I haven't written a gratefulness post lately, and today I'm actually feeling grateful for quite a few things, so here we go. I think the list might get quite long:
1. My house. I LOVE my house. It's like living in a mid-century modern resort. It's awesome. It's beautiful. It's wonderful. Granted there are a few things I'd like to change about it (new windows, new kitchen cabinets, new bathrooms), but overall, it's just great.
2. My furniture. I do feel rather lucky that my dad loved mid-century modern furniture and insisted on buying a lot of it in the 70s, and now that I have a house, my mom, who doesn't really appreciate the furniture, is foisting it all onto me. Hooray!
3. My cat, even though sometimes I think he's trying to kill me. After my alarm went off this morning, he got up, stretched, climbed up onto me, sat down on my shoulder and then flopped onto my face so that I couldn't breathe. He then proceeded to purr contentedly. At least he's the cutest cat in the world and has very few annoying and/or destructive habits. And he keeps me warm in the winter.
4. My bikes. I know, I have too many bikes. But I love them all.
5. My free time. I figure it's good to post some non-material list items too. I love that I've been able to work out a budget so that I can pay off my credit card debt very quickly and live very comfortably on my current salary, which by a college-educated Californian's standards isn't all that much (but more than I've ever made before).
6. My physical abilities. I love that I can go rock-climbing, running, swimming, biking, snowboarding, hiking, backpacking, and all that other good stuff.
7. Food. Good food. And lots of it. The fact that I have a community garden plot and that there are so many great farmer's markets in the area really compound this one.
OK, that's enough for now. Lunch is almost over.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
A double dilemma
So I've got a bit of an odd dilemma and I'm not sure very many people will be able to see my point of view here. I saw a picture in the paper today of the children of one of my high school acquaintences, a pair of 5-year-old identical twins. They were cute little boys - and they were dressed exactly alike. I wanted to scream with frustration.
You see, I'm an identical twin. Until I was ten years old, my mother and grandmother dressed my sister and I exactly alike, as if we were dolls or toys and not two different people with individual personalities. The vast majority of people at my school, including the teachers and administrators, couldn't tell us apart and gave up on even trying to learn my name. I was always just an anonymous face in the crowd, and that feeling has presisted into adulthood. Even now, 22 years later, I'm shocked and grateful when someone actually remembers who I am. If people want to dress their twin babies alike, that's fine with me, but once a child is old enough to start meeting people and making friends, and developing a unique personality, it's really unconsionable to make it more difficult for them just so that the parents (or grandparents in some cases) can get attention forbeing the progenitor of twins. When I see parents with twins who are dressed alike, I want to go up to them and mention that they are doing their children a disservice to treat them like objects instead of people, but I worry that the parents will be offended by my purporting to know more than they about the raising of twins (never mind that the parents probably have no actual experience in BEING a twin).
This then brings up the question of what do I do when I know the parents in question? True, we've drifted apart over the years, but we're now friends on Facebook, and I always feel an obligation to step in and defend the rights of twins to be individual people too. Since I've always been a twin and don't really know what it's like to be a 'singleton', I would really appreciate the advice of other singletons out there for how to deal with this. Do I say something or mind my own business?
You see, I'm an identical twin. Until I was ten years old, my mother and grandmother dressed my sister and I exactly alike, as if we were dolls or toys and not two different people with individual personalities. The vast majority of people at my school, including the teachers and administrators, couldn't tell us apart and gave up on even trying to learn my name. I was always just an anonymous face in the crowd, and that feeling has presisted into adulthood. Even now, 22 years later, I'm shocked and grateful when someone actually remembers who I am. If people want to dress their twin babies alike, that's fine with me, but once a child is old enough to start meeting people and making friends, and developing a unique personality, it's really unconsionable to make it more difficult for them just so that the parents (or grandparents in some cases) can get attention forbeing the progenitor of twins. When I see parents with twins who are dressed alike, I want to go up to them and mention that they are doing their children a disservice to treat them like objects instead of people, but I worry that the parents will be offended by my purporting to know more than they about the raising of twins (never mind that the parents probably have no actual experience in BEING a twin).
This then brings up the question of what do I do when I know the parents in question? True, we've drifted apart over the years, but we're now friends on Facebook, and I always feel an obligation to step in and defend the rights of twins to be individual people too. Since I've always been a twin and don't really know what it's like to be a 'singleton', I would really appreciate the advice of other singletons out there for how to deal with this. Do I say something or mind my own business?
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