Humor

When Writing A Blog Post: The Importance Of Respecting Manufactured Victories

/ Ally Bean / 219 Comments

Captain Benjamin Sisko with a baseball in his hand.

THE PHRASE a manufactured victory is from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine [DS9]. The phrase, used in an episode called Take Me Out to the Holosuite, refers to a story in which the plucky DS9 gang attempts to play a baseball game on the holodeck.

It’s the 24th Century and Captain Benjamin Sisko, who is in charge of Deep Space Nine, is a nut about the old-fashioned game called baseball. He insists that the Federation crew + others living on Deep Space Nine learn the game, then play it.

Just once.

For him.

In what comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with the somewhat dysfunctional inhabitants of DS9, the uncoordinated, dare I say tetchy, DS9 team loses the game to a team of organized Vulcans.

However the DS9 team decides to call the experience a win because, from their point of view, showing up together and trying was a victory. The Vulcans balk at the idea that the DS9 team could call their defeat a success, telling them theirs is merely a “manufactured victory”— to which the undaunted team joyfully agrees and keeps on celebrating.

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OCCASIONALLY I think of this episode when I sit down to write a blog post, like I did this morning. I can want to be a prolific articulate blogger living a fabulous life full of amazing details and drama, BUT you know what?

That’s not my reality.

I’m much more DS9 crew member, stumbling along with good intentions, giving it a go, than a Vulcan who is perfectly logically organized and fascinating.

Thus by explaining the foregoing, which is to say that nothing much has been happening in my real life lately, yet mindful of my commitment to show up here weekly, I’ll end this post having written what I believe is an example of a truthful blogger’s manufactured victory.

And a darned good one at that.

~ ~ • ~ ~

So, my little space cadets, what do you think about the concept of manufactured victories? 
If you write a personal blog, have your written a few manufactured victories along the way?
Are you a fan of Star Trek, yes or no? If yes, which TV series is your favorite? And why?
Anything new happening in your part of the galaxy?

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Positivity Got You Down? Let Me Suggest Something

/ Ally Bean / 273 Comments

Not everyone grooves on uplifting thoughts all the time.

I understand this.

In fact when I was in college there were no Gratitude Journals, that wasn’t a thing like it is today.

Instead we kept what we called Bitch Books. They were nothing special to look at, just spiral notebooks with a theme, however it sounded better to refer to them as Bitch Books.

So we did.

To clarify, we called them this not because we thought of ourselves as bitches, even if we might have been, but because we needed a place to write about our issues, all the wrongs that we felt we’d suffered.

Oy vey!

Granted we also discussed our issues in lengthy conversations with a few people who would now be called your negativity friends [HERE], but often there were hurts that could only be expressed adequately, with the proper amount of collegiate drama, by writing about them ad nauseam in our Bitch Books.

We hid our books from our nosy roommates and unenlightened boyfriends because they could never know what we were really thinking. Heaven forbid there’d be open authentic communication.

We knew that our profs would never see the crap we’d written about them, so many pages of my book were filled with deets of professorial incompetence, stupidity, and hypocrisy. No surprise, huh?

I’d not thought about Bitch Books in decades, and probably wouldn’t have thought about them again, if it weren’t for an advertisement that shows up, unsolicited, on my Instagram feed*.

This intrusive ad confirms that everything old is new again. To wit, let me share a link to today’s version of a Bitch Book.

It’s stylish, something that’s now called a Grievance Journal [HERE], described by Boardwalk Gifts, the purveyor of it, as a “the perfect repository for all your existential angst and daily gripes!” 

Which no doubt it is.

And here’s the dealio, which is really where I’m going with this post. For a mere $28.00 you, my little bitches gentle readers, can purchase your very own Grievance Journal in which you, if you feel the need, can write about all the crap that happens to you.

OR, and this is just a thought, you could replicate what we did back in the day and write your angsty unhappiness in an 1 Subject College Ruled Spiral Notebook [HERE] currently available for $3.39 at Target.

It’s your money and your life, of course.

Obviously I don’t know how much bitching you need to do, so please, I encourage you, do what you feel suits you best.

* I’m on Instagram as thespectacledbean [HERE]

QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

Have you ever heard of an old-school Bitch Book or a new-fangled Grievance Journal?

Have you written one? Why or why not?

Did you once have, or do you now have, negativity friends?

• 💚 •

As Summer Ends Happy House Is Happy: What I Learned About Exterior House Colors

/ Ally Bean / 242 Comments

Happy House

INTRODUCTION

What’s the word, hummingbird?

In this post I shall explain why having a freshly painted house exterior is a VERY BIG DEAL for us. And how this very big deal is the culmination of a project that we started, by signing a contract, ONE YEAR AGO this month.

At that time WE ARRANGED to have:

  1. a new deck built [read about it HERE];
  2. repairs to replace rotten wood on the exterior [read about it HERE];  and then
  3. the house trim and shutters painted by professional painters.

This has happened now and we ARE PLEASED with the results because it looks good. Plus it is never a bad idea to maintain the building that shelters you from the nature’s wrath and other people.

That being said an offshoot of this project is that I learned multitudes about CHOOSING EXTERIOR HOUSE COLORS. So much so that I’ve written the following in which I explain a bit about THE PROCESS that I/we went through before arriving at the color choices I/we did.

Please note: at the bottom of this post is a list of sources that I found helpful. 

OUR COLOR CHOICES

• The whole issue of deciding which colors to use on the exterior trim and shutters was contingent upon coordinating with the brick and the roof. Makes sense, right? Those two variables weren’t going to change in our lifetimes.

• Then we had to decide how light or dark we wanted the trim to be. Deciding this required an understanding of Light Reflective Values [LRV], defined by myperfectcolor.com as “… the amount of visible light that is reflected off a paint color, or conversely it represents the percentage of visible light that is absorbed by the color…. represented as a percentage with pure black being 0% and pure white being 100%.”

In our part of the world it’s currently trendy to use darker, more moody, colors on houses. While we both agreed it is stylish now, we don’t think of those colors as being cheerful or timeless.

Also the popular darker colors contrast less with the brick which contributes to, what I’d describe as, a bland uniformity; in my worldview the beauty is in the contrast between the brick and trim. Hence we stayed with a similar LRV [60 before/59 now], deciding to fine tune the undertone of our neutral.

• Thus we changed the color of the trim on the house from a gray with a slightly pinkish taupe undertone [SW7029 Agreeable Gray] to a gray with a decidedly greenish-yellow undertone [SW7050 Useful Gray].

The new color looks like the mortar between the bricks– or at least it does on three sides of the house. The reality is that you have to accept that the light hits your house differently on different sides of the house, therefore not every side will look spectacular with the same color on it.

• The shutters remained a dark green color [SW6261 Jasper] that, quoting Sherwin-Williams, “resonates with quiet force.” And I ask you, who among us doesn’t want forceful shutters?

The new neutral trim with the almost black shutters, while subtle and maybe not even noticeable to a casual observer, is wondrous, creating a cohesive color scheme that has made a big difference in the curb appeal of this property.

• By leaning into these earthy neutral colors that coordinate beautifully with our upgraded retaining walls made from natural golden gray limestone, the house looks more in tune with nature, less like a relic from 1999.

Now when I come home I see a house that looks soothing and inviting, pulled together, calm, in harmony with its surroundings, like the happy house we want it to be.

SOURCES

There are about a gazillion and two websites &/or articles that talk about how to choose paint colors, exterior and interior. The following were helpful to me. I’m receiving no paid compensation for sharing these:

QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

What has been a VERY BIG DEAL for you during this Summer [northern hemisphere] or Winter [southern hemisphere]?

What have you LEARNED multitudes about?

Any PROJECTS PLANNED for the Fall [northern hemisphere] or Spring [southern hemisphere]?

~ ~ 🏠 ~ ~

A Party, A Conversation, A Confused Me: What Does *Mainstream* Mean To You?

/ Ally Bean / 210 Comments

I WAS AT A PARTY where I ended up in a weird conversation that confused me. Generally speaking, being empathetic, I’m good at intuiting what is really being said, reading between the lines, but this time… I dunno.

Here’s what happened:

I was standing in the kitchen [no surprise, right?] talking with three pleasant women, one of whom I’d just met. The other two I’ve seen maybe 2 times in the last 10 years, so not friends– more like casual almost acquaintances that pass in the night.

What I know for sure about these woman is that they each:

  1. are married to the father of their children;
  2. have kids in college, hither and yon across the US;
  3. work outside the home, in different industries;  and
  4. attend Christian churches of different denominations.

• • •

{ source }

• • •

ONE WOMAN WAS TALKING ABOUT how her youngest child would be out of college by the end of the year. This meant that she was to the point of thinking about leaving her full-time job. This woman wasn’t sure what she was going to do next, but it was NOT going to be what she’d been doing.

To me this seemed like a standard conversation, at least until the woman I just met said: “Well, just make sure that whatever you do it next isn’t mainstream.”

And with that the three started laughing, loudly, glancing at each other as if this was the funniest thing anyone ever said.

I was lost.

The conversation continued with them talking about how they could never be mainstream– except that they were rolling their eyes like this was an inside joke and they knew they were mainstream.

I was still lost.

As a free-spirited woman who has never been called mainstream I was clueless about what was being implied by the word mainstream, yet I knew something was up.

At this point I’d have asked clarifying questions, but we were interrupted by someone who walked into the kitchen with a story to tell– and I never got the chance. Considering these are casual acquaintances [at best], I’m not going to call one and ask what was really going on.

• • •

{ source }

• • •

NATURALLY I’VE BEEN WONDERING about the conversation:

🔹 Was it about how they considered themselves to be the very definition of mainstream, embracing the word as a kind of mantra, taking it to be complimentary?

OR

🔹 Was it about how they never would define themselves as mainstream, so there’s no way that one of them could ever do anything mainstream, taking it to be derogatory?

OR

🔹 Were they talking about something else in reference to mainstream, like a pop culture or political or small town allusion that I’m not familiar with, something like that maybe?

Obviously I don’t know, but this conversation has stayed on my mind,  stumped by what was really going on. Thus I’m asking you, my little moonbeams of conversational clarity, for your take on this.

Help me understand, please.

~ 🔹 ~

QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

Have you ever felt like I did that you were adjacent to an inside joke?

When the word mainstream is used around you, assuming it is, how do you define it?

In your worldview does it have a positive or negative connotation? Or neutral?

Also, been to any good parties lately? Do tell

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