Marko is three

What the heck?  Wasn't he just two?

Only if I look back at old pictures, I know it's been awhile.  This is what he looked like when he was two:

 Gulp.  I thought he was sooo big.  Now those clothes don't fit him.

He was scared of his birthday candles.  Awww.

That sweet long hair!  I had to buzz it yet again today because the bald spots were so bad.  I can't remember if I've mentioned that he pulls it out.  He does it as he's falling asleep or when he's reading a book.  That's what I get for thinking I'd finally broken him of the habit of pulling hair!  He just stopped pulling mine and moved on to his. Hence the Marine haircut.  It makes me so sad.

If that's bad, look at this.  This is him two years ago, on his first birthday:

 

Whoa.  Michael is bigger than that.  

And there's his first-ever bite of cake.  He ate the frosting off, but detected the stealth nutritional value in my low-sugar, gluten-free cake.  This year I am not making that mistake.  Chocolate cupcakes all the way.  He helped me make them and licked the whisk.

How do I have a kid old enough to help me bake?  Aren't I, like, in high school still?  No?

If that's not bad enough, we can go back three years and look at this one.  I don't even remember this.  Except ... when I think about it ... yes, I can.  I had had a horrible, horrible day.  But I was glad to see him.

I can't really remember, though, what it was like not to have him around.  I know that there must have been a time with no Marko.  But how boring my life must have been!  How lonely!  What long naps I took ... and baths ... and days on the couch doing nothing but reading ... well, it wasn't all bad.  But it's better now.  I'm so glad to have this kid in my life.  He's three.  And three is an awesome age.  Every year he blossoms a little more, shows us a bit more of who he really is. 

He's a fun guy.  He's adventurous and always got something going on upstairs.  He's a worrier.  He's a little nervous around strangers, but he warms up after a bit.  He loves Daddy and the dog and playing outside.  He hates being micromanaged.  He likes to do things all by himself -- except when he's feeling little and just wants to be fed, dressed, and carried.  He's got a lot to say.

His favorite thing in the world is having something useful or helpful to do.  He might drag his feet on using the potty or going to bed, but ask him for help sorting silverware or emptying the dryer and he announces, "I will!  I will!" and runs to do it.  He can be two hands full when we take him out to the store, but tell him what to put in the cart and he rises to the occasion.

When he plays with another kid, he is okay with being led around by the hand and dragged into games.  But within an hour or two, he starts to pull back and want to play by himself ... and if he doesn't get that, he falls apart.  He can be bossy sometimes with us, but with other kids he is the follower as often as not.  He freaks out if things are too different, if people sit in the wrong chairs or wear the wrong clothes or do things in the wrong order.  It makes him happy to do things the same way every time.

Sometimes I wish I could turn the clock back and have him be my baby again.  I can't imagine I really was enjoying him enough then.  Sure, there were hours and hours I spent with him just asleep on my chest, watching him doze and smelling his head ... but I feel like I must have missed some, have not been paying full attention, because if I had been, it couldn't possibly have passed by so fast.

And yet I don't want to go back.  Because Marko is fully himself now too, and just as much a delight as ever.  I don't want him to grow any bigger because he is perfect now.  Still, the thought of him continuing to unfold and learn and grow is so exciting to me.  I can barely wait to see what he'll do next.

So for now, I will enjoy three-year-old Marko.  He's a ton of fun, and I want to enjoy every minute.  Three years has taught me one thing, at least -- it won't last.

Let this be the year

The year that you start gardening, that is!

People think of gardening as difficult, a specialized skill.  It's not.  It's easier than cooking, and (in my opinion) just as basic a skill.  And then some people think that gardening is a lot of work, which it isn't unless you want it to be.  If you want to garden for exercise, grow topiaries or roses or some other difficult thing.  But if you want to throw seeds in the ground and get free food, most vegetables are quite amenable to this treatment.

I am a lazy gardener.  I spend more time harvesting than on any other garden chore.  I don't till and I barely weed.  And yet I have had lots of vegetables.  Not as many as I'd have if I actually worked at it, I'm sure, but certainly enough to make it worth my while.

If you have a patch of yard, a balcony, or a sunny window, and you are not gardening, you are wasting God's good earth.  Why not just light cigarettes with $100 bills while you're at it?  You could be pulling free money out of the ground.

Okay, so here are some basic tips for the first-year gardener.  I'm not a gardening expert, but I see this as an advantage.  If I can do it, so can you.

First, consider your possibilities.  What space do you have for gardening?  A south-facing window will do if nothing else is available, but outdoors is better, because who's got time for watering when God can do that for you?  If you're going to use containers, you'll have to buy dirt.  Potting soil is fine.  So are worm castings, if you can get them -- my farmers' market has them, and they appear to be the best thing you could get for container gardening.

Next, what do you want to grow?  If you have very limited space, herbs are a good choice because you don't need a lot of them.  My first year I grew basil.   I guess I had about two square feet, maybe a bit less, and I got more basil than I could use.  Other good plants for containers include lettuce, spinach, strawberries, or cherry tomatoes.  You can buy those upside-down tomato planters, if you like, or just punch some holes in a ten-gallon bucket and call it good.

If you've got actual ground, easy crops include green beans, sugar snap peas, tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash of any kind.  Beans and peas like a trellis, but they don't take up much ground, so it's easy to stick them in near your fence.

Traditionally, people have dug up the dirt before planting.  But in my experience, it's better not to.  You can smother the weeds or grass the fall before.  But since it's April, you may have to dig -- but just scrape the sod off the ground.  Don't go crazy with digging deep.  Better yet, if you have the funds, lay some cardboard or newspaper on the ground and heap six inches of dirt on top of that.  The grass will die under the weight of the dirt, and when your seeds reach that far down, they'll get a nice buffet of rotting grass and weeds.  The earthworms will be going crazy too.  Digging just confuses the worms -- it's their job to dig, not yours.

Now you're ready to plant.  When should you plant?  Depends on what and where.  You can find a chart for your area.  The general rule is to divvy up your plants into two groups, early and late.  Early stuff, like lettuce, spinach, broccoli, cabbage, beets, carrots, potatoes, and peas, is going in right about now where I live.  Put it in when you start seeing fruit trees blooming and a green haze starting in the woods.  If you follow a calendar, don't let it tempt you into planting when it's still freezing cold.  I did that and my peas got snowed on.  Wait till it's really spring.

For late stuff, like tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and squash, wait till it's pretty much summer and it's actually hot.  Check the 10-day forecast; the overnight lows should be in the 40's.

Next, consider whether you want to start your seeds inside or outside.  Some things just don't sprout very well outside, or they need to get started in your warm house while it's still cold outside.  Good things to start inside include tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, and cabbage.  I direct-seed everything else, but you can start anything inside except root crops like carrots or beets.  They won't like it if you transplant them.

Growing plants inside is the hardest part for me.  I hate it, there's never enough light, and I forget to water them.  In fact, I think I have broccoli seedlings wilting of thirst right now.  Oops.  I've killed them twice already this year.  (Never give up!  Just plant again!  And again, and again!)  Plant seeds about three times their diameter, or less if you like.  I barely cover mine, no matter what kind, if I'm growing them inside.  When you are sprouting seeds, the key is moisture and heat.  Don't ever let the soil dry out at this stage.  Later, a bit of aridity will do them good, but a sprouting seedling has no roots and really needs to be wet all the time.  The top of the fridge or the back of the stove will keep them warm.  Move them into the light when you see green appearing.

When it's warm enough for them outside, or you're sick of having them inside, or they have a few true leaves (the first two seed leaves don't count), you can transplant them.  Dig a little hole where you want them to be, take them out of the pot, and stick them in.  A rainy or cloudy day is perfect; otherwise do it in the afternoon.  A full day's sun is a lot to ask them to deal with on their first day.  (Though it's best of all if you can get them used to full sun beforehand by leaving them on the porch and bringing them in at night when practical.  I do this, but then I forget them and they freeze to death outside.  Oops.)  Give the seedlings plenty of water their first few days.  Really coddle them.  When they're about a week old you can go back to neglecting them.

If you're direct-seeding outside, just put the seeds in the dirt.  I have tried everything, especially with lettuce, which gives me a ton of trouble every time.  And what seems to work best for me is to toss a ton of seeds down on a wet day and just hope.  If the seeds are large, you'll want to actually bury them.  Since I always keep a lot of mulch on the garden (mostly just old leaves), I pull it back to plant seeds.  Leaving a little straw there does no harm, though; the plants can push through it.  Again, you have to keep the soil wet while things are sprouting.  I've occasionally had some dry weather and had to water twice a day.  That's the hard part.  Once the plants are up, they can fend for themselves much better.

If you're nervous about all of the above, you could just buy seedlings in pots from a garden or hardware store.  Sometimes they are not very healthy and will just die on you.  Your best bet is to get the smallest seedlings you can find.  The big ones are usually busy overgrowing their pots and they won't root well in your garden.

Then you pretty much just leave the plants to grow, in their pot or in the ground, until they start giving you food.  It might be helpful to read some tips on the plants you've chosen; basil, for instance, needs to be harvested often or it will go to seed and die.  If you see a lot of weeds, pull them up.  Midsummer is the time you've really got to watch out, because the weeds can get ahead of you fast.  The rest of the year, not so much, so I have been known to turn a blind eye on a couple of purslanes in the with the vegetables on the fall.  Best of all is if you have a good source of old leaves, straw, or hay -- pile it on the bare soil around your plants' roots, and it will smother the weeds and keep the soil from drying out.

If you miss the "right" dates for planting, do not worry.  You can plant later.  Once it's hot, your "early" plants might not make it, but you can go on planting "late" ones into midsummer.  Then once the hottest weather is over, you can go straight back to your "early" ones for a fall crop.  I can't believe I worried that my green beans would die because I planted them in July.  They did amazing, better than they did when I planted them on time.  Planting a bit later can be better, because they get more sun.

If your plants turn yellow, they may be deficient in nitrogen.  I'm not a believer in artificial fertilizers, but you know what has nitrogen?  Pee.  Any kind of manure will do -- chicken, cow, rabbit -- but don't put it directly on your plants unless it's been composting for awhile, because it has too much nitrogen.  You can put a handful of manure in a gallon of water and just pour it on that way.  Or swish a wet cloth diaper in the watering can.  It's amazing how fast they perk up.

If they get a disease ... well, my technique is to just step back and see how they do.  Often they fight it off.  Sometimes they die and I just harvest what I can.  It's the circle of life.  Same for bugs.  You can handpick bugs off your plants, but a few bugs probably won't kill your plants, and a plague of bugs will kill them whatever you do, so neglect works okay here too.

Once my plants are established, they get water once a week.  No more, or they get spoiled.  If you water too often, your plants won't put down deep roots, and so if you forget a day, they'll keel over and die.  If it rains, you're good for a week.  If a week goes by without rain, water ... but thoroughly.  Water first thing in the morning, before it gets hot, and really soak the soil under the plants.  Don't spray the leaves, water the dirt.  If you're in doubt as to whether you need to water, don't just look at the soil surface -- dig a little hole.  If the soil is wet a couple inches down, you're good, even if the surface is dry and cracking.  If the plants are starting to wilt, though, go ahead and water them.

If nothing comes up, or if your plants die ... plant more stuff.  Don't let it discourage you.  It happens, but seeds are cheap.  In fact, I think it's good to stagger plantings -- throw down a few more seeds each week until something grows.  And though they tell you to start small, with just one kind of plant, I'd say the opposite.  Grow at least two things so that something grows.  If you find something that works well for you, well, that's one thing you can count on!  My staples are tomatoes and pumpkins.  Other things are iffy for me.  I keep trying, and someday I hope to have the hang of it.

Whatever you do, just keep planting stuff.  You're developing a valuable skill, you're saving money, and if you're lucky you will get something delicious that will put you off the produce aisle version for good.  Don't think of it like an input-output game.  Think of it like gambling.  Your number might not come up ... but a ticket's cheap.  Why not try?  You could hit it big with a bumper crop of something good to eat.  And if you don't win this time, keep trying.  The odds are in your favor.

Good luck and happy gardening!

Some random pictures

Someone (Sojourner?) asked about my wedding dress.  Here's what it looked like.  The veil is just a huge gauze oval that went over my head and down the back almost to my feet.

It was good for dancing in.

I'm not sure why this picture is stubbornly upside-down.  I blame my smart-aleck phone.  It was so sure this picture belonged upside-down that every time I try to rotate it, it ends up turned over again.

Anyway, my kids are cute.

This was a breakthrough I really didn't want Michael to reach.  He is only 11 months and can now scale a chair in about 10 seconds.

So, in my attempt to wear actual outfits instead of just my husband's old t-shirts, I've gotten obsessed with pashminas.  I have four of them, each one a gift, each one a gorgeous color, and I never wear them.  So I've been wearing them all week.  They are so handy.

You can wear them instead of a sweater.

Or if your kid is feeling cold, they can snuggle into it.

You can use it as a nursing cover.  (This pose lasted about 5 seconds before Michael yanked it off, so be warned.)

A good one will double as a very good sling.  They have exactly the right amount of give.

They do back carries, too.  They're a bit short to be completely secure, but this one works in a pinch.

Oh, and if you're working in the garden and afraid of getting a sunburn ... or you're into covering your head in church ... or you accidentally blunder into an Islamic republic on the way home from the playground ... this style should do the trick.

See?  Pashminas are like a mom uniform.  I highly recommend them.  Get machine washable ones, though, because if you can't wipe a toddler's nose with it, it ain't worth wearing.

Born too late

Lately I've been feeling very discontented with my online life.  I read things like this article and I think, that's me.  Using the internet to filter down the world to only those parts that I'm comfortable with.  Or this one, reminding me of how extremely ADD the internet makes me.  I can't read through a whole article before switching to some other tab for no reason at all except that I'm already bored with the tab I'm in.  Endless hours get eaten up in front of the computer, and there's always more to read.  I always have a dozen tabs open that I really want to get to, and those tabs draw me back to the computer to "finish up" even though I have other things I should be doing.  By the time I get up, I feel listless, crammed with information I've had no opportunity to reflect on, guilty for the time I've wasted, sluggish from having spent so much time on my butt.  Why do I do this to myself?  I'm not even enjoying it!

Since I got married, I haven't fasted on the fast days of the Church.  Because I've been pregnant or nursing the whole time, I'm exempt -- which is a huge relief to me, because I am a terrible faster.  Instead, I fast from the internet.  I am more addicted to the internet than I am to food, and I figure it will be a huge sacrifice.

But the thing is, it never is.  It's not a sacrifice at all.  It's a relief.  The computer is shut and I'm free to find other things to do.  I clean the house.  I play with my kids (some ... I am still a big believer in kids entertaining themselves).  I read library books and start craft projects.  And it's great.  My days pass slower, but more enjoyably.  When I rest, I actually feel like I'm resting.  And almost any other thing I do, I end up getting tired of or bored with and feeling like moving on to the next thing.  It drives me on to do housework or knock out my to-do list.  The internet dulls that feeling of "finished" -- I am never finished.

I ended up stretching my fast a little further and staying mostly off the computer throughout the weekend.  It was great.  Why get back on at all?  Well, I did miss my friends, whom I can't see often in real life.  And I am doing book research.  But mainly because it felt like I can't actually be a human being in the 21st century and not be online a lot.  People expect it.  Still, I'd like to be more intentional about it from now on -- maybe even figure out a schedule for computer time.  Because I have to admit that my relationship with the internet is way unhealthy.

Anyway while I was offline, I was thinking about the past.  I've been studying archeology a lot lately, like I've said, and it's so neat to see all the things people can do.  Any woman of the middle ages could do all of the following: card wool, spin yarn, weave, brew, light a fire, bake, tend a garden, make cheese, pickle vegetables, make butter, and so many more things.  Sure, I can do things she couldn't: read, type, drive a car.  But it's so rare for us nowadays to do the entire thing of any job.  Maybe we can make our own clothes, but we buy the cloth.  We cook food, but we buy the ingredients.

I just have this craving to do the whole thing myself.  I like to grow food and pick it and cook it and eat it.  I dream of carding wool and spinning it and weaving it and sewing it.

John tried to get me to explain this desire of mine, because he doesn't get it at all.  Part of it is simply that I enjoy creating.  I love to create; it doesn't even matter what.  Over the years I've created dolls, puppets, paintings, novels, woven things, knit things, crochet things, food, gardens, quill pens, alcoholic beverages, photographs, poems, treehouses, and clothing.  It's satisfying in a way that nothing else is.  And I don't like to make a fancy craft out of it, buying a ton of supplies so I can do it right.  I like to improvise materials and use what I have on hand.

Part of it is a desire for independence.  I have a moral notion, something no one ever taught me, but which I guess I picked up from my upbringing, that it is more virtuous to make something than to buy it.  That it's better to be a producer than a consumer.  I loathe shopping.  I detest it.  Since I usually shop at Aldi, I find the regular grocery store a shock.  So much stuff!  So much worthless junk!  So many things you could easily make yourself!

Meanwhile, I'm sure there are people who walk the aisles thinking, "Wow.  Wonders of civilization."  I saw a video awhile back that told the story of a pencil.  How many different people's work goes into making a pencil, and what a wonderful thing it is that capitalism brings all these things together to make a pencil that no single one of us could make on our own.  It just left me thinking, "You think an individual can't make an implement to write with?  Watch me."  I wanted to give up pencils for good and fling it in the teeth of Dixon Ticonderoga.  But that would be kind of a useless gesture seeing as I use a computer that has a heck of a lot more people's work going into it, and I can't make my own computer components.

What the heck is wrong with me?  Is it the Scotch descent?  Ideals learned from Depression-era grandparents?  The constant fear of poverty?  Was I just born into the wrong era, that I can't appreciate a vast, complex economy and unlimited variety of consumer goods?

All I know is that I recently saw a documentary on replicating life in the Iron Age and I thought, "Oh, man.  That would be awesome."  I would love to live in a house I had built myself, milking cows, grinding grain in a saddle quern, and spinning wool from my sheep.  Maybe I'm idealizing.  Maybe I'm really too lazy and couldn't do all the work.  But I'm ashamed of that lazy side of myself; I'd rather do the work.

The one sticking point, though, is the loneliness.  People then lived in community.  Now we're so isolated, without our technological devices, it would be hard to keep in touch.  My next-door neighbor told me today that no one sits on their front porches anymore.  They all stay inside where the air-conditioning is.  He and I get along fine, by the way.  At first I admit I stereotyped him, because he, like most people around here, is something of a redneck.  But maybe that's the internet talking, my tendency to sort people by stereotype and then choose to associate only with those who are like me.  Maybe it opens my mind more to talk to my neighbor over the fence than it does to read a blog of another crunchy hippie Catholic mother on the other side of the world.  I just need to find ways to create community in the places where I am.

As time goes on, I find myself becoming more and more of a Luddite.  When I started using the internet, I also started making medieval clothing.  Now that we have internet on our phones, I'm dreaming of a drop spindle. 

Ah well, I never was any good at staying in style anyway.

When it comes down to it, it's not about abandoning the modern world.  It's about bringing those ancient things that I love into the present so that I can build a life that's true to who I am, that allows me to live in the modern world without letting it change me more than I'm comfortable with.

Archeology and anarchy

In which I use archeology to explain why anarchy doesn't work.  In a bajillion words or less.

I've been reading up on archeology lately.  So.  Cool.  It started with the Iron Age and then I had to look up the Bronze Age and next thing you knew I was in the Stone Age.  (I highly recommend The Lost Civilizations of the Stone Age, by Richard Rudgley.  The thesis is that the stone ages, both paleolithic and neolithic, were much more developed than was originally thought.  And the newest archeological developments appear to support this, like this amazing find in the Orkney Islands.)

The major trait of the paleolithic period was that humans were hunter-gatherers.  They may have had a great deal of oral knowledge, but they didn't make many artifacts because anything they made, they would have had to carry.  We guess about them a lot, partly by looking at modern-day hunter-gatherers, and partly by their few artifacts and cave paintings.

The paleolithic period has a lot of fans, myself included.  Mark Sisson likes to talk about paleolithic diet and exercise, and Peter Gray about paleolithic psychology.  Their life sounds somewhat Edenic from what we know of it; they had few possessions, little violence, and basically no real government.  And they kept up this fairly stable system for a much longer span of time than the entirety of written history.  Kind of makes you think.

No one knows what made these nomads decide to settle down and start farming.  Farming entails more work, more risk of famine, and poorer health than hunting and gathering.  Did they just not realize this?  Were they lured by the promise of food growing right in their backyard?  Or was it just part of the curse of original sin, that we were going to have to start earning food by the sweat of our brow instead of picking it off the trees like we used to?

Whatever the reason, there was no going back.  Agriculture led to a population boom, and once the population had reached that size, it couldn't be supported on a hunter-gatherer lifestyle anymore.  Agriculture allows for dense food production, while hunter-gatherers must have a lower population density.  Furthermore, if your tribe was still hunting while your neighbors were farming, you'd be at a disadvantage.  They would come along and burn down your forest and plant corn in it, and it was pretty much farm or perish.  So people farmed.  We call it the Neolithic Revolution.

With the Neolithic Revolution, we get the concept of land ownership.  And from that point on, land ownership has been a necessity of life.  Unless you are a hunter-gatherer, you will need a patch of land for your very own.  (Nomadic herders might be another exception to the rule.)  This wasn't such a big deal in the Neolithic.  People staked out spots, but as far as we know, they don't seem to have squabbled over them much.  And small wonder: their best weapons were still flint arrows and stone axes.  These weren't much of a leg up over fistfighting.  Sure, you could do it -- but since you were as likely to be killed as your opponent, it wasn't a very good risk to take.  And anyway, everyone was too busy trying to survive by farming to do much fighting.  As a result, there was still not much government, and relative equality.

The Bronze Age changed this.  Bronze, you see, is not all that common.  You have to have both copper and tin to make it, plus specialized skill.  Someone who was a successful farmer and had some free time to spare, or someone with access to metals, or someone with secret knowledge, suddenly had a huge advantage over everyone else.  Why slave over the land when it was easier to make a bronze spear, head on over to your neighbor's farm at harvesttime, and just help yourself to their crop?

Suddenly Joe the Farmer was in a dangerous spot.  He needed the land to live -- but he needed weapons if he were to protect it.  And he needed time to patrol it, which he couldn't do if he were busy farming.  Naturally he looked over to the nearest, friendliest-looking guy with a bronze sword.  "Here," he must have said, "let's save ourselves some trouble.  I'll just give you a tenth of my crop right off, and in return you defend me against all the other sword-wielding guys."  That sounded like a good plan -- less bloodshed all around, and a living for the new "king" that didn't involve stealing peasants' entire livelihoods.  But it created as well a rigid social structure that relied on inequality.

And this, I feel, is the moment when anarchy, as a viable social theory, died.  (I do not mean anarchy in the sense of "chaos," but anarchism the political system, which sees everything as reducible to free association.  Real anarchists sometimes call themselves libertarians, but as an actual libertarian, I resent this.  I do believe in government.  Just limited government.)  It may well have been possible to have a stateless society in the Neolithic, and it appears that to some extent they did.  But I don't believe it is possible today.

Land ownership is taken to be a very minor point by most people.  For instance, when they say, "Oh, I'd grow a garden, but I live in an apartment."  But it's actually a very major issue.  Access to natural resources is necessary for survival.  If you do not have direct access, you will be reliant for your survival on those who do have that access.  That is to say, you rely on the grocery store, and on its continued willingness to accept scraps of paper in exchange for food.  You also rely on the owner of your apartment to continue to let you live there.  Since anarchists like to say that you are free to do whatever you want on your own property, it does seem to follow that your landlord is free to restrict your rights while you're living there -- as in fact landlords do, when it comes to quiet hours and indoor paintball parties.

So, you have to have land to be free from anyone's control.  Fine.  You buy a piece of it for $100,000 and say to yourself, "Now I am truly free.  I call no man master.  I will build myself a house, grow myself food, and pay no taxes, because after all I didn't agree to the social contract."  If you do this, anarchists freely admit, the IRS man is going to pay you a visit, so you really can't get away with it.  But, they say, you should be able to.

All right, so say the United States government agrees to grant you sovereignty.  Your 40 acres is now the sovereign nation of Yourland, and you can do whatever you want with it.  It is no longer part of the United States.

Immediately emissaries from Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and China all arrive on your doorstep.  All would like to invite you to become a protectorate and enjoy the many benefits of being a citizen of their nations.  And there is a veiled threat apparent ... if you don't comply, one or another of them is going to make you.  After all, they have missiles and you don't.  You have a shotgun.  It's not going to cut it.

Okay, so that won't do.  Let's just get rid of all governments.  Everywhere in the world.  There is now no government everywhere; we will work completely on the basis of free association.

Things are great.  But a very large group of people, known as the Walmart Corporation, decides to build a store right on the other side of your property line.  Fine.  No problem.  Their land, their choice.  But you wake up one morning and your fence doesn't look right.  It's been moved twenty feet over to make room for a bit more parking lot for Walmart.

"You can't do this!"  you announce to the representatives of Walmart.  "You are aggressing on my property, therefore by the Non-Aggression Principle, I now have the right to use force to stop your aggression!"

Walmart replies, "You and what army?"

So you leave, downcast, but when you get home you start calling your friends.  (Presumably you've figured out a way to string phone lines that everyone has agreed to; anarchists aren't dumb, they've thought of this.)  They are indignant, realizing of course that if it's you today, it might be them next.  But Bob can't help you because he doesn't even have a shotgun; he had a bad year in his business and can't afford it.  And Tim is laid up with the flu.  And Steve could help you, but he won't, because he wants to take his own chances.  Billy has seen pictures provided by Walmart that make it look like your fence was always in that spot.  And so on and so forth.

You get together what coalition you can, which ends up being more people than Walmart has.  But Walmart still has more money than you.  They have better weapons, helicopters, missiles, the works.  Odds are good that you will lose, if not this time, then next time, when McDonalds encroaches on Steve's farm.  Some people have access to better resources than other people, and better resources translate to better weapons.  Also, some people put 100% of their efforts into weaponry and make stealing their main form of sustenance, whereas people who fight defensively have to arrange for other forms of sustenance and can only put a smaller percentage of their efforts into fighting.  It does seem to me that the bad guy is always going to win in this scenario.

The facts are these:
1.  Life is not possible without access to the earth's resources.
2.  Access to the earth's resources is not possible without the ability to defend them against attack.
3.  Free individuals are at a disadvantage to states or corporations when it comes to defending their resources against attack.

It seems to me that, even if we have no other government, we're going to need some form of army.  Just a little one, properly equipped.  But equipment has a price tag, and where is the money going to come from?

Anarchists believe that the government has no right to tax, because taxation is just stealing under another name.  After all, I didn't agree to join the club that is the United States.  So why should I have to pay the club's dues?

I answer that taxes are not dues.  They are rents.  This is why I am a believer in property tax even though I don't much hold with income tax.

Because the fact is, you don't own the land your house is sitting on.  Not absolutely.  If you are an American, that land was stolen from Indians (hate to say it, but it's true) and defended against outside attack by the United States government.  The government then sold or gave it to certain citizens.  Those citizens sold it to other people, who sold it to other people, who sold it to you.  But when it was sold the first time, it wasn't sold complete, with full rights to sovereignty.  You were sold the use of it.  You can use it for pretty nearly everything you want.  But the understanding that went along with that gift or sale of land was that you would pay the government forever for its defense of that patch of land.  And you would follow a few basic rules that the government would set.

If you "opt out," you have to stop "renting" that land.  You can't keep it.  You are going to have to get a new patch, and it turns out all the patches are claimed by somebody.  This is the perennial anarchist problem, and it's why anarchists are theorists only; it's never been tried.  There's an idea now to build a platform in the sea somewhere and make it into an anarchist paradise.  I do wish them luck with that.

The only true anarchist paradise was feudalism.  Yes, at its best, it was a system of renting land and following the landlord's rules.  Each time the owner of the land died and his son took over, he too would have to go down to the landlord and swear fealty to him.  It's an individual social contract for everyone.  And the age-old transfer would take place: a percentage of my crop for your protection.  That portion of my crop goes to feed everyone who doesn't have the time to farm because they are busy training so as to protect me better, and to buy weapons for them.

We've gotten too far from the land to see it, but I really see all governments as simply a form of this ancient transfer.  The question that must be asked afterwards, then, is this:  Is the government a fair landlord, or an oppressive one?  Who is to protect us if our landlord oppresses us?

Ah, look at the time.  Thanks for plowing the whole way through this epic.  I'll address limited government... someday.

Some clothes I actually do like

I've had a number of people ask me, "Well, what kinds of things do you like?"  And I answer, "Argh .... I don't KNOW!"

There's some stuff I do like.  But most of it would not be considered appropriate to wear.  I mean, I just love this:

...but it would draw more attention than I'm really comfortable with.

And I totally wish I were Indian so I could get away with wearing this:

 

Or even these:

  

... but sadly I don't look even a little bit Indian, so I think I would probably offend someone if I tried.

So, as far as things currently considered acceptable to wear ....

I love jeans.  Used to hate them, until I discovered words like "boot cut" and "low rise" would win me a pair that was actually comfortable.  Now I could live in them.

I like jean skirts like this:

 

I have one of these, and another one in knee length.  (I don't like any length but ankle and knee.)  Embroidered details and patches are nice.

I love hippie and gypsy skirts.

I don't wear them too often because my kids use them as handles and I hate being dragged around by my clothes.  But I love them.  I had a paisley hippie skirt that I wore almost every Sunday for EIGHT YEARS.  It literally wore right out.  So now it's a mei tai.  What?  I couldn't part with it.  I'll have to post a picture later.

Given the choice, I wear short sleeves.  Long sleeves make me claustrophobic.  I just push them up.  I had a thing for awhile for fuzzy sweaters, but those got too claustrophobic too, especially with kids hanging on me.

I think dip-dyeing is one of the prettiest things ever.  I have a dip-dyed coral shirt with a butterfly applique that I love ... but it's a little tight so I never wear it.  Sigh.  I dreamed and dreamed when I was in college of a yellow dip-dyed formal gown ... but when it came down to it I wore something completely different because apparently they don't have things like that in the stores.  Particularly not in the under $50 price range.

Oh, and I'm a Spring.  For the most part I love my colors.  Except I don't much care for pink, which if you look at the swatches I have to choose from is pretty unfortunate.

I just can't imagine a world in which I would wear fuchsia on purpose.  I do like all those blues and greens though.  Also red.  I can wear true red, and look good in it.

I like flannel shirts.  They are so soft.  Really, I like everything that's soft (NOT velvet though, because I do not call that soft).  I like to wear flannel shirts unbuttoned over a tank top.  That's actually what I'm wearing right now.

I like pashminas.  I have three really pretty ones ... but I never wear them except maybe for really formal events.  But they are wonderful.  If they are long enough, they make excellent baby slings.  They also can be nursing covers, mantillas, or shrugs.  Pretty much whatever you want.  And they are pretty.

 

I am not much of an accessorizer.  I have jewelry, but I never wear anything but my watch and rings.  Which is a shame ... I used to wear this lovely Celtic pendant almost daily, but then Marko broke it, sniff.  I think I fixed it, but I hardly want to get it broken again.  Perhaps for some special occasion, someday.   I also have some bracelets and things.  Which I never wear.  It just seems silly to wear it around the house, but then if I ever go anywhere fancy, I'm totally distracted by my jewelry because I'm not used to it.

Oh, I don't have pierced ears.  I don't want them either.  I'm not really comfortable with holes in my body.  I do kind of like tattoos (depending, of course), but they're just kind of permanent and painful and I'd be scared to get one.

I am picky about shoes.  I don't like heels of any description; I teeter.  I have a pair for weddings which are pretty enough, but they are not at all comfortable.  And they're only an inch and a half!

I like ballet flats, sandals, minimalist sneakers (think Pumas) and boots.  Boots like these boots:

 Aren't they a dream?

So that should clear some things up.  Now I can send people to this post when they ask me "what do you like?"  This is the stuff I like.

Do the clothes make the mom?

Every once in awhile, I see a mention of frowsy stay-at-home mothers.  You know the ones.  With the yoga pants and the oversize t-shirts and the perpetual ponytail.  Complete with an assumption that they don't care about themselves, that they don't respect their vocation, that they must have terrible self esteem.

Every time I read those, I get all up in arms.  Because they are talking about me.  Tattered, ill-fitting jeans?  Check.  Husband's shirt?  Check.  Ponytail?  Always, always check.

But the thing is, I like myself fine.  I love my vocation.  I'm pretty happy about life in general.  I just can't make myself care about clothes.

When I was a kid, my mom considered me a "fashionista."  I liked putting together weird outfits.  I am not exactly sure when I grew out of that phase.  Maybe it was when I finally went to school and got bullied over the clothes I had thought were nice.  Or just the well-meaning friends who were always, always trying to give me a makeover.  I appreciated the thought, but at the same time I would think, "Why is it always me who gets the makeover?  Is there something wrong with the way I look?"

Right before I left for boarding school, I had a style.  It was rather awful, but I was thirteen and I'm pretty sure everyone's style is awful at thirteen.  My favorite outfits included:
*the confidence outfit, which I wore if I was feeling shy: giant cream-colored skirt down to the floor, prairie boots, and a sleeveless button-down lavender blouse
*the medieval outfit: loose white pants tucked into slouchy black boots, a large yellow shirt belted at the waist with a thick black belt
*the homey outfit: knee-length jean skirt, white silk undershirt, open flannel shirt

Yeah.  I was pretty funny-looking.  But I was homeschooled at the time and was really enjoying being able to wear what I liked instead of what would be accepted by everyone else.

I had to have eight outfits for boarding school, and they all had to be skirts or dresses.  That was fine by me, because I liked them better anyway.  I went shopping at my favorite store (Goodwill) and borrowed some clothes from my mom.  I am positive I looked pretty ridiculous in some of those clothes, but I loved the way I looked and I had a level of confidence in my clothes that I haven't had since.

As soon as the summer program was over and I had decided to stay, one of the consecrated took some time with me to go through my closet.  She wanted to make sure I was looking like a real "Woman of the Kingdom."  Well, it didn't go very well.  She made a few quips and chuckled a bit over my clothes, and I laughed along in a sort of embarrassed way, because yeah, now that she mentioned it, my clothes were kind of ridiculous.  Even the "confidence skirt."  So silly that I had ever felt confident in that.  Now that she mentioned it, I could clearly see that I looked like a bag lady in it and that everyone had always thought so.

So I agreed to let them send all my clothes to the Salvation Army.  (My mom was furious of course, because half the stuff was hers -- I hadn't thought of that.)  And then this consecrated woman took me "shopping" in the little room in the basement where they had some good clothes.  Some of the outfits I loved.  Some I really didn't like (oh, olive green corduroy jumper, how I don't miss you!).  But I accepted all of her choices and that was just what I wore.  After I got sent home, I pretty much kept wearing the same things until I left for college.

Since then, I've just hated having to choose clothes.  I hate shopping for them, I hate spending money on them, I hate trying to make them into outfits.  I don't have much of a fashion sense, and I don't trust what little I do have.  When I really take some effort and put things together that I like, I feel great -- for about half an hour.  Then I start doubting myself and feeling like I've taken a horrible risk and probably everyone thinks I look like a doofus.

So I get advice from friends, and basically never go shopping alone.  But that carries its own risk, because if I'm not careful I end up going home with stuff I don't like.  And then I never wear it because it's not comfortable or it feels like a costume, like I'm dressed up as someone else.

I feel like I ought to dress up more.  I should care how I look.  Every time anyone gives me clothes advice, I feel like what they're really saying is, "Have a little pride in how you look.  Dress up.  Stop being such a slob."  But why should I care how I look?

I mean, am I dressing to impress strangers?  Why do I care what strangers think?  How often do I even see strangers?  I leave the house maybe twice a week.  And are these total strangers really judging me because I'm in jeans?  I usually have on a clean shirt, so why should they care?

Or am I dressing up to impress my friends?  Pretty sure my friends know what I look like.  And if I'm still on the level that I feel like I have to dress up for their approval ... I just don't know if we're really friends.  I dress up so professors, bosses, etc., don't judge me, but I don't have those anymore.  I find it really freeing to know that I really don't have to impress anyone I don't want to impress.

Am I dressing up for my husband?  That's what people say, but the reality is that my husband really doesn't care what I wear.  Really.  Truly.  He prefers it if I don't wear makeup and if I keep my hair long, which I do, but other than that he barely notices.  If he had his way, he'd never wear anything but sweatpants.  If I had my way, I'd go naked.  Really.  It's more comfortable and I really think the human body is much prettier than anything we put on it.  But Adam and Eve just had to eat that apple, so here we are.

I do like the argument, "Well, you dress up so that people will know you care."  And that's a nice thought.  I want people to know I care.  But what, exactly, is the caring thing to wear?  What I think looks nice, or what they think looks nice?  And how am I to know either one of those?  And if I just wear what everyone else agrees is nice, am I going to feel like I'm walking around in someone else's ill-fitting skin?

Today I went shopping.  I went with a friend, but I tried to get clear in my mind what I wanted so I didn't get anything I didn't like.  I got some jeans with an embroidered flower on them, which are awesome, and a dress which I think I like.  Not quite sure.  And yes, having a flower on my jeans does make me feel better about life, just a smidge.  I like the thought that I might meet new people in these jeans and that they would know this tiny detail about me right off, that I'm the sort of person who would wear a flower on my jeans.  Though maybe I'm expecting too much, because I never notice what people are wearing.

I just feel kind of dysfunctional, as a female who doesn't care about clothes.  Was my fashion sense stunted by childhood traumas?  Or did I never really have one?  Because nine days out of ten, since I can remember, I just grabbed stuff out of a drawer and put in on.  I liked having a uniform.  It was one less thing to think about.  These days, I just grab what's closest.  If I know I'm going to be going out, I try to make an effort to wear a shirt that actually belongs to me.  I envy men everywhere their ability to wear the same basic uniform almost every day.  A man in khakis and a polo shirt is rarely out of place anywhere.

Is something wrong with me?  What's the solution -- to get with the program, somehow find myself some nice clothes and force myself to wear them daily?  (Plus actually buy new ones when I've worn out the old ones, which is the worst of it ... if I actually find something I like, I wear it to tatters because I know I'll never find something else just like it.)  Or should I let go of what people think I should wear, and just be a slob if I feel like it ... and also maybe a little funky if I feel like it?

What would you wear if you had no one to impress?