Not a rant, a request

[fluffyllama]

Today I caught myself rolling my eyes as I scrolled past someone enthusiastically promoting their latest OTP, and I hate that. I'm in no position to judge a complete stranger's reasons for choosing what interests them, and I don't like it when people want to tell everyone what they *should* be writing. I do, however, think it's good to question my own preferences and assumptions when I see people bring up neglected characters/pairings/genres or whatever.

So the questioning is what this is about, though it's about a use of words.

Spoons.

I don't like using the term myself, as it makes me feel labelled sick. (My brain, sometimes it makes no sense.) So maybe I notice it more, I don't know. I think it's great for its original purpose, and I like that people know what it means, and when I see people use it about themselves I assume they have a good reason to do so.

But if your post is along the lines of 'I did a full day of work and omg long hours and overtime too, ran a marathon at lunchtime, cured cancer in my coffee break, and astronaut training tonight was soooo tough and I was going to finish that fic update you're waiting for tonight but I'm sorry I have no spoons left'... then maybe consider that it might not be the most appropriate phrase to use.

Everything is relative, but really. You're allowed to be tired after all that. And needless to say, I'm jealous of the astronaut training. *g*

Comments

[pauraque]

I think what might be happening is that there are people who actually don't know what the word means. They see others using it and gather from the context that it means "energy", and so they start using it too, not realizing that it specifically means "the limited energy of a person with disabilities".

Incidentally, walgesang and I have a problem where our actual, literal spoons keep disappearing. Like, we look in the drawer in the kitchen, and a particular spoon that should be there is gone. If we were characters in a novel, this symbolism would be way, way too on the nose. :P

[fluffyllama]

You could be right, and maybe it's inevitable that the use changes as it gets more widespread. I find it interesting to watch language change but sometimes I do want to try to hold it back *g*

Spooky about the real spoons. For some reason we have a similar problem with knives, and it's hard to blame the dog for that one!

[pauraque]

Yeah, sometimes I find myself looking at it from two angles at once. On a linguistics level, semantic change is interesting -- extremely so -- and one records and analyzes the full range of usage without prescribing which directions of change are "good" and which are "bad".

Then there's the personal level. I mean, it is true to say that using "gay" to mean "bad" is a case of specific-to-general semantic drift, but it is also true to say that it hurts people's feelings. And that's the point where I find it quite justifiable to take off the linguist hat and start prescribing usage all over the place. :P

Clearly our spoons and your knives are running away together.

[fluffyllama]

Oh yeah, and there you pick the one example I hate more. Ugh. If my stepson ever comes out with that one like the neighbourhood teenagers, there will be trouble.

Do you think anyone is missing forks? If so I hope the cutlery is mature enough to handle it *g* (Ours is certainly old, but I'm not sure that's any guarantee.)

[pauraque]

BTW, are you cross-posting identically between DW and LJ? I'm trying to have each person only friended in one place.

[fluffyllama]

That would require me having a plan. *thinks* That seems to be the general way I'm going, but I'm not concentrating comments anywhere for now.

I am reading both flists but this one is a bit easier to manage, so if you're going for one I'd make it DW :)

[pauraque]

Basically, I don't want to miss anybody's posts, so if there's any difference I just keep a person on both lists, but if it's strictly identical crossposting, I pick one (generally DW unless they're trying to concentrate comments on LJ). I read both flists every day and don't intend to stop, so it's just a matter of avoiding duplication when possible. :)

[fluffyllama]

I am a creature of whim and vagueness, so strict anything... tricky.

Did you import your whole journal over? I don't even know if I still can since I have posts here, but I suppose if I move people to only having them friended over here they won't be able to access old locked posts over there. These are the things that make me vague and indecisive *scratches head*

[pauraque]

Right now I'm being kind of strange and posting most fandom/general-interest stuff on LJ and most personal stuff on DW. I don't feel like it matters if I don't have people friended on LJ because I barely ever posted anything locked there (except stuff like signal-boosting for secret gift comms), and I never do anymore. I haven't imported anything and I don't know how it works if you've already posted to the account.

I'm just being flaky about the whole thing, heh. So many people are cross-posting or have moved-but-not-really, it feels like my whole group of fandom and ex-fandom friends have one leg here and one leg there. I don't know what's going to end up happening with it all, though if LJ keeps pissing people off so royally, well, that'll be that eventually. :P

[fluffyllama]

Yeah, I poked around and it looked different, but I find it hard to keep straight in my head who is posting what where and just looking at my LJ flist with a mind to actually changing anything makes me want to run and hide *g*

So basically, if you want to keep me friended here and remove me on LJ that's cool, but I'll keep you friended over there either way. I've discovered the crossposting feature after a bit of digging, but I'm going to use it to post to IJ automatically for now I think as I don't have as much motivation to manually post there as I do IJ.

If I stick with it over here, I manage to post regularly, and it's usable with the Lynx scheme long term (or they come up with another option that works for me) then I'll get the family to contribute to a paid account for Christmas. Then yay, crossposting heaven and no waffling *g*

[fluffyllama]

* 'as I do to LJ', that should be.

[ariadneelda]

Did you import your whole journal over? I don't even know if I still can since I have posts here

I believe you can. Check out this thread: http://community.livejournal.com/lj_releases/61333.html?thread=3837589#t3837589 I think it answers a lot of things about importing.

[fluffyllama]

Oh, thank you! I will check that out. My LJ is a permanent account so I won't be getting rid of it no matter what if only to get my money's worth, but I'd like to look at all the options available over here :)

Popping in from /network

[jackandahat]

I really, really dislike people stealing the spoons analogy. I have this "It's not FOR you, that's the whole point!" reaction. I've done 18 hour days, back when I could, I know what it's like to collapse into bed and not want to so much as blink because you're so tired through hard work...

...but that's not what "spoons" is about.

I think part of what makes me twitchy is that able-bodied people stealing it feels like when they insist they know just what it's like for me to use a cane every day because they were on crutches for a few weeks back in high school. Or they had a migraine once, so they know how bad I feel (mine are once a week or more). It feels like people assuming things, and taking over, and minimising our experience.

And I want to smack their knuckles with a wooden spoon. *nods*

Re: Popping in from /network

[fluffyllama]

Yeah, exactly that.

I'll admit I get touchy about stuff like this. Our currently-defunct roleplaying group occasionally had people call an early halt due to being tired and I had to bite my tongue not to point out that what they call 'tired' is about where I start, never mind that I just crossed the Pennines (asleep in the passenger seat counts *g*) for what turned out to be maybe an hour of gaming! My sympathy is underwhelming at times like that.

I definitely get the urge to smack some knuckles. I just know that the time I crack will be the time I get it completely wrong, of course, so I hold back.

Re: Popping in from /network

[jackandahat]

Yeah - unless you know someone, you don't know if they are disabled or not. Part of the problem I had getting diagnosed was that one week I could be competition riding, the next I needed a cane to get out of bed. So I wouldn't call someone out unless I knew from their own words they aren't disabled. If I'm hmming, I tend to namedrop ButYouDontLookSick.com and see what the reaction is.

And yeah - I absolutely understand that everyone has tired days, but. And that's the problem, because they don't understand it's not the same for everyone. When I started having health issues I was doing some music stuff, and I had someone go "But why are you dropping out? You don't sing with your knee." No, I don't, but not being able to breathe through the pain is slightly relevant...

Re: Popping in from /network

[fluffyllama]

Heh, I confounded everyone with my randomly wandering symptoms for 18 months (You're depressed! No. You're stressed! NO, BUT I'M GETTING THERE.) before I got a diagnosis (M.E./CFS), and it's still variable so I don't like to jump to conclusions too quickly about others either.

"But why are you dropping out? You don't sing with your knee."

Many things baffle me, but very few more than this type of response. How is it so hard to work out that we know our own limits, usually based on painful experience? Does it really seem more likely that we want to give up something that's either enjoyable, useful or damn near necessary for no reason, or maybe just to cause them inconvenience? One of the hardest things I've ever had to do was to admit I needed to stop working, and I had much the same response from my employers. It gets old fast.

BTW, I have finally worked out what the /network thing means, and I have it not, so shout up if you object to me adding or whatever it's called in these parts (god, I sound like my mother) but your posts look interesting so I will probably pop over at some point anyway.

Re: Popping in from /network

[jackandahat]

What do you mean you don't have /network? *Is confused* And nope, I don't mind - I call it adding, apparently we don't call it "friending" any more, but I still refer to my flist, so.... it's all good!

And yeah - I've had arguments with people asking how long they've been me for. Because frankly, I've been me pretty much 24/7 since 1986. There was a small moment in 1992 where I had a bad reaction to medication and thought I was a cat, but otherwise, I've had a lot of practice at being me.

And that's the other thing - people saying you're being negative. I would like to find and beat the person who came up with "There's no such thing as can't!" Overly cheery little [censored]. There are many such things as can't. I hate people saying "can't" when they mean "don't wanna" - for crying out loud, own your choices! - but when I say can't, I mean it to a reasonable degree.

Re: Popping in from /network

[fluffyllama]

The network (the equivalent of friends friends, yes?) is a paid account thing :) Which I may well end up with come Christmas because the more I discover over here the better it gets. Apart from the site menus being a bit harder to access due to using Lynx it's already more comfortable to use than LJ, so I'm impressed.

I heard "There's no such thing as can't!" or Can't means won't SO many times growing up that if anyone tries that one on me now I will not be responsible for my actions. I'll just be hoping there's internet access in jail!

Re: Popping in from /network

[jackandahat]

Oh! I didn't know that - sorry, I didn't hear about it until I had a paid account, so I didn't realise.

And yeah, that's the kind of thing that makes me want to kneecap people. See how they feel about it then.

[bethbethbeth]

I'm with you. Not indignantly opposed to the word, but still...with you. I thought the metaphor was interesting when I first heard it, but yeah...until my chronic arthritis started getting to the "am I going to be able to get out of bed to go to work today?" stage, I never would have considered using it just when I had a tiring day.

[fluffyllama]

I'm not opposed to its actual use in general, I'm just not comfortable using it myself when talking about my state of health. It makes me laugh because I can get over my family and friends seeing me use a wheelchair (eventually *g*) but I feel self-conscious about using the term 'spoons'? I'm silly.

When it's used in that type of post though, it's just... not only do they get to do all these exciting things and post about them, but they then nick the term that other people had to have specially created in order to explain why they *can't* do these things. It makes me feel like a grumpy old whiner and I'd much rather be able to read about their exciting day and be happy for them *g*