What Happened To Us?

 Hello! I really don't bust this thing out too often, but I have been thinking about the Supreme Court for a week now, and I feel this is the only way I can organize my thoughts a bit better.

First, though, this was originally a knitting blog so I would like to share my new shawl pattern with you. It is easy enough lace where you can try it as a second- or third lace project, and probably not lose your mind. It is also a pretty relaxing pattern, so the f-word should not come flying out of your mouth too often.

Here is the link to it: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/choir-shawl

And here are a couple of photos, if you are not a knitter and want to talk your knitter-friend into making you something for those breezy days of autumn and spring:

Okay so enough of that. Here is my problem.

When Ginsburg was confirmed, the Senate confirmation vote was 96-3, and 41 of those votes were Republican.

This week, various media outlets were reporting that the Senate "had the votes" to confirm a new justice to the Supreme Court before the presidential election in November.

What does that mean, exactly?

Amy Coney Barrett has not had her job interview yet, and the panel is already giving her the thumbs-up. While I think it is clear that I am neither a Supreme Court Justice or a Senator, I have questions about this. Most importantly, I think, is how one can argue that the majority of Senators will vote "yes" for her confirmation based her their political party. 

I don't give a hoot if she is anti-abortion. Everyone on the planet, especially people who are pro-choice, are anti-abortion. Nobody wants to make that decision. At all. Ever. Nobody. But knowing that I can talk to my doctor about it in private, without fear of either of us being prosecuted if I need to take that next step and abort a fetus is a bit of a relief. I am 100% anti-abortion; if I were pregnant right now, I would have to abort the fetus or face such dire mental consequences that I could not go on with my life. This includes carrying it to term for adoption or surrogacy. I am positive I could not go through with it and come out okay on the other side, no matter how much therapy or prayer I involved in my daily life. I know this. But I also know that, medically, aborting a fetus is not "killing a baby." Watch your words:  when cops shoot at someone, is it murder? When a woman finally ends years of abuse by fighting to almost her last breath and shooting her abusive spouse in the end, is it murder? When a guy tries to steal your car at the gas station and you refuse to get out of the car, so he shoots you and takes your car anyway, is it murder? When you have a medical procedure to clear out cells in your uterus that will drive you to suicide if you don't do this (and every woman will in fact spend at least two seconds exploring other options), is it murder?

Everyone is anti-abortion. But if a woman has one, it is none of my business at all. Just like it is none of my business if they go to a doctor for a drug addiction and seek treatment for it.

I don't care if Amy Coney Barrett is anti-abortion. I care if she will consider using any precedents already set, and interpreting clauses in the constitution that exist (like due process, for instance, and the amendment which states the government can't have a hand in establishing religion), when she hears cases relating to abortion.

If she is going into these hearings already "having the votes," does that mean that she has had such a stellar record that it is obvious to all other lawmakers that upholding the constitution and its original intentions are her intention? Or does it just mean that 51 people out of 100 will be voting "yes" for her because of their political party?

There has been a two-party system in this country for a long, long time. Each party has their own set of extremist talking-heads and talking-memes now (think Breitbart on the right and Occupy Democrats on the left) where there is one teeny piece of truth buried in a giant cloud of overblown crap to get people to feel a certain way, and consequently vote a certain way. It was not always this extreme, and nobody can seem to remember life before this ideology.

I was in college when Ginsburg was confirmed, and if you recall, the press conference where Clinton announced her nomination in the Rose Garden was met by exactly one question (Brit Hume) and zero answers. It was because the question was regarding Clinton's selection process and not Ginsburg's qualifications. Clinton shut it down, walking away from the podium with an entire press corps' worth of hands in the air. Looking back, love him or hate him (and even his most staunch supporters thought Bill was smarmy), it was a feminist move for the ages.

What happened to us? Why is it that, almost thirty years later, high-ranking politicians can only vote their party?

And as long as I am on the subject of philosophy, riddle me this one:  what is so intimidating about being liberal? I am a former Republican, currently without party because I now have to spend my whole life fact-checking other people's internet crap before forming an opinion on it. But you can be socially liberal and fiscally conservative at the same time. For instance, did women having their own credit cards cause the ridiculous debt problem we are facing now? Of course not...predatory lenders are not female-prey exclusive. Did women getting protection from employment termination due to pregnancy cause the morals in this country to sink? Of course not. 

But do you know what it did do? It helped the economy. It gave women their own buying power. Just like gay marriage becoming law in this country made the wedding industry explode in ways it previously had not. Giving people equal rights and access to knowledge gives them power, money, and a voice.

So the only reason someone would be opposed to "liberal" ideas...meaning everyone has certain basic rights...is if either they do not realize how much less it would cost them in the long run, or they are just closed-minded jerks who thinks human lives do not have equal value.

If you give money to a GoFundMe because a kid (or adult, for that matter) has cancer and can't afford their medical bills, but you think socialized healthcare is evil, ask yourself where you think your GoFundMe money would go if socialized healthcare was introduced.

If you stand outside a Planned Parenthood with an "Abortion Kills" sign for eight hours, looking women in the eye as they go into a clinic for everything from pap smears to prenatal care to abortions to breast exams to cyst monitoring, ask yourself what people see in you when you are in line at the grocery store, buying a six-pack of beer and a box of condoms. Is it possible you already have enough dish soap and food at the house? Of course. But that is not what people see, and your true actions are none of their business. Just like a woman walking into Planned Parenthood is none of your business.

If you were in support of "Whites Only" signs in the 50's and 60's, but you also retort Black Lives Matter with "All lives matter!", is it possible you only mean Republican lives? Your personal life? People's lives above the poverty line? Christian lives? White lives?

Because that is my current concern with the Supreme Court. I want to know why it is news that there is going to be a 6-3 conservative majority when politics should not have that big of a hand in interpreting the Constitution. Unless, of course, you are "liberal" and actually believe that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness should include literally everyone born in this country. But as a lifelong Catholic, I can say with conviction that until our current pope was elected and started using social media to get his Word across, even they did not preach like all lives were equal. They are starting to.

It is an irony of historic proportions when the Catholic church is making humanitarian progress and the Supreme Court, or our three branches of government in general, are not. Please do me a favor:  break up with your political party for the next few weeks or months. Ask yourself if the person in your area running for office is has the best interest of as many constituents as possible in mind, no matter their ticket.

Call your Senators and be sure they are voting based on Barrett's interpretation of the constitution, and not because of their political party.

Look in the mirror and ask yourself if you can do better. Most of us can. Let's all try.

Separation of Church and State

Hello, everyone! It has certainly been a while. For what it's worth, I am just getting back into managing my time properly so there is time for knitting. Having a ridiculously happy and energetic nine-month-old with a longer-than-normal attention span has caused me to evaluate when the best times to do "me" things are, and the answer is "at three in the morning when I awake and he is still asleep," and "on break at Starbucks," and "while waiting for contractors to arrive at my properties."

Right now, my goal is to finish the many projects I have on my needles, and I am KILLING it (albeit about three rows a day...ha ha). Currently, Sandra's socks are getting the "finished project" treatment.

That said...recently, the Archdiocese of Joliet required parishes to play a recorded message to every congregation, from Bishop Conlon (sort of the president of Catholics in the area surrounding Joliet all the way up to the Cook County border), urging the constituents to call their lawmakers and tell them to vote "no" on an abortion bill which would kill tons of babies every year. We were asked to think of the innocent lives which have no voice.

The bill in question, in case you want to read all hundred pages of it, is SB 1942 and HB 2495. It would grant minors the allowance to obtain a pregnancy termination without their parents' consent, expand insurance companies' obligation regarding coverage, and repeal the ban on second- and third- trimester termination procedure that politicians call "partial-birth abortion," but medical professionals do not. Big deal, right? We are Catholic and therefore should oppose abortion at all costs. I don't have a problem with the Catholic view; I have a problem with my priest telling me how to vote. So I sent the following message to Father Norbert at St. Scholastica:

Father...I wanted to share my feelings on the message from Bishop at the 10:00am service this weekend. Please understand I do not see this as a reflection of you personally; I understand all parishes shared the same message. That said, I was grossly offended by the message, and I want to share why.

First, as a catholic, I pray for an end to abortion. I also, however, acknowledge that not everybody is catholic. Abortion is a religious belief, and while I don’t agree with it, I don’t feel it is my place to judge others who have or need one in the same vein I don’t think it is my place to judge others who have a need for an alcoholic drink to get through the day.

Secondly, we can’t pray for our leaders to legislate peace and make the right decisions for their constituents while simultaneously condemning these decisions. Religion is not legislated in this country, or at least shouldn’t be. An example:  if I were Jewish, and I found out I was pregnant, and I started to have suicidal thoughts over it, my religious leader would remind me that taking care of me is of the utmost responsibility. If terminating pregnancy LEGALLY were to save my life, then my ideological doctrine would forgive me.

I come to church to get away from politics, because there are too many lies in politics, and I need an hour where I can feel the truth. Bishop is lying about that law; the general assembly is attempting to pass legislation that would actually LOWER abortion rates. Take the Netherlands. While half their citizens are not religious, Christians make up 39% of their population, and they have zero restrictions on abortions while also having one of the lowest abortion rates in the entire world. The reason for this, as is well-studied by medical professionals, is that they have access to free healthcare through every step of family planning. This proposed law will not cause people to walk into an abortion clinic at 32 weeks and say, “Oops! I need to get rid of this baby!” The intention of it is to allow access to procedures for people who otherwise have nowhere to turn, like their religion, so they have a safe option for a medical procedure.

Lastly, what would you say to a pregnant woman who came to you for counseling because her 26-week-old fetus had a fatal birth defect? Because these laws protect women whose babies are born to die, where no medical miracle can save them. Imagine that woman being forced to carry that fetus until it dies, and then has to wait for her body to rid of it naturally because she has no access to pregnancy termination. What would you say to her?

I am not trying to put you or the church on the defensive. I was just so frustrated hearing that message this morning because all it did is rile people up with gross misinformation and political propaganda. Our job as Catholics, so I thought, was not to convert people to our line of thinking. Rather, it is to go in peace, live our lives in God’s image, and pray our example is an inspiration for others to find God. I find it hard to believe that an organization of priesthood, made up of 100% celibate men, think they have the right to take a stand on something which has to do with their faith but not themselves personally, and expect everyone to rally in agreement.

I am a woman. I had a baby at 43 years old. I gained 38 pounds, agonized every day if I was good enough to be a mother, questioned if I was making the right decision for six straight months, and cried uncontrollably on more than one occasion because my hormones would not allow me to rationally process my emotions. I would never have an abortion in a million years, but I fully appreciate the sentiments which lead to that decision, and it would be absolutely gut-wrenching. I would hate to think that my church would abandon me on a decision I might have to make, simply because the stand on the topic is based on horribly skewed opinions instead of facts, and not a single person involved in those opinions would have an idea of just how daunting having a baby actually is.

I know this is long, but thank you for listening.
amy kaspar 

Well, I did not hear back from my church (understandably). However, Father was just doing what he was told, so I forwarded the message to Bishop Conlon's office, and I received a response from the Assistant Director from the Office of Human Dignity - Respect Life Ministry. This is the ministry which counsels women who are unsure what to do when they have an unwanted or unplanned pregnancy, or who had an abortion and feel the need for counseling from their church. The representative said she would be happy to talk about my concerns, so I spoke with her for over an hour over the phone.

In this conversation, I kept reiterating to her that this was not offense because of my stand on abortion, but because of my stand on politics. It was a very respectful and refreshing conversation, and there was no name-calling or trying to convince anyone that they were wrong or right. I did, on one or two occasions, point out that the Catholic belief on abortion is based on lies, but there was no blame. For instance, saying that life begins at conception is flat-out not true. The potential for it does, but there needs to be nurturing and care for that potential to turn into life on its own. Also, I mentioned the Holocaust and the Khmer Rouge genocides, and said that if people were mass-murdering their babies, especially with the help of doctors, it would be constantly all over the news.

The representative said that if I could not see it from a Catholic standpoint (meaning the importance of calling my lawmakers), then maybe I could look at it from a human rights or a biological standpoint. She sent me a link to a doctor named Anthony Levatino, who was once an OB/GYN who performed abortions, but had a calling after his adopted daughter was killed. I agreed to look into it.

And I did. I do not fight for the sake of fighting. I fight for what I believe in, but also feel it necessary to be fully informed so my beliefs are rooted in truth. I looked at the link. Looked up the doctor. Looked up statistics on various human rights issues related to abortion and childcare. The representative said she would be happy to continue the conversation another time over the phone, or via email, so I sent her the following message just about two weeks later:

Miss Alexandra...Stanley is doing better, thanks for asking!

So, I watched a couple of those videos you sent, and I also did some research on this topic regarding politics, because again, this was not about my stand on abortion. It is about my offense that the Catholic church was urging me to call my lawmakers in the middle of Sunday Service.

We prioritize human life above all other life. If that were not true, everyone would be a vegetarian. That said, Live birth and subsequent murder do not happen, ever. The partial-birth abortion procedure mentioned is ONLY done when either the mother is about to die, or the baby is about to die, and there is no other way. According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which is the professional membership for OB/GYNs, the term "partial birth abortion" is not a medical term...it was made up by politicians.

Interestingly, Dr Anthony Levatino is not a member of the ACOG, and there are over 56,000 OB/GYNs in this country. He was, however, a medical board director for Priests for Life, meaning he was letting his religion dictate his medical practice. His adopted daughter died, and he had a calling; this furthers my argument that pro-life is a religious belief and should not be legislated based on a church view.

There are over 15,000 children in Illinois living as wards of the state, or in foster care. That is 15,000 babies who are either not wanted, or they were brought into this world by the wrong parent. The fact is, though, they don't have a permanent home because there are not 15,000 adoptive families ready to take them in. As a Christian, I want to help all children whose lives are less fortunate than mine. However, you mentioned to me that I should look at this issue from a human rights standpoint. In this particular case of life before versus after birth, I have to actually choose, and I choose the lives of those who are here. Why would anyone lobby to pass a law making someone give birth to a child they do not want (for whatever their reasons are, as I am running under the assumption that they are not Christians reasons but it is not my concern), just so it can be born to a state which doesn't have enough people who want it either? 

Dr. Levatino is presenting these procedures as barbaric; when I had thyroid cancer surgery, I had a hole cut into my neck, my thyroid yanked out, cut at the edges, sewn off, and stitched back up. When I had jaw surgery, I had a wedge of my jaw sawed off, my bottom jaw unhinged, repositioned, and reattached. When you put a medical procedure in plain terms, of course it sounds like a horror movie. But the truth is that biology says life begins at conception, but not sustainable life. If true, sustainable life began at conception, then these liberal laws would not be needed to protect mothers whose babies developed a fetal anomaly while in utero, and was going to be born dead, or would die very shortly after birth guaranteed. If sustainable life began at conception, there would be no neonatal intensive care unit. These barbaric D&E procedures are very, very few and far between, and they are to save one of two lives. Bishop Conlon is not a doctor, or a woman. My priest is not a doctor, or a woman. You are a woman, but I did not get the impression you were a doctor. So a leader of my faith should not be telling me to call a Politian about legislating a medical procedure; those fetuses already have a voice. It is their mothers' voice. And we are well within our Catholic right to pray for these women, but lobbied legislation in this case is judgment, and judgment is not a Catholic thing to do.

Have any of the women you have counseled come face-to-face with an abortion protestor? We have people in our parishes who stand outside abortion clinics, and while their intent may be to shame the clinic, they are actually shaming the patients. Do you think you could just wantonly get rid of a child? Me neither, and neither can these women seeking these services. It is a DIFFICULT decision, and there is no reason that as Catholics we should be making it more difficult by making the procedure more difficult to get.

Thank you for reading...this is what I have surmised after several more days of research and praying. You can tell Bishop Conlon that if he wants to sit in judgment of others like that, then he is not as Catholic as his constituents need him to be.

amy e kaspar

Nobody ever has to agree with me on this. Have your values. Embrace them. Identify with your church. Don't identify with your church. None of it matters.

But please, please do not tell me how I should vote based on my religion. If the government can't force me to be Catholic, then Catholics can't force me to sway government.

Do The Kindest Thing

Good morning, everyone...I am surrounded by a buffet of knitting projects that, while I have been making an effort to finish, I cannot talk about all of them. One is for an afghan pattern that I am designing, that will be entered into a contest, and another is a shawl pattern that I can't decide if I should submit or self-publish. Any and all suggestions welcome.

There are also two St. Baldrick's hats and two baby hats here. The baby hats are gifts, and the St. Baldrick's hats are for me. I am shaving my head for St. Baldrick's on Sunday, and of course March is still in like a lion so my head will be cold. More on that later.

I told myself I would not write unless I had something to say, and if you read this post and disagree, then I apologize. However, I feel the lesson of always doing the kindest thing has been lost in my life lately, so I wanted to bring it out in the open and maybe encourage others to look in the mirror and do a self-check. I haven't written in nine months because everything I have had to say, has gone straight to an individual and did not necessarily benefit the masses. But here I am, and all I can think about is an impact an individual can have if they choose the kind path over the unkind one.

Sometimes, shit just happens. It does. Pets die. Neighbors get robbed. You get a flat tire. Someone called you a name or took your baseball cards or said mean things about family members or destroyed your book on purpose. There is always, always someone who has it worse than you do, but then again, things can always get better.

That said, I am not a parent. I am an accessory who spends quite a bit of time with two kids in particular. I feel my job as an accessory is to show them what happiness and integrity looks like, above all. Happiness and integrity are intertwined, and both are necessary if you want to be a good grownup. So when something bad happens, neither extreme can be an acceptable approach; there is no winning in playing the "Pssht...you think that is bad!" game, and there is no winning in playing the "Suck it up, buttercup!" game. You need to find balance. Yes, see how it can be worse so you know how fortunate you are that you are not dead, and find a solution to make things better so you feel how fortunate you are that you are not dead. You cannot find this balance without looking upon both the fortune and the misfortune of others.

This is where kindness comes into play. Kindness is economic; sometimes you have a little extra to give, and sometimes you need a little extra to get by. If you live in the mindset that you never, ever have enough in your life to be happy, you will not be kind because you will constantly be taking from others. If you live in the mindset that you have enough to be happy, but that you can be happier, you will find yourself with more than enough to give others. Seriously! You don't have to have everything in order to ask yourself what you can do to help someone in need. You need just enough, plus a little bit. That's it.

After the seven-year-old ran into a situation which had him in tears, his dad and I tried to think of a way to show him that he can turn lemonade from lemons. In the past, he has dropped off food at a food pantry, raised money for the American Heart Association, enjoys doing chores when he feels like he is contributing to the house (and they are not just jobs so he can get his allowance), and asked me all sorts of questions about why I give blood every couple of months. He wants to help. We decided to hold a St. Baldrick's event to raise money for childhood cancer research. Here is the link to the event:

https://www.stbaldricks.org/events/mypage/12964/2017

We are encouraging people to donate five bucks by skipping their lattes once this week, as every dollar makes a difference. Kids had a 20% chance of survival from cancer fifty years ago, and now they have a 20% chance of dying. In other words, their survival is now 80%, compared to 20% fifty years ago. All because of donations for grants that help find kid cancer cures.

Kindness does not have to be money. None of us know what someone else is feeling, even if it is our best friend and they have rehashed the situation ad nauseum on our messenger windows for days. We never truly know. But what we do know is that everyone is going through something, and that they are feeling something. Ask yourself what you can do to make someone's day better. It very, very rarely backfires.

Donate to a charity where you know the money goes to something you believe is good. Buy a coffee for the person behind you in line at Starbucks. Go through your closet and donate a bag of stuff to a thrift store. Organize a prayer circle at your church. Write an "I'm thinking of you!" postcard every week and mail it. Surprise your spouse by washing his or her car, taking out the trash, or something they generally do for you on a daily basis. Knock on a neighbor's door with a plate of cookies and say, "I just wanted to see how you were doing." Walk dogs at the local pet shelter for a few hours. Knit a hat for a NICU baby. Offer the crying stranger on the train a side-hug and a Kleenex. Read a book out loud in the activities room at a nursing home.

I know I have talked about kindness a ton here over the past several years, but it really is that important. Some people you perceive as the worst people in the world will benefit from you being kind to them, even if they are assholes back to you for it. Don't let one unappreciative person cloud all of the times you did something nice, and the other person was grateful. Keep at it.

Kindness also does not have to be outward. If you are listening to someone talk, and all you can think of to say is, "Shut up, you money-grubbing, fake little bitch!" then the kindest thing might be to just smile. If you see someone bleeding, the kindest thing is not to preach to the person who hit them. It might just be to tend to the victim somehow.

I would love for you to use the Comments area for suggestions on little things human beings can do to be kind. The recent presidential election has brought out quite a bit of anger in us, not to mention the trials of our own lives. Channel your Inner Mister Rogers and just ask yourself a few times a day, "Who can I help right now, and how?" Yet another benefit of being kindness:  that anger dissipates at a pretty direct ratio to how much you return kindness to the world. At the very least, it will not hurt.

Hate Is An Odd Feeling

Good afternoon, everyone. A few bits of news:

I haven't written lately because I have been doing my best to move forward with my life, and it turns out that when you marry someone with two little kids and no immediate place to live, your forward movement looks more like the flight pattern of a bumblebee.

Secondly, examiner.com, my knitting home for five years, is shutting down this Sunday. That means when I fire up my column again, it will either be housed here, or it will find a new home all on its own. Don't give up hope.

I am writing today because I was sitting at Starbucks, knitting this great Mr. Rogers-style sweater for Erik (he must REALLY love me), and I was thinking about the events in the news the past couple of days.

First of all, we are all racist. There are degrees of racism, and while I am sure there are some on the end of the spectrum of zero racism whatsoever (maybe the clergy?), most of us fall somewhere between "I hate everyone who is not a white man" to "I am angry and don't know why." It is subtle, but it is there. And it stems from three main things:  1) fear, 2) ignorance, and 3) upbringing.

A black man was shot and killed during a traffic stop in the suburbs of Minneapolis. The officer...and I am not justifying his behavior by any means...had some moment in his life that made him fear coming in contact with a man who told him he had a legally-registered weapon on him during the stop. Police officers are trained to keep people safe, but they also trained to act fast and in the best interest of their own safety. Somewhere in the crosshairs of this officer's synapses firing, he was fearful.

Chicago has had over 1,500 shootings in the first six months of the year. If I were a police officer, I would fear for my life every time I left the house.

On the other hand, had this man been white and told the officer he had a legally-registered weapon, I feel with all of my heart that this traffic stop would have ended differently.

What is the solution? Well, it starts with acknowledging our own fears and our own beliefs. One of my nieces was watching a Barbie movie once, and she told me that she thought the princess belonged with the other prince in the movie because his skin was lighter. I asked her what she meant, and she said, "Dark goes with dark, and light goes with light." She was eight years old at the time. I told her that the dark prince was born that way, just like the light prince was born light-skinned, and you can't help who you fall in love with on the inside.

Hell...I can't imagine choosing someone eleven and a half years younger than me with two kids under the age of six if you COULD choose who you fell in love with.

My point is that the belief she spewed at me must have come from somewhere. Maybe another kid at school? Television? Her parents or grandparents, or some other member of her family that she sees on a regular basis? A book? A message within the Barbie princess movie that I did not catch myself? I have no idea...all I know is that we are equally accountable.

It doesn't matter if you have a chance encounter with a child or you are raising one. You have a responsiblity to not only your own generation, but the next one. Perhaps random acts of kindness are not newsworthy because they happen every day, and black men getting shot by police officers is newsworthy because it doesn't happen every day.

Wait. But it does, though. And it is getting increasingly difficult for police officers to do their job when they are shielded by their own fear. Twelve officers shot by snipers in Dallas, with one of them telling arresting officers that he wanted to kill white people before dying himself? It may not happen every day to the tune of twelve officers, but someone on the bus with you, in line behind you at Walmart, or passing you on the sidewalk while walking his or her dog wants to kill white people.

Right here, and right now.

Don't tell me you have black friends...you are still racist. Don't tell me you saw so-and-so's police record, so it's different...you are still racist. And please, for the love of god, don't tell me you don't see that in your everyday life. You do. But because you are racist and so is everyone around you, you accept it to a degree. So do I...nobody is a perfect lover of all creatures and things equally. But we need to strive for it anyway.

Do me a favor:  thank police officers for their service the way you thank the military. Buy them a java. Show them respect. Yes, there are bad cops. I was told when investigating internal theft at Nordstrom that 3% of employees are thieves. I assume it's not just retail; that 3% can probably be applied to every profession across the board, and it is not just thievery.

Let's even give the media and anti-law-enforcement groups the benefit of the doubt. What if 10% of all cops were bad, and 3% of the population are bad? Well, I don't know about you, but I would much prefer 90% of a population of law-enforcement officers protecting me against the bad 3% of the population, than not having any law-enforcement at all.

Step back. Look at your life. Look at the news. It is okay if it makes you uncomfortable; if you watched the video that Philando Castile's girlfriend posted on facebook in the aftermath of her boyfriend being shot by police, and you are NOT uncomfortable, then that it something you need to examine immediately.

If you see news of a black man being shot by a police officer, it is possible he was a thug. It is possible he was resisting arrest. It is even possible he shot at the officer first. But most people assume this, instead of giving the benefit of the doubt to the black man.

While this case is still under investigation, it sure does appear that Castile did everything he was asked. And yet he was shot and killed in front of his girlfriend and her four-year-old daughter. What lesson do you think the four-year-old learned from this?

Ask yourself how you can be a better lover of all creatures and things. Hate itself is odd, because in some cases, it stems from betrayal. In most, however, it stems from something we can't quite put a finger to. When you feel hate or anger to something you can't attribute, is it because of an entire group or series of events? Then step back. Look at your life. Look at the news. Ask yourself if you are looking for a pattern, and look at the situation as individual instead of just another shooting, just another bad cop, just another black man as a victim...

Our kids deserve this, at the very least. If we end up better people in the end, then that is an even greater gift. The only way to stop being racist is to literally stop being racist. Do it.

The Benefits of Kindness

Good evening, everyone...My apologies for keeping the blog dark for a bit. I have had about a million life decisions that needed to be made, on top of the normal "What do I want to be when I grow up?" crap and the traditional "What should I do with my company?" mumbo jumbo.

Not the smallest of which is that I am getting married in just over three weeks. Yay!

I was thinking about the fact that I have cashed in probably every favor in the world to keep this wedding under an already-minimal budget (which is why there is a cap to the number of people we invited...we chose a venue that maxes out at 95 people). I was thinking about some of the people in the periphery of my life who do not see kindness as a state of mind. In fact, I have a few glaring examples of people in my life who do not even see kindness as an advised practice. None of these people are close to me; I think kindness is one of the most attractive traits a human being can have, and the lack of kindness one of the most repelling traits by the same token. This post, then, is a reminder for most of us, and a tutorial for the rest of us.

This blog post is almost a repeat of a previous one, but it's an ever-important message. Be kind, always do the kindest thing, and accept kindness from others as if everyone equally deserves it (we usually do deserve it, anyway).

Why be kind?

Because the world does not have enough kindness. Don't believe me? Well, if the world had enough kindness, we would not be gushing thank-yous to our buddy when he or she buys us a popcorn at the movies. If it were less of a surprise, that would mean that we were closer to "enough" in this sense. Hopefully, we will never have enough kindness.

Because it feels good. Since kindness tends to be a slight surprise, the recipient of the kindness shows his or her gratitude fairly emphatically, no? Selfish, yes, but it feels really nice to hear someone burst with appreciation for something you did. And there is nothing wrong with that.

Because you can make a difference. Sometimes, people have bad days. Sometimes, people have bad weeks, months, eons...whatever. And you giving up your seat on the bus may feel like the only positive thing to have happened to someone all day, week, month, or eon. He or she may not know your name, but the rest of the day will be spent remembering the sweet stranger who gave up his or her seat on the bus.

Because it doesn't hurt. Nobody ever died of too much kindness. Nobody ever went broke from too much giving. Nobody ever depleted their own resources from sharing too much. Just do it.

Because it is easy. Kindness is a state of mind, and the running thread through the psyche is, "How can I give of myself today?" You do not have to write checks to charity that will bounce out your bank account. You can open a door for someone, compliment an outfit, buy a java for the person behind you in line, help someone across the street, hold an elevator, smile at someone and make eye contact, tell someone to have a nice day, give a kid a quarter for the gumball machine, put out a bird feeder and a bowl of water, sweep an elderly neighbor's front porch...

Because kindness begets kindness. It is a well-known fact that kindness is contagious. See, people like to feel good. When someone makes them feel good, they in turn want to make someone else feel the same way. It's why "pay it forward" is a reality; when you have more than you previously had, often times you want to share it to help others. Those people being helped will remember your kindness, and they will be kind to others because they now know how good it feels. It is the best vicious circle in the world.

Why am I bringing this up now?

Well, I am not exactly known as a complainer. I try to fix my broken crap before I need help from others, and if I have to ask for help, I will catalogue in my head and do anything I can to pay the person back. I also dance to songs at work, sing while pouring coffee, ask customers how their kids are doing, and basically treat everyone like they matter (to the best of my ability). As a result, this wedding is a huge cash-in of favors, but it is also just people returning kindness they have received from me, a few of which were because I mentioned the one or two glitches we have hit:

I knitted a hat for a customer to replace a ratty one she occasionally wore, and she is thanking me by doing my hair for the wedding.
I mentioned to a guy who gets an Americano every day that my previous photographer and I are no longer speaking, and he offered to photograph the wedding.
A dear knitting friend is officiating the ceremony.
My big brothers (some biological and some honorary) are setting up and taking down chairs for the ceremony.
My mom is throwing parties, decorating, and basically keeping me as girly as possible.
Erik's friend is playing music for us.
And for the very, very few people who are not welcome, we have both a lookout and a rented crocodile.
The engagement ring was a trade-in of other jewelry, and a favor from Dad's jeweler.

I could have done the big nightmare again, with a banquet hall and a DJ and a bunch of strangers I would have to pay, but why? The wedding is already intimate, but kindness is what is making it feel like family, even for people who are not related by blood. I am of course paying some of these people, but I would much prefer my money to go to people I trust, who want to do their best for me.

Kindness. Try it. You will like it, I guarantee.

Oh...and this is the Eros Drifters Vertical Top pattern by Plymouth yarns. The yarn is Jacques Fonty and Wendy. I think I will wear this to my bridal shower...fresh off the needles (and I actually CROCHETED the arm holes!).

Cheers!

Reverse Sexism at its Finest

Good afternoon, everyone! I actually have no knitting articles to share today...just a story.

I have a friend who happens to be dad to a six-year-old boy. While this little boy and I were on a field trip to Walmart, he passed the yarn section, grabbed a ball of orange yarn, brought it to me, and said, "You can make something with this!"

"Yes I could!" I said.

"Could I make something with it?" he asked me, curious.

"Sure," I said. "Would you like me to teach you how to knit?"

He got all excited, nodding his head, and he put the yarn back because he wanted to try out something more "disco" (I guess...the yarn he chose is silver with this awesome rainbow metallic thread running through it). I told him he could pick out one ball of yarn, and we would get the right size needles to go with it.

Now, understand that six years old is right around the age people in general can start to learn how to knit. I explained to him...as did his dad...that it may take several tries before he gets it right, and that there was no pressure to learn. He asked me to teach him. We sat down for our first lesson, when I cast on for him, and I taught him the four steps to the knit stitch in the best way possible for a boy that likes superheroes and wrestling:

"Stab it! Choke it! Pull its guts out! Throw it off a cliff!" (This mnemonic is courtesy of a lesson I took at Vogue Knitting LIVE, by the way).

The next day, he sent me a message, asking if he could come to my work and learn how to knit again when I was finished with my job for the day. I told them both (he and his dad) that it would be fine. I am told the boy's grandmother told the father, "You know...all you are doing is setting him up to be made fun of at school."

This brought to mind two things about gender that I never was required to adhere to while growing up. The first one is this meme, which is probably the greatest contribution the internet has made, ever:

I got the impression from that statement that the grandmother thinks that knitting is for girls, and that kids will either make fun of him for it because he would be a boy doing a girl thing, or because it meant he was sissy, gay, or whatever other in-the-moment word is currently used for that sort of thing. It doesn't seem to ever go the other way, though, does it? The people who worry about things like that will complain about boys doing the things that girls like, but very rarely does one bat an eyelash when a little girl is wearing Superman Underoos, or she has a toy bulldozer, or other stereotypically boy interests.

When I was nine, I had this awesome clock radio cube that had a just-long-enough cord to pull into my bed, so I could listen to the Chicago Cubs when they were on the west coast and I did not want to go to sleep (sorry, Mom). I had a Barbie dream house, sure, but I also had a navy, orange, and yellow Big Wheel and I played little league baseball. I don't recall anyone thinking that was particularly weird, and I don't think anyone was ever worried about me turning into a lesbian because of it. I just had two older brothers, so I wanted to be them. End of story. I was never discouraged from doing something because it was a "boy" thing instead of a "girl" thing.

Little girls who like hockey are much more accepted, I feel, than little boys who like figure skating, if all you do is listen to the chatter around you. Chatter may not be an accurate representation of life, but it stems from something. It is okay for girls to be boys, but much less okay for boys to be girls. Thankfully, nobody in my circle of life seemed to care while I was growing up...as long as I didn't come home both pregnant and strung out on heroin at the same time while in high school, I was free to make my own choices in terms of which "me" I wanted to be. 

The other itch this statement causes to crawl onto my surface is that even if my first ponderance is misguided, kids will be made fun of for everything in the world. Let me take this kid, for example:  his name is not spelled in the traditional, character-in-the-bible way. He is small for his age. He likes the White Sox while the whole city is currently Cubs crazy. He likes tea.

None of these traits are particularly weird, but kids make fun of other kids. It is what it is. And in a world where we are trying to take a stand against bullying, something got lost in translation over the past two generations. Kids will be kids. Instead of trying to turn kids into non-kids...people who know better before they learn to know better...how about we teach our kids to be proud of who they are, and let them explore their interests, and tell the bullies, "I knit! Would you like me to teach you? No? Then stand back, because my sticks double as weapons if I need them..." (you know what I mean)

We can't just blame the parents of the bullies for having bullying kids. Parents who teach their kids that victimization is the only option if they are different are just as much to blame as the others. There is a vast middle ground here, with a very broad spectrum of "acceptable" behavior. This means that no parent is 100% right or 100% wrong...it's how we learn from each other.

Incidentally, I would think any caretaker of a six-year-old boy would be thrilled that he is learning something that will keep his hands and brain busy, and is much quieter than playing explosive video games. But that's just me. Lesson number three...if he is still interested...will be next week sometime.

Common-Sense Resolutions

Happy new year, everyone! If you follow my column at all, you know that every year, I post an article regarding what people are resolving for their knitting habits and projects in the coming year. I assure you, 2016 is no different (mostly because I am predictable):

http://www.examiner.com/article/knitters-share-their-crafty-2016-new-years-resolutions

My knitting resolutions are pretty simple:  do as much of it as I can, be as creative as I can, and don't give a crap about spending money on yarn.

Other New Years Resolutions (capital letters added for emphasis), however, are more complicated. I tend to just reflect on the last twelve months, and decide what would need to change in order for the next twelve months to be better. This does not necessarily mean I resolve to change anything; I just like to digest what my life has been like, and be a realist about what it can be like in the future. If you are looking for inspiration, here are some common-sense resolutions to get you started off right in the new year.

1.  Give your haters the benefit of the doubt.  So, you are not perfect. You are probably not nearly as bad as your haters think you are, either, but heed their criticism before dismissing it. The outcome of a quick analysis of your haters is either, "That poor thing...they are just angry because their husband has been cheating for thirty years and they have never been strong enough to leave!" or, "Wow...I never really thought about it, but maybe I AM a gold-digger!" Either way, that dismissal can sometimes prevent you from closure. If you are someone who needs closure to move on, then get it, even if it is only in your own head.

2.  Own who you are.  I had a conversation with someone recently who was busted for probably the tenth time since I have known him, for cheating on a girlfriend. While he was beating himself up over it, I gave him some advice, figuring the last thing he needed was for someone else to beat him up over it. I told him, "You need to either figure out what makes you cheat, or just own it and be a cheater." If you own who you are, you can release a lot of the insecurities that plague your forward movement. Be a cheater! Oh...you think being a cheater means you are an asshole? Okay, then. Ask yourself the next time you are putting your face between a girl's legs other than your girlfriend's, "Do I really want to do this? Because then I am an asshole." Force yourself to listen to the little voice. If it doesn't stop you, then just own it. Be the asshole. You will still have friends, I promise.

3.  Shift out of first gear.  Ask anyone on the planet if they like sitting in traffic. The answer, obviously, is "No." Why not? Because nobody likes sitting around, waiting for the others in front of them to get out of their way so they can move forward. And yet, many of us will go ahead and say, "YOU ARE IN FRONT OF ME AND YOU MAKE ME ANGRY AND I CAN'T MOVE FORWARD WITH YOU THERE!" to something in their life that has nothing to do with their actual happiness. So, your son is dating someone you don't like. Do you really have to let it sidetrack your day, let alone your whole year? Of course you don't; this is a choice. And by the way, if your response to this little section is, "Fuck them...I would rather be angry," then you may as well just admit that you love attention, no matter how you can get it.

4.  Quit the cries for attention. Which brings me to my next common-sense resolution. Are you always late? Do you hold up a line, telling your sob-story to a cashier or bartender instead of being considerate to the people behind you? Do you like to repeat your same list of complaints to every new person you meet? Do you have a "blame others" mentality, where you start sentences with something like, "I don't know what her problem is, but..."? Because if any of these sounds like you, then you need to do a little bit of a self-esteem check. When we are not happy with ourselves, we do teeny weeny things to get attention, be it positive or negative. Don't believe me? Let's start with being late...what does everyone do when someone walks into a room ten minutes after they are expected? Yep...they stop what they are doing, and all eyes turn to that person. When you are comfortable with yourself, you get enough attention. Not only that...it is typically positive attention.

5.  Be kind.  This is the ultimate common-sense resolution, but it never ceases to amaze me how many people make this look difficult. If someone is crappy to you, and you are crappy to them back, does it really make you feel better? In general, no. The reason doesn't have anything to do with getting even, either. Most of us just really like being kind, and we can't get pleasure out of watching others suffer. If your enemy is drowning, pulling him or her out of the water feels way better than pushing them under, every single time. And again, it's not because you are sitting there and saying to yourself, "I just saved a life!" It's because you are saying to yourself, "I did the right thing."

6.  Do what makes you happy.  I don't just mean career-wise, I mean every damn day of the year. Does eating a doughnut in the morning set the mood for the rest of the day? Do you like organizing junk drawers? Do you knit? (Oh, please...like you didn't see that coming). Then do it. If all of your friends think that live-action role-play is nuts, and there you are, sewing your costume by hand at Starbucks, then maybe you need different friends. If you love your raw-vegan diet, if you love knife-throwing class, if you love reading about the American Gold Rush in the 1800's, then do it. Anyone who gives you a hard time about something you love is either the most boring person in the world, or the best at keeping secrets. What so-called "weird" thing do they do that they don't want you judging?

7.  Prioritize.  We are a compilation of a million little factors. Priorities can either be a most-important to least-important list of tasks, or it can also be a list of qualities we see in people, and in what order of importance they are. Put the good stuff ahead of the bad stuff, not just in you but in everyone else as well. Maybe you think I am weird because I have a whole list of qualities incompatible with your "mainstream" ideals:  I don't own a television, I knit in public every chance I get, my close circle of friends ranges in age from mid-20's to mid-60's, I don't have an I-Pass, I am "just" a barista at Starbucks...the list goes on. But if you see that stuff first...the stuff you don't agree with...before you see that I am kind, loyal, intelligent, financially independent, etc...well, then you are telling me more about you than you are pointing out about myself. How about making 2016 the year we all try to see the good in people before noticing the bad?

8.  Live.  If you have put something off all of last year, then do it this year. If you get bogged down in your office every day, then start to take your lunch break outside. If you spend too much time on your smartphone, then put it in airplane mode for an hour per day. Take a day-trip in your car. Find the nearest forest preserve and plop your blanket down in it...along with yourself and a sandwich and a book...for a little while one day. Sign up for the damn guitar lessons. Write that novel. Start that company. Write a hand-written letter and mail it. Send thank-you notes. Buy the stranger's coffee behind you in line. Kiss the girl who makes your heart go pitter-pat (bonus points if you kiss her in public). Tell the world how awesome you are without following up by telling them how crappy they are...they are just as awesome as you. In short, live. And live your best, brightest, most imperfect work-in-progress life you can live.

Resolve to make this year better than last year. And then just go ahead and do it. No matter the teeny details, let's make the balance sheet on 2016 end in the black, shall we?