Just try to act normal

I'm reading an autobiography of someone who has chosen to live an "alternative lifestyle". It strikes me that the world is full of people who struggle with "being normal". This person had the shattering experience of losing a parent at a young age, and it is pretty evident that his life is a long quest trying to "fill the hole where Daddy should go."

I can understand that "acting normal" would be hard in that case. But, isn't it perhaps all the more critical that if you know you are broken inside, if you know that you can't really pass down to the next generation what you don't have, perhaps you should just "go through the motions?"

I've pretty much discovered from personal experience that being happily married means going through the motions of being happily married even when you don't feel like it - or maybe especially when you don't feel like it.

Isn't there a 12-step program slogan, saying, "Fake it till you make it"?

That works. I think our society is falling apart partly because we want to "do what we feel" instead of "acting civilized". Manners, customs and traditions are all necessary for us to dwell together without killing each other. There can be a lot of room for individual identity, but ultimately a people needs an identity that says, "This is normal", and gives pressure, to some degree, to make people conform to it.

Otherwise, there is no framework for the next generation to build their lives on. Remember when young people started dressing preppy as their "rebellion" against their sloppy, anything-goes parents? We need a normal, even if we hate it.

The idea that we have to broaden the definition of "normal" to allow for every aberration of human behavior isn't only destructive, it is just plain silly. Most of us, most of the time, have to exert ourselves to be civilized, or civilization would break down altogether. There has to be a meeting place. There has to be a "normal".

So... Just try to act normal!

Have I been unlocked?

Well, that was an interesting experience!

For the second time this month, I've had an episode of being "busted" for something online!

First, at my facebook, I asked a question of technical support, and they killed my identity.

"..this account has been disabled because it is not for personal use. Facebook profiles are meant to represent a single individual. Groups, clubs, businesses and other types of organizations are not permitted to maintain an account. We apologize for the inconvenience, but you will no longer be able to use this account. This decision is final."

Not content to delete everything I've done, they also locked my yahoo email address, so I couldn't use it for a different, more acceptable name.

So, okay, I was using "Powell Clan" as my name. I admit it, it sounds like a group. I just am getting the heebie-jeebies about how many online things are linked to my Real Life identity. I didn't want to be in the search, but I didn't want to be invisible either... Since everyone I want finding me online knows me as "Powell Clan" I decided to use that.

Busted!

Then, for reasons that aren't clear to me, this blog tripped the "spammer" switch automatically, and I received this:

Your blog, at http://mistressp.blogspot.com/, has been identified
as a potential spam blog.  For an explanation of what spam blogs are,
please see Blogger Help:
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=42577

You will not be able to publish posts to your blog until we review
your site and confirm that it is not a spam blog.

I am so grateful that these online services are trying to keep us from being overwhelmed by garbage and abuse.

But I find it so amazing that "PENIS ENLARGEMENT" emails and "Moms undressing in parking lot" video "makes the cut" on appropriateness, and somehow my 'umble little blog and "Clan" alias trip the big red flag.

What is up with that?

And I find that my heebie-jeebies are well justified... the technical question I was asking had to do with facebook "going out and finding" a weblink I posted... and ending up publishing information that was in the computer in my closet... but not supposed to be associated with that link.

I may not be long for this cyberworld!

Posing as an Ordinary Housewife

Posing as "an ordinary housewife". Whoa!

Anybody else think that is a hilarious way for them to discuss the SLA alumnus-on-the-lam?

What is the difference between BEING an ordinary housewife and POSING as an ordinary housewife?

What are my credentials? How would anyone be able to tell whether I'm the real thing or a poseur?

Can we assume that this poor woman might have given up her career as a terrorist and actually was an ordinary housewife?

And can we assume that she is less of a security threat than the man in Claremore who rapes 13 year-olds but walks the streets because the judge not only believes that he "thought she was 18" but that this was an appropriate excuse to have sex with a stranger? How about, "You were pretty sure you hadn't married the woman, right? So... off with your balls!"

Does criminal justice in America seem just a wee bit off to anybody else besides me?

House and Home

Political Action Committees devote themselves to "evaluating impact" of impending legislation on their constituencies.

While there are "Family oriented" lobbies, I'm not really sure there is a lobby asking the question, "Does this legislation tend toward strengthening the family as an INDEPENDENT community, or toward undermining it? Does it tend to build strong inter-family networks, or make us more dependent on impersonal institutions?"

Not long ago, I made a determination to ask myself that question about every activity I did, every penny I spend, how I use my time, and so on.

The results were revealing.

I realized that while some family killers are well-known and widely discussed (schools and television come to mind) others are less obvious, but equally destructive.

Convenience stores and fast food restaurants tend to make us spend our time and money "on the way" rather than in the home. Electronic music eliminates live music venues, and families don't sit around with the fiddle or piano singing anymore. Automobiles make it too easy to be ugly and unsociable to your fellow travelers, as well as to spend more time as a family in a metal monster than in one's actual home.

I can remember as a child, that the need for an egg to bake a cake or a bit of salt to tide us over until payday was a natural way to get to know your neighbors. Now, when I try to reach out to my neighbors they seem to think it is just as likely that I'm casing the joint to rob them, or planning to sell them an overpriced candy bar than that I am actually interested in knowing them as people.

That sucking sound you hear is the end of civilization as we know it. As family, neighbor, friend all become an unnecessary appendage, replaced by McDonalds, 7-11 and Dr. Spock, there is not enough momentum in any other direction to keep the end at bay.