This, that, and several other things.

Hrmm. I may have to take Lady (my computer) into the shop. My display has developed a fondness for going rather red-green and shimmery, which makes me go rather cross eyed, especially when looking at graphics. It has been doing this for some time now, and usually a good whack would get it to behave, but its getting more stubborn. I am exceedingly disinclined to take it in for service, because gods only know how long it would take to fix (luckily, I have the extended warranty, so barring any nasty surprises, the fix shouldn't be a financial burden). Part of me feels very lame for this, but it really does make sense - LJ is my primary social arena, with email being the way I stay in contact with nearly everybody I know, arrange get-togethers, etc. Plus, most of my other work is on here too, knitting patterns, writing projects, research for my parents, my address book. Perhaps its because of heavy exposure to many Luddite-types, like my family, but I've always felt obscurely guilty for my dependence on this little machine. Odd.

On one level, it's a shield, allowing me to work with my shyness, developing an interaction through text before taking it to the intimidating level of face to face interaction. Part of me feels like that's a crutch, but on another level I think I'm being overly hard on myself there - or am I? I can't quite tell. I'm certainly no different in person, except that I'm a little more well-spoken in text, but slightly more guarded. Well, when I do take Lady in, I'll email everyone I'm in regular contact with my phone number - comment if you want to be on that list and don't already have it.

I've been thinking a good deal about retirement lately. It's kind of amusing - *I* don't have anything to retire from, but Sir is obviously another story. He's working the finances with the goal of being able to retire by 60, but in this economy, who can tell? I get antsy about it, though. Even though his family is long-lived, I'm greedy - I want many good, healthy years with him, with no other demands on his time. Hopefully, we'll know well in advance if the finances are going to be where he wants them in time, because if they aren't, I want to go out and work, with my salary making up the lack. I'd also be perfectly content retiring on less - as long as we have enough to live on, I don't care, but coming from such different backgrounds, we have very different ideas of what 'enough to live on' looks like. To me, my parents have enough to live on, while I would be happier if they had more, rent gets paid, and food is on the table. To him, my parents financial state is intolerable. I can understand that, but there's a lot of room between the two, and it's hard to tell what 'enough' looks like.

Retiring has some other complexities that have been much on my mind. At some point, when we have enough money saved up, and are ready to leave the city, we'll buy or build a house. Our original plans for it involve a garden able to provide herbs and vegatables sufficent to feed us, and some livestock, a few goats and/or sheep, and some chickens. Zoning issues aside (if we built/found our dream house before he retired, we'd have to make sure the commute was tolerable, hard to do when looking for livestock zoned areas), I'm starting to doubt my wisdom. While I'm 8 years his junior, time will tell on my body, especially with the EDS, which assures early osteoarthritis. Livestock take a lot of work, every single day without a break. Considering both the manual labor involved, and the constraints this would put on our ability to travel (finding a babysitter is hard for people, imagine trying to find a sheepsitter!), I'm starting to think the garden is enough. I don't like the conclusion, and I wish it could be otherwise, but it really does seem more sensible this way. (meh.)

It all comes down to 'getting off the grid'. The world is a mad, mad place, and getting more so every day. In every level of modern society there is a game, all of them related, all of them rigged. The only way I can see us 'winning' is by not playing. Winning? I just typed that out without thinking, it's an interesting choice of words. I think winning is being able to live as you want to, doing as little harm as you can to the world around you in the process. Looking at it that way, getting off the grid really *is* the only way to win.

And now a moment for something terribly cool.

This brought tears to my eyes. For more on these women, who have been activists for longer than I've been alive, go here. That is just so freaking cool. At the same time, it makes me sad, knowing that in MA the ruling is under sttack, and in general, the whole concept of gay marriage being legal is so very, very fragile.

I'm terribly torn about it myself, really. My conflict all comes down to simple confusion - what are we talking about when we say 'marriage'? I don't think I'm talking about the same thing that Andrew Sullivan is talking about. The term seems cloudy to me, and it gets cloudier all the time. I expect it comes from my growing up straight, and being in a monogamous(?) relationship (I hope that polyamorous marriage is next, but realistically, I doubt it's going to come up any time soon). I feel almost confused, because marriage strikes me as something I'm bullied into, by lease rules (the co-op I live in has made some spectacularly bad choices in wording on a new rule), taxes, health insurance (not all companies have domestic partner benefits) etc. I resent the bullying, so I rebel against the idea of getting married. I also rebel against the societal construct of it, the one that says only a marriage certificate proves your willingness to commit to your love/s, and if you resist it, you must not want to spend the rest of your life with them. Right. It's patently obvious to me that marriage means a thousand different things to a hundred different people - after all, we're talking (on a small level, at least) about love.

I do *not* support the idea of civil unions. In fact, I'm a little disgusted by them - how many times will our country have to learn that seperate is *not* equal?! I honestly find it embarassing that such a concept is considered acceptable - in 20 years, schoolchildrens history books will make me cringe, feeling shame that I'm from this exceedingly misguided era in American history.