Reformatting, Re-Thinking Singlehood

The weather continues to be inclement, out of phase with my time off, and less than ideal for doing any skiing. It's been close to -40 outside with the wind chill factor this morning, and it's not going to change into anything much better throughout the day. I do welcome the chance to sit down and relax for a change. I've exhausted myself during my "days off", using all my valuable daylight hours for running around doing shopping for necessities, home upkeep projects, and cleaning. One of the very long tasks between household chores was updating my laptop's operating system. This is the first chance I've had to explore and play around on it.






My office whiteboard. Some days, it's like a big, ugly,
overbearing, 2-dimensional 'wife': always looming and nagging
 non-stop at me with reminders and "honey do" lists

This is my first entry made with using Windows 8. So far, I'm both impressed and overwhelmed with the functionality and the new dimensions of accessibility with the apps available. It's somewhat more user friendly for a laptop track pad than Windows 7 was. The only thing that annoys me about it is the slow start up time, and getting the "corner" features to pop up properly. I only installed it on my laptop. I'm doubting if it would be worth the time and effort to stick it on my aging desktop unit: I'll be replacing or eliminating that thing entirely before wasting time doing any more hard/software upgrades on it.

The other leisurely thing I did today was peruse this weekend's edition of the Sunday Phoenix. The article that captured my attention was a cover story about singlehood. I used to be down about being single earlier in my life, but now after some time and seeing a few more of the dynamics of other people, and big mistakes I would have avoided, I'm all the more happier about being so, or at least making a better peace about it. It's now comforting to know that I'm not truly such an oddball after all: preferring not to be burdened with marriage. I'm just one who is hip with the growing trend of the times. I was dumbstruck to read that 40% of the population of Montreal lives as singles, and the city of Stockholm has 60% of its people living alone. The social trend of single living is so common and prevalent there that their government is accommodating for it by building places equipped with single suites with communal kitchens and laundries. It kind of makes me even more curious and wanting to visit Sweden. Maybe I'd feel a little more normal and accepted there. Even though the thought of sharing my kitchen with someone else is irksome to me, depriving me of more of a sense of "home space"; perhaps infringing on my sense of order and privacy*, I'd still like to observe how the model of this type of living situation actually functions. If it indeed works, it would be something that should be opted here for sharing with the workplace as it is now, in terms of something both accessible and practical.

My laptop. The sweet little mistress, who's trying on a sexy
little update, who's tempting me to do all sorts of fun and naughty
things with her. Definitely more fun than the whiteboard.

It's shameful to say that I still find too many stupid people around here who treat me like a friggin' anomaly or outcast, because I'm not, nor have ever been, "fortunate" enough to be permanently partnered with someone. I'll even dare to go so far to say, to some degree, that there is even prejudice and bigotry working against me. The worst judgements, criticisms, and reactions, I find, are made by people who (typically):

• have been married longer than they have been single
• who don't know anything else but to be coupled, or a parent of children
• were too coddled, smothered and spoiled themselves as children, and constantly dependant on a parent or other authority figure
• don't know how to enjoy their own solitude, and instead have a strong need to wiggle into the lives of other people, and usually/eventually end up being an obnoxious pain in the ass to others around them
• are too delusional to know when their own marriage/relationship isn't working for them, and still keep whipping that dead horse rather than trying to find a sensible way to settle things with better options of counselling, separation, or divorce
• are ultra-religious or ethno-centric idiots who think it's some duty and obligation to marry, rather than daring to even think of it as being a choice. The last person who cast such a judgement on me was an immigrant from another culture where arranged marriages** are the rule rather than the exception. Once they learned my status, being at my age, they looked at me aghast, like I was some freak of nature that shouldn't even be alive.
• are otherwise, I would guess by their attitude and behaviour, just too goddamned stupid to know how to live on their own independently.

Totally unrelated bit of stuff here. . . It's the Cool Infographic of the Day: Nation Population/Migration Chart. It's only here because I'm a nerd for international demographics. Given what I just mentioned, I might someday be registered as one of those skinny little lines flowing from Canada to Sweden.

*- To have such insecurity and angst about losing these things has probably been already rendered pointless. Swedish companies, like IKEA, have no doubt foresaw this trend coming already through their research, and probably have been at the forefront of pre-designing everything accordingly for it for the rest of the century in terms of architecture, environment, furnishings, and decorum.
**-.Domestic violence statistics show cultures with arranged marriages as having some of the highest rates of spousal abuse. There is no arguing with me (one who has worked in a sexual assault and crisis centre) about this.