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being a girl, being a good human being, birthdays, bleeding heart liberal, BTS, commonplace book, diet is die with a t, equality, good day, I am adept at procrastination, in vino veritas, indie-pop, Korean, miscarriage, Music, perspective, rabid fangirling, some people's children, the body politic, today's earworm
So birthday celebrations this year went relatively well. I feel like, ever since I hit 40, that I have a lot less energy that I am willing to spend on things that a lot of other people do: like the opinions of others. I really couldn’t care less about the opinions of people I don’t care about. It affects 0% of my life and we’re all just trying to get by anyway, so why expend any of my precious energy worrying about it? Energy is finite these days, and I think I will reserve what I have for the things and people I do value. So no big parties or the like. I’m going to stretch this birthday for a couple of weeks and hang out with my favourite people.
I kind of have that feeling about birthdays now too. I’m marking another year off, is all, getting older isn’t really the milestone it was when we were younger. I will, however, eat the damn cake. Life is too fucking short to waste the opportunity for cake. Or pie. Whatever it is that is your fancy. Take the walk. Use the good China. Drink that bottle of port you’ve been saving. What is a special occasion if it isn’t one where you’re still breathing?
J and I spent some time with Mum and Cousin Joan on my birthday. There was ice cream and presents and then they are off on a nifty tour of the island. This company they go with caters to older people, so it’s paced for people who are not as swift as a pack of twenty-somethings, but they still see an awful lot in ten days – they even rate the tours by activity level so you can choose slower things if you don’t have the mobility or energy. So it was nice to spend some time with the two of them. Mum is getting more forgetful these days. I feel like we may have to have a good talk about that again.
Yesterday was J’s birthday. I was only nine years younger for one day, lol. We went hat shopping, because we both need something with a brim for summer. We will both have new glasses in July, but in the interim we’re reduced to no prescription sunglasses which means hats are must. Then we had lunch out and then saw Dune 2 in the RBC Museum IMAX, which is the big six story one. Worth it. I may have giggled and clapped at the giant shai hulud sandworms eating sardaukar warriors. I mean space operas require a little mayhem, no?
There was a pro-life march downtown while we were hat shopping. I can’t even call it a protest or a rally, because they all seemed listless or half arsed about it – which is just fine by me as I’m pro-choice – but it was an interesting observation. A bunch of sweater-set conservative religious types with (thankfully) boring signs. I think some of them were chanting, but you couldn’t hear them over the three girls chanting “my body, my choice” from the sidelines. I knew these people existed in the city, but it was a little depressing to see so many of them trailing by, even if they didn’t seem all that enthusiastic about their cause. I feel like the majority of them were just there so that they had the social permission to attend the gala they had planned later. I looked it up when we got home. Nothing like that number of people assembles without some organisation after all.
It’s sad to me that so many of them were women when the whole abortion debate isn’t actually about the life of babies, but about controlling women. Medical care for women includes abortion (trust me, it really does – if you have questions about that, message me, I have many horrible reasons why this is essential for women’s health!) and the arguments these pro-life nuts have about life being sacred seem to only care about the fetus, and not the life of a mother – or to much give a crap about what happens to the baby once it’s born. I don’t seem them rallying about better foster care or support for single parents or even education reform or (shock!) birth control. So it’s not the baby they really care about, methinks. And the fact that there was a march by these people just confirms my earlier spider-sense tingles about the backwards time warp happening in the states where all sorts of alarming conservative shit has hit the fan – including the overturning of Roe Vs Wade. Yes, Canada is currently safe from the types of bullshit women south of the border are experiencing, but for how long? If people are rallying, then maybe they’re going to actually vote this time – so now that there is an election coming, please exercise your right. What a woman does with her body – correction – what anyone does with their body should not be up for debate or legislation. Period. Full stop.
Today we mostly just puttered. We both took the week off to celebrate our birthdays, so it’s been nice to just wake up when my body is ready to wake up, or to snuggle with the cats for an hour after that. We went for lunch again – we seem to really like eating out. It was super warm today, so I wore shorts for the first time this year. John set up the AC earlier in the week, so the furnace hallway won’t overwhelm us when it gets hot in earnest. I think today we hit 28C.
Listening to: RM – Come Back to Me
Reading: Origami Dove – Susan Musgrave
Watching: The Veil
Drinking: Malbec/Merlot
Word Count: 3250
Headspace: the multiverse