This is a weirdly relaxed birthday for me.
I used to put a lot of work into setting goals for my natal years—I prefer that to New Year’s—but with the 101 in 1,001 goal-setting, I have more than enough of those. And more important, I don’t feel the desperate need to have goals that I used to.
I’m working full-time as a freelancer. I’m married to a wonderful woman. TYG own a house. Six years ago, I would have put home ownership and full-time freelancing on the Never Going to Happen list. I’d have done the same about finding someone to be with, but that was too painful to think of.
It’s not that I don’t want to do more than I am. I want to write many more stories, sell many more stories, get a novel published, sell nonfiction to a wider range of markets, and a bunch of other stuff on the 101/1001 list. But when I’ve set goals like that on past birthdays, it’s usually been with a clear sense that (as the Animals put it) I’ve got to get out of this place—things weren’t working and they need to be fixed.
Now, they’re working. I want better, but if things stay this way for the next couple of years, I’d be okay with that (except for not selling any fiction. That would absolutely suck). That’s a wonderful life-place to be in and it’s not always been true for me.
Of course, the run of success may not last. By this time next year we may be fighting a phony foreclosure case, or I might have a real aneurysm. But knowing bad things might happen down the road is no reason to be miserable when they’re not on the horizon (I’ve let fear of what might come to pass bog me down too many times in my past. No more).
So it’s just a nice relaxing day, with dinner to follow (TYG’s big present was last Saturday, a performance of Pirates of Penzance). No need to plan. No real need to assess the past year for what I did right or wrong. That’s incredibly nice.
Happy birthday to me!
Daily Archives: March 18, 2013
Wait, didn’t Sammy Hagar say I can’t drive now that I’m 55? Or something like that
Filed under Personal
The Steubenville rape case and other ugliness
How tragic: Two teens have been sentenced to prison for raping a fellow student, which became notorious when students began tweeting and texting about it (some samples here and here—but even if you don’t have trigger issues, it’s pretty disgusting). The tragedy, according to CNN, is that two young men and their families have their promising lives blighted by this tragic event (apparently CNN’s reporters think the impulse to rape is something that strikes you from the heavens, like Jove’s thunderbolt, and can’t be controlled). Raw Story covers CNN’s hand-wringing too.
For the record, this isn’t that startling—okay, CNN’s coverage, but not the local reaction. There’s a long history of small-town rape cases where the community rallies around the accused, worries about how awful this is for the and demands to know what the slut was doing having sex/getting drunk/wearing something less revealing than a burkha. That’s not meant as an excuse for the Steubenville response—but nobody should imagine it’s just one small town with this problem.
•Tom Tomorrow sums up the Republican war on women. And at the national level, Rand Paul tries to ban abortions nationwide. My thoughts on the unpleasant consequences of granting fetuses full human rights are here.
•You may have heard about the Iowa dentist who fired his assistant on the grounds she was too sexy and he might not be able to stay faithful to his wife (she wasn’t initiating anything—both she and he are clear on that). Some people (including the state Supreme Court) think that was the moral thing to do.
Filed under Politics, Undead sexist cliches
