3483 Plowing

Saturday, March 10, 2012

The meek will inherit the earth when the bold finish destroying it.
(...nothing to do with this post!)
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The Hudson Valley Draft Horse Association will be having their spring plowing event April 28th. I used to go every second or third year. In 2010 I was in Morocco, and last year I had the kidney thing, so it's been four years since I've gone, and I've missed it. Four years ago it was very disappointing. There weren't as many teams, and they didn't seem to have as many events. I'm fussing over whether it's worth a six-hour round trip.

I love hairy-legged draft horses, especially Friesians. I love to see them work; they seem so eager and intelligent. And powerful but gentle.

I love the way there'll be proud young men with perfectly matched prancing teams decorated in gorgeous shined silver and brass, and old men with a team consisting of a old horse and a mule in cracked leather harness, and in the plowing and the pulling contests, the old men and their ragtag teams just lean into it with no fuss and DO IT, blowing everyone else away. I love the way the horses seem to know what to do without guidance. I love the way that when you look at a draft horse, he looks back, and studies you, and seems to form an opinion.

The plowing events are graded on the straightness and evenness of the furrow, and speed will break a tie. The man has both hands on the plow. It's his job to keep it in the ground. The horses/mules know all the rest.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ri0f3aIIC34]

This is a Friesian, sex on the hoof!

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBWlOzwfN7k&feature=related]
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3482 My Gay Confusion

Saturday, March 10, 2012

The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
-- Henry Kissinger --

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I sort of understand men who prefer men. I suspect there are a lot of different causes, from gender misassignment at birth, through genetic brain and hormonal cross-wiring, to early emotional trauma or conditioning. Lots of different causes.

"Acting female" is mostly social conditioning. Yes, most little girls are less aggressive, more empathetic, and a bit quieter than most little boys (with a wide range and lots of overlap). There are differences due to wiring. But those differences don't include floppy wrists and whining. Most of the superficial differences between men and women are due to social conditioning and expectations.

Here's the part I don't understand: Why do some gays act in a way that even women find silly? I don't understand gay guys who out-fem women. You know, the floppy wrists and high voice and rolling eyes and frilly clothes. And the bitchiness and shallowness of the worst female cliches. It's an insult to all women that those guys think that's what defines a woman, and an insult to all men if they think that's what men find attractive.

I don't get it at all. It doesn't make any sense to me.

If I were a gay male and wasn't interested in sex change surgery, then it seems like I would want another gay male. But another gay male is likely to be attracted to a male, not a female. So why would I want to act like a female, and an ultra-female cliche' at that? Why would I act like a ten-year-old girl playing movie star, or like a Vegas stripper? And why would another guy who prefers men want a fake woman, and a bad fake at that?

I don't understand. It just doesn't make sense to me.

Maybe I'm projecting my own preference. I like men. And I like my man to be bigger, smarter, faster, and more aggressive than I (and that's not easy). So maybe I think anyone who wants a man would want that, too, at least to some degree.

I know a few gay male couples (and several singles), and of all the couples I know, and all of those I've seen in the grocery store (there were a LOT in the mid-Hudson valley), none of them were floppy-wrist types, and none were likely to parade in feathers and spike heels. They seemed quite happy to be male. They just happened to be attracted to other males. (Note that in the couples, one is usually "softer" than the other, but not so much so that women didn't find him attractive.)

Sigh. Ok, writing about something makes me think, and I've thought about it for the duration of a post, and I still don't get it.
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3481 They are MAD!

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Re healthcare: Stupidity is a pre-existing condition.
-- Bill Maher --

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I just saw a commercial for J.C. Penny that says you can return anything, any time, for any reason, with no receipt!

Holy crap! That means you need buy one season of new clothing, then never buy clothing again! Just return the winter stuff in the spring, and the summer stuff in the fall, repeat, repeat. You'll always have new clothes, always in style, always the right size if you happen to lose or gain weight, for no more than the usual year-to-year increase in price.

JCP is crazy!

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It reminded me of my one short stint as a suburban housewife in St. Louis in the '70s. I knew a lot of women who considered it normal to go buy new throw pillows, rugs, vases, china, whatever, when they were having a party, and then return it all after the party. I knew one woman who changed her very expensive living room curtains every year, simply by returning them and picking out new. She figured if it was allowed, then she'd be foolish not to do it.

I don't understand.

I still think JCP is nuts, and rather than courting my patronage, they have discouraged it. I figure they're not throwing returned stuff away, that would be prohibitively expensive, it probably goes back on the sales floor, so anything I buy there is USED! ...and I don't know by whom, for what, and whether or not they had lice or roaches or bedbugs.

JCP has gone mad!
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3480 It's so difficult to remain calm.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

He’s got a lot of depth on the surface, but deep down he’s shallow as hell.

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Man, I'm beginning to wonder about this "random" thing. The green quotes are getting eerie.

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I have a house phone, came with the cable/internet service, but I never use it (use only the cell phone), have never given out the house phone number. The ringer is turned off, and the recorded message says I don't use this phone, ringer is off, I never answer it, and I rarely check the messages, so there's no point in leaving one. The only people who call that phone are wrong numbers, spammers, and politicians.

Two posts ago I raged at Ex#2. He had emailed me wanting me to call him or send him my phone number so he could call me, and my response was "I hate the phone, use email". (Aside - most minimally aware people would understand that I don't want to give him my number.)

A week ago I changed the outgoing message to shorten it, but it still says "I don't use this phone." Well, today I checked for house phone messages, for the first time in about three months. There were only two messages, both from Ex#2, after I had asked him to use email. He must have found the number online or something. (Daughter doesn't even have this number - no point, since I never answer it!) He obviously heard the recorded message, that I don't answer this phone and rarely check the messages. And yet, he left TWO messages a day apart asking me to call him ASAP.

(If you'd like to hear the message, call area code 732, exchange 566, number 6532. And then tell me what would lead anyone to not only leave an urgent message, but to leave two!)

The idiot hears only what he wants to hear. Any wonder why I don't want to deal with him?
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3479 Soft spots in the concrete

Sunday, March 4, 2012

What doesn't kill us makes us bitter.
-- Chuck Lorre --

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I'm not too happy about the above green quote turning up on this particular post, but I guess that's what "random" means.

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Sometimes (ok, often) I wonder if I'm hard. I don't feel sadness about things like people, strangers, killed or injured in fires or tsunamis or tornados or whatever. I do contribute money or material to disaster relief when it will make a difference, to prevent further suffering, but I don't get all weepy about what's done.

However, the baby girl found in a field in Indiana, that hit me. Hard. I don't know why this particular story upset me so much, but it did. I want to DO something, but I don't know what. Like fly to Indiana immediately, and hold her, and adopt her.

Very young children orphaned in disasters do get to me. I would be less upset if they had died.

That boy in Newburgh, NY, who managed to get out of the car when his mother drove off a boat ramp into the Hudson River, killing herself and the boy's siblings, he's not that young, but no child should have to deal with that, so I wanted to swoop in and love him. But I'm not so sad about the rest of his family.

I guess I don't find death as upsetting as life with pain.
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