sneezes and socks

[cimorene]

I have been sneezing on average about once per day the last week or so, so there must really be something around that's irritating my nose, just not that badly anymore. It could be the tree, I guess. I took the ornaments off on the 6th per Finnish tradition, but Wax has yet to carry it outside.

I seem to have estimated the socks wrong again. Wax is now wearing the original leftovers socks (from Daddy's hat) and I knitted one sock with the leftovers from them, but it did not use enough of the leftover yarn (too many stripes of Arwetta in between). I am making the second sock mismatched in the hope of using as much of the yarn as possible. I can't bear to waste it because it's really lovely soft and silky merino sock yarn (Scheepjes Downtown).

I should have made a hooded sweater before now, though. My neck and ears are always cold. But I can't promote another project ahead of the next Fair Isle vest I've been planning, so I'll have to get by tying shawls around my head and neck a bit longer.

Actually I've been so focused on knitting lately that it's almost my fandom. I'm not even watching tv at the same time, lately, just listening to David Mitchell's radio show. (I got a bit further in my Star Trek rewatch before getting stuck on the episode where Starfleet tries to order Data to be dissected and Picard has to sue. It causes too much anxiety, but I didn't want to skip ahead.)

Comments

[cimorene]

I can visualize the whole cultural conversation that you're describing now and it really is awful. I don't know if it's actually more awful than the other situations created in profoundly racist societies, but at first glance the lack of solidarity that you're describing seems extra chilling, even though white supremacy also operates through internalized racism and both conscious and unconscious prejudice and discrimination in the US too. I suspect the existence of this solidarity and the history of civil rights is spiritually and emotionally valuable support to Black people in the US. Of course, there's a dark logic in the goal of "whitening" one's own descendants by marrying lighter-skinned people, which was at one time extremely common in the US as well, and even today isn't gone. It is selfish but there is always a likelihood that cruel society will be easier for lighter-skinnwd descendants.

[barbaratp]

No fim tudo isso é culpa do sistema opressor que cria na cabeça do oprimido que o inimigo é quem deveria ser seu amigo. Uma tragédia sem fim. É parte do modus operandi de grupos que querem ter o poder sobre os outros, divida-os, crie dúvidas e discórdia, os faça achar que o inimigo é outro, reduza sua população e tome o poder. Não importa qual seja, a questão sempre funciona assim... O que me deixa muito triste, às vezes parece que alguns ser humanos não aprendem como viver em paz sem odiar os outros por motivo nenhum.

[cimorene]

Very true. I often think similar things. Groups of people are easily manipulated in this way and apparently incapable of focusing on their real enemy.