Lorulian Sky

Whew, it has been a while. I will have to save my life updates for a separate post, or perhaps several. With this entry, I wish to focus on how some individuals do not even think twice about nitpicking another’s lifestyle. However, what makes this nitpicking feel a million times worse is when it comes from a member of your family that is supposed to love and support you. This happened to me just yesterday, and I needed an outlet to vent.

It is my firm belief that as long as someone is not hurting himself or herself, or anyone else, then this someone should be allowed to live a lifestyle that best suits him or her; and, furthermore, others who live lifestyles that differ, or who have contradicting beliefs, should respectfully remain silent if they feel the need to critique this individual that appears so different than them. I know that the topic of vaccination has, unfortunately, been controversial in the United States, lately, and in other first-world countries, but my desire to vaccinate myself against two different viruses was the topic of someone’s critique just the other day. What is worse is that this person — my father, no less — was not just critiquing me, but he was asking me, in a condescending manner, why I was “being so ridiculous” and why I wanted to continue to carry out my personal preference of getting vaccinated.

It is one matter if my father had a different opinion on getting vaccinated but responded that I should do what I feel comfortable doing. It was another matter entirely that he was actually using his contradicting beliefs to make him seem like a bigger, smarter person for not getting vaccinated, and that I was the smaller, more stupid person for going through with getting vaccinated. There was absolutely zero support coming out of his mouth. His tone was not only condescending, but vicious. I would wager that he has never practiced how to hold his own beliefs while speaking intelligently to someone with differing beliefs and lifestyles. I know for a fact that there are members on his side of the family who are speaking to him frequently about how vaccines are the equivalent to the Christian “Satan” for this reason or that reason. It is just so unfortunate that he cannot even hold the emotional maturity and integrity to support his daughter for making her own decisions, as a middle-aged adult, no less, and that of which do not even affect him at all.

If I desire that my immunocompromised self should be vaccinated against viruses, then that is my personal, adult decision to make. I should not have to explain myself to anyone, but, even if I do, I should be met with, at the very least, quiet tolerance, and, at the very most, a brief conversation telling me that I should go forth with whatever decisions I deem best for me and my life. What hurts is that, even though I hold a different opinion regarding vaccines than my father does, he, without hesitation, tore into the kind of person I was at my core. Not once — not once — did I ever think about snootily remarking about how he is incompetent or making a foolish decision for not getting a vaccine. When my father venomously spat his ugly words at me, instead of arguing, I simply responded with, “Well, you know, you do you, but this is what I am going to do.” I thought this would end the conversation. On the contrary, he simply continued his tirade about how those who get vaccinated are unintelligent, less-than beings with no sense in their heads.

What a pleasing way to speak to your own daughter, is it not?

This bullyish response of his burned me up inside even long after our phone conversation ended. I was devastated not just because my father ripped into me about my vaccination preferences. At the center of all of his sneering and jeering, one thing became evident: His support for his child was conditional, and was only given based off what he believed in, and how he lived his own life. The realization hit me that, even as far back as I can remember, I have never had his support on much of anything. And, now that I am an adult and need my family the most — especially when it comes to navigating the world — I know that I do not have my father in my corner, and I probably never will. And his lack of support is not just regarding vaccines, but for anything, really. If this is the stance he takes for me being “so different” than him, he would not support anything that he did not understand or has not already incorporated into his own lifestyle.

And, to be perfectly honest, that realization hurts.

I would very much like to think of myself as someone who is open to the perspectives of others. With this being said, I would like to hear from my readers: Do you think fighting “all the time” in marriage is considered normal? Why, or why not?

I was perusing the interweb and came across a meme the other day. It was an image of two brown grisly bears standing on their hind legs, their mouths agape, baring (sorry, had to) their teeth at one another. The text of the meme mentioned that the bears must have been a married couple, implying that married couples “always fight.” I see this assumption often in US culture — that it is essentially normal for a married couple to fight, and to fight often, and, if you are not fighting, are you even married?

The whole concept just… rubbed me the wrong way.

My feeling is this: Fighting in relationships, no matter if you are married or not, is inevitable. I am not really talking about the occasional, small bickering about how Sally failed to pass Ben the potatoes during dinner, or if Harry is annoying Greg by playing with his hair too much, or Kelly won’t stop making dorky faces at Kim, so Kim tells her to stop. I am referring to the off-putting, heated arguments that often involve raised voices, possible cursing, and hostile environments.

Some fighting may even be healthy — as long as it does not involve physically abusing or insulting the other person. Arguments are a way to express thoughts, ideas, and emotions with passion and to have one’s voice heard. However, the moment insults are thrown to degrade the other person’s character, body, demeanor, emotions, etc., I feel that has crossed a line from debating a topic to bullying the individual.

To me, to fight “all the time” is a sign of a lack of control of one’s own emotions (i.e. immaturity, or failing to overcome possible triggers, etc), a poor handling of healthy communication skills, and — dare I say it? — probable incompatibility between the spouses. Divorce rates being so high can provide evidence for this. Again, fighting, I feel, is inevitable, and some fighting I feel is all right within reason (see above paragraph), but if a couple is fighting every single day, I feel that there are possibly more issues than just the topic they are fighting about, like some underlying, toxic, unhealed piece of their person, or of their relationship.

Which leads me into my next thought: On the other side of the spectrum, never fighting can also be a sign of an unhealthy relationship. It might imply that one or both individuals lack healthy communication skills, or fear communicating with their partner due to potential repercussions (verbal or physical abuse, feeling they would not be truly heard or understood, or a fear of confrontation, to name a few). Therefore, I do not feel like never fighting is the route to go, either. There has to be some balance between the two extremes.

I mean, there has to be a better way to express your feelings to your partner about how you feel they are slacking in helping around the house, or how you feel unseen or unheard, or how they need to be more involved in whatever way, other than calling them a bitch, a jerk-face, a creamy-ass cunt, or a motherfucking loser. Right?? And if, after communicating your feelings, the other person still does not understand where you are coming from, and you have exhausted counseling and any other healthy avenue over time, perhaps what it comes down to is that you have to make some pretty difficult decisions about whether or not you two are actually compatible and what that means in terms of a lasting relationship. Because, let’s face it — not everyone, but many people grow apart over the years. Partners can become different people, have different life goals and interests that evolve and transform, and… well, just don’t always end up matching the person they married X number of years ago.

What do my readers think? I would really like to hear about your own experiences and thoughts about society poking fun of married couples and their “fighting all the time.” Have you also heard this as the norm in our/your culture? Do you agree or disagree with this concept? Note: You do not have to be married to answer this question, and this does not have to be about you, but rather the people around you that you’ve observed.

Let’s discuss and be open for growth on the topic.

With love and respect,
-A.M.

In my youth (god damn, has it really been over 20 years?), I used to enjoy my grandmother’s homemade Polish kolaczki cookies. We are partially Polish, and so this recipe was sort of brought down through the generations (not that you have to be Polish to enjoy these). However, since I was diagnosed with celiac disease almost a decade ago, as well as lactose intolerance, I had to get a tad bit creative if I wanted to make this recipe so that I could actually eat these cookies without ending up in the hospital.

For those of you who do not know, celiac disease is an autoimmune disorder where the individual cannot consume gluten (usually from wheat), or else they have an immense, severe reaction. Actually, I should revise that: a lot of celiacs have strong, negative reactions when consuming gluten, but there is such a thing as asymptomatic celiac disease. Personally, I would rather have my symptomatic version. My body told me to stop consuming gluten via nausea, cramping, and catastrophic and agonizing pain, etc., instead of waiting until I was fifty to receive a surprise diagnosis that, with all the internal damage, I acquired stage 4 colon or intestinal cancer. The asymptomatic version can be a sneaky snake in the grass and, well, deadly[ier].

I also was given the absolute pleasure of being gifted lactose intolerance, a symptom that a certain percentage of celiacs gain in their disease-laden journey. So, with an intolerance to both dairy and gluten, I decided to substitute the usual wheat flour and cow’s milk cream cheese in this recipe for my own tidbits. Here is the full list of specs:

Dough:

• 1.5 cup gluten free flour (King Arthur, Measure for Measure)
• 4 oz dairy free cream cheese (Kite Hill, made with almond milk, plain)
• 3/4 cup dairy free butter (Country Crock, mine was made with olive oil)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Filling:

• 1 teaspoon gluten/dairy free pie filling, jam, or preserves per cookie (I used Bonne Maman preserves – peach, apricot, blueberry, and cherry)

Optional:

• Powdered sugar for sprinkling

Making the recipe was actually quite simple. In a bowl, beat the cream cheese and butter together until smooth. Then, slowly add the flour and salt, a little at a time, until fully mixed with the cream cheese/butter. When finished, roll the dough into a ball, wrap with parchment paper, and let chill in the refrigerator overnight (at least 1 hour). I had it chillin’ for about 16 hours by the time I got around to taking it out for prepping and baking.

Now, even though this is gluten-free flour and dairy-free cream cheese/butter, you still need to powder your rolling pin and cutting board with gluten-free flour as well — like you would should this have been a regular wheat and cow’s milk-based recipe. I learned that the hard way, as you can see from the photo, above, that lacks flour. Ha ha ha, fucking hell did things become a mess.

Next, you want to roll the dough to be about 1/4 of an inch thick. Keep adding flour to your rolling pin, because reasons. Then, cut the dough into about 2 inch squares for each “cookie”.

Then take your 1 teaspoon of filling/jam/preserves and dab it into the center of each square. As you can see, here, I became overzealous and put way too much on each. Whoops. Oh well. Once the overabundance of preserves seeped and burned onto the cookie trays during baking, it made for a good workout when it came time to scrub it all off. …

I guess at this point I just realized that I forgot to mention that, during this time, you should be preheating your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. And this is precisely why I do not write food blogs — I just screwed up your chef-like flow.

Anyway, back to the cookies that are laying all open and exposed to the world — fold two [opposite] corners and pinch together over the filling. Like, really pinch — otherwise, the cookie will unravel during baking, and then you just have some weird, pale cracker with really hot jam boiling on top of it.

Carefully place the pinched cookies on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 12-14 minutes. I baked for 14 because, well, gluten-free flour takes a little longer to firm and sort-of-but-not-really brown. They all turned out pretty pale in the end (as was expected due to this recipe using gluten-free flour), but 14 minutes made me feel better than 12. Anyway, you do you.

Let the cookies sit on the baking sheet for 10 minutes after removing the trays from the oven. This gives the cookies and filling time to firm up even more and cool, and promotes less of a chance that they will fall apart upon lifting from the trays.

Then, if you have any (which I didn’t, but not having this did not compromise the taste in any regard), sprinkle a puff of powdered sugar over the cookies.

Proceed to stuff as many as you can into your hungry, rumbling stomach, and enjoy the taste of gluten-free, dairy-free Polish Kolaczkis! I don’t think this was half-bad for my first try! By the way, this recipe yielded 32 cookies.

Or you can just skip the gluten-free, dairy-free ingredients and modify this recipe to fit your own dietary cravings and needs. I, on the other hand, had no other choice but to do this gluten and dairy-free.

And, now, my readers, I will leave you with one last piece of food for thought: It is utterly unsatisfying that there isn’t a newer film of The Time Machine that closer aligns to H.G. Wells’s novel. I was so bummed by this realization last night that I had difficulty falling asleep.

That is all. Enjoy your weekend. Mine will undeniably be spent in a food coma.

-A.M.

I am a 24 year old male, with dashing dark hair and a height and build that rival those in the NBA. I am a devout and avid church-goer with a large, wholesome family, a bright yellow pickup truck, the perfect teeth, and absolutely no financial debt. I enjoy speaking to large crowds, skydiving, and admiring various breeds of insects.

If you’ve made it this far without cringing, I seriously applaud you. If you are [understandably] anxious to flee this page, I would like to happily inform you that I am and possess none of the things mentioned, above. Quite the opposite, actually.

I’ve been blogging since my preteen years and am still into the online writing scene. So, hello again, blogging world. I look forward to making friends with my fellow writers once more, for those out there who can excuse the sass my writing often brings.

Honestly, though, I can reach an NBA player’s height! I just have to stack a chair beneath my feet, balance on my tip-toes, and whisper aggressively to myself that I will not face plant onto the floor. Whispering aggressively always makes your balance easier to maintain. _{Until the first time you do teeter over, and then you need to find a different way to make yourself look like a complete idiot. By the way, don’t ask how I know this.}

Well, my readers, if you stick around for future entries, perhaps I will have the heart to reveal other aspects of my true identity. Haha….ha.

Now get out of here and do something worthwhile with your time — like buying a pink Volkswagen beetle, or pruning your shrubs.

-A.M.