My Mum had one of these for years in the kitchen. One of those 'saw this in the grocery store, and couldn't pass the cute little thing up' specials, as is the one I just bought. Hey, for $2.99, even if it doesn't live after I repot it, I get to have something cute on the table for a week.
A very kind comment was left on my last blog entry by a lovely man called John Gray @ Going Gently. All of you should definitely check out his blog, if you haven't already. Wonderful sense of humour and lust for life. But you should have guessed that already, because I'm the one doing the recommending, right?
The comment he left me was "just checking for your next post!
where is it?". Very flattering, John! It inspired in me a (delusional and misguided) fantasy that everyone is chomping at the bit for my next little installment of nonsense.
This week has been tough on my tenderhearted little Canadian emotions. Frankly, I'm pretty depressed. The horrific disaster in Japan is really getting to me. All of those people wiped out at once, and the continued threats to surviving residents...the only thing I could do to not feel completely useless was donate money to relief efforts. And even that felt piddly, because I don't have a lot of it to give.
I've seen some people joking about it on the internet, which my friend Bub has just written about in her amazing blog.
It's in my nature to joke about everything, even serious things. I joked about cancer all the way through thinking Chuck might be sick again these last few months. Maybe bad taste, but it's the way my mind processes worry and stress. I've offended people with badly-thought out joking around, on things I don't take seriously and forget that other people do. I've apologized for it if I've done it. I'm an 'accidentally offensive' person, not in intentionally offensive one. I joke when I'm nervous or when I'm stressed, to push away the bad stuff and try to 'find the funny' in something serious.
But this type of 'joking' around about the shit going down in Japan...it doesn't seem like jangled nerves, it just seems malicious. There's nothing funny about it to 'find'.
All that aside, I don't personally know anyone in Japan. Many people in the area I live in do, however. And yesterday I read a particularly heartbreaking blog post written by my internet-friend IG. I may not know the guy in '3-D world', but I really feel for him. And for all those poor Japanese people trying to deal with this.
Chuck is a news-watcher. He turns it on while we're eating dinner promptly at 6pm. I've spent a few evenings this week sniffling and wiping my eyes behind my fork. I'm not ashamed to say it.
I'm allowing myself this week to be sad and get it all out. It's hard for me to feel like writing anything funny at the moment. Next post will be lighter, I have some bookstore shenanigans saved up for emergencies.
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8 comments:
Hugs, Kyna! It is horrifying. The whole Pacific Rim seems to be going through some cataclysmic times. Chile, New Zealand, Japan. If it's traveling clockwise, I wonder if the West Coast is next?
The events of this last week have been completely surreal. I usually post something on Fridays, but skipped it completely last week. What could I possibly have to say that didn't seem completely irrelevant and unimportant after everything that was unfolding in Japan? I'm a fellow joker too, preferring to hide behind a witty remark, rather than acknowledge stress or pain. This is definitely a no-joking event though, I feel much more numb than witty. I missed IG's post...off to read it now. Lovely shamrocks by the way.
I just read a heartbreaking photo essay on the current situation in Japan. It's stunning in magnitude, and I agree with the above poster, that that area is getting slammed this year. Plus the floods in Australia. Crazy, and no joke for anyone. And yes, we do wait for posts. :)
I'm generally a 'live and let live' kind of person and am very aware that humour is often used to cover the real emotion being felt. I do it myself. But after seeing some of the 'jokes' on the net, I couldn't not write about it - it made me so fucking angry. Your use of the word malicious was bang on.
As for feeling that the amount you donated was 'piddly', the important thing is that you did, the amount is totally irrelevant.
Nice shamrock btw.
Seriously joking is a fantastic way of dealing with stress.
Team meetings in mental health and social work are some of the funniest places out. The laughter is a great circuit breaker.
The thing I always find helps is talking about what ever the problem is.
Not talking about how it makes you feel (hey everyone knows how it feels), but actually describing what you saw. Takes it out of the emotional circuits into the processing ones. Helps the brain sort the issues out.
Kyna I think most intelligent beings understand that humour is some times used as a defence mechanisim or a comfy blanket (me)
but never, NEVER ! when such horrific circumstances have happened. I don't read anything but garden related "stuff" on the net .. self defence mechanisim for ME ? .. I was so glad to get an e-mail from a Japanese friend, that he and his family were safe and in fact he had the humour within himself to say something funny about working hard to keep the plants from blowing up .. what are you busy with Joy ? I mean you have to be blown away (sorry it just seemed the thing to say ) by his stance on getting through this one way or another.
Now I have probably offended some one with my wording .. sorry about that .. I write off the cuff .. and this is what it said? to me ;-)
Joy
I'm glad your shamrock wanna'be plant was made in Canada girl !!
Chin up, old girl. There's beer to be drunk!
Just catching up on why you are sad, and reading your links. Have been to 'visit' the bloggers I know in Japan and Hawaii. There is laughing with, if the Japanese people can find humour in their situation. And there's laughing AT, which I haven't fallen over in my circuit of blogs about Japan. We still wait, holding our breath, hoping they can sort the reactor. And I paid tribute to those workers risking their lives for our greater good.
My husband read on Swiss news that some of the Tokyo firemen were forced to work at the reactor. Which adds an even grimmer layer to the situation.
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