So now that Bunny rules our big screen TV, my brain is uber melting into children's programming in all its glory. I suddenly came to, though, when an old 2012 ep rolled through where Doc McStuffins gets sick herself. Wut.
I kinda started picking up on going off that cliff about two weeks ago.
In between David Lee Roth and Rocky Horror, my kiddo grew up on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Beetlejuice cartoons. Her kiddo is growing up Monsters University and The Big Bang Theory. This thing that's going on in my house with @bonenado's kiddo's kiddo is spinning my head. I feel worried about Doc McStuffins having a sick day. Disney is eating my brain.Conspiracy theorists are vigorously nodding. I mean, nothing against the Doc, but Disney keeps sliding that brain training in under the radar. I never felt Big Brother behind Beetlejuice, but Disney Jr is making my skin crawl for reasons I can't yet put my finger on. That danger alert just won't stop buzzing in the back of my brain.
2 more days left until The Pinky Press Review goes *poof*. Every possible tweak shutting it down has been tweaked except the public archives. I won't be saving them. The paid part was a nice 18 month run, with 12 subscribers and nearly 2600 views. I imagine if those had been higher I would probably think a little longer about letting it all go, but honestly, even with all the blogging I do I'm surprised I let it go on as long as I did. The pro account is now cancelled, which means I can no longer manually rank and super tweak my content, including widgets and other coding, which is what made my paper unique, so I see no reason to hang onto it. I'm not going to keep relaying the same rubbish other free papers shuttle into their content curation off twitter.
In the meantime I have all the Gaston lyrics in my head, thank you so much, Disney. "No one hits like Gaston, matches wits like Gaston, in a spitting match nobody spits like Gason- I'm especially good at expectorating..." You can see all the lyrics here. You're welcome.
I got even, though. I have successfully brainwashed Bunny to Crayon Pop. And then we promptly had to listen to 10 more versions of the same song, so I'm dizzy with lyrics crashing around my head this morning.
It was so cute listening to Bunny trying to tell me she does that in 'gynassix' (dance moves), and she had to show us all the balance moves she's already being taught. On a chair. We quickly moved to spotter position, but that kid is pretty good, didn't bump or slip once.
Srsly need to pink it up a bit.
Was so wiped out after our 24 hour Bunnython that I totally fell asleep about 30 min into the Walking Dead. Woke up just in time to see Daryl crying in Rick's arms o_o so I'll hafta rewatch that sometime today. Can't tell you how many people I'm running into irl that are #TeamNegan. The show veered into an almost intellectual slant on philosophizing apocalyptic scenarios, and I'm enjoying the bigger picture puzzle. I thought about live tweeting, and actually nearly did, but my right arm and hand were hissing so loud at me last night I could barely even get a jacket on and off taking Bunny home, almost couldn't buckle my own seat belt, so I knew I'd better not push it. Seems to be a little better this morning.
Along with the rest of 2016, I'm throwing out social obligations and pressures. Aspienado stumbled a lot through most of that stuff, and I can see that intensely downsizing my interaction level over the last 10 days hasn't hurt any of my numbers at all. In fact, I've been extremely surprised that some of the numbers have actually jumped a little. Part of sellsellsell tactics that are pushed on social media are interaction techniques. Well, 4 1/2 years later, I can give you a solid thumbs down on drowning your feed out in chatter. From what I can tell, it all boils down to hubbing well (ease of accessibility is key), which most people still don't even know is a thing or how to do right (and they still smash it into a networking plan, which is self defeating) and acknowledging. It's important not to look like a bot running scheduled updates, which a lot of accounts do in between the chatter.
Honestly, I think what gives me the most incredible boost is that I have real friends, and I love them. I don't think I'd have learned all the good things I did without them. Aspienado might suck at small talk, but I'm the one who remembers your tweets and can find them again, even years later. When I say throwing out social obligations and pressures, I mean added self inflicted guilt over not clicking 'like' on every single thing I'm tagged in, or (and this is a funny way of looking at it) responding to a stray text from an outlying family member who otherwise never ever speaks to or contacts me. If it's not life or death, tossing a random hello at me is probably like tossing a leaf in the wind.
The real me is somewhere no one can find. No one ever asks me where I am when I time out. One way I keep Bunny asleep through the night at my house (very mobile sleeper) is with the Spa channel from Sirius Radio on Dish. That kind of music is super awesome for sleeping. I was looking for the instrumental version on youtube and ran into this version. THIS is my head when I time out. Years ago I used to attempt to describe my 'light on water' experience. My experience staring at light on water is instant nirvana. No one else exists. I don't miss anyone, don't think about anyone, don't question anything, don't even remember anything. I don't *think*. I just exist, and it's the most peaceful thing you can't even imagine. That people spend thousands of dollars trying to achieve this in a variety of ways (I laugh at meditation) tells me this is a valuable trait in autism.
Here is where the song itself comes from, the saddest success story ever told. If you don't know the entire Karen Carpenter story and how it broke through a mountain of solid ice, leading the way for millions trapped in depression, then you need to.
This is one of the best articles I've read about the retelling of this story in the continuing layers and intricacies of Karen's life in the public eye and how viewers judge what they can't see going on and how that has impacted the entire world. Karen died alone, but definitely not in vain. Todd Haynes Deconstructs An Ideal Tragedy In SUPERSTAR: THE KAREN CARPENTER STORY
One of the reasons this story has stuck with me ever since it happened is because my daughter was born shortly after Karen died. I don't like venturing too much into personal things that aren't mine, but at the time I was watching one sister slip through high school with a regular sized bandana cinched through the belt loops in her jeans in lieu of a belt after another sister had been pulled out of school before graduating for not eating. There is a short span of time I can snapshot in my mind that beautifully reveals the unexpressed stress going on in my family, including my brother, mother, and father. For all of us to be so messed up (my words) and still survive- all us kids are still here with our own kids. We came through something together that no one else will ever know or understand, something we ourselves never really talk about together, just an incredibly sad spot buried in anorexia, alcohol (me and my brother), religious and political obsession (my dad) and depression on the verge of exploding (my mom). Thank goodness we all grew up and started having kids.
Thank goodness we are still here. I am probably the only one who has thought this every single day without fail. Ever since my car accident (yes, the one where my dad pulled me out of emergency rescue without so much as a sign of relief that I was even still alive and walked off after mom deposited me on a couch to keep internal bleeding), I have never taken my family for granted. We are a sad story, and we love each other very much, even if we couldn't say it when we needed to. Thank goodness our own children have taught us how.
Mom went on ahead, and it was hard, but it didn't undo us. We are not estranged from each other like some families do, even though I am the oddball that holds the rest at arm's length. Sometimes I feel sad about that, but though the fates are cruel and make it nearly impossible for me to handle venturing forth (living with multiple allergies and epipens means I don't casually visit where people own dogs, plus other factors), I like twisting fate into my own devices and bending them to my own will. As long as I am still here, Pinky will continue to find ways to say the things that matter.
The Pinky Press Review was clutter in my closet. Part of this month's 30 day challenge is clearing out the clutter so I can get to the real work.
When I say "cryptic" you say "facepalm".
Cryptic
FACEPALM
Cryptic
FACEPALM
This has been stuck in my head since Bunny spent the night this weekend. It really affected me as a child, and I guess you can see where the pinkybluejacky thing started. My mom also called me Elephant's Child. If you know anything about Kipling, you know he wasn't a frivolous writer.
Ok, just weirded myself out. Googled 'pink elephants illuminati' and wound up here, here, then here, and it's wild in that last one that the key number is the age I am now and the time of year mentioned is now and I've already written about my own rabbit dream for my beta readers, and so much more in this is waaaaay too close to so much other stuff, too, lol. But seriously, guys, I actually get off on coincidence, or, as I prefer to see it, synchronicity. (Weirding myself out and freaking myself out are two different things. I'm mocking all of this, ok?) (Mocking doesn't necessarily mean side taking or making a belief statement.) (This is not an invitation to get weird back on me. I'm already worn out from growing up with all this.)
Before I go on, lemme remind us all that I was raised by a prophecy and numerology super freak and wound up studying everything I could find in (and getting a degree in) human behavioral studies, philosophies, developmental religious and political histories, and social psychologies. I know all the weird stuff the brain can do. But I also know very well how easily the brain is manipulated. I'm a big proponent of group think and brain training. I know that sounds bad, but we're already doing it, so I say do it right, with human dignity.
Humans are a unique species because we are so easily imprintable with symbolism, and symbolism easily both represents truth and stands in for truth, even when we know it is false, or true but intentionally construed as false, or even openly both true and false at the same time. We see loads of children's stories throughout the ages that deal with this sort of duality, and how we work through the symbolic pitfalls of life to reveal our own self truths, whatever they may be. Part of this journey usually involves excruciating pain of some kind, either emotional or physical or both, because without the pain the journey can't be made in the first place. This almost sounds like a condonement for abuse, but very certainly not from me, unless it's truly consensual. (You might find this idea interesting- Consent of the Governed.)
Anyway, it's almost like the human brain was designed specifically to be malleable to this sort of symbolic layering. The only real question, in my mind, is who gets to be responsible for the overwhelming fallout of this kind of portent if there really is a reckoning? Otherwise, none of the rest surprises me. So many species are behaviorally pattern-printed, no wonder humans try so hard to fit in. We feel lost without a built-in automated program. Everything we do with or against society must be embraced consciously, and for that we suffer the existentialism of awareness.
Basically what I'm getting around to is the idea that symbols themselves (shapes and patterns) are our genetic printing, and the way they are activated and layered with meaning and importance (representing ideas without having to use any words) is how we behave. The shape of a pyramid exists whether humans do or not. The shapes of circles and 5 or 6 pointed stars and crescent moons exist whether humans use them or not. Angles and dots and measurements and counts and the order they come in have always existed (this is what Plato was trying to say), humans have not. To adopt a symbol and call it good or bad and take it for a unique reference means nothing outside of human behavior. To recognize mathematical expression in our universe is simply that, recognizing that it's all around us. To assign particular meaning to it and fight wars over it belonging to this deity or that is purely human. Either God owns it it all, if there is a god at all, whoever he, she, or it is, or it's just someone using symbols to manipulate societal behaviors. Either way, symbols themselves don't have meaning until they are layered and imprinted as having meaning in the brain. Why would it be so far fetched that humans have already long since figured out how to run societies based on this kind of observational science?
I had a chicken who seemed fascinated by the Mystery of the Six Circles.
OOO
OOO
The first day she ran into them, she stared for an hour, transfixed as though she'd had a vision or revelation that she couldn't figure out, then came back every day to stare again. What I could never explain to her was that the circles were simply where paint cans had sat lined up together on a board, and all we did was lean the board up against the side of the house. It meant nothing. But to that chicken, that was a very special thing, something not in her genetic inventory to help her catalog and process. She never got over it, and was kind of upset when I finally moved it. It held meaning for her. Somehow, somewhere in that tiny little chicken brain, she was stricken with the awe of something so much bigger than her world, and it opened a little door in her mind that allowed a tiny little thought of something that she could never figure out.
Maybe this is what humans look like to something else who is able to step up above the basic symbolism and meaning thing, but for humans, it is how we survive as societies. Every major house or tribe or nation had or still has their own symbol to represent who they were, and identifying with one symbol or another holds deep meaning to each person's self worth in a very challenging world where identifying with the wrong symbol can get you ostracized, or worse, killed. Still, we all know the basics, like what a lightning symbol means. Lightning is very powerful and dangerous. Dancing with lightning bolts as a sort of sash to share and bind a dancing partner to oneself depicted during a hallucinogenic state is very suggestive of torture. Pink is reality distorted (pink is used a LOT in filming to denote very specific props and moods, sometimes associated with evil or as a soft cover over a darker plot), elephants are in charge. The entire song is delightful in my mind, and probably why I latched onto it in my weird childhood. Anyone who's gone through alternate mind states during heavy pain would be able to float right into that song. Anyone else would just blow it off as weird and say it was the alcohol. And then I say Maybe, but were the writers and illustrators drunk, as well?... Something to think about. You know, because this is supposed to be a children's movie. I didn't know what alcohol was, had never seen a drunk person, and my mom gave up attempting to explain that part to me. Why would it even be necessary for a parent to have to explain that? You don't see stuff like that in kid shows nowadays. It's a transitory scene before the big reveal of new behavior, just like what brains really go through under duress. I think it was very well done, much applause. My tiny brain recognized it exactly for what it was. I just didn't have the words back then to discuss it, or the parent capable of seeing what was right in front of her face- a coping mechanism. Can we say brain training?
So scoff if you will, but like the Cheshire cat, the truth is both right there in front of your faces and yet invisible. At any rate, I was an extremely impressionable child and apparently caught all the innuendo and psychological subtext, because I have survived a lifetime of extreme pain and brokenness kind of the same way brainwashed people survive being brainwashed. I see it all around me, it's part of our culture and has been for several generations, and scoffing only shows how powerful it has become if we can now bring it up openly and not believe it. (Remember, my dad was saying ALL this stuff decades before the general public even heard of the rumors, which should have been impossible unless he's either psychic or experienced.)
But if you want to see a then/now comparison, put this pink elephants production next to Lady Gaga's career series and you'll see all the same stuff replicated- the lightning bolt, the split personalities, two different rebirth stories (think about that one), and much more. It's all there. All this symbolism has been part of our culture since our parents and grandparents were tiny tots themselves. Pretty sure it's not random.
Back to real life. Thank goodness I'm starting to feel better, finally. I still have a few good days left this week to look forward to, yay! (Please no jinxing...) I mean, I still can't do much more than whisper, and my eye is still kind of weird, the ear on the same side is itching insanely waaaaay in there, and I'm not sure my brain isn't part pudding or something, but overall, being able to eat again is extremely awesome. The first thing I headed for this morning was tuna. I'm thrilled to be feeling too hot now instead of freezing and can't warm up.
After taking a month off so I could deal with the intensity of physical therapy, I feel terribly behind in everything. I really don't know how true OCD people cope. I'm only on the fringe and the pressure to get my routine back is enormous.
Blogger has announced it will be encrypted by the end of the month, which probably has something to do with what I was talking about Sunday. Everything is supposed to smoothly switch over to https, so hopefully none of my links will screw up. I must have 200,000 links in Pinky blog by now, lol.
I've got a couple of older posts going viral again last few days, and they're not connecting to anything related to bots now, as far as I can tell. Views are 560 and 487, but blogger isn't lumping the new incoming into the overall 'all-time' totals. I mean, that hasn't hurt anything in the all-time top ten list, but aspienado has hit the number 4 spot (already! only been 2 weeks), but there are a couple others that should have shown up higher ranked than aspienado by now that don't even show up on the top ten list, so the blogger widget code for the all-time top ten must be faulty. I can't express how badly I want to get in there and fix all the math... Anyone can write code, but without rigorous usage and feedback, fancy code is just as mediocre as anything you get at a dollar shop. What's the point of novelty socks that shrink in the wash and you can't wear them anyway. I may hafta look around for a better widget and import it. I'll refrain from going into a widgetbox loss weeping spell again. That was the most brilliant thing ever and they went bankrupt. All the really cool stuff gets mowed over.
I've said yes to a book reading challenge. The book on the left just arrived in the mail. We did a trade off, the book I suggested back is really cool, too. Each pic clicks to Amazon if you want to check it out. Note-I'm not signed up to get any compensation for Amazon link sharing. This is a legitimate reading challenge swap.
Couldn't sit through TV tonight because I'm coughing my head off ever since @bonenado walked in, something on his clothes (dust from work? pollen?) set me off really bad despite all the zyrtec and benadryl I'm taking, so we're on our computers and probably calling it quits pretty soon. I've tried several times today to catch up on at least some of all that lost sleep, but not having much luck yet.
Feelin' silly. Need to get away from those pink elephants.
Cracking up at discovering my tag 'symbols' was always spelled wrong. May as well stick with what works. :edit: 11-1-16 Fixed it, lol.
All you other grandparents out there on facebook making it look easy- stop that. If I find out next week that I've made it through another Christmas in flare up, I might turn it into a facebook brag-fest and up the ante for everyone else making my kiddo jealous. Super Pinky will also say pertinent things about people's significant other choices that keeps twisting our holiday seasons up into pretzels. Y'all know I write down everything.
I want to change all that. If I ever make my own money, *poof* I'm whisking my babies off to Florida for Christmas (cross your fingers, people). If that really does happen and even just one soul asks me what took so long, I will bonk heads all over facebook. What is taking so long is so many other people all around me continually thinking everything has to be done their way in their time, and that includes dying, nearly dying, life saving surgeries (there are several of you), funerals, and, oh yeah, all the other non life threatening stuff that stresses me out and I'm not even supposed to be involved, but I am because I'm kind. Or at least I used to be. I'm obviously less kind lately and several loved ones have retreated some emotional distance.
MONEY. We might go into severe deficit this coming year. We might get lucky and crash right into a pot of gold. In the meantime, would you other grandparents on facebook please start posting more realistically? It would save having to listen to admonishment on my part. "But so and so's mom watches HER grandchildren all the time, for weekends and a whole week and holidays and Sundays and..." Really? What did we just do here?
I love all the babies, big and small. Now, y'all chant with me- WORK WORK WORK WORK...
