#manda rants

MAD AT MYSELF.

I got a heads up last night that the Northern Lights were likely to happen and be visible in my area at storm levels into the hours of the morning. I was really excited, because for once, we had clear skies and the moon was waning and I could stay up late. It was going to be excellent viewing conditions.

So I camped out on a website I generally turn to that updates the Aurora forecast about every 15 minutes, as well as a prediction of what’s to come in the next hour. I kept looking all night/morning, waiting for when it would reach at least “very active” or “storm” levels, but the site said it was “quiet” and I didn’t question it. I gave up around 5AM and went to bed.

But y’know what? THE SITE WAS FALSE AND IT USUALLY ISN’T.

I MISSED THIS.

That’s just about 200 miles from here and where I am, I’m even further north, which would have meant that I probably had even a better chance for a good, clear view of them.

I was scrolling earlier when I came upon a post by someone who is feeling very betrayed by Chris Evans right now. The post was about how stupid they felt that Chris Evans was not the man he had pretended to be, that recent events had proven he was a PR fabrication and they felt like a fool for falling for it. I went looking for the source of this pain, trying to figure out what Evans had done to be denounced as a fraud and a liar. I admit, I was surprised when I figured out it was his recent marriage.

Now, I'm not linking back to the post or reblogging it because I'm not interested in calling anyone out or making them feel bad for feeling bad. If you're feeling betrayed by the news that Chris Evans married someone much younger than himself, I'm not going to assume it's simply because you're mad it wasn't you. I believe that plenty of people feel that the age gap between Chris Evans and Alba Baptista is problematic and indicative that he is not the woke king he purported to be. But I would like to offer a different perspective.

My parents had a twenty-two year age gap. When they met, my father was 48 and my mother was 26. Plenty of people looked askance at the age gap between them, wondered why in the hell either of them would want to be with the other. But they were madly in love and happily married until he died twenty years later. And she never remarried, said until the day she died that she just couldn't find anyone who could follow my dad. So age gaps don't weird me out unless one of the people in the relationship is clearly being exploited. For example, hanging around a teenager until she's legally old enough to date. Two adults meeting, falling in love, and getting married doesn't set me off even if there's what others think of as a problematic age gap. I've seen firsthand that it depends on the people in the relationship.

None of us in this fandom know him, or his new wife. None of us know what their dynamic is and we cannot infer that she is being exploited based solely on the fact that she is sixteen years his junior. (I promise you, despite the 22 year difference, my dad was not in charge of my mom.) We only know his public persona, the carefully polished version of himself that he shows to the world for marketing purposes. Chris Evans' persona is very appealing, but it is curated, as is everyone's, really. We all put the good stuff on social media and hope no one puts our bad stuff on theirs.

TW: Religious trauma

So, a friend irl of mine is, once again (this happens all the time and I hate it), dealing with harassment from “Christians” and I feel feelings about it. (Btw, WWJD? Maybe not be a huge dick. Seemed like a chill guy to me when *I* read the gospels.)

There’s this funny thing that’s been happening to me for as long as I can remember. Since I was too young to read, I have been given “literature” explaining to me god’s great plan by Christians of all stripes and denominations. First, it started with my mother’s family. I can still remember the red script of the title against the oddly grained yellow book cover that said “My Book of Bible Stories” or something to that effect. It’s the McDonald’s color scheme that sticks with me, not the title, clearly. I would receive countless more books like these from that side of the family. Even though my mother, herself, had been forcibly ejected from that particular sect of Christianity, and had chosen not to return, still they sent me books, and letters, and propaganda, trying to, supposedly, save my soul.

The attempted indoctrination didn’t stop there. My parents put me in Catholic school in kindergarten, where I stayed until the school insisted that I be baptized and assigned godparents. My parents were okay with me exploring any religion I wanted, but my mother’s experience had taught her that I should be of the age of reason before I made any decisions about my religion. My mother was baptized at twelve, and she believed that was a mistake. She thought that she had been too young to know what she really believed and Young Sharon had made promises that Adult Sharon couldn’t keep. But she never prevented me from exploring such things. I went to Sunday School with a friend in third grade, went to the Wednesday afternoon bible study at the church next to the elementary school. I went to Catholic church with my best friend in middle school any time I stayed over on a Saturday night. I even tried again in high school, with some very odd evangelicals that spoke in tongues and really weirded me the fuck out.

Somehow, my little circle of girlfriends going through our obligatory weird girl Wiccan high school phase seemed less weird than the girl in the church sitting on the floor, two inches from the wall, laughing at it. At least, on some level, we knew the midsummer celebration was more about the slumber party than anything else. Jaycelyn, please stop putting your toe up my nose.

As I got older, I explored other faiths, other cultures. I dipped into Buddhism, read the Tao Te Ching to touch base with Taoism, was exposed in college to Shintoism, Hinduism, Islam. Nothing touched me. Until I read atheist writers, who told me that it was okay to not connect. That it was okay that I couldn’t believe what was being offered. That there was nothing after death, and that I could cope with that if I wanted to.

When I was young, my search through Christianity was an attempt to belong somewhere. And in this society, this culture, the easiest way to belong is to go to church. But I couldn’t belong somewhere when I was simply going through the motions, pretending to believe. After my father died, my search became more desperate, more about a search for meaning, a need to mitigate my loss.

After many years, I have come to absurdism. There is no meaning, and it is absurd to search for it. Let’s be absurd. Who cares? It’s not like anything matters so we might as well have some fun with this. For some this is bleak, empty and cold. For me it is freedom, joy and dread in equal parts. But I no longer cringe away from the parts of life that hurt. Because life is pain. And joy, and fear, and love, and, and, and…

My point? At no point did anything that anyone else did or didn’t do convince me to convert to any religion. The books, the pamphlets, the in-person visits, or the constant harassment and bullying all throughout my formative years, none of it did anything but show me what was on offer. I politely declined, because what was on offer looked sad and empty to me. A life spent longing for the next. Thank you, but no thank you. I’m grateful enough for what I have.

To be fair, the constant harassment and bullying by Christians has only made it clear to me that most of them don’t really know what their religion is even about, so I can’t learn anything about the universe or meaning from them. If you want to know why I’m not a Christian, ask yourself if you’ve ever done anything that might be considered bullying or harassment to try to shame someone into it. If that’s how you believe your god wants you to act, I want nothing to do with you or your god.

I am an absurdist agnostic atheist. If you want to know what that means, I’m happy to tell you. But if you want to offer me something else, stop. I know what you have. I do not want it. If you have it, and it brings you joy, I am genuinely happy for you and I would never want to take that away from you. Stop trying to give it to me. I. DO. NOT. WANT. IT.

Tumblr, this is why people call this a godforsaken hellsite. It’s not the hate, or hostility, or plain idiocy, it’s the interface. If this site was the least bit efficient, the rest would fade to insignificance. I just want consistent competence. I don’t see why that’s too much to ask.

Call me a cynic, but the moment someone starts saying, “But, I mean, what even is a human right?” is the moment I start suspecting them of human rights abuses.

From the article:

Pompeo indicated that the panel could also be used in part to rein in overzealous invocations of human rights, suggesting the group “revisit the most basic of questions: What does it mean to say or claim that something is in fact a human right?”

“How do we know — or how do we determine — whether that claim ... is it true and therefore ought it to be honored? How can there be human rights rights we possess, not as privileges we are granted or even earn, but simply by virtue of our humanity belong to us?” he asked. “Is it in fact true, as our Declaration of Independence asserts, that as human beings we — all of us, every member of our human family — are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights?”

Okay. We’re done here. Burn it down; time to start over.

For those who aren’t students of US History, which clearly includes the President of the United States and his Secretary of State, let me break down the Declaration of Independence for ya. (And yes, I’m a nerd, so I memorized it when I was a kid. I don’t remember the whole thing, but the first part is still firmly in there.)

First paragraph: When in the course of human events, etc. Translation: When you gotta start a ruckus, it’s only polite to explain to the world why.

Second fucking paragraph: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

The rest of it goes on to explain that the people starting said ruckus were doing so because they felt the British king was violating these “certain unalienable rights”. It’s literally what this whole house of cards is built on. I don’t know how you can be a part of the US government and question the existence of human rights.

Unless this is about the fact that UN human rights experts aren’t thrilled with how the United States is treating migrants and refugees. Hard to keep people detained indefinitely when one of the “among these” is Liberty, right? Or do you think this is about questioning women’s bodily autonomy?

Oh, who am I kidding? Like it can’t be both of these AND shutting up the Black Lives Matter movement. After all, Life is on that list, too, but Mike Pompeo sure doesn’t seem certain that human rights are even a thing, so why not? Anyone else getting a real Nazi vibe off of all this shit? Or am I still being paranoid?

And if anyone but Mike is confused:

Every person has basic human rights.