before. :-| I like the urban foxes, and they need to eat too, but I really am fonder of them when they aren't strewing garbage around my patio. At least none of it is actively smelly.


Not mine, but the BBC's. Couldn't resist a foxy photo. ;)

With the sciatica finally calming down a bit, I am so not bending over to pick that up today. (Part of the point of the trip out is to get some more pain relief!) Ingvar is in Reading helping some friends move their shop today. So, I guess he will also have a lovely surprise when he gets home tonight. :/

I really need to get new glasses. The ones I'm wearing now are several years out of date, with several big scratches as well as diabetes thrown in for extra prescription-changing fun. My sunglasses are from the prescription before that, and are making me dizzy and headachy with basically no depth perception. I think the regular ones have been helping the migraines along recently. Sounds like time to take advantage of a 2-for-1 deal at Specsavers, eh?

The thing is, my relationship with eyeglasses and trying to choose new frames is more complicated than it ought to be. I really, really dislike trying to find frames that might just about work. Similar to Margaret Cho's observations, "My skull is such – that is a memorable phrase isn’t it and worth repeating – my skull is such that a normal pair of glasses will not fit my head...The anger that I have right now is directed toward those who make, design and market glasses, which are probably essential to all people at one time or another, specifically not for – a skull like mine – if you will – a skull as such. So fuck all y’all."

I am not Asian. Still, I am tempted to give the more reasonable migration hypotheses some credence, since pretty much my whole skull seems to be "wrong"-shaped in the same ways. Yep, it's the skull that's wrong.


Could Thayendanegea/"Joseph Brant" have kept up a pair of glasses to save his life? He had enough to deal with already. It may be very different and lower-level stuff, but so do I. There's a somewhat eerie resemblance going.

Nobody in my family can keep a pair of glasses up, what with the low nose bridges and big, flat faces with high cheekbones. Nary a soul. And most of us wear them.

( Persistent fun with glasses. And, finally, enter Asian Fit frames--Asianness optional! )

Still, I am really honked off that something as basic as suitable glasses frames for non-European faces are still so hard to find, and you have to pay extra to get them. If you are in the very limited geographical areas where they are even available at this point, without paying $700 for Japanese designer frames--which may or may not be suitable for your own non-European (i.e., typical of most of the world) features. It pisses me off that I have very little chance of finding frames that fit where I am living now, when I need new glasses.

I know that a lot of people of African descent have exactly the same trouble with glasses and noses. So, out of curiosity, I tried to find out if anybody had thought to cater to that particular market--roughly 12.3% of the 2000 US population, besides those whose ancestors "passed" but who still have characteristically African nose shapes. (Like a number of my relatives, actually.) That would make economic sense, right? Hell, there's a substantial untapped non-European market here in the UK, some with "low" (as compared to whose?) nose bridges. Could certain ideologies be trumping even enlightened self-interest here?

Not too surprisingly, I couldn't find anything. Nada.

The closest I ran across was frames designed for people with Down Syndrome, which is good in itself, but not really what I was looking for. The designer's patent application, which I ran across initially, points out: "There have heretofore been no eyeglass frames made specifically for people with Down syndrome according to research which has been done on this topic, and likewise no eyeglass frames for people with similar facial characteristics* and for those with a depressed nasal bridge or low set noses including those individuals of African descent and Asian descent. About 87% of children with Down syndrome require glasses."

Unfortunately, I can well imagine that, attitudes still being what they are, not many other people with "low" noses are buying these. They are also mainly available through online ordering, without trying them on. This strikes me as a serious accessibility issue.

Appallingly, searching on terms like "African nose bridge eyewear" (or "glasses"), I kept getting results with individual Black people talking about not being able to keep their glasses up, designs surface styled to appeal to, say, hip hop aesthetics--and ones shilling rhinoplasty. Try it, if you want boiling blood.

Never mind the rather large potential market for glasses that fit, apparently you can get shit injected into your bridge "(so the glasses will not slide down on the nose)". Ack. "People who could greatly benefit from a non-surgical rhinoplasty are people who would typically get nasal implants to augment their noses, such as Asians, African-American, or Hispanic patients."

That's a pretty big part of the population, just looking at the US (and neglecting us non-Hispanic Indian types). "Typically", I would prefer to be able to buy usable, suitably designed assistive devices so that I can see, rather than to "augment" my nose into a state some people find more acceptable. But, maybe that's just me.

If making money is the main goal**, why might I think there's more profit to be made overall from necessary products people can use than from "ethnic rhinoplasty" ("Anyone who seeks a new shape for the nose and who has nasal features typical of their ethnic group is a candidate")? Interesting what products and services are deemed necessary.

Gah.

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* Like me, apparently; Carrie Buck came from a similar Tutelo background, and that photo looked like we could have been sisters. Gotta love the attitudes that produced the "Mongoloid" label! ('But there’s more! The man for whom Down Syndrome is named, John Langdon Down, claimed in 1866 that the facial characteristics of people with Trisomy 21 represented a genetic regression, because Caucasians should not have “Asian” facial features.'--excellent piece, meloukhia!)

I had basically no nose bridge as a kid. Not only is that generally treated as a highly unattractive characteristic, but throw in some nasty stereotypes, and such features still get people diagnosed with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome--"due to a bias in diagnosis that occurs because of a lack of knowledge of the regular morphological features of Native Americans", Asians, and apparently an awful lot of adoptees from the former Soviet Union. Indeed, "a flattened midfacial area" is only "flattened" in comparison to some expected state (reasonable or otherwise), and that description reflects the idea that there really is something wrong with our skulls.

So, yeah, the glasses frames aggravation is only a fairly piddling symptom.

** And I'm not saying that's a good thing, at all. It sure does get used as an excuse a lot, though it breaks down kinda quickly under scrutiny in many cases.

Oh my. At least our local MP is out sweating for votes. Literally. We've currently got a particularly loud campaign vehicle crawling around the neighborhood, followed on foot by Andrew Rosindell and three other guys in suits.

"Hello, Esher Avenue! Your Conservative candidate, Andrew Rosindell, is here to answer your questions today in Esher Avenue!" Rinse, repeat ad nauseam, turn onto another street.

If I could vote in the UK, and had felt any urge to vote Conservative anyway, he'd have just shot himself in the foot.

The din. Ye gods, the din.

I am trying not to get too worked up, not wanting to turn into the Petty Neighborhood Crank, but I'm definitely irritated right now.

New Upstairs Neighbor has been dropping more food wrappers onto our walled patio. This is the second day in a row I've had to pick them up. He goes out on his deck/balcony with his phone and some snack food, then just throws the wrappers over the side. I've seen him out there eating stuff, right above where I keep finding rubbish. It seems highly unlikely that passers by are venturing off the sidewalk and across our parking area just to put trash over or under our gate. It hasn't blown in.

This would not be nearly as aggravating if he weren't the same one who called the council in over our messy patio.

It's hard not to see some jerky passive-aggressive behavior there. I was hoping he'd stop it once things were cleaned up, but apparently not. I guess he has to punish us for making him call the council. Or something. I would be more willing to attribute it to carelessness if he didn't keep waiting until (a) he's seen one of us outside, and (b) nobody is looking, to throw his crap off the deck. More than once, I've gone inside for a few minutes, with him on the deck, then come back to find trash out there.

In a way, it's darkly amusing in its lack of subtlety.

vatine was half-tempted to put the last crisp packet through his letterbox, but I don't want to escalate things, especially while dealing with someone who's already demonstrated a lousy style of dealing with conflict. That kind of response is probably more what he expects. I've just been trying not to gnash my teeth too much, and chucking his wrappers over the wall into his own garden, where they would have landed if our patio weren't there.

Ah well. I really don't want to let this have the intended annoying effect. Having lived with controlling, passive-aggressive people, I have a little more compassion (talk about making your own life miserable!), but am also even more prone to irritation at that kind of behavior. I can't say I'll be sorry to move away from this guy's pettiness. It's too easy to start feeling similarly petty, and that's one hell of a way to live.

The whole "call the council" strategy made me think of a semi-interesting piece I ran across yesterday: Feeling for the Edge of your Imagination: finding ways not to call the police.

I am trying to bear in mind that I've got some extra tendency toward hostility going here, thanks to the mismatch in conditioned responses to the idea of calling in *any* authorities. Still, I really wish more people would stop and think about what they are doing.