Argh...

I'm so glad graduation is almost over. It's felt like campus has been under invasion for the last month. Not by the normal May tourists -- the families of seniors and the endless groups of school children taking the guided tours -- but by militant abortion protesters.

There have been gory and graphic posters. "Blood"-spattered baby carriages. Trucks driving around town decked out in graphic and inflammatory images. A prop plane that's been buzzing campus for the last three weeks, toting an immense banner of a 10-week-old fetus.

We've received aggressive and disturbing email and phone threats -- against the university's president, Obama, Catholics in general, and the general populace of the school -- for allowing our sitting president to speak at commencement, and for granting him an honorary degree. We've been warned, too, to be prepared for protests at our ceremony (which has nothing to do with Obama). We are apparently to expect anything from peaceful prayer protests during the ceremony to "bloody" baby dolls thrown at the stage.

As Cher Mere has mentioned several times to us, she has to tell her daughter to hide her eyes every time they drive through town. That's just wrong, on so many levels.

It's infuriating and draining. No matter what your personal conviction about the subject, the truth is that the protesters have laid siege to our campus and they have hijacked what should be a joyous and exciting weekend of celebration for the graduates.

Instead, you have people like Randall Terry and Alan Keyes, who arrive in town and hold a press conference to announce that they will disrupt the ceremonies, and fully intend to be arrested for their actions. How does that do the actual cause any good, for attention whores who thrive on their own drama to martyr themselves for publicity?

And then there's the money these asshats have wasted on all this publicity for a "cause" that's lost any chance at garnering sympathy. It's not like they're going to change anyone's minds with these tactics.

Infuriating.

And here is the rest of it.

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They Need More Categories

As suggested by Cher Mere: The Gray-Wheelwright-Winer 4-letter Type Indicator Test. After looking at the results, I can see some of it, but the rest..? Eh, not so much. They got the "introverted" part right, but I'm more like a smashup between INFP and INTP, I think.

Following CM's model, I'll highlight the bits I feel are either pretty close or spot-on. There are some things that might be true, but I suspect my perception of them would differ than that of an outside observer.

You'll notice, the "Mates" section gets no highlighting.

~

INFP -- Introverted Feeling Aided By Intuition

INFPs present a calm, pleasant face to the world and are seen as reticent and even shy. Although they demonstrate a cool reserve toward others, inside they are anything but distant. They have a capacity for caring which is not always found in other types.

They care deeply -- indeed, passionately -- about a few special persons or a cause. One word that captures this type is idealistic. At times, this characteristic leaves them feeling isolated, especially since INFPs are found in only 1 percent of the general population. INFPs have a profound sense of honor derived from internal values. The INFP is the Prince or Princess of mythology, the King's Champion, Defender of the Faith, and guardian of the castle. Sir Galahad and Joan of Arc are male and female prototypes of an INFP. To understand INFPs their cause must be understood, for they are willing to make unusual sacrifices for someone or something believed in.

INFPs seek unity in their lives, unity of body and mind, emotions and intellect. They often have a subtle tragic motif running through their lives, but others seldom detect this inner minor key. The deep commitment of INFPs to the positive and the good causes them to be alert to the negative and the evil, which can take the form of a fascination with the profane. Thus INFPs may live a paradox, drawn toward purity and unity but looking over the shoulder toward the sullied and desecrated. When INFPs believe that they have yielded to an impure temptation, they may be given to acts of self-sacrifice in atonement. The atonement, however, is within the INFP, who does not feel compelled to make public the issue.

INFPs prefer the valuing process over the purely logical. They respond to the beautiful versus the ugly, the good versus the bad, and the moral versus the immoral. Impressions are gained in a fluid, global, diffused way. Metaphors and similes come naturally but may be strained. INFPs have a gift for interpreting symbols, as well as creating them, and thus often write in lyric fashion. They may demonstrate a tendency to take deliberate liberties with logic. Unlike the NT, they see logic as something optional. INFPs also may, at times, assume an unwarranted familiarity with a domain, because their global, impressionistic way of dealing with reality may have failed to register a sufficient number of details for mastery. INFPs may have difficulty thinking in terms of a conditional framework; they see things as either real or fancied, and are impatient with the hypothetical. (I'm not even sure it'd be possible to be a gamer if this were true...)

(Follow the breadcrumbs for the rest.)



Career

At work, INFPs are adaptable, welcome new ideas and new information, are well aware of people and their feelings, and relate well to most, albeit with some psychological distance. INFPs dislike telephone interruptions and work well alone, as well as with others. They are patient with complicated situations, but impatient with routine details. They can make errors of fact, but seldom of values. Their career choices may be toward the ministry, missionary work, college teaching, psychiatry, architecture, psychology - and away from business. They seem willing and usually are able to apply themselves scholastically to gain the necessary training for professional work, often doing better in college than in high school. They have a natural interest in scholarly activities and demonstrate, as do the other NF's, a remarkable facility for languages. Often they hear a calling to go forth into the world to help others; they seem willing to make the necessary personal sacrifices involved in responding to that call, even if it means asking others to do likewise. INFPs can make outstanding novelists and character actors, for they are able to efface their own personalities in their portrayal of a character in a way other types cannot.


Home

At mates, INFPs have a deep commitment to their pledges. They like to live in harmony and may go to great lengths to avoid constant conflict. They are sensitive to the feelings of others and enjoy pleasing those they care for. They may find it difficult to reconcile a romantic, idealized concept of conjugal life with the realities of everyday living with another person. At times, in fact, INFPs may seem fearful of exuberant attainment, afraid that current advances may have to be paid for with later sacrifices. The devil is sure to get his due if the INFP experiences too freely of success, or beauty, or health, or wealth, or knowledge. And thus, INFPs guard against giving way to relaxing in the happiness of mating. They may have difficulty in expressing affection directly, but communicate interest and affection indirectly.


For INFPs, their home is their castle. As parents, they are fierce in protection of home and family and are devoted to the welfare of family members. They have a strong capacity for devotion, sympathy, and adaptability in their relationships, and thus are easy to live with. They are loyal to their family and, although they may dream of greener pastures, if they stray into those pastures they soon locate the nettles. The almost preconscious conviction that pleasure must be paid for with pain can cause a sense of uneasiness in the family system of an INFP, who may transmit an air of being ever-vigilant against invasion. In the routine rituals of daily living, INFPs tend to be compliant and may even prefer having decisions made on their behalf, until their value system is violated! Then INFPs dig in their heels and will not budge from ideals. Life with an INFP will go gently along for long periods, until an ideal is struck and violated. Then an INFP will resist and insist.

Mid-life

At mid-life INFPs may want to increase mastery of intellectual interests, perhaps taking advanced degrees in a chosen profession. They also may want to explore the sensual side of their natures, expanding their aesthetic appreciation to include physical sensory appreciation. Extending social activities and contacts may offer new horizons for INFPs, but they will have to guard against overextension psychologically, for before, during, and after mid-life the vulnerability and sensitivity of the INFP will continue, and he or she can easily become emotionally drained.

Mates

The INFP question probably has more problems in mating than any other type. Let us be mindful of the relative infrequency: about 1.25 percent, say two and a half million people in the USA. Their problem lies in their primary outlook on life. "Life," says the INFP, "is a very serious matter." Now when a person makes his life a kind of crusade or a series of crusades, then there's bound to be some taxing of the spouse. If the INFP takes the other tack, the "monastic" (and the same person can tack back and forth - now a crusader, now a monastic), the spouse will find himself again taxed, trying to draw the monastic out of his dark meditative cave.

The opposites of our crusading monastic seem well equipped for this alternating-phase taxation: ENTJ and ESTJ. Both are anchored in the real world with a vengeance. The ENTJ marshaling his or her forces toward distant objectives, the ESTJ administrating in a solid, dependable, and traditional way whatever is his or hers to administer. Both provide anchorage to a person who might otherwise get lost in meditation or in crusade. Selection of a mate of irrelevant form (e.g., an ISTP artisan or an ESTP promoter) would not be the wisest of tactics in so serious a business as life.

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FAoS: Pot-smoking Mom Calls Police on 10-year-old Son

Stupid criminals amuse me. Child-endangerment does not. Hence my reaction to this woman's idiocy is somewhere in between amusement and sheer pissed-offedness.

Filed under Frightful Attack of Stupid:

WNDU.com
Van Buren County, MI
Posted: 7:00 AM May 4, 2009

Having annoying children is not one of the ailments that qualifies you for Michigan’s new medical marijuana law.

According to our news gathering partners at WSJM, Van Buren County deputies say Nichole Cramer called the sheriff's department to report that her 10-year-old son was rude and wouldn't listen to her.

The deputies dispatched to the Oaktree Apartment complex in Paw Paw township were enveloped by a cloud of marijuana smoke when she opened the door to let them in.

When questioned, she handed them a half-burnt joint and explained she was stressed and needed it to get through the day.

The deputies later returned with a warrant and arrested her.

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And I Quote: Blargh...

Oof. So tired... Thursday and Friday providing some excellent gaming, and the accompanying bouts of mini-insomnia that always follow. Saturday was beautiful, despite the neighborhood cacaphony of power tools and chain saws that started before 8 AM. Later, though, Will started to feel a bit unwell, and that devolved quickly into "violently ill." I'm not sure whether it was a particularly potent stomach flu or food poisoning, but neither of us got much rest the last few days. He does seem to be doing much better, now, though.

I already told my boss I'm leaving if I start to feel ill. She didn't argue the point, even with all the deadlines.

One of my friends at work mentioned that hospitals are now required to treat uninsured patients and may alleviate some of the cost if you ask for a social worker or patient advocate when you go in. She thought this was a federal action, but I haven't been able to find any information on it, yet. I'll have to keep digging on that to see whether it's true.

Also in the realm of unpleasantness, I came to work today and nearly ran over some abortion protestors gathering on a street corner near campus. Happily, there are restraining orders in place so they'll be arrested if the trespass on campus property, but that doesn't mean they won't get as close as they possibly can. This group's members were carting around strollers and huge, garishly colored photo posters of aborted fetuses. If I were a child, those would probably give me nightmares ...

I wonder, if I were to stand on a street corner waving huge color posters of dead adults -- say, torture victims, or abuse victims, or victims of war -- at innocent bystanders, would the police be required to wave that off as a form of free speech, too?

In other news: Cher Mere posted on nightmares yesterday, and it occurs to me that those are the only dreams I ever remember. Hm. Maybe I should watch my blood sugar better, too? Except I don't mind these dreams, honestly. Even the most "normal" of my dreams have some mild creepiness to them, but for the most part, it's like participating in a surreal filming process, recording a nonstop movie as it's being made. There's always a slight sense of detachment to the proceedings so that even if I wake in the middle of pure awfulness, I may wake up crying if the dream was particularly sad, but I almost never wake up with any real sense of panic or fear or paranoia. Instead, I wake up thinking, "Damn, I have to figure out how to use that scene in a story..."

There was one notable exception to the rule that I can remember, though. June of '08 must have been a vivid month for dreams, judging by the number I wrote down. But this is the one that broke the rules for me:

The usual weirdness that plays out like a game of some kind -- trying to escape from someone, factions, gunfights, monsters, etc., but then there was a scene where I drove my car to a park at night, and took a space in a dimly lit parking lot. I had just turned my car off; this guy over in the next row in front of me was backing up his car, and he just glanced up in the rearview mirror and saw me sitting there in my space, getting ready to get out of the car. Everything stopped and shifted slightly, and he smiled this weird, sickly smile and stepped on the gas -- his car slammed into mine, and he just kept speeding up, pushing my car back toward the trees. He twisted around to look at me, growled "Get the fuck out!" -- which I could hear, even though he was in the other car -- and stomped on the gas. Just as I thought my car was going to slam into the trees, there was this weird jarring sensation and that jerk you do just before you hit the ground in a free-fall dream, and I was awake. My heart was pounding, I was close to hyperventilating, and I felt sick to my stomach. And I could smell gasoline and exhaust and that musty vinyl smell of the old car I'd been driving so strongly I gagged.

I laid there for a few minutes, totally freaked out and wide awake. It was around 3:30, and I could hear Will moving around upstairs -- I think I might've made some kind of noise that woke him up briefly. When I finally started to calm down, I realized I was incredibly pissed that that asshat had pushed me out of my own dream.

Oddly, I don't remember my black dog guardian being in that one, or if he was, I didn't write it down. Must've been his night off. ;)

Anyway. I'm itchy to write (must be the weather?) and have some good things going with game emails and such, but I want to get back to my stories, too. I hate being stuck like this, but I know this means I'm on the wrong track somehow, and just haven't figured out precisely what's wrong, yet. Unfortunately, I'm not sure whether the being stuck relates to getting bogged down in the current chapter, or my questioning whether I'm even tackling the story with the right main character. If it's the former, re-working some discovery elements in the story might fix the issue; if it's the latter ... I'll have to rewrite four chapters and my entire approach. And damn it, I like the semi-surreal narrative of the first chapter too much for that. Grr.

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