NoJoMo 29 but first in Book Five: Working Through the Maze 2018

So.... I’m a do a NoJoMo but first I wanted to share
(1) Wife has been at her parents for most of the week. She and her parents returned to the house last night. Her parents are weird people but lovely and I’m happy to be welcomed into their family. However, MIL is rather a hoarder. An interesting thing as MIL is a hoarder and Aoife’s mom is a hoarder. I did say last night in private, “Why are all the best girl’s mom’s hoarders” lol. This is an item to mention because Wife’s return to the home and to me was a JOYFUL thing for her. She was relieved and ecstatic to be home, to the point where she was considerably more huggy. Of course not kissy are flirty or anything beyond hugs… but she was considerably more huggy due to her joy of being back in a place with space and floors and places to sit.
(2) Last night in sleep, she did wake me up once at around 3:45 a.m. However, I don’t actually blame her on this one. I stopped breathing. She was worried. When I woke up, my nose was entirely plugged up, like air-sealed and I couldn’t get air to come in or mucus to come out. So… yeah. I get that one. I needed to unclog my nose lest my body stupidly forget “breathe when unconscious.”
(3) This morning, I woke up and showered and drove into Town with enough time to stop off at Casey’s and get breakfast. Which helped because I was already more productive in the first hour of work than I have been on some entire days. Though, that also has a lot to do with the work itself. Last night, a young man assaulted his caretakers which means lots of paperwork for me in order to properly charge.
(4) I have finalized my letter to my Wife asking for clarification and road-mapping in our Marriage Counseling. I want to know where we hope to get to besides simply “better” and if our relationship even can include a shared sex life. I’ll be giving her the letter this evening.

(5) The world at large continues to amaze and disappoint. Yet another series of posts from non-white non-males.
A black man is shot dead and the police say “it is because he was holding a gun” but the facts of the case show that the man was legally holding his legally owned gun after detaining an active shooter. Once again, White Male Conservatives say “He shouldn’t have had his gun out” but these are the same people that routinely say “Good Man With A Gun is the only way to stop a Bad Man With A Gun”… so which is it? The good man with a gun was shot and killed by law enforcement who (1) were called for an active shooter, (2) saw a black man with a gun, (3) and decided he WAS the active shooter. If that series of events sounds “logical and right” to you… then the Good Man With A Gun Narrative can’t work in practice because “Active Shooter”+”Police Involvement”= Dead Good Man With A Gun. OR you have to admit an inherent racism in the whole matter. Because if “Good Black Man With A Gun” is an acceptable casualty but Cliven Bundy illegally holding an armed standoff with police and never being injured doesn’t strike you as incongruous… there are issues.
Further, we look to the experience of women. A woman posted a really insightful “Sexual Harassment” chart to try to help Business Workers going around saying “MeToo means I can’t be nice to women at my work place.” AND OF COURSE there is a deep divide in responses. Half the responses are women who say “Happens to me every day” or men who say “Thank you, this is helpful.” But the other half… the loud, angry half… shout “This doesn’t really happen” or “The death of Free Speech!” or other absolutely stupid and shitty things. And I know… I’m aware that there are people in this world who simply DO NOT CARE and DO NOT WISH TO CARE about other people. I know that. I wouldn’t have a job otherwise. But vitriol and attacking people because you’ve (a) never SEEN the bad behavior, (b) never DONE the bad behavior, or worse (c) don’t want to STOP the bad behavior? Selfish, short-sighted, or cruel.

NoJoMo 29 Prompt 1: What do you consider ” love” to be?

NoJoMo 29 Answer 1:
Call me a Jesus Freak but I think the New Testament genuinely gives the best instruction on love. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Greater love has no other than this, he that would lay down his life for his friends. Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. In virtue, three values remain: faith, hope and love; but the greatest of these is love.

And that all proves to be love generalized. It does not speak to Romantic Love exclusively or Friendship Love or Family Love. In truth, the spirit of love remains the same in all capacities.... to forgive, to sacrifice, to show grace. Where we separate love and create specialized areas is in how we express that love and how deeply that love exists and is shared. I truly love some of my friends the way I love my family, but that is not true of all of my friends. That does not change our interaction (I don’t show one friend more grace or support than another) but it does suggest how deeply I feel about the person.

NoJoMo 29 Prompt 2: What is your most vivid memory of the kitchen in your childhood?

NoJoMo 29 Answer 2: Gosh, more memory ones! lol
There are three memories, but they aren’t the biggest SET memory moments.
First: Simply all the “I don’t waaaannnnnaaaaa of homework. I would do homework at the kitchen Island usually because if I was sitting alone in my room doing homework… it felt like torture. I wanted to be around people.
Second: Talks and talks and talks and talks. My mother is a Christian Woman who was raised by Norwegian Hippies and she is married to an Episcopalian Conservative. So any opportunity to talk about liberal politics or questions of faith or… the impolite dinner topics that I have degrees in (lol) we’d talk and talk and talk.
Third: OH… of course I wouldn’t leave out the stabbing. Well, that is hyperbole and over-dramatic and technically a fabrication based on an exaggeration of an actual event.
So… this is a story I’ve shared before probably. Aku, crazy ex that I could write an entire novel about and maybe should someday, and I had broken up. I had not YET gotten her kicked out of school (her words) for attacking me on school grounds. But it WAS after the police had dragged her off of my porch in the middle of the night. So that can show you where she and I were in things. It also shows you how stupid I was for opening the door when she came to my house!
So, she comes over and bangs on my door. I’m already sick of dealing with this shit (after 8 months of an abusive and toxic relationship and the literal insanity I dealt with during and after) I was going to give this chick a piece of my mind to go away and leave me the ever loving fuck alone! I opened the door and… she forcefully pushed past me, bursting into the house and ran straight for the kitchen. She flung open the silverware drawer and pulled out the largest kitchen knife we had. She ran back at me at which point I grabbed the knife hand and lifted her off the ground. This… was adrenaline fueled and impressive (actually) as I was 5‘7 and 120 pounds whereas she was 5‘8 and 170 lbs. I screamed for my Dad and he came downstairs to help disarm her and eject her from the house. Note: We did not call the police. We handled it, situation resolved, moving on. Later she called and wrote dozens of notes… not to apologize (not at all!) but to tell me that she wasn’t attacking me she was going to slit her wrists and die on our porch. As if that was an important thing for me to understand.