Thanks Am

I checked hubski today to see reactions to the election, and then thought to send the poem.

I haven't noticed pro-Israel and anti-Trump together. But I can imagine, because Liberal Zionists are basically progressive and liberal for everything except Palestine. So sad.

F'g psychopath Netanyahu was the first world leader to congratulate Trump.

Thanks for the recommendation Ta-Nehisi Coates. I haven't dug into him too deeply, but I'm aware. I've been reading and watching Timothy Snyder. I am reading his new book On Freedom and of course On Tyranny

Hello everyone, good morning or afternoon.

I am grateful for the hubski archives. I found poems there that I need from 2015 and 2016 that I had no memory or record of I'm sure there are more.

Meanwhile, the genocide in Gaza is horrific. We are depressed all the time about it and trying to do small things -- pressuring Canadian government to accept families of Canadians who are there, expanding the list to include families of our friends who are refugees waiting for landed status, sending money to the Gazans that we are in touch with and have been friends with for several years.

Meanwhile, meanwhile, . . . so much more. Luckily, we here are okay for now.

What does OK look like, you ask.

  Up and writing this.

Hi there pubski and friends

I had a ticket to fly to Vancouver this morning, but forfeited it (note to self: get a refundable ticket next time). I came down with conjunctivitis, aka pink eye, and that seemed to lead to other itis's. It is not recommended to fly with a severe head cold, stuffy ears, and infecting all the other passengers, so here I sit, visiting my beloved hubski. I still have a return ticket for next week . . . so I'm hoping to get better soon and pick up a cheap flight (the one that charges $90 for a carry-on).

OK, finally, I'm back at my computer and can report on that historic meeting.

I came prepared with questions.

I asked Seth to pick numbers.

We managed to talk about #6, 7, 9, 12 and a little of 11 and much more in the little time I had between my Amtrak train (Eugene to Seattle) and my Amtrak bus (Seattle to Toronto).

1. Think of something about (the place where you grew up; your family; your school) that gave you your sense of the world and your place in it?

2. Are you an open book? If so who’s your best reader. If there’s 100 pages, what page are they on?

3. What have you learned recently about your family that wasn’t the story you told yourself?

4. What important lesson did an earlier romantic relationship teach you that helps you in your current marriage?

5. What is one thing you remember from all your changes in the last 10 years that made you feel vulnerable (beyond your comfort zone) or felt a little challenging.

6. Are you carrying any resentment that you could let go of if you thought about it. Would it be a benefit?

7. What are some questions you have about your life now that you’d like answered in the next year.

8. What is an experience of success that you still feel good about?

9. What is your road not taken?

10. What idea or attitude did you once believe that you later discovered was false?

11. When you realize that everything is made up -all religions, nations, patriarchy, democracy, etc are ideas made up by people, what then do you believe?

12. What does an equal relationship mean to you?

It's now Sunday. In two hours I am going to a Palestinean-Somali wedding reception. Should be ok. What to wear, what to wear? I've been asked to drive a couple and their baby. They don't speak English, but we can smile and nod. It's about a 35-.

As for work (I'm retired!), but I have some talks and workshops to prepare for the fall. The topic is writing family stories. Maybe I'll post my talk outline, when I finally write it.

  I remember a 20 year old screaming without sound
  In the dark room at 4am

I've been talking to my male friends what it was like in their 20s. For many, there was a lot of distress.

Wow! Good to talk about it -- wow. Is there a song there?

Walking through the neighborhood where I grew up, where the house that was my mother’s is:

I passed “Stevenson’s.” This is kind of an antique store full of oddments.

I asked Mike Stevenson to look at my mother’s stuff after she died in June 2021. He took some furniture and a bunch of odd things, games, costume jewelry. He gave me $100 for the odd things.

Walking by just now I saw my mother’s Scrabble game. Or was it my mother’s?

I regretted giving it to him. It had wooden tiles - I was told they don’t make wooden Scrabble tiles anymore (Is that true?). Also I’ve lost several tiles in my set and replaced them with cardboard.

I went in.

I said, “Can I buy back my mother’s Scrabble game?”

“ Just take it,” said Stephenson’s wife as she called Mike over.

“just take it,” said Mike.

kleinbl00 said an equal relationship means "getting what you want without giving up anything you want to keep" -- I wish I had asked what does that mean or give me an example, but it was time to go.

To me, equality in a relationship is a feeling -- it just feels equal, there are no tallies, no quid pro quo, and most of all no resentment, no resentment generated passive-aggressive behaviour or critical sarcastic comments. Some couples have to work it out on a tally sheet -- and that's okay as a way of building trust. Others just give all they can naturally and spontaneously and consistently and it feels kind of equal even though you're both willing to give even more than your share.

Hey Taco. I have wondered about you. I’m happy to see you are still out there somewhere.

Good morning hubski. It’s ridiculous sitting in this pub and writing on a tiny phone, but it’s so good to be back chatting with ButterflyEffect and lilyboy who sent me a DM 253 days ago and I only saw it now.

_refugee_ sent me by SNAIL some gorgeous prints she made (birthday prezzie).

steve randomly texted me from church a few months ago. He does that from time to time.

It’s always great to be in touch with hubskipals from Early Hubski.

Onward onward - ''And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.''. (last line of The Great Gatsby)

Yes, and one day I'll get back to beautiful North Carolina -- I loved it there -- the Blue Ridge Parkway - wow.

or we'll visit steve in Denver.

and by the way, I never get notifications when I'm tagged, even though my notifications are on and my email is correct. (sad face)

I might make it. I'll put 6:00 pm EST in my schedule and will look for a zoom link.

thenewgreen

Family stories are a rich resource. Aspects of your grandfather's personality emerge in this story: he's creative and resourceful; he takes initiative; he takes risks; he has a sense of humour.

Did you inherit any of these traits?

His post-retirement activities are impressive. What did he do before retirement? Did he use his graduate degree in music composition?

Came to say the same thing. Happy New Year Hubski.

Thank you. I imagine the updot is for my appearance, not my conjunctivitis. For the length of this sticky eye illness, I have wanted to walk around yelling "And" "But" as in "Permanently," a love poem by Kenneth Koch that has this line: A lonely Conjunction here and there would call, “And! But!”

Bfx sending strength to make wise thoughtful decisions

Hi there

Thanks for the shout out. That Thursday is Election Day in Ontario. I will probably be with my progressives trying to get the Canadian Republicans on their knees. Off With Their Heads.

But sadly, they might return.

I hope to talk to my Hubskiers soon.

I agree essentially with kb. If you’re vulnerable, you mght say, “come back after you’ve done your exploring.” That’s respectful, loving, and self-protecting.

Or just continue deepening the fun and closeness and base the “relationship” on the shared experiences of feeling heard, understood, and enjoyed. Live the relationship in real time.

I suspect that you putting contingencies on her exploring (like the ones you mentioned above) would feel controlling to her. It would be like YOU telling HER the parameters of her self-exploration.

Totally and genuinely accept her current presenting self as her best understanding of herself now. Find fun and personal growth in the situation as it is.

Have a great dinner tonight!!

bfx, the important thing is to have fun now, to deepen your relationship now, and continue being honest and open about fears and feelings. “Now” is all that’s real.

I went through three long relationships and two (too) long marriages before I stumbled across my current partner and and for the first time didn’t want to be with anyone else.

I was sixty-fucking-three when I got it, that monogamy is just wanting to have the best time with someone you like — not externally imposed.

Prior to now in my life, monogamy was just another word for controlling. If monogamy is not based on the desire and joy in being together, then it’s control. Good for her that she’s exploring her feelings about sex and sexuality. She may want to do more exploring than you feel comfortable with - if that’s the case, figure out the roots of your discomfort- which is probably insecurity, which leads to control.

Still, time with others is time not with you.

Having a “relationship” or an imagined “future” with someone does not replace the necessity of also having to have a life.

I guess that's true. I met you once in person, but I "attended" the birth of #2.

I miss you. I miss "talking" to you and steve. But to get to know you better -- what does that even mean? We're always changing anyway.

Anyway, those "great" days, were dark days when staying up listening to great radio and responding to hubski was WAY MORE INTERESTING than going to bed with my then husband.

I will visit Hubski more. I have questions!!

xxxoo

I'm only 897 hubski days older than you -- but yikes! that's almost 2.5 YEARS.

I suddenly find myself here as I provide hubski links in some of my teaching material. So happy to see that the links are alive as I once was. And every link takes us down an exciting rabbit hole, as much as it ever did.

I don’t believe in “work-life balance.” I don’t think our experience of living is binary. Life is life and can include work, nature, climbing, biking, picking up aluminum, parent care, child care, studying, and so on.

If we need, say, music in our lives and don’t have it, be attuned to the hunger. If you don’t feed yourself what you need (rest, contact with others, touch, hockey, whatever) you might become passive-aggressive, aggressive, or even develop panic attacks.

What a great picture at the top of this post. I am thrilled for the shout-out and wouldn't have seen this so soon if not for thenewgreen making a FB post. I don't seem to get shoutouts anymore, unless thenewgreen plays hockey.

OK, hubski, let's barrel on into the next decade with grace and hope in these dark times.

Hubski Zoom

Had a great chat with _refugee_, elizabeth, and c_hawkthorne last week. Topics included when is gossip gossip and when is it information sharing.

Conclusion:

Gossip might negatively change the attitude of the listener towards the person under discussion.

Information sharing might possibly help the speaker change or understand their own attitude towards the person under discussion.

More Hubski Zoom

I look forward to more Hubski Zoom. Jitsi, actually. Many of you are probably sitting at your computers work-zooming, or school-zooming, or family-zooming. I barely turn on my computer, so it can be amusing.

Winter, snow, cold

and warm soup . . .

Hello Hubski/Pubski

I'm adding some 3 subheadings here. Those of you checking in, try these subheadings. I'd love to hear how you're doing.

1. RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW

The universe has been telling me to get my ass down here, I mean my fingers and keyboard. There was some discussion last night on the chat (_refugee_, ButterflyEffect, am_Unition, elizabeth about hubski's tenth hubskiversary of existence coming up on December 5, 2020.

Even if the borders are open (Canada/USA), I'm not sure anyone will want to travel.

(I originally invited all Michigan (or anyone who wants to travel) hubskiers to my house in Canada.) -- but perhaps we should wait a year. Besides, there's something palindromic about 11.

2. TONIGHT

Tonight I'm giving my first online lecture to Startup School. The class is called "How Not to Kill Your Co-Founder" (Subtitle: Strategies for Successful Teamwork). This is normally a totally interactive participatory session. People show up with their team members and do activities like create reliability agreements and norms for conflict. They leave feeling closer and more trusting of team members. But tonight, the organizers are not using any interactive technology - I show my slides and talk into the void. (My slides fill the screen) so I can't see if anyone is there, if they are awake, anything.

3. GOING FORWARD

Meanwhile, the university is talking about doing 90% of the classes on line and I'm FINALLY thinking VERY SERIOUSLY about retiring.

It seems like a good time because I'm not super enthusiastic about teaching on line, even if it is on Zoom and can be reasonably interactive.

I can think about retiring because I'm older than you, probably a lot older than you, and because I have other things to do, and also it's been a good run BUT MOSTLY because my program has expanded and my course as I've been teaching it -- intensely and intimately -- is going to be modularized, they say because the way it is is not scalable. And I'm not scalable -- in fact, I'm shrinking.

But after tonight, I will take a deep breath and move on into the summer of Covid.

and I'll try to CONTRIBUTE more as I move into a new phase.

as for thenewgreen Higgs-Boson Forever!!

I didn’t realize that you’d been through so much. I know a little bit about the mk family - quite a few dramatic stories there.

Thanks for all the info. There are amazing doctors and amazing developments in medicine.

I am hoping (and believing and acting as though) my tumour was a benign meningioma, not malignant.

But I was resigned to not getting through this if that was the case. I may say more about that in due course. I wasn’t interested in raging against the dying of the light, I m not a fan of suffering. I felt and still feel curious at my reaction to possibly dying.

I’m aware too that you are likely in your late 30s or early 40s, with young children and mid-career, very different from me). (Yes, more to say on this. Love to hear your thoughts as well).

Mouth shut sounds like a plan. Don’t engage.

But if you did, don’t challenge or confront in any way. Maybe say, “I’m not sure what you meant by xxxx. Could you explain?

No sarcasm, no irony.

Or, “Thanks for your text. What I hear you saying is . . . then paraphrase the mean tweet giving her the most positive and generous interpretation, followed by - is that it?”

Of course the pub is open only for take out/delivery. I understand the pubskikeeper has some powerful brew (plague of locusts) (see Exodus 10:1-20).

Socially isolated except for the other two people in my household - a Turkish post doc researcher specializing in water justice and a retired rabbi specializing in social and political activism (but frequently discouraged). I also have regular visitors to my side yard: mostly possums, skunks, and racoons at night. We work late by a large window. The motion lights go on and we close the indoor lights and see who's visiting. They tend to come one at a time, clearly also socially isolating.

I am in an urban area but there are expansive forests not too far away and wetlands not too far away. If we were a little closer to the escarpment, we'd probably also have coyotes and deer.

I wait for spring. The temperatures for the next week are predicted to be in the double digits (C) or 50s (F). Oh spring, hurry. We need you.