Articles from December 2016

Is that long-feared war with Russia on the horizon?

I grew up in the days when the Soviet Union and America still had nukes pointed at each other, when Russkies were the bad guys in all the action and James Bond movies.  We weren’t as freaked out as in the 50s/60s, but it was still part of our consciousness.  I wonder if Millennials have the same underlying dread as the older generations, since the USSR has been defunct about as long as they’ve been alive, and Russia was–for some time–our friend.  Until Putin came into power, anyway.

But now this:

White House announces retaliation against Russia: Sanctions, ejecting diplomats

–and, for more information:

Obama Announces Sanctions Against Russia In Response To Cyberattacks

I got the impression from these articles that even the diplomats were spying on us.  Wordfence also recently posted that the Russians were behind a botnet, though they were accused of politicizing the issue on flimsy evidence.

The thing is, Trump is acting like our intelligence is also giving flimsy evidence–and, with cracks about “moving on,” sounds like an abuser who tells you, “Why don’t you just move on?”

This is the guy who will be–excuse me while I throw up a little in my mouth–taking over the reins in a few weeks, and he doesn’t even take seriously all the evidence of Russian espionage on us?

I mean, come on, Congress–and that’s both Republicans and Democrats actually agreeing on something for once–is furious with Russia and supports the sanctions.  Paul Ryan even says that Obama has not done enough.  Yet Trump’s and Russian tweets sound much alike lately.  (For an example, see the Russian Embassy UK’s duck tweet in the CNN article.  It looks like something Trump would tweet.)

I don’t know if Trump is really that stupid, or if he’s in on it.

People say we’ve been in WWIII ever since 9/11.  Yeah, but much of it has either been centered in Iraq or Afghanistan, or been carried out by authorities rooting out terrorists.  Now we’ve got a whole Middle East in turmoil, with ISIS and Syria; Russia spying on and cyberhacking other countries, Russia interfering with our elections and invading other countries, the recent assassination of the Russian ambassador; Europe experiencing terror attacks; Samantha Powers calling out Russia for helping with the civilian bloodbath in Aleppo; ISIS telling “lone wolves” to carry out more attacks all over the world–

 

“Finding out people you love have a dark side”: My post from March 2012

Finding out someone you loved (romantically, or friendship, or family member) is not what you thought they were, brings a unique pain…..

Then there was my former best friend Richard.  I just got an e-mail today from a forum we used to go on together to defend Orthodoxy.  I couldn’t stand getting these reminders anymore from a forum we haven’t been on for nearly three years, so I went to try to delete my account.  However, there is no way to do that.

It reminded me of how religious and righteous he always seemed to be, and how the truth was that he’s showing traits of narcissism, that he’s a violent man who did an evil, evil deed, nearly killing his 9-year-old daughter by choking her to unconsciousness.

Then there was finding out what my former boss did.  I thought he was a good person, despite his temper, and I liked him.  But no, he’s so violently abusive that he went to jail for 9 months, drove away the wife he loved, and lost custody of all his children….

I’m still mourning for him and for Richard, as if they had died, because the person I thought I knew, is dead–or never existed….

This is a repost of one of my old posts.  Read more of it here.

 

Now my blog shows up in the WordPress Reader!

For some time, my blog has not shown up in the WordPress.com Reader, even though it used to.  I thought maybe I had disconnected something or turned off a plugin while fiddling with my site a while back, trying to get it to work.  I had no idea what happened.  I thought maybe self-hosted blogs were now disconnected from the Reader.

If you have e-mail notifications turned off, this explains why you weren’t getting my updates in your Reader.

Today, after some Googling, I discovered a little button was switched off in my Jetpack settings.  I switched it on, and–

All fixed!  Now you can get updates from my blog in your Reader.  😀

 

One way that NVLD affects marriage

An argument today demonstrated vividly for Hubby and me both that NVLD can affect marital harmony.

But this time we experienced a breakthrough that shined light on a problem we didn’t realize was there.

Basically, without getting into boring personal detail, Hubby made a comment that he thought would give me all sorts of information which he did not actually say out loud.  In other words, “subtext.”

I totally missed the subtext because of, well, NVLD or some related disorder (such as Aspergers; I don’t have thousands of $$$$ to get formally diagnosed).

So I made a request which seemed perfectly normal and reasonable to me.  He infused it with all sorts of offensive motivations on my part, because he assumed I caught the subtext.

Fight ensues.  I feel like I’m living with a timebomb.  He thinks I keep saying things and using tones which, well, I’m not at all.  I’m not the kind of person who would.

Somehow during the course of discussion afterwards, he explained the subtext, and he learned that it went completely over my head.  Also that I do much better with literal speech.

I may be a writer, may understand idioms I’m familiar with, but as a child, I took idioms more literally.  Even now I’ll occasionally discover that some concept I take literally, is supposed to be metaphorical.

Education has made me familiar with the concept of metaphor, but unless you tell me a book has it, I’ll usually miss that there’s any metaphor in there at all.  I read the book plainly without inferring; I don’t guess how it will end; I would never have seen the eyeglasses in Great Gatsby as a metaphor for God if the teacher had not said they were.  I often have to back up movies and TV shows and play scenes again, because I have no idea how Sasha ended up dead in the kitchen, for example.

So now Hubby understands that he needs to speak more plainly, verbalize things he thinks can be inferred.  And I wonder how many past arguments are based on me totally missing his subtext, and him thinking I understood it.

I’ve also noted that he keeps putting far more into what I mean by my tone, than what I actually do.  Or being particular about the words I use.  I’ve also noted that people keep taking me seriously when I’m making a joke.

I explained that misunderstanding of, and trouble using, tone are NVLD problems as well.  And that I’m an introvert forced to speak on the fly, so I don’t have time to come up with the perfect words.

(Introverts have to think before they speak.  This makes it almost impossible for me to think of the perfect words.  And he discovered that I don’t see the difference between using one particular word or another, while he does.)

(This is why I prefer writing to discuss things with people.  In person I say the wrong thing and sound awkward and can’t get my meaning across, especially when interrupted.)

I explained that it’s a lot easier to understand expressions on actors on TV, because I can back up the tape, and stare at them fully, unlike in real life, where if you stare they’ll think you’re creepazoid.

(Unless you’re German.  Apparently Germans keep super-steady eye contact, unlike Americans, who flick our eyes every few seconds.)

It also doesn’t help to be uncomfortable with eye contact.  Even after 22 years, I don’t even feel comfortable having prolonged eye contact with the hubby.  Even when we were dating, the concept of “staring into each other’s eyes” made me uneasy.

And then I start wondering about past relationships and–I start wondering if it’s too much navel-gazing 20 years after those relationships ended, considering that I already explored those relationships in-depth here, and much of the necessary context is lost in the mist of memory.  And, well, those guys also ended up annoying other people or treating other girls the same, so maybe my NVLD wasn’t the only reason for arguments.

But in this case, it sure didn’t help.  Hopefully things will go more smoothly after this, more understanding on both sides.

 

 

 

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