I shot this for 634 miles for May, but am not including it in that post. But I liked it, so I’m sharing it here.
that post will be up sometime this week.

I’m going to be traveling next week and part of the following week, so Random may be delayed. We’ll see. But I’m going to be meeting some of my internet friends while I’m away and I’m very excited about that, and also very nervous, because – social skills + jentober = 0. People have been assuring me that I am mistaken, and not awkward at all. My problem is that I just completely lack the ability to make small talk, which is actually an important step in starting a conversation. Honestly, it’s not unlike Ron Swanson. You know when Ann is trying to get him to talk and he’s all brief and direct and eventually says “Oh, are you still here?” I am a woman of few words. In person anyway.

However, once you get me going, I can assure you, I’m pretty fun. No really. I’m hilarious. I’m pretty sure there are at least two people who will testify to thoroughly enjoying my company.

But this is the plus to social media. I wrote a lengthy lament on the negatives of social media yesterday, that I don’t think I’ll end up posting. Which might be a shame, because it’s good, and I criticize myself along with it, which keeps it honest.

At any rate. I love to travel. Even though I won’t sleep much the whole time, and I’ll miss the Compound terribly, I’ll have a good time. (And take entirely too many pictures.)

I’m feeling a little grumpy with the universe lately.

And I had all these things that I was going to list that were making me cranky, and tell the universe, and more specifically the people in it, right off.

But then Miss W made me play the Doctor Who theme (album version) in the car 3 times on the way to and from taekwondo, and said she totally could have come to visit me as a little girl and said, “I am your daughter!” if she had the TARDIS and that’s just exactly what she’d do.

And the fact that I’m raising this phenomenal, absent minded, loving, generous, free spirited, geeky little bundle of awesome has made me considerably less grumpy with the universe (though maybe not so much certain of the people in it who still have me going grrrrrrrr just a little bit … But it’s enough to mostly ignore them.)

Also, how can you look at this face and not laugh?

For as long as I can remember I have suffered from migraines. That sounds so dramatic. I’ve lived with them. I’ve suffered, yes, but I’ve also soldiered on, shouldered through, sucked it up, and built up one hell of the mother of all tolerances to head pain. At least most of the time. The fact remains that I am in pain more days than not.

I don’t whine about it. I don’t bring it up. I generally only really mention it on days when it actually becomes somewhat unbearable and I am forced to throw up my hands in surrender.

I try not to do that very often.

On occasion, people who have had migraines will say to me, “I don’t know how you can function!” Well. Honestly, what choice do I have? I function until I simply can’t. The world doesn’t stop, my responsibilities don’t go away, just because I have pain. So I suck it up.

If you’ve never had a migraine, you can’t even begin to imagine what it feels like. I am always trying to come up with some way to describe it and I always fail. There simply isn’t anything to compare it to, and I’m just not creative enough to adequately convey the nauseatingly unstoppable severity of this particular agony.

I did discover a musical piece recently that comes kind of close – the House from the Road soundtrack by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. (which I would Youtube you to, but it isn’t there)

Modern medicine has failed me completely, thus far. And, to be honest, I’ve really become pretty fed up with doctors. Particularly their complete disregard for anything their patients are trying to tell them. Listen, pal, I get that you went to school for a ridiculously long time, and that you do actually (usually) know what you’re talking about. But you’re still not me. You don’t live inside my skull. So shut the hell up and hear what I’m saying to you. Just stop. Every single prescription I have been given for the last I don’t know how many years has failed. And I can tell you precisely why. So please stop telling me that we really need to try this beta blocker again, because this isn’t the beta blocker of 10 years ago.

A beta blocker is a beta blocker, my friend. And my blood pressure is still too low for them.

Along with my ridiculous pain tolerance comes a ridiculous susceptibility to side effects of medications. I once tried anti-depressants (which are cross prescribed as a migraine treatment) and stopped sleeping entirely. After day 3 I threw them out.

See? My wiring is all kinds of wonky.

At any rate, I don’t tell you all of this because I’m trying to impress you with my insane fortitude. Although, it is impressive, if I do say. No, today I saw the neuro again, and he finally listened to what I was saying. So I’m really just blathering to say I’m making progress (I think), that I came away with brand new migraine specific meds that no one has ever thought to prescribe me before, and some vitamins that have been shown in sciencish studies to help block the daily pain. I chose to ignore his “exercise regularly (already do daily, pal), and pay attention to what might be triggering them, (That was just insulting. I’ve been getting migraines for more than 30 years, I think I know what triggers them, thank you very much.).”

So this is my “serene-ish making progress” face. Of course it could all still fail. But at least I’m trying to have a little faith.

Almost a year ago I took a trip out to Washington state to visit one of my very best friends. I still haven’t finished editing the photos. I have a plethora of perfectly valid reasons for this, but I am still fairly disgusted with myself. (In fact, the only thing that makes me feel better about it is that I know that Red has edited even fewer of her photos from that trip than I have.)

I don’t know what’s happened to me over the last couple of years. I’ve become completely slacktacular when it comes to editing major photo projects. The only time I’m on the ball is when I’m editing a paying gig – which is a good thing, as I’d like to keep getting those. I just finished editing our annual trip to the Pinkie (Look at a map of MI, all you outlanders, and you’ll maybe see what that means), a couple of weekends ago.

Anyway, I’m trying. I have posted a few of the Seattle Gas Works already. And it’s possible I used a shot or two in a Random Wednesday post.

It’s been a busy week for me so the blog’s been quiet, but I did spend last evening editing a sizable batch of WA photos. So I’m throwing a few up for you. Or me. Or whatever. Happy Saturday.

Right after I shot this one I fell off the mountain. Kind of. It was also kind of hilarious.

Isn’t it gorgeous? It was a fantastic trip. I love traveling. I wish I could do it more often.

(Please ignore my horrible grip on that Ruger, this is an old photo. I swear to you I do NOT teacup any more.)

When I wrote “I’m With Stupid” this weekend, I assumed that my usual handful of readers would see it and go about their day. I thought one or two might comment and that would be that. I had no idea that it would be so well received by so very many people.

More than 1,000 people read that post, which astonishes me. Thank you for that. You read what was essentially an open letter to my friends and family and progressives everywhere, written out of frustration and exasperation, and you said “Hell yeah!” And that is awesome.

I’m not really a gun blogger, though the topic certainly comes up here. I am not a gun expert. I don’t even get to the range as often as I’d like, and that’s sad, since my range is literally in my back yard. But I am a fierce advocate for the right to self defense – everyone’s right. And thank God I’m not alone in my advocacy. It shouldn’t matter what weapon I choose to defend myself and my family. And yet it somehow does.

The bigger problem, the problem that goes well beyond the debate over gun control, is the steady erosion of our civil rights and liberties. A couple of Random Wednesdays ago I said this:

“What becomes of our individual consciences?  Why do we not stand up for what we feel? … Very simply, we are programmed to obey authority even against our own consciences. [Martha Stout, The Sociopath Next Door]“  And that right there, is why we see all these stories about lemonade stand busts, or not being allowed to serve venison at a homeless shelter, and there is this quiet outrage, Fox News reports on it once or twice, and then everyone settles right back down into complacency.  This is how we have gotten to where we are in this country.  Over-regulated, over-mandated, our civil rights and liberties, our constitutional rights, slowly whittled away.  And what do we do?  We fucking acquiesce.  Everyone says “Come and take them” and “They’ll take my guns from my cold dead hands”, but when Big Brother comes knocking at your door what will you really do? You’ll hand over your armory just like everyone else.  This is who we are.  This is what terrifies me.  This is the agonizing irony of a country that fought so hard and so long to be free.

What too many of us fail to see, the thing that is slapping us all in the face, is that once you give up any one of your rights, they’re gone. You will not get them back. This is how dictatorships are born. This is how millions of people lose not only their freedom, but their very lives. It has happened time and again throughout history. It’s happening today. The dictionary’s word of the day today is “wrest”, particularly fitting for this topic, with a government and a population swarming with progressives intent on knowing what’s best for us to death.

I’m hoping that I’m wrong, that when the feds come to our doors demanding our weapons, we don’t hand them over. I’m hoping that it never comes to that at all, and it likely won’t. No, it will be a far more subtle attack. It will be one small law here, one minor regulation there. Limits on magazine capacities, bans on types of weapons based on appearance, restrictions on where and how we’re allowed to carry, all lead gradually, slowly, subtly, to the total erosion of our freedom. And every last piece of legislation will be done “in our best interests”.

I want to believe that our country will not allow this to happen, that we will not be another Australia, for instance, where their guns were taken and their crime rates sky rocketed. I want to believe that the lessons of our Revolution are not lost, and that we will be strong enough to stop this decline. From the response that my humble post received, I’m heartened and a little reassured, that there are enough of us to ensure that we can. But if we continue to acquiesce to this steady erosion, if we roll over on gun control, the rest will fall. The 2nd Amendment is the safeguard of all other rights. Without it, we’re just sitting ducks.

This isn’t crazy talk, this isn’t “gun zealotry”, this isn’t even paranoia. This is a history lesson. Pay attention.

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

Someone posted this “article” to Facebook last week, and several of us took exception. We’re very, very tired, of the hoplophobic left fabricating this hysterical nonsense and attributing it to those of us who believe that we have a fundamental human right to protect ourselves and our loved ones.

That criminals don’t follow laws is, in fact, a legitimate argument against further restrictions on the rights of law abiding citizens. Stricter gun laws do nothing to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and everything to punish people who have never broken a law in their lives. If prohibitive laws worked, Prohibition itself would have been a raging success. Instead it led to more than a decade of increased violence and law breaking. The bad guys and dirty politicians got rich, while the innocent, upright citizens got the shaft, and sometimes dead in the crossfire.

The “really passionately angry” author of this piece of pap says himself that the definition of a criminal is “someone who breaks the law and commits crime”. When he suggests that those of us who are pro-gun rights don’t think there should be any laws at all is sheer fantasy on his part. We believe in the necessity of a free society to have rules to help govern civilization. What we do not believe in is the already massively bloated government stepping in, not to enforce the laws that are already on the books, but to create further restrictions that will affect no one but the people who already follow the laws. The new restrictions being proposed by various and sundry aren’t even based in any semblance of  reality. (The term “assault weapon” is entirely a political construct designed to scare people into thinking these rifles are somehow SO MUCH WORSE than an “ordinary” hunting rifle. Wake up, people.)

And then he wrote this sentence: “The deaths of innocents is acceptable collateral damage to these people; why are we listening to them? “ And that’s when I got angry. This is the real leftist fantasy right here. If there is a person among those of us who are anti-gun control who considers the deaths of innocents as acceptable collateral damage, we would be the first to stand up and condemn him or her. Sandy Hook was a great tragedy to all of us, but no more so than the deaths of innocents any where else in this country.

How many innocent people are murdered with firearms every day in Chicago, a city with the strictest gun control in the country? You never hear about that on the news. You never hear the left rising up in anger and outrage over all the murdered children in Chicago. No, you can’t do that, because you’d just draw more attention to the fact that that kind of strict gun control simply does not work. Criminals don’t follow laws but law abiding citizens do. So who wins?

“No, an AR-15 isn’t any more lethal at killing people. It’s just highly efficient. And while we’re at this point, and I can actually hear a thousand gun zealots’ voices screaming at me that other guns are just as efficient, I call bullshit. … To get the same kind of efficiency out of a semi-auto handgun or shotgun, there’s a much higher level of training needed, at least so I’ve been told by other gun owners who don’t run out of the room like petulant kids when the very subject of gun control is brought up.”  An AR-15 IS a semi-automatic weapon. It is only as “efficient” as the person pulling the trigger, level of training notwithstanding.

The problem with putting your “reasonable restrictions” on our rights, as we “gun zealots” see it, is with your definition of “reasonable”. We’re also a little twitchy about “restrictions”, but we’re willing to compromise. You are all so willing to toss the Constitution out the window in favor of what you deem is best for everyone, what you deem is reasonable. And what you deem is reasonable in this instance, endangers innocent lives.

But ok, set the Constitution aside for one tiny second. Let’s take it down to the most basic animal level. We’re all primates here, so let’s look at it in a Wild Kingdom, basic nature type of way. I’m a female, and I’m not a very big one. I have predators. That’s just the way nature works, the strong will prey on the weak. Do you truly believe that I should simply shrug my petite shoulders, say oh well, and allow myself to be eaten? Really? What if it were you? Would you simply roll over, hands thrown up in despair, resigned to your fate? Please.

Aside from our Constitutional right to keep and bear arms – bitch about it all you want, it’s there and it’s not going away – we have a basic human right to protect ourselves and our loved ones. And you can bet your “really passionately angry” ass, that I’m not about to surrender that right any time soon.

Regardless of the astonishingly absurd rant penned by the prog referenced above, I’m mostly saddened and disappointed by the fact that so very many of the people I call friends or family post links to this kind of nonsense. This suggests to me that this is what my friends and family must actually believe about me. That you’re taking the easy way and standing with stupid. That I am some kind of right wing nut job who “wouldn’t care if 500,000 children were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary, or in Aurora, Colorado.” Of course, these people will say to me “But we don’t think that about you, Jennifer! We know you’re not like that!” Well, I have a newsflash for you. Most of the other people who are against further gun control are just like me. They’re women and parents and college students; they’re law abiding, responsible citizens of this country, who care a great deal more about innocents than you ever give them credit for. Just like me.

Not the best photo, technically speaking, but whatever.  We were finishing breakfast Sunday morning, and this little sweetie wandered out of the woods and right up to the house.  So I shot through the dining room window.  It was very cool.  My plants are tasty.

I woke this morning from a dream – a very odd dream involving Johnny Depp, a library slash record store, Duran Duran, and my best selling collection of 9 essays entitled “Daniel Hannan Gets Me Hot, and Other True Tales,” (which does not actually exist, though it’s interesting that that post was made almost exactly a year ago), and sat down at my dilapidated laptop to write about that.  However, the other side of my brain had different plans, and hijacked my post.

I started thinking about blogs, and how I often find myself following links from one blog to another to another and not very far down this rabbit hole of blogging mommas it’ll all turn into a huge hippie love fest of organic foods, crystal children, Obama fantaticism, self congratulatory while pretending to self effacement progressive parenting soap boxing.

Who names their kid Che, anyway?  I mean, aside from the implications of forever associating your child with the man who was responsible for the deaths of thousands of people, it literally means “Hey!”  That’s kind of a dumb thing to name your kid.  Hippie.

On the flip side you have the ultra cons – these are much fewer and farther between – who are chock full of jesus, moral outrage, and values god dammit!

I need the in between blogs with small l libertarian mommas who do the best they can and just want the man, the progs, and the uber cons, to chill the fuck out and leave us alone.  With lots of photographs, because I’m always looking for inspiration in others’ work.

Are you out there, small l libertarian mommas with blogs?  Let’s have a scotch and hang out while the kids play with power tools, ride their bikes without helmets, and roam the back 40 unsupervised til dinner.  I’ll tell you about that dream.