How to Stop Raining on Other People's Parades

Being into philosophy, politics, religion, etc., I'm obviously fine in situations that call for a wide variety of people to express different opinions. I have no problem with vigorous exchanges of ideas. I especially like when someone says something unexpected, or diametrically opposed to my views, particularly when it's expressed in a well-reasoned and civil response. That's how we learn and grow; that's part of why I blog. I like engaging people in dialogue about whatever happens to be on my mind and opening myself to the possibility that others will do the same for me, and the Internet is a great facilitator in that regard.

What I don't like in a conversation is a killjoy. Y'all know what I mean here. The person who feels an overwhelming need to pipe up and be contrary in every. single. conversation.

I'm not saying no one should ever criticize or disagree with each other, because that would be boring and stagnant. I'm saying there are conversations meant to engage people in analysis, and conversations where people are just talking to share in the fun, happiness and joy they're experiencing with others. Some cynical hipster coming along just to pipe up about how much it sucks is not adding anything, merely outing him/herself as someone who can't tell the difference between the two types of conversation. Cue awkward pauses and increasingly desperate attempts at maintaining politeness while re-directing the conversation back to how shiny and fun that one thing was. The worst thing is, invariably, the killjoy will take this as a social cue to provide even more evidence about how much that one thing actually sucks. It is all downhill from there.

I'll give you a few real-life recent examples of the differences between the two.

Example #1. Not a killjoy.

Friend on her blog: LOL YOU GUYS HOW RIDICULOUS IS IT THAT BRISTOL PALIN IS TALKING ABOUT ABSTINENCE I CAN'T EVEN AMIRITE??
Me: Hmm. I'm not necessarily a huge Palin family fan, but I don't think it's ridiculous to use your own experiences as a cautionary tale and encourage others to make better choices than you did and I don't really have a problem with her reaching out to her peers in that way.
Friend on her blog: But she HAD SEX OUTSIDE OF MARRIAGE! Hipocrisyyyyy!!! Insert all manner of sexist slut-shaming which apparently is 100% acceptable behavior to some as long as said slut is a Republican lololol!!!!! 
Me: You can believe in an ideal and acknowledge that you yourself haven't upheld it perfectly. In fact, mightn't that make a person more accessible to their peers rather than a "perfect" person speaking from an ivory tower?
Friend on blog: OMG whatever, Bristol is totally stupid like her mom and you are NO FUN, goes back to linking my blog post all over DailyKos where it is APPRECIATED. :((((((

I don't bring this up because I feel strongly about Bristol Palin one way or the other (I totally don't), but as a recent example of a conversation I've had with a few people, wherein they felt that anyone coming along and offering calm, reasoned input to their public engagement of dialogue was incredibly offensive just because said facts derailed whatever witticism or point of genius for which they were angling. These are broad, non-personal topics, and throwing them out there on the Internet is interpreted by most people as opening yourself to people's actual opinions.  And I just feel like if you can't take the heat, don't blog in a political kitchen.

Example #2: Actual killjoy, displaying the approximate social skills of a drunk rhinoceros.

Me: I can't wait to see the new Robin Hood movie!
Friend #1: Me too, it looks so well done and I love Russell Crowe!
Friend #2: Oh, he's wonderful, and it's my favorite historical era!
Me: One of mine too, and Ridley Scott - I've been a fan literally all my life.
Friend #1: I'm going with my mom soon, I can't wait!
Friend #3: Russell Crowe is a jerk who has the galling nerve to not tolerate idiotic interviewers. I find that morally reprehensible. As a result, seeing him on screen makes me want to projectile vomit and so I refuse to see Robin Hood. Also it got horrible reviews on RottenTomatoes.
Me, Friends 1& 2: ........
Friend #2: Well, yeah... anyway, um, how about that Vampire Diaries finale? 
Me: Oooh. It was a great and very well-paced finale to a consistent season.
Friend #1: Who knew Ian Somerhalder would turn out to be such a powerhouse?
Me: I did! It's a fact long obscured by how spectacularly pretty he is, but he can act.
Friend #2: But the whole cast is really good. They really elevate the material.
Friend #3: Um, are you all seriously talking about a show on the CW? Because, he he he, last I checked, everything on that network is made of equal parts trash and fail, and like, The Vampire Diaries? Really? If I wanted to subject myself to badly acted cliches about vampires for a whole season, I would just watch Twilight once a week, which, needless to say, is also offensive to the fabric of Western Civilization. I watched like 4 minutes of the pilot and was able to realize immediately it was pure garbage, come on. 

Yeah, see, I'm just going to keep it real and lay it out there: if you're often in the position of Friend #3, pretty much everyone hates you.  After a few run-ins with you, everyone who knows you censors themselves, because they know from experience that as soon as anyone starts talking about something they absolutely love, you're going to swoop in, like Godzilla stomping out of the Atlantic ready to devour Tokyo.

I don't like the TV show, Doctor Who. I'm not interested in it, and what little I've seen doesn't appeal to me, for many reasons. Yet approximately 95% of my friends online who like to talk about TV absolutely love and to varying degrees are obsessed with Doctor Who. Whenever someone pipes up on Twitter or Facebook or wherever gushing about it, do I feel the need to pipe up with how it's the worst show ever (disclaimer: it's not the worst show ever) and blah blah blah? No. I just scroll right along, because people are entitled to enjoy things I do not. If I'm asked what I think about the show, I'll certainly give my honest opinion, but unsolicited critiques about things people do for fun are usually not appreciated. 

I think there is usually a not-so-subtle difference between analytical pieces meant to engender exchanges of varying points of view, and stuff where people just want to gush about something that makes them happy with like-minded people. The former is implicitly asking for feedback and the latter is implicitly asking for communality, and while I don't think fangirling is critically untouchable, I think, at the very least, it's a valuable social skill to be able to differentiate between the two.

Fortunately I don't have too much of a problem with this in my everyday life. Oh, I've met plenty of killjoys in my time, but if I feel like I have to avoid saying "I love _____!" because you're going to gleefully jump up and say "No, ____ is PURE CRAP!" then you and I aren't going have a lot to say to each other for very long. It's just something I've noticed for a while and wanted to get my thoughts about it out there.

And yes, this is one of the analytical kinds of dialogues, not the fangirling kind, so you're all free to tell me how wrong I am in this post. :D

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Always Listen to Dr. House!

HackedIRL.com (Hacked in Real Life) is fast becoming one of my favorite newsfeeds, and today's House MD allusion is probably one of my favorite posts by them yet.

It's NEVER LUPUS. Except for that one time, you know, when it was.

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A few thoughts about the Newsweek article fiasco and gay actors playing straight roles

So I read the Newsweek article by Ramin Setoodeh in which he, a gay journalist, poses the question: are gay actors believable in straight roles the way straight actors are in gay roles? In the brief article, he also answers the question for us: no, they aren't.

There's been a lot of uproar and outrage about this article - hundreds of bloggers, media celebrities and industry giants have all piped in. Kristin Chenoweth was quite vehement in her critique, calling out Setoodeh as a homophobe, which is understandable, seeing as her show on Broadway, Promises, Promises, was the cautionary tale in the article about the dangers of casting an actor that is "too queeny" in a heterosexual role.  (The actor in question is Sean Hayes, who is openly gay.) 

Dustin Lance Black got closer to what's actually problematic about the article, pointing out that between the lines of impartial analysis, there is a slightly out-of-touch and myopic journalist who buys into gender sexism ("too queeny", after all, means "too much like a woman"), and concludes that the article reveals some seriously unexamined ideas about representations of masculinity and femininity.

Aaron Sorkin got even closer by posing the question: "What does it EVEN MEAN to act convincingly straight?" And I got kind of excited because I thought someone finally got what was wrong with this whole discussion. But then Sorkin went on some ranty draconian tangent about how we live in an age of information overshare and that basically gossip blogs and Twitter are what is to blame for why gay actors can't play straight roles. By knowing that they're gay, we know too much about them to allow ourselves to freely make that artistic connection between actor and audience, Sorkin says.

I think that's probably partly true. There are plenty of people who can't get past what they know about an actor enough to become immersed in a film, and that's not necessarily exclusive to sexual orientation. There are plenty of people, for example, who are uncomfortable watching Tom Cruise movies because of the couch-jumping, or who can't buy Russell Crowe as a sensitive poet because they know he's punched out photographers in a fit of rage, or what have you. There's no curing that except the desensitization that comes with time and repeated exposure, I guess.

But I also think that, as Black points out in his analysis, the problem with the article is that it presumes that we know what it looks like when an excellently nuanced A-list actor, who is openly gay, plays a straight role.  And that's just never happened, because there is no such thing as an openly gay A-list actor. To assume that it hasn't happened yet means that it's impossible that it will ever happen is a massive logic!fail on Setoodeh's part.  It's pure killjoy speculation at this point. But I think we do have some inklings as to how it might play out.

While he's not really A-list, I think it's safe to say that most of us have no problem buying Neil Patrick Harris on How I Met Your Mother as a heterosexual lothario. It has nothing to do with whether he's straight or gay and everything to do with the fact that Neil Patrick Harris is a superb and highly nuanced comedian.  And I think that's where the rub lays: if as an actor, you can't convince me that you're really committed to pursuing XYZ  love interest, regardless of the gender of that love interest, then you're just not a very good actor. And I don't say this to disparage Sean Hayes' work, because I enjoyed his character on Will and Grace - there's no question he's a brilliant slapstick comedian - and I've liked him in several independent films, and while he's never been what I would call conventionally masculine, he definitely has a range and he can bring it up or down as the role requires, so I'm not trying to imply that he's One-Note Johnny, with that note being "gay!"

But if it is the case as Setoodeh says, that he stinks up the whole theater in his show - I'm giving Setoodeh the benefit of the doubt as a theater critic, as I haven't seen the show myself - perhaps it is then the case that Hayes was miscast in Promises, Promises (as, I should add, many critics also felt Chenoweth was in her role as wel). Not because he's gay, but because the role requires nuance that is outside the scope of Hayes' ability as an actor to step outside himself enough to be convincing in the part. It happens.

The article also is working off two HUGE unspoken assumptions: 1. that straight actors in gay roles are always totally convincing,  and 2. that straight actors in straight romantic roles are always are always totally convincing. That's not true in EITHER case; we can all name horrible examples of both. Heck, tune into, I don't know, Gossip Girl on the CW or something, and you're likely to see horrible examples of both on the same show! Sometimes, actors, even ordinarily good actors, aren't good in a particular given role. Gay, straight, whatever - if 99% of everything is crud, then acting is no different.

I think logistically it doesn't matter how "queeny" or butch an actor is in real life. What matters is how s/he comes across in his performance. The best actors experience complete physical and psychological transformations in each role: Meryl Streep, Christian Bale, Robert Downey, Jr., Angela Bassett, etc. and I think it's true that Sean Hayes isn't that caliber of an actor. Right now, there is no one at that level with regards to both status AND ability who is also willing to come out as gay or lesbian, so there is just no point of reference about whether there could ever be an openly gay or lesbian A-list actor.  

It's a moot point, pure speculation, and if Setoodeh's article was deserving of the torrent of criticism it's gotten, it's because his naysaying at this point is really just premature doomsaying. And, well, nobody likes a Debbie Downer.

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Political "social conservatives" and "fiscal liberals" are the same kind of oxymoron.

In my own personal life, I think people would say I'm "socially conservative."  I have a very quiet life and a fairly conservative, modest lifestyle. I don't go out to bars and get drunk, I don't "party" or date around, I devote a lot of my free time to charities, I tithe my church, in which I am very active, etc. I even dress quite modestly. I wear almost no jewelry, keep my makeup and hair naturally styled, don't wear low-cut or tight-fitting shirts or skirts above my knee, etc. 

This is tied to my faith, in the sense that it's my desire to exemplify humility and modesty in everything I do and all that I am.  I don't do this because I think it's a mandate of any particular doctrine in my faith - I don't think the Bible tells me to not wear short skirts, for example - but because it is important to me, personally, to not seem like a hypocrite for saying that I believe in a modest, humble lifestyle is rewarding for Christians while appearing to thoughtlessly buy into a lifestyle that is contingent on the world's materialist definition of stylish, desirable or popular. 

There is a lot of leeway within Christianity. Some Christians believe that passages like 1 Timothy 2:9-10 encourage Christians to dress "plain" - drab colors, no makeup or jewelry of any kind, heads covered for both men and women (see: the Amish). Some Christians believe that these passages are contingent on the behavior and personality of the Christian, not clothes at all, so that even string bikinis on a Christian is modest. I'm probably somewhere in the middle. I'm all about the happy mediums, y'all.

Politically, however, I think I would say I'm "socially liberal." I respect that other people choose differently and have the right to choose as their consciences lead them. I'm fortunate enough to live in a country where the freedom to mold our own lives in the pursuit of our own happiness is a constitutionally-protected right. That means that as long as you don't infringe upon other people's freedoms, lives and pursuits of happiness, you have the right to live whatever lifestyle you want without the government restricting you. You can find something extremely distasteful on a personal level, AND ALSO not support limitations on it.  For example: I find the use of marijuana extremely distasteful on a personal level, but I think it shouldn't be illegal, for many reasons. 

I think political discourse would flow much more smoothly if more people understood that personal preference is not the same as legally mandated. The fact is: The Constitution of the United States isn't obligated to cater to people's personal turn-ons and turn-offs. It's there to ensure a society in which we can work toward the maximum amount of liberty for the maximum amount of people.

This is why "social conservatism" and "fiscal liberalism" in a two-party system as we know it are political oxymorons to me. 

Take "social conservatism" within the Republican party. I can intellectually understand the position that the government should have an extremely limited role in the economy. I'm a very staunch small-L libertarian and I believe that the government has exactly two roles: to protect the inalienable rights of the governed, and to provide for the common defense in cases of war, invasion, etc. So in this regard, I am a political conservative.

On an intellectual level, I can also understand, if vehemently disagree with, people who believe that the government should be made to conform with their moral preferences as much as humanly possible. This includes communists, people who believe in Sharia Law, and people who think the US government needs to follow the Christian Bible to the letter. I don't agree with any of these people and don't think this is compatible with a free democratic republic or the American system of government, but I get where they are coming from.

What I can't get is people who believe both things at once. You can't say you believe in a tiny federal government when it comes to your TAXES and your businesses, but you ALSO believe the government should force the moral rigors of a specific religious group when it comes to marriage contracts (just to give a hot-button example, though there are many more) on the rest of the population.

If you believe in a small government that should stay out of the private sphere, then this includes the private sphere of people whose lives you find morally objectionable. And this axiom works the other way, too - to the people who are "fiscally and socially liberal." If you believe in a government that should stay out of people's private lives, then it needs to stay out of people's decision-making when it comes to their businesses, their religions that say things that get on your nerves, the education of their children.

This is why I support classical libertarianism. To me, both Democrats and Republicans talk out of both sides of their mouths and are totally inconsistent in both practice and theory. The mental gymnastics it takes to reconcile these things is beyond imagination to me. 

The United States Constitution ain't Burger King. You can't always have it your way. 

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My friends are going to be featured on Battle on the Block on @HGTV !

My very good friend of many years, Ms. Rajni Agarwal, is one of the most giving and inspirational people I have ever met.  Her story is incredible to me and I'm so grateful to know her, so I thought I would talk a little about her here and the cool things going on in her life right now.   A native of India, Rajni's husband passed away suddenly and tragically in his 30s. She was a very young widow left with her two little boys under the age of 5 to care for by herself. Soon she agreed to visit her sister and her family living in the United States. She arrived to the U.S. not even knowing how to balance a checkbook! But little by little, she began to put her life back together. She credits hard work, dedication and a whole lot of prayer for being able to start her own small business here in the states, initially selling Persian-like rugs to local designers and consumers.   Today, more than 25 years later, Rajni is the proprietor of Advanced Trading International Rugs, a successful store in the Design District of Miami Beach, FL. Her affordable but high quality rugs are absolutely stunning. I LOVED visiting her showroom in Miami Beach, just surrounded by all the different styles and colors. Rajni and her assistant, another very good friend of mine, Carmen Lopez, personally oversee each and every sale and they are really just one of the best in the business. It was always a joy to see the personalized attention and thought they gave to each and every one of their customers.  You can check out their web site and their totally gorgeous rugs at http://www.atirugs.com

 
Recently, ATI Rugs gave $3000.00 credit for buying rugs to three contestants ($1000 each) on HGTV's new show: Battle on the Block.

 

From the site: Battle On the Block is a fun, character-driven home makeover show where three neighboring families compete against one another in an effort to design and build one new room from scratch, all in the span of a single weekend! The winner not only gets $10,000 but also bragging rights in the neighborhood. The show's official site is here and their episode, which will feature the lovely Rajni and Carmen and their INCREDIBLE showroom, will air on Saturday night May 8th at 10PM EST. Check it out!

 

I'm so proud of them, can you tell? :)

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Wow. Furry Vengeance...

Is the most relentlessly unfunny movie I've ever seen. At least fifty
people in the theater and not one laugh the entire 2 hours. Well, I'm
assuming the last 30 minutes were as bad as the first hour because
after watching the loafed out mess formely known as Brendan Fraser
shriek, mug and be tortured by horrible CGI animals for a straight
hour, we actually walked out.

Granted, I wasn't expecting an Oscar-winner, just a mindless family
film, but this was the most humorless, ham-fistedly preachy bomb I can
ever remember seeing. I felt actual pity for the actors on screen.

Other than that, I've had a pretty good Sunday!

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How I Wrassled Social Media to the Ground, Like a Rebellious Gator. Part 1.

Because I spend a lot of time online, I have tried virtually every kind of social media outlet available, and being the happy little extrovert that I am, I've made connections and friends on all of them. They all have their pros and cons and I like most of them for their own unique reasons, but there are only so many hours in the day and I don't have time to post indivdual, custom posts to every single one. Also, it turns out that my life, while a relative daily action-packed thrill-ride (read: not really), it isn't actually exciting enough for me to come up with original content for MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, LiveJournal, a blog, and myriad other services out there, so there has been a lot of redundant posting happening. 

Therein lay my dilemma. I have been seeking ways to consolidate. I set out to look for a mass posting service that would post to all of them at the same time - status updates to Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter; blog posts to LiveJournal, my blog, and MySpace; pictures to Flickr and Picasa and my blogs; links to Twitter, Facebook and Delicious. I wanted one service that would do all of this automatically with little thought from me. I just want to email or text the updates, pictures and links to my phone and call it a day. Unfortunately, when I asked around, even my tech-savvy friends could offer little better solutions than "... um, have you tried magic?"

So here is how I finally managed to figure out how to post to everything all at the same time.

1.  I created a Posterous account.
Posterous is a free service that will post to a bunch of different social media and blogs for you. All you have to do is set up an account, tell it where you want it to post (Twitter, LiveJournal, Facebook), then send in an email to post@posterous.com. The body of the email will be the body of your post.

The problem is, if you make a longer blog post, it will simply post it as a post on your Posterous blog, and send a link to the Posterous blog over to Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, etc. And I don't actually want to have my blog hosted on Posterous.com, largely because I find the interface for customizing the layouts extremely awkward and difficult to play with. Note that this is a common complaint about Posterous. Its layouts really reek. A blog hosted on Posterous will be a fugly blog. Also, you can't post things like Amazon affiliate links or anything I MIGHT want the option of doing in the future on Posterous. I wanted my own domain name.

So, I wanted to be able to post on my LiveJournal and WordPress blog simultaneously, and I love the idea that Posterous will post everything in its right place - links to Delicious, upload videos to my Youtube, etc. - but when it posted links to my blog posts on Twitter and Facebook, I wanted it to link back to my actual blog.  

So I set up the service so that when I shoot post@posterous.com an email, it will post a blog post to my LiveJournal and my WordPress blog; any pictures contained therein will go to my Flickr, any links will go to my Delicious and any videos will go to my (as of right now empty) Youtube. How awesome is that?

BUT WAIT! THAT'S NOT ALL! [/BillyMays]

2. I created a TwitterFeed.
TwitterFeed is a free service that will post links to your blog posts to Twitter, Facebook and Ping.FM.  Since that's exactly what I need, I set it up so that my LifeIsFabulo.us posts get posted as links on Twitter and Facebook. I have an old PingFM account that will broadcast it out to all kinds of crazy places like MySpace and LinkedIn and StumbleUpon, too. I don't even visit those sites anymore, y'all, but, hey, I have accounts on them, so why not! Throw caution to the wind here, I'm posting all over the place now!

This system isn't perfect by any means. I've discovered, for example, that I MUST keep my Posterous blog open to the public, or it won't post to LJ and my other blog. I don't really want this blog at all, but until something better comes along - MAGIC!!!!? - I guess it'll have to do.

***

As people on LJ may have noticed, I've regrettably abandoned my LiveJournal for the last year, and it was almost entirely to do with time management purposes. I couldn't figure out how to keep up with the 95+ friends I have there, plus my 190 Twitter people, and 120+ Facebook people. It seemed too time consuming to repost to a bunch of different places, but it seems this problem has now been solved, on the posting side.

On the side of reading my friends pages, I'm still working on a way to read ALL the posts from Twitter, LiveJournal, Facebook, and the dozens of independent blogs I like to read all in one place.  I have an inkling of how I'm going to do that - though suggestions and other solutions are very welcome - but I think I've done enough for one day!

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How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Wii

Over and over in online parenting circles, especially autism-parenting circles, I see moms posting things like, "My child loves video games, so I limit how much he  plays with them/ I took it away from him/ I let him play it only on the weekends/ etc".

My son is 12, and since his first GameBoy when he was 5, he's been extremely passionate about video games. Yes, I said "passionate," and not "obsessive." When I get really really into a topic, I also think about it constantly and I also want to do it as much as I can. Usually I get it out of my system and find a happy medium, but sometimes, as in with music, I remain passionate about it indefinitely, and no one criticizes me for being passinoate. "Passionate" is how we describe ADULTS who love an activity. Why is it that when our children love something, it's called an "obsession"? That's such a disparaging way to talk about something that brings a child a lot of joy.

I used to think the same way. *I* didn't understand my son's passion for video games and I too disparaged it and used it against him. I "limited" it (he thought about it all day anyway), I would take it away when he did something I disapproved of (he developed extreme anxiety about it and resented me intensely) and I would also impose what *I* thought he should be doing with his free time over what he, as a human being with a right to determine his own preferences for how he spends his free time, chose to do. I disparaged him and his joy for these games so much, in retrospect, just because I didn't get it. I regret that very much now.

Then one day, seeing I was trying to move a mountain, I sat down next to him and started playing them with him.

I discovered a few things:

1. Video games today are incredibly fun. These are not the hokey, lame 8-color mindless nonsense we used to play as children. Many of these games today are fully-realized worlds with interesting backstories, richly drawn characters and complex plots. And the graphics on a lot of them are STUNNING. Attention to detail is meticulous.

2. Video games are very educational. To beat LEGO Indiana Jones, for example (a current favorite), you need to know a little history, and engage in strategy and deductive reasoning. A LOT of them use math. My son has Wii Music - easily one of the best games on the market - and because of what he's learned, he can now name over 20 percussive instruments, knows all about the orchestra, has lengthy experience with musical arrangement, has learned to identify dozens of classical pieces, and recently corrected me about the difference between a xylophone and a glockenspiel. Did I mention I minored in music in college? :) We have a lot of Wii games that are GREAT for physical fitness too - for both of us.

3. Video games help tremendously with motor skills. Hand-eye coordination for sure, and the Wii Fit has improved my son's sense of balance and muscle tone to a marked and noticeable degree. And before we had a drum kit for the Rock Band titles, my son used to be able to sing on rhythm and clap off rhythm at the same time. LOL!!! I didn't even know it was physically possible to do that!! The drum kit and other music games have cured him of this. Now he has great rhythm - can clap on rhythm, play the drums fairly well, and even dance. ;) All thanks to video games.

4. Video games are a gateway to innumerable other interests. Because of Guitar Hero and Rock Band and Wii Music, my son eventually grew passionate about music too and is now gleefully pursuing how to play both the piano and the guitar. He has taught himself music theory and writes songs every day. He has taken an interest in DJing with Internet playlists, which has a decided social advantage. Other kids are amazed at how much he knows about both music and video games, and at his youth group, our youth pastor allows him to "DJ" their games and gatherings with his iPod. This has helped the other kids get to know him better, as he shows off his diverse tastes and his terrific sense of humor. Recently during a youth group game where the children had to run around and grab at each other's hands, my son DJed and picked the Beatles' "I Want To Hold Your Hand." LOL!! He learned that song playing Beatles Rock Band. The other kids thought he was hilarious for it, and he felt so good about himself afterwards. It was a joy to see.

Other interests and info he's picked up from video games: creative writing (he writes stories about the characters); history and archaeology (from Indiana Jones!); economics (Animal Crossing: City Folk has a whole economy built-in to the game); computer animation; stop-motion animation and design; film-making and editing (he got a flip camera for Christmas and it's been non-stop filming); robots... I could go on here, but the point is, video games often DO introduce a child to a bunch of different topics.

And even if they don't - the video game industry is HUGE! If this is your child's only calling in life (doubtful, but not impossible), there is a ready, eager and ever-expanding job market out there waiting for him.  There is no limit whatsoever to niches he can pursue as viable, well-paying careers in the computer animation and design field.

And the most important thing I learned:

5. Video games help me connect with my son. As soon as I stopped fighting him on his deep love for his games, and sat next to him and started asking him questions about the game, what he liked about it, what the object was, what this meant, etc... my son's face lit up and he started yammering away excitedly - and hasn't stopped. Now he actively shares his love and interest in video games with me because instead of me frowning and saying "Wouldn't you rather do something PRODUCTIVE???" or something equally judgmental and negative, he knows I will get all excited about it too, and give him space to talk about it.

I now look through catalogues, game manuals and gaming magazines with him and he will share all kinds of ideas, desires and opinions that he used to just keep to himself. I play right along with him now, too; I'm mostly horrible at them... but this builds confidence in that he's amazing at something he can teach ME about. I still don't love video games, but I do love how much my son loves them, and that's good enough for both of us. (I ask, "Do you still think it's fun to play with me even though I completely reek at every game we play?" and he says, reassuringly, in that funny innocent way that doesn't know he's accidentally agreeing that I reek: "Don't worry, Mom, you'll get better with more practice!" LOL.) It has helped me develop trust and rapport with him in a way that I was actively *preventing* before, when I was imposing what I thought he "should" be doing.

I remember when I was a child, I was passionate about two things: writing and musical theater. My family actively discouraged me in both of these as passions because they were "impractical" and I was "so smart" that, being well-meaning and wanting me to be financially secure and their version of successful, they believed I should pursue something "productive" like law or medicine. Well, I didn't grow up to be a doctor or a lawyer despite the constant discouragement away from the arts.  I grew up to be first an unhappy child who felt no one understood or supported her or cared about the things that made her happy and secretly stayed up to listen to Broadway showtunes on her Walkman; then a teenager who snuck around to play in a band and took 5 music electives in senior year; then a college student who willingly became a starving artist as she pursued her loves with a great burden of sadness because it wasn't something she could share with her loved ones; and then an adult professional freelance writer, who still loves the theater and, at 35, still sings locally and tries out for local productions.

You can't change what your child loves passionately by fighting him, shaming him or blocking access to it. You can only makehim stop telling you about it. You can only damage the trust between you, and alienate him and make him feel like no one understands what brings him joy. And then he will grow into a person that just assumes you don't get *anything* that's important to him. And he'll seek out that feeling of belonging and acceptance elsewhere - with people who almost certainly do not love him as much as you do.

I treat my son's "obsession" with video games with complete respect now. Because I think my life would have been very different if my family had been non-judgmental about my passions, and recently, after seeing that their criticism and sabotaging didn't detract from my interest in "impractical" life callings, they too have acknowledged this, and wish they had done things very differently. I don't want this kind of relationship between me and my son. I don't want regrets like that. I don't want an active part in making him unnecessarily unhappy and alienated. So I do things differently, and I think it has really, really paid off.

My 12yo son, at an age where kids typically become sullen and alienated, is open, chatty and affectionate with me. We hardly ever argue anymore, because I have made our priority getting along and finding ways to have a peaceful, mutually respectful relationship. We have a lot of laughs and have a lot of fun together now, and where before he used to keep a million secrets from me and be reluctant to tell me things that he enjoyed, he now shares everything he comes across with me. I really think the fact that I stopped judging video games was a huge first leap.

I really urge parents to reconsider the way you view video games or anything else your child is head over heels in love with. I urge you to honestly question what is so scary about that love, and what is the worst thing that could happen if he was allowed to indulge in it to his heart's desire. I urge you to instead try to view it as a bridge to connect with your child and understand him better and give him a way to access you - by getting actively involved in that passion. I urge you to say "yes" more often than "no," say "yes" whenever humanly possible, when it comes to your child's passions, instead of constantly seeking to manipulate, deride, criticize and limit them, so that your child sees you not as a frowning unyielding judge but as a ready confidante and an eager partner in helping him achieve things that makes him happy.

I don't mean to attack or offend anyone with these thoughts. I have just seen for myself what a radical difference this change of attitude in me has made, in my son, our home, our homeschool, and our relationship. I hope this helps someone out there transform their relationships with their kids, too.

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BLOG POST: Pictures and Recipes from Thanksgiving 2009

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with my grandmother, my parents and a family friend who was by herself for the holiday. We spent 2 days at my parents' home and I spent most of that cooking the wonderful Southern recipes from Country Living's Thanksgiving issue this year. On the menu:

 

Appetizer:

Three balls of fresh, handmade buttermilk cheese, each with a separate topping: chopped pistachios, pickled fennel and brandied figs. AMAZING, AMAZING, AMAZING. If you compare my picture and the one from the magazine, I'm proud to say they came out very similar! The cheese was incredibly easy to make.
  • Whole wheat crackers, for spreading the cheese on :)
  • Sparkling white wine (I would have loved to have tried the brandied plums sparkling white wine recipe from Country Living, but we just didn't have the time. Maybe next year!)

    Salad:

    Cold brussel sprouts slaw with vinaigrette and sesame seeds - delicious! Brussel Sprouts totally get an undeserved bad rap. We had optional spicy Italian herbs available for those of us who wanted a little kick to the salad. It was a bit cabbage-y, but we all like cabbage, so we liked this.
    Side dishes:
    Steamed green beans in white wine and butter sauce topped with fried leek rings. This was a much lighter and much tastier alternative to the goopy soup-recipe green  bean casserole and got many raves. The fried leek rings were a really nice touch. We opted for this over the au gratin potatoes that the magazine article recommended.
  • Cornbread, Italian and sage stuffing. INCREDIBLE recipe. The only substitution I made was that I used a bag of dried tropical fruit instead of fresh pears. No one in my family likes pears. :) But we do like dried papaya and things like that! It came out SO GOOD, I should've made twice as much.
  • Lemon-glazed baked sweet potatoes. I bought limes by accident and the glaze was way too sour for me :/  I had to drizzle on brown sugar to make it palatable. It was a really good recipe, and we love sweet potatoes so I may make it again, but next time I think I'll use a lot less lemon/lime.

    Main course:

    Smoked Paprika roasted turkey. The magazine had instructions about making Madeira gravy, but it was a lot of work and I'm the only one who likes gravy, so I didn't bother. The turkey, I have to say, came out INCREDIBLE. It was a joy to eat leftovers for 2 days. LOL.  I used a turkey baster - my family usually doesn't - and it made a huge difference. It was so tender and juicy and the paprika gave it great flavor - and as the pictures show, it was awfully pretty.

    Dessert:

    Sweet potato pie from scratch, using their recipe, made the night before. They recommended homemade buttermilk ice cream, but since all of the above already took 2 days to make and I don't have an ice cream maker, I bought Publix brand Dulce  De Leche ice cream. It was perfect with the pie! Which, unfortunately, didn't last long enough to get a picture! LOL
    It was a very peaceful and joyous Thanksgiving filled with lots of together-time - possibly one of the best we've ever had! Pictures below. The one of all of us at the table was taken by Shorty himself. :)

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    Say hello to my leetle friend.

    It was raining yesterday, and rain in our area means teeny tiny snails by the back door rain gutter (which explains the water-blackening on the stair paint).  A perfect time to go outside and observe all the creepy, crawly things that come out to play after the rain! This guy was so cute we spent a considerable amount of time observing him... and then Shorty discovered that he had a companion! Note the snail buddy by the water-blackened part. Cute! Slimy, but teeny-tiny and cute. As Shorty observed, he didn't seem to react at all to the camera's flash - didn't even turn away from it. Shorty surmised that might mean snails don't see very well, and online research confirms this.   We live in the inner city, though we have a small yard. Proof that you can do nature studies even if you don't live in the country. :)     

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