The New Neighbor Who I’m Not So Crazy About

February 20, 2014February 20, 2014 / Ally Bean / 22 Comments

A neighbor clued me into the fact that there’s a registered sex offender living on our street. He moved here, sometime in the fall, into a smaller house on the edge of the subdivision.

I went online to the Sex Offender Registry to find out what he’d done, what he looked like and his exact street address. The information about his crimes was complete. There were two photos of him, one taken years ago and one more recent photo. Then Z-D & I drove up and down the street until we located his house.

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I have mixed feeling about this development. On the one hand, he has served his time and is doing exactly what the law requires him to do by registering. Perhaps there’s been some therapy along the way? He might be contrite, reformed.

But on the other hand I’m judgmental enough to not trust a 30-something, college-educated male who solicited minors online and got caught by the police when he showed up for the meeting. There’s something morally wrong with this scenario that I’m not sure I can overlook.

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Thinking about it all, my negative attitude might be a bigger indictment of my inability to forgive than it is an accusation against him. Clearly, I haven’t yet figured out how to process this information, as this is the first time, to my knowledge, that I’ve lived near a registered sex offender.

I’ll let you know if/when I shift into a more forgiving point-of-view, but in the mean time, I think that I’ll just keep my distance from that end of the street. There are plenty of other directions I can walk around here. No need to tempt fate with an accidental meeting.

Sclerotherapy: Wearing Pantyhose, Feeling Pincushion-y

February 6, 2014 / Ally Bean / 20 Comments

I’m writing this post as I sit here wearing, of all things, pantyhose under my jammies. Not just any pantyhose, mind you. No, I have on light compression pantyhose in a most peculiar, unnatural shade called, Suntan Beige.

The reason for this deviant pantyhose-wearing behavior is that I had sclerotherapy on my legs. And once one has this voluntary, cosmetic, medical procedure, one must wear support pantyhose, of any color, for two weeks afterward.

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For those of you fortunate enough to not have pasty white vein-y legs, I’ll explain what sclerotherapy is. You’ve probably never heard of it before. Lucky ducks.

Sclerotherapy, which involves a trained medical professional with a sharp needle + saline solution, is a way to permanently remove spider veins & varicose veins from your legs. Doctors have done it since the 1930s, so this is nothing new.

WebMD describes the procedure thusly:

“In most cases of sclerotherapy, the salt solution is injected through a very fine needle directly into the vein. At this point, you may experience mild discomfort and cramping for one to two minutes, especially when larger veins are injected. The procedure itself takes approximately 15 to 30 minutes.”

While the above description is technically correct, what it fails to make clear is that sclerotherapy is not just one injection, it is many injections during the 15 to 30 minutes.

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Meaning, quite simply, that one becomes a human pincushion during this procedure. And while I’m the first to admit that it doesn’t hurt per se, it is damned annoying to be jabbed [oh say, 50 times] with a sharp little needle.

So it is at this point in my life that I find myself this morning. I’m squished inside a hideous pair of pantyhose, wondering how long it’ll be before the memory of this procedure floats out of my mind. And my legs look wunderbar.

Only time will tell I guess.

So You Want A Blog With Personality, Eh?

January 31, 2014August 29, 2018 / Ally Bean / 21 Comments

“In the midst of the personified impersonal, a personality stands here. Though but a point at best; whencesoe’er I came; wheresoe’er I go; yet while I earthly live, the queenly personality lives in me, and feels her royal rights.”

~ Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale

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Lately one Google search term has brought inquisitive minds to my blog. People arrive wanting to know:

HOW TO GIVE A BLOG A PERSONALITY.

When the inquisitive ones arrive here they find themselves looking at a post that I wrote called: Yea Verily, A Personality Test Doth A Blog Post Make. As this post talks about the variables that form a human being’s personality, I can only assume that the inquisitive ones leave here sad & uninformed.

WELL, THIS WILL NOT DO AT ALL.

Thus, as someone with a queenly personality, I am pleased to explain how I believe you give a blog a personality. Happy to do it, in fact. From what I can tell, there are four points to keep in mind.

#1 You, yourself, must have a personality that you are willing to share with the world. I’m not being snarky here, but I’ve come to realize that if you do not know who you are & how you want to be perceived by other people, then your blog will show it.

#2 Make your blog look stylish in a way that reflects who you are. Sounds shallow, but a smart-looking blog keeps readers coming back. Don’t know why, but it does. (See #1)

#3 Show up to your stylish blog on a regular basis and write posts that are the epitome of clarity, that give an insight into your values, that suggest an authentic person is keeping this blog. (See #1)

#4 Leave supportive, interesting comments on other blogs so that everyone who reads what you have to say will know that you have a personality– and that you’re not afraid to use it. (See #1)

SO THERE YOU HAVE IT.

Giving a blog a personality is really just about as simple as that. Not necessarily easy, but simple. And doable if you put your heart and mind into it.

Good Luck, inquisitive ones. I leave you with this blessing.

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“May the blogging gods smile upon you– and reward your efforts with genuine followers, sincere likes & insightful comments.”

~ Ally Bean, The Spectacled Bean

Winter Beauty: A Simple Lesson In Perspective

January 23, 2014January 23, 2014 / Ally Bean / 10 Comments

Yesterday as I was going through some photos of winter scenes that I shot a few weeks ago, I was taken with the following simple lesson in perspective.

It’s a lesson that applies to photography as well as problems.

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Sometimes the simplest things look complex & confusing when you see them up close. For instance, here is a tangle of brown tree branches covered in white snow.

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Step back, add a bit of a blue sky and the snow-covered brown tree branches begin to look less chaotic. In fact, from this angle the tree branches appear more organized & interconnected.

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Expand your perspective again and the snow-covered brown tree branches in the foreground become incidental to the clear blue sky that forms the background.

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The simple lesson here?

By putting a little distance between you and whatever, you’ll see the big picture. And from that vantage point, we can only hope, you’ll understand what’s really going on.