Hemlock. Not actually good for you, or so I’ve heard. (from Otto Wilhelm Thomé: Flora von Deutschland, Österreich u.d. Schweiz, Gera (1885))

Detoxing my home and beauty regime has been an eye-opening experience. The notion of “living naturally”–a typical-part of the DIY detox, has a lot of people talking about the dangers of modern chemistry and the health and environmental benefits of using more natural products. For the most part, I agree with this. But Iâ€ve also encountered a few beliefs that are widespread in the DIY community that I feel the need to dispute.

Why dispute? Well, Realm, Iâ€ve actually managed to make myself sicker in my attempt to cut back on chemicals. As I write this, my ears are so swollen I canâ€t put earrings on, I have a rash around my neck, and my face is so puffy Iâ€m debating calling in to work to warn them maybe they donâ€t want me as a receptionist today. I still lean pro-nature over chemistry, but I have some new myth-busting caveats that Iâ€d like to offer up for anyone else trying to take the plunge. Today Iâ€m going to talk about my biggest pet peeve with DIY information Iâ€ve seen.

If it comes from a plant, itâ€s safe.

* Corollary – essential oils canâ€t cause an allergic reaction; only synthetic fragrances

This is my biggest pet peeve because itâ€s an unsafe assumption. Faith in this idea is why Iâ€m currently a puffy, itchy mess.

I have been seeing a dermatologist this year because Iâ€ve been having some allergic skin problems. (The initial problem mightâ€ve been due to starting my day with a green smoothie–not necessarily a good idea if youâ€re allergic to nickel! But thatâ€s a different story.) He did a patch test on me and determined that Iâ€m allergic to PPD (hair dye) and nickel–both of which I already knew. I also found out that (among other new things) Iâ€m allergic to fragrance. I didnâ€t know that one. I didnâ€t worry about it, though, because I donâ€t wear perfume and I avoid products that use “parfum” or “fragrance” as an ingredient. (Iâ€ve already written about why thatâ€s a scary ingredient listing.)

Turns out, I shouldâ€ve been very worried. Iâ€ve made a couple batches of soap with lemongrass essential oil and have also been using a (purchased) shampoo and conditioner made from plant-based ingredients and honey. I also recently switched to a tooth powder recipe using cinnamon. None of these have synthetic fragrance in them, so when rash exploded on both my legs and spread to my forearms, it took me a long time to connect that my hair products, soap, and tooth powderwere causing it. When the allergic reaction reached my face (not long after I started the tooth powder), I started crying because I felt so out of control of my allergies. But working with my dermatologist and the research heâ€s given me, Iâ€m hopeful we can end the current outbreak and prevent future ones–at least of this magnitude!.

Hereâ€s something I didnâ€t realize: synthetic fragrances are often derived from the same plant “essences” as essential oils. In a fragrance patch test, in addition to synthetic compounds, they check for eugenol, cinnamic aldehyde, oak moss, and geraniol–all of which are found in essential oils, often even touted as the reason for many benefits. According to the research my dermatologist gave me, geraniol is found in over 250 essential oils, including lavender, jasmine, rose, and geranium. A quick internet search will show that lemongrass also has it. Eugenol is found in clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, basil, anise, bay, and many other natural ingredients–hence the allergic reaction to the tooth powder.

Several sources claim that essential oils canâ€t be allergens because they donâ€t contain protein. This sounds scientific, but itâ€s flat-out wrong. Nickel? Not a protein. And yet itâ€s the leading cause for ACD—Allergic contact dermatitis–in most countries. ACD from nickel or fragrance or whatever else all work the same as the well known ACD caused by poison ivy. When someone with a nickel allergy wears jewelry containing nickel, his/her skin reacts with the same allergic response most people have to poison ivy. The same thing happens when people allergic to geraniol “fragrance” put lemongrass or lavender essential oil on their skin–even if itâ€s diluted in a carrier oil, as you should always do with essential oils.

Let me repeat that. If you are allergic to geraniol, using lavender essential oil is like using poison ivy. So when people post articles like this one, claiming essential oils canâ€t cause allergic reactions–and then claiming that the rash you develop is some sort of helpful detox reaction–it just scares the crap out of me that somebodyâ€s going to continue using something theyâ€re allergic to in the mistaken belief theyâ€re helping themselves. Allergic reactions get worse over time, not better. If you continue to use something you are allergic to, you can tank your health. If you have a topical fragrance allergy, essential oils must be used with extreme caution.

Nature is powerful, and I sometimes think in our drive to be “one with Gaia” itâ€s easy to forget that Gaia sends hurricanes along with gentle rains. As I think Iâ€ve mentioned before (GG wants me to point out where, but I canâ€t find it…maybe I havenâ€t…), Heathens tend to be a lot more leery of nature than most other Pagan faiths. As I learn more about living with allergies, I have days where I feel like Iâ€m battling a jotunn–a dangerous force of nature. I donâ€t want to give up on my battle to detox my life, but this certainly has been a setback, and Iâ€m not totally sure what Iâ€m going to do about it.

What about you, Realm? Have you ever had unexpected consequences derail your good intentions? And does anybody have any ideas for naturally curing dermatitis–without essential oils?

+ Featured Image: Calendula Officinalis by KENPEI (I have no idea what I did to this flower in a prior life, but it hates me with a fiery passion. Allergic I am.)

The Debt Hits the Fan

Once I graduated with my Ph.D., it was time to start paying my loans. I had a good job. I was married and had access to a second income. I was ready to start paying. I consolidated my loans with the U.S. Department of Education (USDE), as is recommended. Fortunately, I could consolidate all of my subsidized and unsubsidized loans since all of them were federal (versus private loans).

Consolidating had the great benefit on having one payment a month, not — oh I donâ€t know — 20+ payments. Every year is considered a separate loan when you take out federal loans. Which means there is the possibility of having multiple loan servicers because you have multiple loans. Worse, it used to be the case where you could not only have multiple loan servicers, but they could sell student loans to other lenders at their whim. That practice ended in 2010, four years after my education journey ended. Many of my loans had been sold. It took me a few months to track them all down because I had no idea who owned my loans. I was on the phone a lot. And I still missed one.

I only know I missed one because when USDE consolidated my loans, the errant loan found me. But because I didnâ€t include this loan in my “list of loans” to USDE, it wasnâ€t consolidated. You can only consolidate once. No exceptions. So despite my efforts, I ended up with two payments. One to USDE and one to Nelnet. But I started paying because I wanted to pay my debts. And because I was married, my loan payments were high. Between the two loans, I was paying close to $1,000 a month. My husband-at-the-time paid the higher of the two payments, for which I am grateful.

Grace (Under Fire) Period

After about a year or a little more, I decided to defer my payments (via forbearance) because we bought a house. We bought at quite possibly the worst time and needed a while to adjust to our house note. Forbearance is only available systematically for federal loans (versus private loans). I was able to postpone payments for several years, but my loans were still accruing interest. Definitely a bad decision on my part, but I just couldnâ€t afford to pay the loans at the time.

*Cue violin* Then I got divorced and my financial situation changed drastically. I continued to take advantage of forbearance for as long as I could. And the interest kept rolling in. At the time, I was under the erroneous belief that my student loan repayment — when it would come due again — would consider my debt load in the calculation of the monthly payment. It doesnâ€t. I have no idea how I came to that belief, but I was absolutely confident that would be the case. I suspect it had something to do with the multitude of people I talked to over the years at USDE, many of which gave me vastly different information and misinformation. Loan payments do consider “discretionary income” – income above the poverty line (for your family size). And Iâ€m grateful I qualify for the program where consideration of discretionary income is part of my repayment plan. That program is called income-based repayment and anyone can request it.

Back in the $addle

For a few years after my divorce, my student loans became a specter in my life. Something lingering around my psyche constantly, but out of sight enough that I could pretend it wasnâ€t there. Well, it was there. And it came back to haunt me. My continued attempts to live in deniaI almost sent me into default. But I didnâ€t default. I thought about it very seriously, though. Paying my student loans puts me in a position where I canâ€t save for anything – not for retirement, not for a house. And I am not alone in this predicament.

The main reason I didnâ€t default is because I am my deeds. I didnâ€t want that kind of “free ride” behavior to be part of my legacy. I didnâ€t want to be a tangle or tear in my ancestral wyrd because I chose not to pay my debts. So, Iâ€m back to paying high payments every month. Not quite $1,000, but more than $800. The good news is my Nelnet loan will be PAID OFF next year. Hot damn! That will give me a little breathing room to start saving again.

I thought my story would be done this week, but since this is such a huge part of my life right now, I have more to say. Next week, Iâ€ll talk (or maybe rant) about larger issues that have led me down this debt-driven path. And then Iâ€ll be done – I promise!

Do any of you have stories about grappling with student debt. How are you managing your payments?

Padawan ID by suletyel

Last week when I discussed perseverance, a commenter sympathized with my welding frustration by telling me of her own frustration learning how to sew. Her comment got me thinking about the difference between daily skills and what Iâ€ll call apprentice skills. In the past, people did far more for themselves than we do now, and theyâ€d grow up learning a variety of simple(ish) daily skills most of us no longer know how to do. Theyâ€d mend their own clothes, grow their own food, make their own soap and candles, etc. Now, largely due to ready-made materials, we donâ€t grow up learning how to do these things. While I am making efforts to live a more self-sufficient lifestyle, Iâ€m grateful for this. I love not only being able to easily purchase what I need from a grocery store but the amazing access I have to products from all over the world. I donâ€t want to go back to a time when I could only work with the base materials I produce myself or have to wait until a merchant ship comes in with treasure from another land.

This distancing from basic skills, however, has shortened my patience. Iâ€m used to having something immediately at hand. And most skills Iâ€ve tried to pick up–like soap-making or mixing a facial moisturizer or counter spray–donâ€t require much training or practice, just the ability to follow a recipe. (Making fancy soaps with color patterns is skill intensive; mixing lye with fat for basic soap is not.) With this history of near-instant success, when I started welding, I got frustrated on day one when I couldnâ€t make a straight welding bead within the first couple tries. The commenter I mentioned was talking about her own frustration with sewing, and how she kept tangled the thread. We both felt like clearly we werenâ€t good at these! But I thought about it some more and realized that neither of us is trying to pick up a basic, daily skill. Weâ€re working on a trade that, in the past, people went through an apprentice system and learned mastery over several years.

The difference between a daily skill and an apprentice skill is the difference between learning to string a necklace with glass beads and learning to blow glass beads to make a necklace. Itâ€s the difference between fixing a hem or repairing a broken leg on a chair, and sewing a pair of pants or building a chair from scratch. Apprentice skills are not normal DIY skills everyone was expected to have in the past. If I want to learn one–like metalcraft–I have to have patience with myself and with the time it takes to go from apprentice to journeyman to master.

We live in a world that allows us not only instant access to purchase goods, but instant access to sell goods without the traditional gatekeepers. I see this in publishing all the time, when people draft a manuscript and then rush off to Amazon to self-publish it. It took me years to hone my writing to the point where a publisher would license it, and Iâ€m glad I took that time to work and practice until I was ready with a quality product. This doesnâ€t mean Iâ€m against self-publishing. I self-published a holiday story last year, and I may do it again in the future. There are many quality manuscripts self-published by people who have taken the time to apprentice their craft. But itâ€s easy to make the mistake of rushing into it. Itâ€s easy to forget that some skills take time.

Itâ€s ironic to me that in a day and age in which we live longer than ever (at least we were before the rising economic disparity and health crisis), we seem to have less patience for apprenticing a craft. I live my life sometimes like tomorrow wonâ€t be here–when I have a much better chance at having many tomorrows than my ancestors did. It helps me to think of them and remind myself that if they, with their shorter and often more brutal lives, could have the patience and perseverance to spend years working toward mastery of a craft, I can do the same thing.

Do you practice any apprentice crafts? Iâ€d love to hear about your challenges and your inspiration for persevering!

* For those less geeky, Padawan is the word for a Jedi apprentice.

+ Featured Image: Benjamin Franklin as a Printer’s Apprentice

As of this month, the only other debt I have is a Visa card. Itâ€s higher than I want and the interest is a PITA, but I feel like that debt is manageable. Or it would be if I wasnâ€t paying *mumble mumble* dollars towards my student loans every month. This post is going to sound like Iâ€m just complaining about my student debt. I am. But I want to pay my debts. “We are our deeds.” I firmly believe that, and I try to live it daily. I always pay my bills before anything else, sometimes to my own detriment.

The Long and  Winding Road (aka, The story of my education) (aka, 18 years later, I haz Ph.D.)

When I first started college (which was a LONG time ago), my dad paid the bill. I was at a private university studying music. Then my parents split up. My dad took his financial support with him when he left. So a year after starting undergrad, I transferred to a community college to attend part-time and started paying my own way. At first, I got a full-time job and paid out of pocket, but that was slow going. Then I started participating in local pageants that were part of Miss Florida (and Miss America), which is a scholarship organization. I never won (*sniff sniff*), but I always placed. That paid for the rest of my community college education. I even got to attend full-time my last year there.

Then Hurricane Andrew hit, and suddenly school cost more because my family moved away. I had to start paying rent and food on my own, like a grown up. When I transferred to a university, I worked part-time as a student employee, and I worked on weekends at a tourist attraction. But that wasnâ€t enough, so I started taking out student loans. Never once was I offered advising after my first semester. Not from my department, not from my college, not from my university.

Eight years after I started in music, I finally graduated with a Bachelorâ€s in Social Science. I moved to a different state to join my family and got a full-time job. I was with my family again, so I couldâ€ve started paying my student debt, but I never heard from any of my debtors. Probably because they didnâ€t know where I was. Probably because I didnâ€t tell them. Aside from telling my alumnus where I was moving, there was no information that told me how to contact my debtors or even that I needed to. I just assumed theyâ€d get my forwarding address if they mailed me something.

Masterâ€s. It didnâ€t take me long to figure out that my undergraduate degree helped me become a well-rounded person and thinker — but it didnâ€t really provide marketable skills. If I wanted to succeed in my field, I had to keep investing in my education. I didnâ€t mind. I enjoyed learning, and I was good a being a student. My masterâ€s was a great education experience. Well, academically the university I attended was meh. But financially, they were awesome. As a student employee, I was not charged tuition or fees. And I got a stipend! It was meager, but enough to pay my car note, buy gas, and have a little fun. I took the odd part-time or temporary work, too, to stay afloat. I was with my family, so my overheard was still low. My undergraduate debtors found me when I entered my MA program, but since I was enrolled, my loans were deferred. I was in and out in 2.5 years with no additional debt.

Ph.D. I moved to Austin for my doctoral program at the University of Texas. I was determined to put myself in a situation where I would never be unemployed, and where I would never be totally financially dependent on another person. The university was academically awesome, but financially – it was crap. They charged me in-state tuition because I was a student employee and they paid me a stipend; I am grateful for that. But unlike the second-tier research university where I got my masterâ€s, this first-tier university charged me full tuition and fees.

This was the first time I remember getting an orientation on financial aid. That orientation was basically a short film that said, “if you throw a kegger with your student loans, we wonâ€t give you any more money, and youâ€ll still have to pay them back.” There wasnâ€t anything relevant like, “If you take out XX amount for 8 semesters (4 years), you will owe XX amount after interest and it will take you XX years to pay it off with a minimum payment of $$.” That wouldâ€ve been a real eye opener for me. It also wouldâ€ve helped if someone had thoroughly explained subsidized (government pays interest) versus unsubsidized loans (you pay interest). Not that I had a choice but to take out loans, but I mightâ€ve taken extra steps to keep my expenses down by getting a roommate, or living further away from campus, or taking a weekend job. I applied for support in my department whenever I could. I got a few travel grants, but word on the street was that I wasnâ€t considered scholarship material because I wasnâ€t interested in entering academia (even though my career choice to enter research / government was considered a good one.)

I graduated with my Ph.D. 15 semesters after I started (13 full-time, 2 part-time). Why did I take so long? I definitely took some hours I didnâ€t need, partly because I didnâ€t start on the path I should have, and partly because I was trying to load my course work with classes where I would learn marketable skills. Never once was I offered advising after my first semester. Not from my department, not from my college, not from my university. I had a mentor, and he was a great guy, but he was old school and didnâ€t think to talk to me about my coursework and the impact that would have on my earning potential (vis-à-vis, my debt load).

Crikey, that was a long story! Well, now you know why I have a sh*t ton of student debt. I still feel like getting my Ph.D. has afforded me the job opportunities, job security, and financial independence I was determined to have. But right now, I canâ€t really afford anything else.

Iâ€ll talk about whatâ€s available for people in my situation – and what isnâ€t – next week. What about you? Are any of you feeling the weight of your student debt?

Featured image, “Money Flower” digital art by Evan-Amos. The captures my thoughts on student loans perfectly. They are lovely when you need them, but that beauty will eventually wilt.

Several people in the class are not new to welding. It was both inspiring and disheartening to watch them wield their torches to curl strips of steel, set straight welding beads, and generally make cool thing-a-ma-jigs while my arms ached under the weight of holding a torch, I couldnâ€t set a weld without burning holes in the steel…and then I accidentally cut my project in half while trying to reinforce a joint. (Which, yes, would be approximately the exact opposite of what I was trying to do.) By lunchtime it crossed my mind that maybe welding wasnâ€t my thing.

Like it so often does, a full belly significantly calmed me down, and I went back to class determined to keep trying. I had to buck up and remind myself that not being able to weld a perfect (or even moderately functional) welding bead on day 1 was not a sign that I couldnâ€t do this. It was a sign that Iâ€d never done it before. The difference between canâ€t do and can do is rarely about ability. Itâ€s almost always about perseverance.

Too often we teach children to find what theyâ€re good at and do that, when the truth is weâ€re born utterly talentless. Sure there might be some genetic whatever that, given equal effort, might make you slightly more successful at x than at y. But those who persevere surpass those with “talent” who donâ€t apply it. How many times have you seen people give up because something is “too hard”? Sometimes itâ€s a lazy factor that makes them quit, but I think often itâ€s people have decided way too soon that they must not be good at it–because if they had a talent for it, it wouldnâ€t be so hard. I see this with writing all the time. Budding novelists give up because theyâ€re embarrassed with their output and assume they canâ€t do better. Hey, weâ€re all embarrassed by our first few forays into fiction. The published ones just kept doing it anyway.

That is why, instead of teaching people to find what theyâ€re good at, we should teach people to find what they love enough to keep working at, even if their self-perception is that theyâ€re bad at it. Find something that is personally worth persevering for, and that continued effort over the long haul is what will transform you (or me!) from someone who cuts her project in half to someone whoâ€s proud of her accomplishments.

My perseverance goal for the month is to not let my inner-diva win. Iâ€m going to learn how to weld. Dammit. What about you? Anything you need moral support persevering through?

~ Featured Image: Two young women oxy welding parts of ammunition boxes in South Australia in 1943. Photographer: Smith, D. Darian

It might be hard to tell from my spotty posting in April, but in my on-blog life, Iâ€ve been pretty disciplined! Iâ€ve submitted a book, gotten my taxes done, kept the house reasonable. Iâ€ve also gotten food poisoning, and the DH got sick the week after. Itâ€s been a crazed couple months ‘round these parts. But I promised a post on a god that represented discipline to me, and I realized today is my last day to do that. I decided to look at Sól (Sunna), and that got me thinking about feminism and my life as a writer and house frau.

Sól is the sun in Norse mythology (Sunna in German). Sheâ€s rare among mythologies because sheâ€s, well, a she and her brother Máni is the moon. As an English major, I was taught that the sun represents masculinity–strong, steady, constant, a provider–and the moon femininity–moody, changing, reflective, with a 28 day cycle of fertility. Most mythologies follow that trend. Norse mythology does not. (GG, in her post on sun worship through the Pagansphere pointed out Amaterasu from Shinto, another female sun with a brother moon, but thatâ€s the only other pair like I that I know of. Iâ€m not saying there arenâ€t others, I just donâ€t know them.)

At first it took me awhile to get used to this switch, but from a historical perspective I think the sun as feminine and moon as masculine makes more sense. The John Donne poem “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” is what helped me shift my thinking. Donne wrote it for his wife before he had to take a business trip. If youâ€re unfamiliar with it, Donne compares the deeply committed relationship he has with his wife to a math compass, the kind with a pencil and a point that allows you to draw a circle. Itâ€s a strange but lovely comparison. He speaks of how she stays at home–the point of the compass–while he leaves to conduct business–the pencil end. But no matter how far he goes, they are one instrument that moves together, leaning as one with the motions of life, and she remains the fixed center that he returns to. The last two and a half stanzas are:

Thy soul, the fix’d foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th’ other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam,                                30
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th’ other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,                                    35
And makes me end where I begun.

Reading this again a few years ago made me think of life in ancient Scandinavia. Men would spend summers traveling back and forth as merchants (or vikings!), while women stayed home to tend the farms and raise children. In this life, men waxed in and out like the moon while women stayed home, the constant center that sustained the village. Without the women, their civilization would fall apart.

Of course I donâ€t think traditional gender roles should be enforced. Women should be able to travel the world and be the moon to their spouseâ€s sun. Or to not be married and do whatever they please within the bounds of law. There are a lot of ways to make a successful family and a successful life. And I certainly donâ€t want to sound like Iâ€m making the old hackneyed argument that men need women to civilize them. I donâ€t think so poorly of men. But I also refuse to feel bad that I work from home and do most of the child-rearing while my husband works out of the home. Yes, we conform to traditional roles, but we donâ€t do it because itâ€s tradition. Itâ€s what works best for us. And Lady Sol reminds me that the work I do is important. I hope any man in my position would be able to find strength in her as well, just as I find strength in male deities like Bragi, the poet of the gods, and Freyr, a god of harvest and prosperity.

Sól is consistent–the epitome of discipline. She is the center of the solar system around which we all  turn, just like in Donneâ€s compass. Her heat and light are the foundation of life for our planet. In Norse myth, she rides across the sky in a chariot, moving quickly as she is always chased by Sköll, the wolf (or Fenrir, depending on the myth). Eventually, at Ragnarök, she will be caught–but we are told her daughter will carry on with her duties, providing heat and light for the world. Just like one day I too will be caught by death, but should I live my life with purpose, somebody else will continue the good work I’ve done.

Iâ€ve touched on a lot of different topics here, Realm. What do you think?

+ Featured Image: Far Away and Long Ago, by Willy Pogany from the book Children of Odin. I love the style of this image, but if you look you’ll see that the artist follows traditional gender associations and renders the sun as a man and the moon as a woman!

Vincent D’Onofrio as Dawson (Thor) in AiB

Adventures in Babysitting (1987)

I think the first time I *saw* Thor, it wasnâ€t really Thor. It was a mechanic with a striking resemblance to Thor. If you know the movie, you know the story includes a little girl who is very much a tomboy, much obsessed with Thor comic books, and very smitten with Thor.  Who can blame her, though? Thor is pretty dreamy in almost all of his media incarnations. Anyway, the characters in this movie end up in all sorts of comedic trouble, one of which is their car breaking down in a sketch area of town. They end up in a garage with a mechanic who is muscular and blonde and sporting a Mjölnir-like tool. There is swooning and swearing (allegiance), and ultimately mechanic Thor saves the day…er, the car.

Thor in SG1

Stargate SG-1 (1997-2007)

I really liked the original Stargate movie, and not just because I am a fan of the two lead actors, Kurt Russell and James Spader. I really liked the characters, too. So I was happy when the series came out. I didnâ€t become an avid fan until a few years before the series ended, though. In the first season, the series introduced a highly advanced alien race that was benevolent towards humans – the Asgard, the “gods” of the Norse. Thor was one of the Asgard characters. But these Asgard were not the tall, shiny, easy-on-the-eyes, Chris Hemsworth sort of gods. These were more like ET. Not hideous, but not shaggable. The Asgard were first introduced to SG1 fans in “Thorâ€s Hammer” (S1), but we didnâ€t *see* them until “Thorâ€s Chariot (S2).”

Val Hallen on TJF

The Justice Friends (1996-1998)

I didnâ€t become a fan of The Justice Friends until they were off the air. TJF were characters in the Dexterâ€s Laboratory universe. Why was I watching the Cartoon Network as an adult with no children in my house? Two words. Graduate school. Anyway, TJF characters were parodies of other fantasy characters. Major Glory (Captain America/Superman), Krunk (Incredible Hulk/The Thing), and Val Hallen (Thor/Eddie Van Halen). Okay, Eddie Van Halen is obviously not a fantasy character, but Iâ€m sure he was the focus of many a female fantasies back in the day. [Sidebar: Egads. I hope no one talks about me like that. “She was awesome back in the day.” Gah! I suppose we all share that fate.] This Thor was a cutie, but he was dumb as a bag of hammers.

Thor has a much longer history on television, but I donâ€t remember seeing him until “Adventures in Babysitting.” According to IMDB, there are a lot of movie and shows with characters named Thor, but it looks like only a few of them are the Asgardian Thor. Am I missing any of your media encounters with Thor from my list? When did you first see Thor on television or in a movie?

Featured image, characters Dawson (Thor) and Sara from “Adventures in Babysitting.”

I was visiting my sister last week (hence GG graciously filling in for me<LINK>), and we binge watched the Netflix Original series Orange is the New Black. Have you seen it? If youâ€re unfamiliar, itâ€s a thirteen episode TV series inspired by Piper Kermanâ€s memoir about her year incarcerated in a minimum security prison. I highly recommend it if youâ€re not bothered by nudity and graphic sex. Oh, and a cliffhanger of a season finale. The new season starts June 7!

Kermanâ€s real story is the kind of gonzo thing that sounds like fiction. Sheâ€s from a stable family, went to college, is capable and smart…and for a couple years in her early 20s, dated a heroin smuggler. Kerman didnâ€t do drugs or involve herself with that side of her girlfriendâ€s life (other than traveling together), but once when her smuggler-girlfriend was in dire straits, Kerman flew a suitcase of cash across international lines for her. Not long after that, Kerman realized that if she stayed it was likely she would continue to get more involved in smuggling and broke off their relationship. Four years later, after Kerman had completely moved on with her life– settling down in the West Village with a boyfriend, a job as a freelance producer, and a new circle of stable friends–her ex was caught, and Kerman was indicted for money laundering and drug trafficking. Six years after that, she went to prison.

The Netflix series takes some liberties, like redubbing the lead character Piper Chapman, but the early scene in which Piperâ€s fiance drives her to prison to “surrender,” is almost identical to Kermanâ€s description of her own surrender written for the New York Times. Piper is painfully WASP-y, and the showrunners capitalize on this. From the beginning itâ€s clear that this blond, successful woman who does juice cleanses with her sweetheart fiance doesnâ€t belong in prison with all these other women. And with that lead in, the show slowly begins to question whether any of these women–or society in general–are served well by the prison system.

In America, we live with a punitive justice system. My state, Texas, is absolutely infamous for it.  At some point, I think while I was still teaching high school, I realized I donâ€t believe in punishment. Consequences, yes. Punishment, no. And episode after episode, Orange is the New Black pretty much nails why.

Fostering classes clarify the difference between punishment and consequence this way: A consequence is a logical repercussion stemming from a personâ€s action. A punishment is an unrelated repercussion designed to degrade, demoralize, or cause pain in order to discourage future wrongdoing. For a parental example (since Iâ€m most familiar with this concept through fostering classes), spanking a child for stealing cookies is a punishment. A consequence might be not giving her a slice of the special dessert everyone else has at dinner because she already ate her sweet for the day.

Humans are wired to avoid pain and social stigma–the cornerstones of punishment. But thatâ€s as likely to mean we learn better ways to get away with it as it is to mean we change the undesirable behavior. Many social scientists believe that consequences have a higher likelihood of retraining behavior than punishment with fewer unintended consequences. A child who has to clean the wall they drew on is a lot less likely to do it again than a child who is put into time out. Consequences reinforce empathy (somebody had to clean the wall because you drew on it–if you werenâ€t caught, somebody who did nothing wrong would have this work). They create self-worth instead of destroying it (you made a problem, but you fixed it, instead of you made a problem and somebody else fixed it while you were shamed). They also typically make the negative measure/action easier to handle because itâ€s clearly connected as opposed to arbitrary (what does time out have to do with drawing on the wall?). My personal experience fostering children has led me to believe in this wholeheartedly. Granted, it ainâ€t easy to do. There were times where I was absolutely confounded for some sort of logical consequence for something our girls pulled. But TheScott and I followed this philosophy as best we could, and it worked.

I donâ€t believe adults are different than children in this way. We like things to make sense. We behave better when we empathize with the people around us. We want to feel worthwhile and capable. Creating consequences for a crime as opposed to punishing a criminal helps people retain their dignity and grow into stronger people.

How do we in the US apply that to the prison system? I donâ€t know exactly. I do think we put too many people in prison. I knew our rate was high, but I didnâ€t realize before writing this that when it comes to incarceration rates, weâ€re #1. In the world. With .72% of our population in prison, weâ€ve got 1.5 times Russiaâ€s incarceration rate, 2.5 times Iranâ€s, and 6 times Chinaâ€s. Piper Kerman being sent to prison ten years after sheâ€s realized her mistake and moved on does no good whatsoever. But then, again, punishing a drug dealer whoâ€s been punished her whole life by poverty, hunger, and living surrounded by drugs and gangs doesnâ€t do any good, either. And is likely to produce a repeat offender.

Europe puts fewer people in prison and has prisons that focus on rehabilitation instead of punishment--with a far lower recidivism rate than the US (rate of people returning  to prison). Rehabilitation and finding alternatives to prison (such as community service) are shifts from punitive justice, in which prison is seen as a demoralizing punishment intended to discourage people from crime, to a justice system based on consequences where prison is seen as a place for retraining. A premiere and controversial example is Norwayâ€s Bastøy prison, known as the nicest prison in the world. Itâ€s an island with no fences, unarmed guards, and no uniforms where the inmates garden, ride horses, and cook their own lunches and breakfasts. And it houses murderers. But if youâ€re talking results that do a society good, within two years of being released, Bastøy has a 16% recidivism rate–compared to the USâ€s staggering 48%-60%. Arne Kvernvik Nilsen, Bastøyâ€s governor said, “If we have created a holiday camp for criminals here, so what? We should reduce the risk of reoffending, because if we don’t, what’s the point of punishment, except for leaning toward the primitive side of humanity?”

I think thatâ€s exactly the question we need to decide. Iâ€ve spent most of my life hearing prison spoken of as a place where criminals are punished, getting their deserved comeuppance. But I donâ€t see how that does society any good. If prisons were a place where we socialized people and then sent them back into the world with the tools to work within society, wouldnâ€t that make the country a nicer place for everyone to live?

Have you seen Orange is the New Black? Did it make you think?

[On a related note that didnâ€t fit in the text but I canâ€t not add…

I havenâ€t seen 2013 statistics yet. But in 2012, the US is also one of only 21 countries who performed capital punishment, coming in fifth in number of executions behind China, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. Over a quarter of the USâ€s executions were done in my state, Texas, which if counted by itself, wouldâ€ve taken Afghanistanâ€s 8th place ranking. Iâ€m going to say that again. In 2012 Texas had a smaller population yet more executions than Afghanistan.]

I won’t retell the whole story here, but the gist is that Muslims and Christians are consistent culprits of this kind of over reporting when they are asked about their religious behavior. Philip Brenner, a sociologist who’s trying to understand this over reporting, views it as another way to understand people and their complex relationship with religion. He thinks people are reporting their aspiration as practitioners of their faith, rather than their actual practice. He doesn’t think people are flat out lying. He thinks they are still sharing something about themselves with their answers. They just aren’t sharing what the question was designed to learn.

This got me thinking. Would or do Pagans over report, too? Or are Christian and Muslims over reporting because their faith includes prescribed behaviors? That is, these religions dictate or at least strongly encourage prayer, attendance, tithing, etc. Christianity and Islam value faith practices. Since most Pagan faiths don’t include mandated behaviors, maybe we wouldn’t feel the need or desire to say we practice more than we really do. At the same time, a lot of us feel our unique and varied practices help set us apart from other faiths. Many Pagan faiths value faith practices (i.e., ritual, observance, etc.). So maybe Pagans would over report. I’m not sure, but I’m interested enough to do some research and follow-up on this in a later post.

What do you think? Do you think Pagans would over report their religious or faith behavior on a survey?

Featured image, a man at prayer in the desert.

The Pagan Princesses live in Austin, where the city motto is “Keep Austin Weird.” It’s a rallying cry and a marketing strategy designed to encourage patronage of local businesses and merchants. And it also helps keep our local culture alive by promoting and supporting some of the unusual events in our town. For example, Eeyore’s Birthday – a free, fun hippie frolic in a public park completely run by volunteers. Note: If you live in or near Austin, the 51st Annual Eeyore’s Birthday will be April 26th – and there will be a Maypole!

While I consider myself an Austinite now, I don’t consider myself a totally weird person. But I have to admit, I have some quirks. In the interest of sharing (or maybe TMI), I thought I’d share a few of my uniquely-me traits. Judge me or don’t, but have fun doing it!

â•I like to chew gum in the shower. Even when I wash my hair. I am not sure why washing my hair should alter my desire to chew gum in the shower. I feel like it should, but it doesn’t.

â•My “go to” Girl Power soundtrack is from Conan the Barbarian (1982). The Prague Philharmonic Orchestra version is amazing, but I am still very fond of the original record. This music fills me with courage, humility, rage, and peace when I listen to it. Really, it fills me with whatever I need in that moment. Powerful stuff.

â•I don’t like condiments. Mustard, mayonnaise, and ketchup all smell disgusting to me. I have to hold my breath to make sandwiches for other people who like these condiments. And if any of these get on my fingers by accident, I do a “heebie jeebies” dance on my way to the sink to wash them off (and disinfect my skin). Yuck. I’m gagging right now just thinking about it.

So, there are a few maybe-weird or maybe-quirky things about me. What are three uniquely-you things you’re willing to share? [Keep it clean, Realm. *wink*]

Featured image, the “Keep Austin Weird” logo.