Author Archives: lydias

A few days ago, my Twitter stream was filled with pictures and stories of a celebrity who had died. I won’t mention this person’s name out of respect for their loved ones.

This post isn’t about this specific celebrity, anyway. It’s about how western culture thinks of celebrities in general and why I disagree with how they’re treated.

Why don’t I mourn dead celebrities?

I never actually knew them. Listening to someone sing, reading something they’ve written, or watching them perform in front of a camera isn’t the same thing as truly knowing that person as an individual. While there are celebrities who have created books, albums, and shows that I deeply love, there’s stark difference between the persona those celebrities have created and who they actually are when they’re not in the public eye. One of these things is easily knowable, but the one that really matters is not.

Grief is a personal, private matter. I’ve been lucky enough to have only needed to grieve over the death of a loved one a few times in my life so far. Grief isn’t something that can be condensed into a pithy gif or quote. It’s messy, lonesome, and painful.  Often it feels like it will never end because there are so many small, daily reminders of that friend or family member who isn’t here any more. While I have empathy for the loved ones of anyone who dies, I have never felt lonesome for a celebrity. I’ve never wondered if a celebrity would still have the same love of sewing or skateboarding if they’d lived like I’ve wondered about people I actually knew and cared about.

Celebrity worship doesn’t make sense. I don’t care how much celebrities weigh, which diets they follow, who they’re dating, whether or not they have baby bumps, why they’re allegedly cheating on their spouse, or how much money they made on their last project. The idea of paying such close attention to the microscopic details of what a complete stranger does with his or her life isn’t something I understand at all. While I never wish anyone ill, I have no interest at all in becoming emotionally invested in the lives of famous people.

I save my love and my grief for the people I know personally. There is more than enough going on with them to keep me busy for a long time.

The character in this short film used to be a dancer. Watch him reminisce about his old dance moves and then try to perform them again!

What I liked about this film the most were transitions between this character as an old man who has a lot of aches and pains and the agile, athletic person he used to be. They were really well done.

I recently had a funny conversation with a friend about the boring realities of being an adult.

Growing up I had certain expectations of adulthood: freedom; the ability to go to bed and wake up when I wanted to; the possibility of eating nachos and ice cream for dinner.

I knew adults had to do various things to keep a household going, of course, but I didn’t dwell on that part of it very much. The houses I lived in were always clean, warm, and filled with good things to eat. How they got that way was only dimly as important as the fact that I’d be the one making the rules someday.

Both my friend and I pictured a life filled with the freedoms of adulthood. Neither one of us realized all of the other stuff that happens behind the scenes when you’re the one in charge.

By now I’m sure you can guess what we actually did this past weekend:

• Laundry.
• Grocery shopping.
• Running errands.
• Replacing things that had worn out.
• Fixing a water heater (this was on his list, not mine).

These weren’t exactly the glamorous or exciting things I pictured as a kid.

When you grow up, suddenly you become the house-elf working behind the scenes to keep everything running smoothly. This is true whether you have 0 kids or 12 of them and regardless of where you live or what you do with the rest of your time.

There’s always more adulting to do, and most of it doesn’t have anything to do with nachos or ice cream.

Haha!

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, essays, poems, comic strips, and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

BED08 via JAHesch. What a tearjerker. It’s amazing how many different emotions a good writer can pack into such a small amount of space.

Don’t Speak His Name. This is exactly what the weather has been like in Toronto over the last several weeks. Based on reports from friends who live elsewhere, a lot of other people can say the same thing.

Woman Goes Viral After Shutting Down Racist Co-Worker in the Most Hilarious Way Possible. Okay, this is one of the most brilliant responses to racism I’ve ever seen. Kudos to her for handling it so beautifully. I hope no one ever gives her any trouble over her name again.

Why the Myers-Briggs test is Totally Meaningless. Fascinating stuff.

How My Bum Eye Helped Me Look in the Mirror Again via KW_Writes. This was such a great post. It reminds me why I like the body acceptance movement so much.

The Little-Told Story of How the U.S. Government Poisoned Alcohol During Prohibition with Deadly Consequences. This is the stuff of nightmares. It makes me wonder if similar things are still going on today with other substances.

My 10 Favourite Ray Bradbury Stories via MariaHaskins. I’ve read a lot of Ray Bradbury’s stories, but I haven’t read any of these yet. This needs to change. They all sound amazing.

What have you been reading?

Everyone knows they can send a complaint to a business that has annoyed or inconvenienced them in some way. This can be an incredibly important way for a company or an individual to know that they’ve made a mistake and need to change how they behave in the future.

Sometimes I wonder if people also realize that businesses also need compliments, though.

I’ve worked at places that accepted both kinds of feedback, and the number of times I remember hearing praise is so uncommon that I vividly recall every single one of them.

(Interestingly enough, the places where I’ve volunteered have had a higher percentage of positive feedback. It was still always lower than the number of complaints we received, but I wish I knew why this was so. Do organizations that rely on volunteer labour tend to attract more appreciation from the people who use them? I’d do a study on this topic if I were independently wealthy, but I digress.)

Here’s the thing: compliments matter just as much as constructive criticism.

When I’ve received compliments in the past, they didn’t just make my day. They were the highlight of my entire week. I remember literally skipping home from work one day years ago after someone I’d been assisting said something kind about me.

It felt so incredible to realize that someone noticed all of the hard work I’d been quietly doing and was thoughtful enough to mention it out loud.

Hearing positive feedback about a coworker or fellow volunteer is nearly every bit as exciting. I absolutely love knowing that the people I work with are succeeding. It makes me want to put twice as much effort into whatever it is that we’re trying to accomplish because of all of the tangible proof we’ve just been given of how much our actions matter.

So often you only hear feedback when you’ve done something wrong. It’s wonderful to also hear about something you’ve done right!

Compliments affect people on a pragmatic level, too. Many employers factor these things in when making decisions about raises or promotions. A single appreciative message from a stranger probably won’t make a big difference either way, but a history of them could lead to some very happy news for the person you verbally applauded in the future.

I don’t know about you, but I want the helpful people I meet in life to be recognized and rewarded.

This is why I contact organizations when the people working for them delight me in some way. It is also why I hope you’ll start doing the same thing. Our world would be a much better place if everyone was just as eager to pass on compliments as they were to complain about the things that dissatisfy them.

Will you join me?

A man working in a lost and found.

A woman looking for things she’s lost.

Can he help her find everything she’s lost?

Photo credit: Jebulon.

I’ve been keeping track of every book I read for the past few years and then blogging a list of them at the beginning of the new year.

Here’s what I read in 2015. As usual, it is divided by genre.

If any of my readers decided to join me in keeping tracking of what you read, I’d love to see your lists for last year!

Biographies & Autobiographies

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, short stories, comic strips,  and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web. Once again, this Suggestion Saturday is larger than usual. There have been so many interesting things to read lately! Haha.

Don’t Look Down via Johnny_Spacey. Isn’t it interesting to hear stories about other people’s lives? The twist at the end was fantastic as well.

Making My Mark. Yes, I know I’ve been sharing a lot of links to this comic strip recently. I love this guy’s work so much that I simply couldn’t help myself. 🙂

Where She Came From via JazzFeathers.One of the things I find most interesting about studying history is seeing how much certain things can change in one generation. It doesn’t always take a long time for a society to change its mind on a particular issue or idea.

New Year’s Resolutions. Hilarious.

Before the Measles Vaccine: My Sister’s Story. What a heartbreaking story. I wonder what the writer’s sister would have done with her life in an alternate timeline where she never caught the measles?

What It’s Like to Parent While Homeless. I have so much compassion for this family.

10 Ways to Keep Warm Through Time via EnglishHeritage. Wow, am I grateful for modern heating after reading this. Which one of these homes would you want to spend the night in?

From The Physicist Eulogy:

You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died.

From The Legend of the Snow Fairies:

Yes, child. Of course it’s alright to love winter. The snow fairies love it, too.

The story you heard today was told from a wrong perspective. See, in that time, the people needed an explanation for why winter was a sad time. They didn’t like the cold because their food didn’t grow and they had to eat dried food. Today, you can play in the snow and marvel at the frost, and come inside and I will fix you a hot drink. Are you ready? I’ll tell you what really happened.

What have you been reading?

Every year I take a break from blogging for the last two weeks of December. I will be sharing some of my old favourites in the meantime and will be back in January with new material.  This post was originally published on March 19, 2015.

One of the reasons why I enjoy following CantrellJason on Twitter so much is that he always has something thought-provoking to say. Today’s blog post is a response to something he wrote earlier this week. To summarize his post in one sentence, he believes that blocking people online has become a way for people to avoid conflict.

There are a lot of things I agree on with him. Most of the people I follow online are politically and socially progressive. This isn’t something that’s restricted to just one group. It’s ridiculously easy for all of us to surround ourselves with so many likeminded people that we never hear other points of view.

Is this necessarily a good thing? No. Every group – whether it’s religious, political, or social in nature- has weak spots. Isolating yourselves from anyone who could point out where and what they are only makes it easier for them spread.

Here’s the thing, though: there are only so many hours in a day. Most of them are already spoken for due to work and family obligations, our biological need for sleep, and the empty shelves in the fridge that make figuring out what to eat for dinner a real chore.

Some people relish the thought of filling those last few hours of the day with longwinded debates. I have several friends who fit into this category. I don’t understand why this appeals to them so much, but I’ve seen them do it for so many years that I just have to assume they’re wired a little differently than me. 🙂

Not all of us are like that. I’ve already spent countless hours explaining my sexual orientation and (lack of) religious beliefs to people both on and off the Internet. Their responses range from hostile to curious to indifferent, and there is no way to predict ahead of time how they will react.

After a while you grow very tired of talking in circles.

Sometimes block buttons are incredibly effective tools for ending conversations that never end on their own. Not everyone in this world will understand or even wants to understand. Some of them just like to argue. Others are convinced they can change you or your opinions if they press hard enough

This isn’t something I do lightly. There are several other steps I walk through first before hitting that block button, especially when the person on the other end is someone I consider a friend.

There’s no shame in dropping the rope.

In certain situations, that’s all you can do.