Famous Paintings Discuss Current Events: Apple vs. FBI

Don’t Panic, iPhone style 3 by ViriiGuy on deviantart.com

I think this blog is past due for another installment of Famous Paintings Discussing Current Events. As regular readers of this blog can attest, well-known portraits will occasionally drop by and express their views on trending news items. Really, in times like these, what we need is the wisdom and insight that only peerless works of fine art can provide. No, Donald Trump’s hair does not count, though it is certainly a masterpiece (master piece?). I checked in with some of the leading paintings and found that what was foremost on their minds was the battle between Apple and the FBI.

What battle, you ask? For those of you who have had absolutely no access to any kind of media for the past several months, a) how are you reading this blog? and b) here is the background on this issue (if you know the background, feel free to skip down to where the famous paintings start talking):

After Edward Snowden disclosed that the NSA had access to user data on iPhones and could read almost all of the information on the phones, Apple developed such strong encryption for iPhones that Apple itself can’t extract the information from the phone if it’s locked. This led to the pending court case in which the FBI obtained a court order requiring Apple to create a new operating system that will allow iPhone security features to be disabled. Apple refused, arguing that the government should not require Apple to create a program that undermines the security of its own product. The iPhone in question was a work phone used by one of the shooters in the December 2015 attack in San Bernadino. The phone may or may not contain, among other things, information about a possible third shooter. The FBI recently asked for a delay in the court case because an Israeli company may be able to hack the locked iPhone, thus exposing a potential security flaw while giving no indication to Apple or to millions of iPhone users as to what that flaw may be.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, here’s what famous paintings have to say about it:

American Gothic: Have you heard about the latest development in the court battle between Apple and the FBI?

Old Guitarist: I’ve been following the case. I can’t believe the government actually got a judge to order a private company to create a program that would weaken the company’s flagship product. What’s next? Is the NEA going to get an injunction to have someone repaint my guitar and make it electric just so they can hear me play Stairway to Heaven?

The Scream: It’s outrageous! Big Brother won’t be happy until all activity on every smartphone, tablet, and computer is automatically reported to the newly-formed Department of Douche-Baggery. How dare they!

Whistler’s Mother: Your position on this issue wouldn’t have anything to do with those pictures I found on your laptop the other day, would it, dear?

The Scream: Hey! That was ART!! Those girls were OLDER THAN THEY LOOKED!!! And STAY OFF MY LAPTOP!!!!

Girl With Pearl Earring: But what about the need to strengthen national security, especially as acts of terrorism on U.S. soil continue? Shouldn’t the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?

Old Guitarist: Yes, clearly what we need in such urgent situations is a protracted legal battle. It will be so useful to find out four months after an attack that the shooter was a frequent visitor to LOLcats.

American Gothic: What puzzles us is the FBI’s latest request for a delay because they may be able to hack the iPhone. If they could hack the iPhone, why go to court to make Apple create a new operating system?

Mona Lisa: I think it’s smart for the FBI to keep trying to extract the information from the phone in case the court case goes against them. What I want to know is, if they do find a way to get into that phone, what’s going to keep them from hacking into my iPhone? I have some very compromising portraits on it.

Old Guitarist: Hmm. Suddenly I’m not quite so opposed to the FBI’s actions…

The Scream: This whole situation has me so worked up. It makes me want to shout, or holler, or just…somehow…make noise….

Girl With Pearl Earring: This is why we should elect Trump. If we build that giant wall on the Mexican border and stop handing out green cards to terrorists, we won’t find ourselves in this situation any more.

Other paintings:

[speechless]

American Gothic: It’s nice that you’ll always be pretty, dear. That will come in handy.

As always, all opinions are those of the paintings themselves and not those of the blog. Is anyone else wondering if those compromising portraits on the Mona Lisa’s phone might shed some light on the meaning behind that famous smile? And Old Guitarist, what a roué. I would totally pay to hear him play Stairway to Heaven, wouldn’t you? Due respect to Jimmy Page, whom I revere as a god among men, but Led Zeppelin as interpreted by Picasso sounds awesome!

March 24, 2016littleblindgirl Leave a comment

Little Blind Girl goes to therapy

Diagnosis: Doomed! by JD Hancock on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdhancock

Despite the fact that I am an INTJ and therefore more likely to solve the problem of world hunger than talk about my feelings, I’ve tried therapy. I made honest efforts, even though I privately thought it was all pseudo-science and guesswork and I could do just as well with a journal for, well, the price of a journal. But I acknowledge that there are, occasionally, things about which I am not entirely correct, if only by the law of large numbers. I’m right so often that I have to be wrong every once in a while, just to keep the universe from collapsing. (Right now, my Sainted Mother is doing some collapsing of her own, from laughter.) So, hey, maybe one of those things I was wrong about was therapy, right? Wrong. So, so wrong. So very, very wrong. Just in case the world needed more evidence of why INTJs and psychology don’t mix, here is an amalgamation of Therapy Sessions I Have Had:

Well-meaning Therapist: So, littleblindgirl, what brings you to my office?

littleblindgirl: A car.

Well-meaning Therapist: Sorry, I meant, why did you make an appointment to talk with me?

littleblindgirl: Why are you sorry?

Well-meaning Therapist: I just–I mean–I just phrased the question badly. I’m sorry.

littleblindgirl: I’ll forgive you if you want me to, but you shouldn’t be sorry. You should be more clear.

Well-meaning Therapist: Well, thank you for that. Now–

littleblindgirl: You’re welcome.

Well-meaning Therapist: I beg your pardon?

littleblindgirl: Isn’t that what one says after being thanked?

Well-meaning Therapist: Oh–I suppose–I mean–

littleblindgirl: Because if the rules on that have changed, I really think someone should have told me.

Well-meaning Therapist: It’s fine, I just–

littleblindgirl: I can’t be blamed for saying the wrong thing if I’m saying what used to be the right thing but isn’t anymore because someone changed it and didn’t tell me.

Well-meaning Therapist: That’s very true–

littleblindgirl: I mean, I think these societal rituals are meaningless wastes of time and they bore me to tears, but I engage in them because it makes other people slightly less awkward to be around.

Well-meaning Therapist: (grasping desperately at something remotely resembling therapy): Do you often feel awkward around people?

littleblindgirl: Changing the rituals without proper notification just makes things more awkward, which defeats the purpose.

Well-meaning Therapist: True, but back to the “awkward around others” part–

littleblindgirl: It doesn’t make sense.

Well-meaning Therapist: (surreptitiously clutches stress ball) What doesn’t make sense?

littleblindgirl: (gazing severely at Well-meaning Therapist) I thought your job was to listen. If you had been listening, you would know perfectly well what doesn’t make sense.

Well-meaning Therapist: I was listening! Now, I want to talk about how you feel awkward around others–

littleblindgirl: If you’re not going to listen, I don’t understand why I should continue to pay for these sessions. I can write in a journal if I want to express myself to something that doesn’t listen. For that matter, I could run for political office if I wanted to express myself to something that doesn’t listen.

Well-meaning Therapist: Stop!

littleblindgirl: (taken aback) Stop what?

Well-meaning Therapist: Stop talking and listen to me for a minute. (Pauses to make sure littleblindgirl is actually listening). Why did you make an appointment to talk with me today?

littleblindgirl: My friend thinks I may be a robot.

Well-meaning Therapist: Really?

littleblindgirl: She may have meant “cyborg”. It’s a common mistake.

Well-meaning Therapist: Have you talked to your other friends about this?

littleblindgirl: How could I do that?

Well-meaning Therapist: (relieved at finally being able to talk psycho-babble) It’s all about active communication. You have to say what you really feel and truly listen to what the other person has to say–

littleblindgirl: I mean, how can I talk to people who don’t exist?

Well-meaning Therapist: (stumped)

littleblindgirl: Isn’t that what you’re for?

Well-meaning Therapist: You know what? You’re right.

littleblindgirl: Yes, I know.

Well-meaning Therapist: (takes a deep breath, thinks about bilking insurance companies) Why don’t we talk about how that made you feel?

littleblindgirl: How it made me feel?

Well-meaning Therapist: Yes. Tell me what you were feeling when your friend said you might be a robot.

littleblindgirl: (long pause) You want me to talk about my feelings?

Well-meaning Therapist: Yes. Yes, I do. I want you to understand that you’re in a safe space and you can open your innermost self to me. I want to know what’s going on in the heart of the little blind girl. Tell me everything!

littleblindgirl: (longest pause yet) Are you sure there’s not just a pill I could take?

And there you have it. One of my therapists, and I’m not kidding about this, fled the country after our first session. Rationally speaking, I know that probably had more to do with the massive amounts of money he embezzled rather than our therapy session, but I’ve never been sure I wasn’t the trigger. I mean, if you were facing the prospect of another therapy session with a hardcore INTJ, wouldn’t you run as fast as you could in the opposite direction? I know I would. And, hey, while I was right about therapy being a waste of time, that means I was wrong about being wrong about therapy being a waste of time, so the universe need not collapse. At least, not because of me.

March 20, 2016littleblindgirl 4 Comments

A unicorn, a scorpion, and a monkey walk into a bar

unicorn_poop_by_gremlinlegions-d3kh3s4(2)

By gremlinlegions on deviantart.com http://fav.me/d3kh3s4

I’ve always been fascinated by systems that purport to know who you are and what you’re like based on when you were born, the results of a personality test, etc. For instance, according to the Myers-Briggs typology classification system, I am an INTJ. That stands for Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Judging. According to this classification, I am A) a unicorn (I knew it!)–apparently, INTJs are so rare as to make up 0.8% of the female population–and, B) a robot. I am often perceived as emotionally distant and I make decisions based on reason rather than emotion. I live mostly in my head, I’m not personable, I’m blunt, and I don’t bother lying because I don’t care what other people think. I love structure and organization but hate rules, and I would rather chew off my own arm than talk about my feelings. Or your feelings. Really, just feelings in general are anathema to me, I’m told.

untitled I am also a Scorpio. That means I’m intense, passionate, and filled with desire, which is just awkward given the whole INTJ robot thing. I can be jealous and vindictive when I’m overcome by the aforementioned intense passions, but I am also a caring and devoted lover and am by most accounts supposed to be quite lusty (I know several ex-boyfriends with whom I will not be sharing this blog post specifically because of the helpless laughter some of these “attributes” will cause). I can be cunning and sadistic, but I’m also dynamic, magnetic, and have a hypnotic personality with a marked dark side. People find themselves drawn to my mysterious and exciting persona (again, not sharing this with ex-boyfriends).

untitled2 Then, just when I’m trying to reconcile all these different, mutually exclusive traits, it turns out that I was born in the year of the Monkey per the Chinese zodiac. People born in the year of the monkey are curious, mischievous, and clever. We are also dishonest and manipulative, so I guess INTJ monkeys are just doomed to a life of violent inner conflict. As a monkey, I am supposed to be a playful prankster whose favorite activity is people-watching, and I am considered warm-hearted, gregarious, and likable. I am a warm-hearted, emotionally distant, gregarious, introverted horn dog who attracts people with my mysterious, blunt mischievousness. Man, I really am a unicorn! I went through each list to see if there was even one attribute that the monkey, the scorpion, and the unicorn all have in common. Turns out, there is.

We’re all the most likely type to be the model for fictional villains.

This would have come in handy on Career Day back in school. Instead of pamphlets on accounting, medicine, and law, I could have been reading about How to Invade Fictional Territories and Minions: Slaves or Sacrifices? I could have taken a seminar in Boris and Natasha and gone to workshops for moustache twirling (tricky for girls) and evil laughs (very important: you don’t want to end up cackling when what you really want is a good mwah-ha-ha). Risk would have taken on a whole new meaning, not to mention Clue. Ooh! Monopoly! Oh, the evil laughs I could have given while playing Monopoly, if only I’d known. What a different life I might have led if all these horoscopes and categories had been around to tell me who I am. I could be dooming Narnia to eternal winter as we speak.

Or I could, you know, try to figure out who I actually am as opposed to who someone tells me I am. Controversial, I know, but allow me to quote my good friend Socrates: “To find yourself, think for yourself.” Now that’s a typology system I can get behind!

March 19, 2016littleblindgirl 4 Comments

Am Unicorn. Deal.

Self-portrait (unicorn_attack__by_wallakitty-d8l29c9)

After a great deal of soul-searching, I have come to a realization that I would like to share with you, gentle readers. As I understand it, some people identify as being something other than what they were born as or how they appear on the outside. Well, I may seem like a girl on the outside, and the “traditional” view may categorize me as human, but I now know that I identify as a unicorn.

That’s right. I am a legendary being who is fierce and proud, even when no one believes in me. Even though you can’t see my horn, I am still powerful and beautiful, and I won’t be tamed. While I can’t say I’m especially attracted to virgins, I am most definitely the living embodiment of magic and grace. I am a unicorn.

I’ll tell you what else: I don’t think I’m the only one out there. I think many people may identify as unicorns and either suppress it or hide their true selves for fear of suffering scorn and ridicule. I hope my fellow unicorns will find the courage to come forward and say, “I, too, am strong and proud. I, too, am beautiful and magical. I, too, am a unicorn.”

Best believe.

June 24, 2015littleblindgirl 15 Comments

Little Blind Girl has left the building

Jeff and Jodi’s Epic Bike Move by Will Vanlue on Flickr

I’m moving. I’m pretty sure the tears are because I’ve developed allergies to cardboard, packing tape, and bubble wrap simultaneously, and not at all because I’m leaving the place I’ve called home for six years. You can disagree with me if you want, because I’m just making that up to keep from sounding like a wimp.

Don’t get me wrong. There are things I will not miss. For instance, I live in a converted warehouse that wasn’t built to be a residence, and in one of the corners the walls don’t quite meet. If you’re standing at the right angle at the right time of day, you can see daylight. I’ve seen it snow inside my apartment. I won’t miss that. I also live above a restaurant. I don’t know why it is that they like to dump all their glass bottles into the recycling bin at dawn, but they do, and the restaurant has a bar, so that’s a lot of bottles. I won’t miss that, either, though it’s been a pretty reliable alarm clock. I also won’t miss the trains that run immediately behind the building, and I definitely won’t miss whoever it is who thinks it’s a good idea to blast Justin Bieber at two in the morning.

I’ve made this into a home, though, the first I’ve ever had on my own. I’ve lived on my own for a while, but I never stayed anywhere for long. I’m a rolling stone, baby, and I gather no moss. Except here. My home, my sacred space, my sanctuary. The place where, no matter how mad the Chloe Cat is, she has to let me in because she has nobody else to feed her. I’ve had sleepless nights here because I was anxious, because I was ecstatic, because I had a broken heart, because I had a broken bone, or because I just couldn’t sleep. I started this blog here. I can see where my viewership is coming from, and it knocks me out to see that little map light up with countries all across the world in which people are reading this blog, and it all started here.

I’m moving to a great place and I’m looking forward to making a new home in which I haven’t had any heartbreaks yet, or had to shovel snow off the floor. Maybe my new neighbors will blast Muse at two in the morning, or (it could happen) Bach. Maybe I’ll blast Bach and see how long it takes people to complain (prediction: 17 seconds). I’m looking forward to living in a place where the ceiling is so high, I have to submit a work order to get a light bulb changed. But mostly, I’m looking forward to not having to pack any more boxes, or wrap any more fragile items, or try to hold a box closed with one hand while I tape it up with the other using tape that has somehow become stuck to itself in the last half-second. Sentimentality is nice and all, but if this doesn’t end soon, I’m going to find out who it is who’s been blasting Justin Bieber for the past few years, shove them in a box, tape it shut, and mail it to Canada.

And I’m going to miss the hell out of this place. Even though it has no closet space, the floors slant, and it managed to get flooded on the top floor, it was home. Au revoir, apartment mine. May you be tenanted by good people who always remember to change your air filter.

July 27, 2014littleblindgirl 3 Comments

Am I A Feminist Or Not? You Tell Me

Woman in Water by Ton Haex on Flickr

I’m not sure what it means to be a feminist anymore. With all the good and bad that’s happened since the first suffragettes took up the fight, I’m not sure if wearing lipstick is a call to arms or a betrayal of everything we stand for. I know I try my best every day, I know some days can feel like a prizefight, and I know I make compromises that I don’t always feel comfortable making. I know I think about what makeup I’ll put on based on what I’ve got to deal with during the day. I know I think about what to wear because I need a feminine look to counteract my aggressive demeanor. I know I think every day about how people will perceive me as a woman, and what impact that will have on my job, and I tailor my appearance accordingly. I don’t know if that’s a step forward or a step back. What I know is that I’m a woman, I believe in what I’m doing, and I try to do the right thing both as a woman and as a professional. Does anyone else wonder if you can do both?

There’s been a sort of Mad Men effect on women’s fashion and beauty in the past few years, and I think there’s been a Mad Men effect on the perception of women in general as well. You might think I mean that women are seen as more submissive because of this, but I don’t. I think (and have mercy because I don’t have a television, so I’m going by what people say) that seeing women confronted with starker examples of sexism than the more subtle forms we deal with today has advanced the feminist cause by showing that we face a real struggle. It was clearer when men swilled liquor and puffed on cigars, but it’s still there, and you can hear echoes from the show in office halls and boardrooms today. For instance, any woman who works in a male-dominated profession knows that acting confident is going to get you labeled as a bitch. It doesn’t matter that it isn’t true. What matters is that, when you beat a man, that’s the easiest road for him to take to try to bring you down. People who are worth beating don’t say things like that, but statistically speaking, the people who say things like that are the ones you’re most likely to beat, so you have to get used to it. But let me say it here, so there’s no mistake: IT ISN’T TRUE.

Some days, I acknowledge, I’m a bitch. Some days I’m your best friend. Sometimes I watch sad movies just so I can cry at them, and sometimes I pick a fight because it’s been too quiet and I want to make things interesting. I’m a woman. I’m a professional. I’m a feminist, and I’m feminine. I’m every bit as good as you are, and if you underestimate me, I’ll grab you by the neck and wipe the floor with your face, so why don’t you just try me and see if I’m bluffing. I’ll do it in lipstick and heels, because I like to look good when I kick ass, and I’ll do it in a poufy skirt because I think they’re pretty. I’ll do it in front of your girlfriend because she might as well find out now. I’ll do it in front of your friends so they’ll think twice before they start anything with me. I’ll do it because I want to, because it makes me happy, because it’s who I am. Don’t think for a second that I’ll hesitate to do it because someone else won’t like it. I’ve been doing this for a while now, and I’m telling you: I get the best results when I act like what I am. A woman, a person, a fighter. Me.

July 20, 2014littleblindgirl 8 Comments

Confessions Part One: Things I Accidentally Stole From My Friends

Sinner; copyright zgrredek on Flickr

I think there’s an unspoken statute of limitations for things you accidentally steal from your friends. You know how it is, you borrow a friend’s shirt one day, you mean to wash it and give it back. Suddenly six months have gone by and you’re unpacking in your new apartment in a different city and you come across that shirt and you think, is it really worth mailing it back? I’ll just give it to her the next time I see her. Except, the next time you see her isn’t until someone is getting married and you’re so stressed about gifts and travel plans and horrible bridesmaids dresses that you forget all about the shirt. Then you get back home, you see the shirt, you do a face palm slap, and you think, I’ve really got to remember to take that with me the next time I’m going to see her. Except, the next time you see her is when there’s a funeral, and the last thing on your mind is your friend’s shirt. Unless it’s your friend’s funeral, at which point you’re pretty much out of luck.

When you’ve borrowed an item and you forget (or “forget”) to give it back, I propose a time limit of three years during which time, if the item is demanded, you must return it as expeditiously as possible. If the item is not demanded within those three years, you’re free to consider it yours and keep it guilt-free. I have taken it upon myself to test this theory before making a public proposal, because that’s just how much I care. Also because I kept forgetting to give the things back. The statute of limitations has passed on each of the items in the test group, and I now consider them mine. Here’s what I accidentally stole from my friends:

A rock band T-shirt: this is the quintessential item that you borrow and never end up returning, partly because you honestly don’t remember and partly because you subconsciously don’t want to remember because the T-shirt is so cool. Mine is from the now-disbanded Marvelous 3, the most rawk-tastic band around when I was in college, and since they’re no longer together, there will be no more T-shirts ever. The lead singer was Butch Walker, who is still around and making music (which is also rawk-tastic), but it’s not quite the same when you can’t just blow off your classes, drive for hours to some skanky club, and get back late afternoon the next day just in time to take a Phenomenology exam you didn’t study for. Sorry, Michelle: the shirt’s mine now!
Books: another very common entry on the list of Stuff People Borrow And Never End Up Giving Back. At least one friend of mine has a policy of never lending books to anyone, even immediate relatives, for this very reason. I borrowed 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez from an ex-boyfriend who, if I’m honest, I’m pretty sure had never read it and only kept it around to impress chicks. I wasn’t dating him for his mind. Anyway, I read the book and it was life-alteringly fantastic, which frankly my ex-boyfriend wasn’t, so I kept the book and got rid of him.
Lipstick: this one is mostly limited to women, though not always. There’s a magic shade for each woman, and there’s no predicting it based on coloring or skin tone or anything. You could have identical twins and each would have a different magic shade of lipstick. It’s the shade that, when you put it on, it doesn’t just suit you perfectly, it makes you feel beautiful. It gives you confidence just to know you’re wearing it. When you go to replace it, it will inevitably have been discontinued. I borrowed a tube of lipstick from a friend and it was my magic shade. She let me use it for a long time because it’s part of the Girlfriend Code to help your girlfriends look fabulous, and eventually I think we both forgot it wasn’t originally mine. I still have it, though there isn’t much left, because I’ve been hoarding it for things like dates where the guy actually takes me to a nice place. As you can tell by the fact that there’s still some left, that doesn’t happen very often. But when it does, I’m ready.

So here it is, my confession: I accidentally steal things from friends. To be fair, though, they accidentally steal things from me, too. It’s kind of nice, really. When you’ve all been friends long enough, your stuff tends to end up mixed together through some sort of friendship diffusion effect. You’re over for dinner, and you comment on your friend’s candlesticks, and then you both squint at them and realize at the same moment–they used to be yours! That’s OK, though, because you borrowed the necklace you’re wearing from her five years ago. It all works out in the end. Man, it feels good to get that off my chest!

July 12, 2014littleblindgirl 11 Comments

When The GPS Got Cranky

Hi, everyone! Did you miss me? I’ve been short of inspiration lately, so I thought I’d spare you the lame/crappy/mediocre blog post ideas and wait until I had something worth sharing. Here’s what you missed:

Animals That Look Like My Ex-Boyfriends
Ex BF #4, courtesy of Frank Peters at Fotopedia.com
Cleaning While Blind, or: What Happens When You Grab Bleach Instead Of Wood Polish
Little Blind Girl Goes To The Shooting Range (that one was actually good, but I’d signed a nondisclosure agreement as part of the settlement)

You’re welcome! In other news, a friend and I went to a concert a while ago in a Big City a couple of hours away. We used a GPS navigator to find the location, as neither of us had been there before. We probably wouldn’t have needed one, except…wait for it…the blind girl was navigating. The GPS navigator guided us more or less accurately for the interstate part of the journey, though I’m still not convinced we had to use quite so many roundabouts.

By the way, when I googled “intersection types” to make sure I was using the correct term, I also found the following types of intersections: bowties, hook turn, quadrant, seagull, slip lane, staggered, superstreet, and (my favorite) Texas U-turn. Did you guys know about all these? There are so many reasons I’m never learning to drive. You need an advanced degree to keep all this straight.

Here’s something I bet you never knew about GPS devices: when they’re low on power, they get cranky. There’s no other explanation for what happened when we got close to our destination. I was looking directly at the exit we needed to take when the GPS said “Turn right in 1.3 miles.” I looked at my friend dubiously and said, “I’m pretty sure we should take this exit.” The GPS piped up again, and frankly sounded a little peeved: “Turn right in 1.2 miles.” I’m not saying it was listening, but it hadn’t given us unsolicited updates before. It was a little creepy.

Schizophrenic GPS by Incessant Doodling on deviantart.com

Because neither my friend nor I had thought to bring a backbone, we listened to the GPS and went past the exit. Shortly thereafter, the GPS device told us to make a U-turn and go back. Mind you, it told us to do this when there was nowhere to make a U-turn for the next few miles. I think maybe the hyenas from The Lion King got in the device and started arguing with each other about which way to go. We made a U-turn that I still think was illegal and went back, except that we got mixed up again when the GPS device told us to turn left in 0.7 miles and we ended up on completely the wrong interstate headed in the opposite direction from our intended destination. We then blatantly ignored the GPS device and tried a little celestial navigation, using the setting sun to determine direction and picking roads that seemed to lead more or less where we wanted to go.

We ended up in the next state over.

I had to call my brother-in-law to ask for directions to get us to the concert. He, of course, gave us perfectly clear directions that got us exactly where we needed to go. I guess he was fully charged and therefore not cranky. We followed his directions and got to the concert only half an hour late. It was a great show and we enjoyed ourselves very much, until we got outside and back to the car and realized: we hadn’t asked my brother-in-law for directions for the return journey. We checked the GPS unit: critically low on power.

We just got on the nearest interstate and prayed. The one method that’s never outdated!

July 6, 2014littleblindgirl 4 Comments

Follow That Rainbow! Or, How I Did My Budget

It doesn’t pay to be a grown-up.

Image credit: mystica at openclipart.com

I’ve been thinking that, at some point before I retire, it would be nice to buy a house. To that end, I recently spoke with a financial advisor (I may be glamorizing his job here a bit–it was just a guy at my bank who agreed to talk to me) and went through my finances with an eye toward getting things in shape, eventually, to own my own home. He warned me, “This is going to take some belt-tightening,” and I believed him. My job is more spiritually than financially remunerative. I just wasn’t quite prepared for how tight that belt was going to have to get. Here’s the gist:

Of course, federal and state taxes come out of the paycheck before you ever get it. Then there are all the other automatic payments for things like retirement accounts, flexible spending plans or health savings accounts, student loans, personal savings accounts, and things of that nature. Then there’s rent (or mortgage, I hope, eventually), utilities, groceries, pantyhose (I need a separate line in my budget for these because I go through so many), ~~beer~~ household necessities, all the stuff you really do have to have. Most people also have a car payment or at least an amount for gas; I have taxi money. There’s whatever other categories your life calls for, like ~~beer~~ child care, ~~beer~~ medical expenses, pet supplies, property taxes, things along those lines. Then there’s what you have to put aside for a down payment, and then there’s what’s left.

I’m not kidding, I actually had more pocket-money when I was a kid with an allowance. It really doesn’t pay to be a grown-up, and I’ve got the spreadsheet to prove it.

It was raining while we were doing this, and it stopped not long after we finished. I looked out of my window and saw a rainbow that came right near my home. It was so close, I could actually see the end of the rainbow. I craned my neck, because it would have been fantastic timing to find a pot of gold just then. Where do you think the rainbow ended?

In the graveyard next to my apartment building.

I don’t know what to make of that. I’m completely not just coming up with a cool metaphor to give added dimension and meaning to my blog post. This really happened. I actually saw where the rainbow ended, and it ended in a graveyard next to my building. Is it the death of hope? A commentary on the ephemeral nature of human lives and dreams? A message from above that I should just give up now?

And then I thought, maybe that’s just where the rainbow starts.

By Photograph: Eric Rolph at English Wikipedia Crop + shadow: user:BokicaK (File:Double-alaskan-rainbow.jpg) [CC-BY-SA-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

June 26, 2014littleblindgirl 3 Comments

Respect Your Blog

Image credit: openclipart.org

I’m not gonna lie, I used to post a good portion of my blog entries while wearing PJs. I’ve come to realize, however, that when I’m wearing PJs and slippers and I’ve got my rat’s nest of uncombed hair pulled back in a scrunchie so I won’t have to deal with it and I’m not wearing any makeup because it’s not like any of you can see me, anyway, I usually end up writing a sloppy blog entry. Because I’m sloppy. So I came up with a resolution: respect your blog. Treat it like something you value, not like something you just got from a fast food restaurant that you’re done with and you throw in the back of your car because who cares.

I like to dress up a little while I’m posting to my blog. I put on pretty shoes, I do my eye makeup, I try to make my hair look presentable. I know you can’t see me, but it makes a difference. When I respect my blog, and my blog readers, enough to approach it like a professional, I write better blog entries. I also try to make sure that my apartment has achieved at least a basic level of cleanliness, because I can see my living room reflected in my computer screen and it’s really distracting when I’m typing a post and I see the reflection and think, why do I have three coffee mugs on my end table? I don’t even drink coffee.

Why is this important? Because I’m a freaking adult. I know my laundry has been piling up and I really need to empty the trash and I haven’t been grocery shopping in two weeks so I’ve just been ordering in (which is probably why the trash is so full), but it helps me concentrate when all my crap is where it’s supposed to be. It helps me write when I know, somewhere in the layers of my little blind mind, that I could walk outside to get the mail and not worry whether anyone’s around to see me, because I look decent. It’s all part of not becoming a crazy cat lady with 27 cats who goes to the grocery store wearing a house coat because she forgot to check the mirror before she sat down to post to her blog.

This blog may not be an actual job, and thank God because most people end up hating their jobs and that would suck for me, but it’s something that’s important to me. It’s important to me to write a good blog entry for you to read. And I don’t mind if you read it while wearing your PJs. That’s totally OK. That’s almost what you’re supposed to do (unless you’re reading this while at work). Get out your scrunchies and put on your slippers and know that I put effort into myself as well as into this blog post, because I respect my blog and I respect you. Peace out.

June 21, 2014littleblindgirl 4 Comments

the adventures of the little blind girl

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