Thursday, December 5

[gottawonder]

Today I am grateful for:

Nice sunshine. The snow we got yesterday is all soft and sparkly.

Getting some of the rebar intersections tied with the wire connectors, but I ran out of the connectors before I could finish. I only got about 1/3 of them tied.

Lots of phone conversation with my family. My Mom. One of my sisters (who just got her flooring replaced), and my "trainwreck" sister.

My trainwreck sister's partner (I guess they've been together for close to 20 years now), is most likely dying. He had a LOT of cancer in his bowels removed last winter, and it is a particularly aggressive kind. They told him it would be back, but they were hoping he would have more time (aren't we all). Well, it is back already; they took more away, and this time he might not get better. I am grateful though, to be able to talk to my sister about all of this, and at least she's trying to do the planning about his wishes and they signed the DNR, and her kids and our family are being fairly emotionally supportive for her. I do worry about how she's going to do without him. He's nobody's angel, but he has supported my sister all this time, and cared for her, and been about as decent as one can be given their issues. He's been good to our family, managed not to piss anyone off, which is remarkable, and is in many ways a pretty decent person. His own adult kids, nor his siblings (except for one brother) want nothing to do with him, nor he they, so I'm glad he's got our family.

I got the kitchen cleaned up, changed the sheets on the bed, and vacuumed the area rugs.

I finished "Slaughterhouse Five" and enjoyed it. I find it strange that the reviews of this book say that it is funny, because it is not funny. There are parts of it that are meant to be absurd, but absurdity is not meant to be funny, it's meant to have a sense of disbelief and of the illogical, but not funny "ha-ha", more like funny "awful".

I have to say, this book is pretty sexist, and I've noticed that in a lot of the science fiction of the '60's and 70's especially. The women are often just there to be sex objects, or to be ugly and not wanted. It hinges on their desirability. It's almost like they're not real people, the way they're written. They're written in because the main character has to have sex with someone, or has to have a bitter wife or lover to reject, but it's not like the women are fully people, outside of how they motivate the men. It's like they wouldn't exist except the main character either wants to have sex with them, or wants to stop having sex with them. I suppose that is really how women were considered most of the time, right? This is why certain authors were revolutionary, because they actually wrote about women as being real people, not just accessories. It's strange to think, so how would it be like to be the kind of person who can live with someone and supposedly love them, but only see them as kind of animated furniture? As somewhat dim creatures whose existence is only to offer sex and reproduction and cleaning duties or related service, without having their own thoughts, directions, goals, etc?

I mean, it's not like I see my sweetie as just someone who has to bone me and make money.

This book barely even mentions women, except one fat wealthy wife that he tolerates, and a sexy porn star wife that he doesn't seem to love either but enjoys having sex with her. There's literally NO MENTION of things like what those women were like as people, whether his fat wife was a good person or funny or smart, or what she did with her time. No mention of the sexy one having a personality at all; just that she was young and attractive. Both women could be summed up in one word each: "fat" and "sexy". One word each.

Kurt may have been a pretty good author, but apparently can't even imagine women as being people.