3983 Dread, confusion

Monday, October 6, 2014

I have long been of the opinion that if work were such a splendid thing

the rich would have kept more of it for themselves.

 --Bruce Grocott

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Lately I've been coming across photos, pictures, videos with snow in them, and every time I see them I literally feel sick to my stomach.  Nausea.

I've never before had such a strong reaction to the coming of winter.

I hate cold.  I hate snow.  I've always hated cold and snow.  I especially hate snow when it's falling, or blowing.  The only good snow is melting snow.

I guess I have a bad feeling about this winter.

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I've already said I don't understand how the moon moves in relation to the Earth and sun.  (Why do we capitalize "Earth", but not moon or sun?) This Wednesday morning at 6:25 am we are supposed to be able to see a full lunar eclipse (although I have little hope of seeing anything here - the sky is always either cloudy or full of pollution, can't ever see more than a few stars at night even on the clearest and darkest of nights).

Anyway, that got me wondering where the sun would be in relation to the moon and Earth at that time.  So I looked up sunrise and sunset times.  Sunrise here today was 06:59:00 and sunset was 18:30:08.  Tomorrow it's at 07:00:02 and 18:28:32.  On Tuesday into Wednesday the moon will be full full, and I assume sunrise will be at something like 07:01:04..  

So 35 minutes before Wednesday sunrise here, the moon will be in full sunshine.  Then as the Earth and my house turn toward sunrise, the moon will move toward the west and into the Earth's shadow, that's the eclipse, and then the moon sets here as the sun is "coming up", and the moon will remain in the Earth's shadow for about half of its next circuit.

I guess.

But, but, but, 

the moon "sets" at some point every night/morning/day, so howcome it isn't in the Earth's shadow more often?  Like almost once per circuit (per month-ish)?  Somewhere on the globe, anyway.

I don't understand.

I think my problem is that I don't understand the moon's path.  And I suspect it isn't a regular path, like man-made satellites are designed to follow, same path, over the same points on the Earth every circuit.   I suspect it "progresses".

But, but, but

does that imply that there are places on the Earth that don't see the moon AT ALL during some period of that progression?  Or is it large enough and far enough away that it is always visible to the entire half of the world it's "on the side of" at all times?  I suspect that's true.  Daytime moons aren't unusual.

But, but, but

when I look at the moon from my porch, it seems to "rise" from about the same spot every time.  Which, uh, doesn't support a path progression.

I give up.  Again.

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A FEW HOURS LATER!  

The moon stuff gets weird.  It's no damn wonder I'm confused.  Want to blow your mind?  Read this: Wednesday's Lunar Eclipse Is Technically Impossible

To quote a line from the article, "And indeed, during a lunar eclipse, the sun and moon are exactly 180 degrees apart in the sky."  

Duh?  That's what I thought, and one reason (of several) why I couldn't figure it out.
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3755 Periodic thing.

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

"My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular."

--Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.--

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I do something weird every so often.  Every so often I get what can only be described as an obsession, which can last anywhere from three weeks or so to three years.  It's sort of like bipolar, in that it lasts for a while and then goes away, but it doesn't seem to involve depression or mania. 

After the year that Jay (and both of my dogs) died, I got heavily into estate auctions and eBay.  I bought stuff.  Lots of stuff.  The country house is chock full of stuff, some of it lesser junk, some of it very good (from live estate auctions).  That's what's so overwhelming about sorting out that house. I understand that part of it then was real situational depression, and an attempt to fill a suddenly empty and echoing house and life with something I could love.  That went on for three years.

But every so often, something similar but of shorter duration happens.  It might be needlework, when I spend every waking moment knitting, embroidering, sewing, and doing nothing else that has to be done.  Or reading, when I feel like I absolutely have to read the entire backlog of books on the shelves.  Or the past month and a half, when I started watching videos on YouTube, in particular some expats living in Japan who do videos on the culture, houses, customs, of life in Japan (**see below), and video tours of old Victorian houses - to the exclusion of everything else (including, as has been obvious, the updating of this blog).

But I'm not depressed.  I still enjoy stuff.  Even after Jay died, I still managed to get out, like I joined the fire department and got EMT training, went to the county fairs and the antiques fairs and the Renaissance fairs, took bellydance lessons, etc., I just don't pay bills when due, or clean the house, or do the dishes or the laundry - in other words, when I'm in the house, it's all obsession.  As if I want to escape responsibilities?

I didn't really realize that pattern until now.  I've been thinking back, trying to figure out when it started.  I think it started when I married Ex#2.  The guy who didn't talk to me for weeks at a time, who would go away on business trips without mentioning it to me and couldn't understand why I worried when he didn't come home after work (pre-cell phone days),  the guy who wet the bed almost every night and crapped his pants whenever we were in the car going somewhere he didn't want to go, and refused to admit there was a problem, let alone see a doctor.  That's when it started.  I was so alone, and I read and did needlework to fill my empty days.  Projects, projects, projects.

It was just Saturday that I came out of this latest (the YouTube obsession) cycle.  I got a bunch of stuff done around the house this weekend; suddenly I wanted to clean up and check things off to-do lists.  I wonder if, now that I'm aware of it, I might be able to see it happening and control it.

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**On the Japanese videos -

Lots of good things about Japan, like very low crime, beautiful countryside, it's very clean, people respect others, and so on.  But there's no way I could possibly live there for any length of time (even beyond the fact that immigration is strongly discouraged).

The houses, even new ones, have no central heating and no insulation!  People use space heaters to heat one room, and the space heaters are kerosene so you have to keep a window cracked, and the heaters turn themselves off periodically, so if you don't get up pre-dawn to turn them back on, you wake to a freezing house.

Westerners are amazed by the toilets.  They are very fancy, electronic, and have heated seats.  Well, yeah!  THERE'S NO HEAT!

All social and professional interactions are governed by rank and seniority.  You must defer in all matters to those who rank above you, which means that if someone of higher rank than you says you must do something that makes no sense at all, is stupid or dangerous, you must guard your facial expressions and react with enthusiasm.  You NEVER correct or criticize the ideas of anyone of higher rank.  This is not just professionally - it's socially, too.  (Your bosses will expect to sit in the front and at the choice tables at your wedding, for example, ahead of your family.)  You never say anything negative.  If you want to say "No", you say "Perhaps".

Husbands outrank wives, so a wife is to expect that her husband will have affairs, and she is to ignore it in all ways.  Some husbands may never stray, but he's considered a fool if he has the opportunity and doesn't.

You have to fill out pages and pages of forms to do anything if you are more than just a short-time tourist, and there are no English translations of anything, not even the directional signs in official buildings, and next to no one speaks English.   Learn  Japanese, or starve.

Some YouTube channels:
- softypapa
- thejapanchanneldcom
- thesillyolddude
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