So, my mother is moving in with us in two weeks.

That sounds like the set-up for a joke.

It’s no joke and though it may sound weird to some people, we’re really looking forward to having her move in.  She doesn’t love this weird little town of ours and is very happy in her Portland neighborhood but the fact is, she can’t afford to keep living there.  She works a lot of hours and would really like to cut down a wee bit and she’d also like to not be so far from us.  Since we’re not moving to Portland yet (and might not ever do so) she’s coming here.

The only thing we’re not excited about is living with her hundred pound incontinent chew factory of a “puppy”.  He’s really almost full grown and she already has another giant Bernese Mountain dog.  So two dogs.  If I failed to emphasize it strongly enough, one of them is a nightmare.

He’s a sweet nightmare.

If I could get Cesar Milan here to help us, I don’t think it would waste his time.

Plus she has two cats.

If the bank ever does a refi for us, that’s going to be a relief on many counts, but especially because what landlord will rent to a family with 3 dogs and 4 cats?!  On that note, we’re going to stay in the house until the bank answers our request.  I had planned for us to move in June.  But the burden of trying to find housing for our now very big happy group is daunting.  We’ll stay until the bank answers.

If the bank agrees to a refi then we’ll be able to stay because my mom will help with the mortgage a little.

I just read someone’s about page on a blog yesterday that said, first and foremost, that she (the blogger) is in love with Jesus.

I think everyone needs to be reminded that the expression “in love” is not the same as “love immensely”, or rather, it isn’t interchangeable.  Being in love is a state that always expresses a sexual component to your feelings.  I hear people using it to mean “love deeply” but what I hear is “I love and want to sleep with…” because that is what it means.  Being “in love” is a romantic feeling.

So think carefully before you tell me you want to sleep with Jesus.  Is that what you really mean?  I know you’re supposed to have a great big undying love for him as big as the universe, or something, but I’m pretty sure God doesn’t want everyone fantasizing about getting down and dirty with his son.

Though, I guess he’s pretty much in fashion right now, what with the whole beard thing being pretty huge.

Wouldn’t it be funny if Jesus was really clean-shaven?  Why must he have a beard all the time when depicted?  Just because there weren’t electric shavers or any Mach 3 blades to be found doesn’t mean all men wore beards.

Here’s another thing:

“I’m in love with my daddy.” is a sick thing to say.  It’s very very wrong for any child to describe their feelings for either parent in a romantic way.  Period.  Yes, I know that what you really mean is that you’re an annoying Daddy’s girl, but what you are actually saying is very wrong.  It’s to be hoped that your mother is in love with your father and it is to be hoped that she wouldn’t appreciate her child also being in love with him.

I’m not done with this bone yet.

This same thing applies to women who say they are “in love” with their babies and children.  Please don’t say that.  It’s icky.  It’s very inappropriate.  Again, I know what you really mean, because most mothers don’t engage in incestuous relationships with their children, and I’m willing to give EVERYONE the benefit of the doubt on that one, but it makes me horridly uncomfortable to hear those words leave a woman’s mouth.

I’m aware that I stretch the use of words and expressions all the time, but I would say that though I am sometimes less effective than I hope, I always use words purposefully.  If I use a word with a particular meaning in an unusual situation then I am purposely saying something specific by doing it.

It bothers me when people use language so carelessly.

Now someone’s going to find some example to show me how totally crazy wrong I am and what a pompous windbag I’ve become.

Update: my friend Rydell and my friend Lila have both informed me that they don’t necessarily associate romance/sex with the expression “in love”.  So a debate is sparked.  My friend Skye agrees with me that saying you are “in love” implies a romantic/sexual connection whereas loving a person does not.  Please feel free to join in and tell me if you make a distinction between the two or not.

Time for another cup of coffee.

I’m back.  It’s later.  Max is so difficult in the mornings.  It’s incredibly stressful.  He hates all food in the mornings.  But yesterday he was saying he liked his lunch but didn’t finish his bar because he was eating it in the hallway and his teacher made him go back into the cafeteria, saying he’s not allowed to eat in the hallway.  He was eating in the hallway because the smell (and look) of other people’s food makes him lose his appetite.

“I couldn’t eat around the smell of everyone’s meat sauce” were his precise words.

This is no lie.  He can’t eat if Philip and I are eating something with a strong odor.  The look of most food also makes him lose his appetite.

Most food grosses him out.

And pizza actually fills him with rage.

Many many things fill both Philip and Max with rage.  They need to have more tools for dealing with it.  I don’t need my full time job to be putting out the fires of their tempers.

It isn’t looking like ten is going to be an easy year.  We’re back to the daily challenge by mental torture.

I’ve been cleaning my office.  And my bookshelves.  As well as some things from my garage.  I have boxes full of stuff in my dining room.  It’s spring cleaning time here at the Williamson’s house.  It is amazing how much stuff I’ve held onto to over a decade that when I look at it now I have no emotions about, no attachments to, and I wonder why I’ve felt I had to drag it all around for so long.

To be honest, we don’t have enough stuff to fill a house this big.  This is why we can fit my mother here with us.  Clearing out books has resulted in lots of extra space on the bookshelves.  I’m not actually sure I have enough stuff to fill them.  When I put all of my linens away (which happens about once a year) I still have space in my linen closet.  My desk has room in the drawers for more stuff but I can’t imagine what more I’d need, or even want, to fill them with.

My office is in chaos at the moment.  Shifting things around is not something I do in a neat and orderly fashion.  So my floor is covered.  With crap.  Some stuff that still needs going through.

I love getting rid of stuff.  I love collecting things too but I have learned, over the years, to curate more carefully.  To collect things I also find useful such as books I like to read repeatedly (but not buying books like mysteries that I’ll only read once), vases that are beautiful but also useful, or dishes… things we actually use.  I don’t collect knickknacks.  I have a few, a very few, that is all.

My life is not letting me bury myself in the book.  Everyone and everything interrupts.  Soon I will have an Angus around my neck day and night.

Angus is the incontinent chewing sensation, not a big beef.

Meat pancake.  That just flew into my head.

Which makes me think of Flesh Pancake.

Meat is flesh.  Flesh is meat.  Everything with flesh is meat.  We are all meat.  There’s just no one to eat us.  Or, at least, not many.

I truly regret that people use the expression “hot mess”.

I’m always surprised to hear people speaking of vegetarians in mean ways.  I don’t get offended, I can’t be bothered, but that not eating meat could make a meat eater angry or hateful is just very surprising.  I encountered this yesterday online.  Supposedly Anthony Bourdain hates us and thinks any chef worth anything at all is annoyed by us.  The person making this report actually said she hates vegetarians and vegans.

I don’t go door to door trying to convert people.  Though I am well aware that many vegans/vegetarians are sanctimonious about their food choices, I don’t know of any who ring your door and hand you propaganda about their diet.  So except for having to feed the ones you know personally every now and then, I fail to see how they’re so hateful.  If you don’t like their food philosophy you don’t have to follow it.

I am not annoyed or hateful that most people I know choose to eat meat.  Not at all.  I would love it if everyone who ate meat could afford and would choose to eat meat that is raised in a natural and healthy way, but though I think it would be wrong for me to eat meat, I don’t think it’s wrong for you to do it.

I think the paleo-diet crowd is equally sanctimonious and pushy about their food beliefs.

I think it’s fine for everyone to share their food/religious/social/political beliefs with each other.  Particularly when asked to share.  I think it’s fine to have mutual discussions about such things that are important to us.  I think it’s important to listen to different ideas than your own, really listen to other people.  However, evangelism (as in: marked by militant or crusading zeal) of anything that’s important to you is offensive.

The second I get the tiniest whiff of someone actively trying to change my mind about something with the fervent sheen of a “true believer”* I distrust that individual and everything they say becomes instantly worthless to me.

Debate is different.  Real debating is arguing ideas out.  There has to be mutual listening and the agenda can’t be a fervent desire to make someone sign up for your banquet of beliefs so you can win that third wife or that shiny car or the badge of self righteousness.

There’s a difference between debating differing beliefs and trying to convert a person.

I couldn’t care less if you are a vegetarian but if you make claims against it that I don’t believe are true I will happily debate the subject.  I have no interest in turning Republicans or Independents into depraved socialists like myself.  I do have interest in arguing out ideologies and sometimes learning new things in the process.  I always have interest in hashing out what I see as irrational beliefs or points or views.

Wishing is a different thing all together.

Evangelism is deviltry.

So I have to ask myself what I go around evangelizing and I need to knock that shit off.  I’m not looking for converts.  My blog may be my pulpit but the thing is, you can turn me off any time.  I don’t knock on your door, you knock on mine and you can leave when I get so excited about something you feel uncomfortable.

Out in the world I don’t think I spout my beliefs without invitation to discuss.

When visiting other people’s pulpits online I don’t try to convert them to my church, I am usually respectful.  If discussion is encouraged I may share a differing point of view, but I won’t try to hammer you into my image.  I won’t keep ringing your virtual door-bell either.

I had no idea I was going to dig into that topic this morning.

It’s time for me to go off and get some stuff done.  My kitchen is going to swallow me whole so I have to tame it.  Then I may just have a little time to write.

I am ridiculous in my pyjamas.