My philosophy

So I guess I didn't scare you off, huh? Good! Welcome back!

So after watching The Passion of Ayn Rand tonight, I started doing some reading about Rand’s philosophies to get a better understand of Objectivism. After getting frustrated at Rand’s hypocrisy, I decided to do something a little more fun so I revisited a quiz on OkCupid called “What’s Your Philosophy?“

Considering what I’ve been through over the past year, I found the results both amusing and affirming.

Taken last year, April 2007:

Foundationalist
Foundationalists believe in logical, ordered opinions, built on other opinions. Building ideas is like building a house – you have to start at the most basic truths, and work your way up from there, otherwise it simply doesn’t work. Thus, a foundationalist’s entire goal is to find a single universal truth, that cannot be refuted by any argument. Once that truth has been found, everything else can fall into place. “I think, therefore I am” is often argued to be one of these basic truths.

Famous foundationalists include: Rene Descartes.

The opposite of Foundationalism is Realism.

And my results tonight, almost one year later….

Realist
Realists are the only philosophers not actively seeking answers. They are content with accepting that the world around them exists, and don’t bother themselves about how we came to be. They focus on where we’re going, rather than how we got here. Realists also tend to be interested in “universals” – concepts that can describe large groups, rather than single objects. For example, there are more interested in the human race as a whole, rather than specific types of people. This philosophy is also sometimes called Idealism.

Famous realists include: Plato.

The opposite of Realism is Foundationalism.

So….I went from having a goal of finding truth to not actively seeking answers.

Your ad here, right now: $0

The end of a generation

My last surviving grandparent passed away today.

With the exception of my paternal grandfather who died when I was 4, I’ve lost them all within a four year period.

My PaPa – Momma’s daddy – died in December 2004.

Almost a year later, Thanksgiving Day 2005, my Daddy’s stepfather who I had grown up knowing as my Grandaddy, also passed away.

Last Spring, we lost my Memaw, Momma’s mom, which probably hit me the hardest because she was the backbone of that (very large) side of my family.

And now Daddy’s mom, my Nana, is gone.

I’m so homesick right now that it physically, literally aches.

Your ad here, right now: $0

When my child grows up… (part 2)

The other post was getting too long….here’s more stories from some of My Favorite Moms.

“When my child grows up and has a house of their own…..”

(From Joy)

I will wait until breakfast/lunch/dinner is served, she sits down, and then I’ll ask for something vital to the meal that I could have gotten in the few moments prior to her sitting down to eat yet another less than warm meal, but she really needs to get it for me.

I will ignore all of her warnings on a school night to make sure my backpack is all ready to go in the morning so that I can freak out as we’re walking out the door to get to school looking for that paper I printed out that’s due first period – it’s really still in the printer tray, but that would be too easy of a place to start looking so I’ll start under my bed and work out from there.

I will spend hours in front of the mirror perfecting the “your very existence annoys me” eye roll so I can sport that look whenever I choose.

I will also practice saying “Daughter” in the exact same whiney tone she says “Moooom…”.

I will practice my flounce so that when she asks me to clean up my bathroom, room, or any other part of the house, I can show off my backside with the same amount of disdain she currently uses. (guess who is upstairs unhappily cleaning her bathroom…)

As soon as I am in the car, buckled into my carseat, I will proceed to whine at the highest decible level “I have to go potty!!!” even though she asked me right before we left home if I had to go and I insisted that I did not. Alternatively, if the potty thing isn’t working, I will then whine in the same ear-splitting manner that I am starving – even though, once again, she made sure to ask me if I was hungry before we left home.

It is my goal in life to see her head spinning…

Your ad here, right now: $0

When my child grows up…

Here’s a funny collection of stories from some of the parents on my Home on teh Internets, my favorite message board, in response to the statement “When my child grows up and has a house of their own….”

(I’ll be adding to these as I get permission from people to use them.)

When my child grows up and has a house of their own…

(Mine)

I will drag all of my books and “toys” out and leave them in the middle of the floor.

I will insist on having doughnuts and root beer for breakfast, lunch AND dinner.

I will wait until she is halfway through a movie and then ask if we can change it to a show that will only be on for another 20 minutes and that I have seen 7 times already. If she won’t let me, I will stand in front of the tv so she can’t see her movie.

I will eat the last package of individually wrapped snacks but leave the empty box in the cupboard so that when she goes to make her grocery list, she’ll see the box and think there is no need to buy more. And when she doesn’t bring some home from the grocery store, I will complain about it.

I will take pens out of her purse and not put them back.

I will ask her if I can sleep in her bed because I’m scared and then I will kick her in my sleep and lay diagonally across the bed. Then I’ll get upset if I wake up early in the morning and realize she’s not there…because she went out and slept on the couch.

When I go to her house, I will sit quietly and occupy myself for hours as if she’s not even there….until the phone rings. Then I will immediately need her undivided attention and will do whatever I can to get it until she gets off the phone.

Oh and I will get into her makeup bag and bypass the cheap $2 chapstick and instead proceed to smear her $15 lip gloss, given to her as a gift because she can’t see spending that much on lip gloss herself, all over my lips, chin and cheeks.

I will also do the same with the $4 bottle of lotion and the $16 bottle of her favorite lotion that she hardly ever uses because she wants to make it last.

I will take my ponytail out in the bathtub and let my hair drag in the soapy water then I will cry if she insists on making me wash my hair to get the soap out.

(From Patti)

I will talk incessantly, with frequent pauses to ask “Did you hear me? Are you listening?”

Every time she leaves to go somewhere, I’ll make her take me along, too. Then while we’re in the car, I’ll keep making her stop at all the places I want to go by suddenly remembering things that I absolutely need right now. I’ll make her pay for it all, too.

I’ll take the phone and the remote control and hide them. Then I’ll “forget” where I put them.

I’ll sneak into the refrigerator after she goes to bed at night, and eat the lunch she made to take into work the next day.

I’ll leave books, clothes, and assorted personal items strewn all over every living space in her house – except, of course, in my room.

When she goes grocery shopping, I’ll tell her I don’t need anything. Then when she gets home and starts putting groceries away, I’ll ask her if she bought all the things I secretly wanted her to buy, but “forgot” to mention. Then I’ll guilt her into going back to the store just for me.

(From Susan)

I will ask Abby questions relentlessly. Relentlessly. Especially questions I already know the answers to.

I will ask Emma Jean for suggestions of what to do and then argue with her. I will end the debate by dissolving into tears and stomping off. Even if I agree with her ideas, I will still argue.

And I will never forget that doors were meant to be slammed.

I will also run everywhere I go inside the house. As fast as I can and crashing into as many things as I can along my way.

I will never use the trashcan for silly things like used straws.

I will also point out every injustice and unequal distribution of foodstuffs or attention.

I will always make sure to provoke DH into an argument immediately after they take a phone call.

(From Jennifer – whose darling children I have met in person and who I am now discovering are apparently not as sweet and innocent as they look!)

I will take apples out of her refrigerator and sneak them up to my room. Then I will take four bites (in a random pattern around the apple) and throw it between my bed and the wall to mold and liquefy.

When confronted on this, I will insist that I have NO IDEA how it could have gotten there and maybe the monsters in my closet did it.

I will randomly wake up screaming at midnight about said monsters, who scare the crap out of me even though they are good to blame for stuff. I will sob until after 1am, and insist on moving to her bed.

I will then proceed be the horizontal bar of the letter “H” in between her and her husband in bed. If either of them moves close enough to center that they don’t have half their body hanging off the edge of the bed, I will kick them. Hard.

After having her up until after 1am with my monster terrors, I will bounce up and down on her with frenzied energy and a chipper voice at 6am saying over and over, “Daughter, get up! I’m staaaaaaaaarving! Daughter! Daughter! GET UP! I’m sooooo hungry! Get up daughter! Get UP!”

If any writing utensil is left anywhere that I could *possibly* reach it, even if only by making a tower out of a chair, phone book, box, and stuffed animal while she’s in the bathroom, I will find it and write on the wall, the stairs, the couch – whatever is closest. I will then blame this on my sister and look innocent and offended at her accusation. Even though I wrote MY name on the item in question.

When she gets on the phone with someone important, like the bank, I will immediately lose ALL interest in the video I was so engrossed in just moments ago and begin a litany that goes something like this:
“Daughter! Daughter! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!! She’s taking my toyyyyyyy! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! Make her STOP! AAAAAAAAAA! Make her leave me aloooooooooooone! DAUGHTER! DAUGHTERDAUGHTERDAUGHTERDAUGHTER!!!! AAAAAAAAAAA!”
Once she is forced to make her apologies to the bank and say she’ll call back later and has hung up the phone, I will immediately go back to being quietly entranced by my video and act appalled when she sends me to my room.

I will LOUDLY ask make statements and her questions in public like:
“Why do you have fur on your ‘china?”
“Your butt must have been REALLY poopy because you wiped for a LONG time.”
“I can’t tell if that person has a penis or a ‘china – are they a boy or a girl?”
“Hi mailman! Wanna see my new panties? They have HEARTS.”

I will beg and plead that I am starving and I MUST have crackers and cheese. Nothing else will do. She will make me the same kind of crackers and cheese that I have *always* loved and place them in front of me. I will then fling myself to the floor sobbing that those are the WRONG kind of crackers. In between sobs, I will mournfully question WHY she would do that to me, in a tone that insinuates that it was an offense close to killing my dog.

I will climb up the counter and get into the “off-limits” cupboard and quickly tear open a packet of kool-aid and sloppily dump it into a large cup. I will fill the large cup to overflowing and dump kool-aid powder into it in a flinging fashion so that plenty of kool-aid (both wet and dry) is spread across the kitchen, staining the rugs and towels. When she walks in in the middle of this, I will look at her accusingly and say, “My sister was SO thirsty and YOU were not getting her a drink, so I had to do SOMETHING.” – ignoring the fact that my sister is currently upstairs taking a nap.

I will walk through her house, randomly dumping my belongings everywhere. Once the mess is adequately large, I will sob about how I can’t find some particular thing and it’s HER fault for not knowing where it is. When she suggests that I look in the place where it belongs, I will stare at her blankly as though I do not understand the concept.

Whenever she is kissing or hugging her DH, I will do everything in my power to physically wedge myself between them while yelling, “Make me a sandwich! I wanna be a Mommy Sandwich!”

I will chatter endlessly, through anything she wants to be doing and act HIGHLY offended if I catch any evidence that she might, at any time, be tuning me out. Conversely, if she interrupts me while I am watching a show or listening to a song, I will tell her, “Daughter! I can’t HEAR this when you are talking!”

If she asks me not to do something, like splash water on the bathroom floor, I will proceed to put water on the bathroom floor to my heart’s content. When she walks in a minute later, looks at the wet bathroom floor, and tells me that I’m in trouble because she told me not to splash water on the floor, I will look at her and say, “Daughter, I listened! I did NOT splash water on the bathroom floor, I filled up my cup and dumped water on the bathroom floor. You didn’t SAY not to dump.”

Your ad here, right now: $0

Locks of Love

I’ve debated for a while about getting my hair cut but I just couldn’t figure out what I wanted to do with it. I’ve always had long hair and the shortest it has ever been was shoulder length but that was over 8 years ago. It was down to my waist up until I cut about 4 inches off last year.

But I needed a change, that was certain. So I finally decided to go for it. I cut off ten inches of hair and I will be donating it to Locks of Love.

I was afraid to do it and thought I might chicken out. But the idea of being able to use it to help brighten a child’s life gave me the motivation I needed to go through with it.

Here’s a few pictures…a before shot of the length, an after shot, and a picture of the braid that the stylist cut off. (Braided, its 7 inches, but 10 total.)

I’m so glad I did it! I’ve received a lot of compliments on it. The stylist showed me a few things I can do with it so I’m looking forward to playing around with it.

Sissy didn’t even recognize me when I stopped by her place of employment but when she realized it was me, she threw her hands over her mouth and just kept saying “ohmigod! ohmigod!” Princess said it looks “silly” and she said she likes it when I have long hair. Oh well, can’t win ‘em all.

Your ad here, right now: $0