Today is Moon Day.
There’s so much to say about the moon–new moon, blue moon, blood moon, Good Night Moon, so much–but I always think of that very early movie, Georges Méliès’s A Trip to the Moon, and this picture:
The picture above is from the same movie, colorized. According to Wikipedia, “the film follows a group of astronomers who travel to the Moon in a cannon-propelled capsule, explore the Moon’s surface, escape from an underground group of Selenites (lunar inhabitants), and return to Earth with a captive Selenite.” So your basic human invade-and-exploit-the-natives story.
For me, no thanks on going to the moon. I’ll just stay. down here and admire how gorgeous it is. Also, not made of green cheese, but probably full of NASA trash by now. Because humans.
This is apt, seeing as there was a recent lunar eclipse. I wouldn’t want to travel to the moon, or live on it. I think Ben Bova wrote a novel with a theme of how the rich and/or powerful would gatekeep access.
There’s a tweet thread about peeing and pooing in zero gravity and if more people know what it involves, fewer people would want to be astronauts.
I’m resting. Trying to figure out my anger triggers. It is really bad and I didn’t know how bad until I recently wanted to flig a chair through a window. I have to retune my mind. Does anybody have any ideas/methods?
I got a white wine for R40. Made the second batch of risotto today. It is delicious.
I should also add that frustration can be cumulative, and trigger anger at things that really have nothing to do with the original cause. (That’s known as displaced anger, in case you wanted the technical term.) And for me, I find that being overtired can really aggravate this. I am normally pretty even tempered, but between the many frustrations of the last couple of years and being perpetually exhausted, I’m finding it much tougher not to get angry at what are really fairly minor things.
I don’t have any solutions, alas, except to ask myself “How important is this, really?” Hugs.
The pee and poo in space thread (by Mary Robinette Kowal) is amazing. For anyone who missed it: https://twitter.com/MaryRobinette/status/1152277166996017152
Yes! I was about to share this, it’s the best thing I’ve read all week. It’s practically worth signing up to Twitter for (a platform where the best and worst of us thrive).
I don’t have any shortcuts for decreasing your internal anger mountain, but I have found having plenty of sleep and exercise helps deal with it. It doesn’t make it go away, but it does help you try to get in front of the likely explosion.
When I complained about uncontrollable anger, a therapist told me once to imagine a box I could put my anger in. We talked about it for several minutes, what it looked like, what it was made of, and then she asked me what kind of padlock it had. “Just a simple latch,” I said. She didn’t say a word, but I sat there, stunned at what that said about my anger. I remember it clearly, even after all these years.
Psychologists say anger comes not from outside ourselves, but from the things we say to ourselves, our internal monologue. Some say it comes mostly from the ‘shouldn’t’ thoughts – I shouldn’t, they shouldn’t, it shouldn’t. If you can identify what you are thinking, what words you are using when you get angry, you can change your thoughts and reduce or eliminate your anger. This is easier in theory than practice, but even being aware that the anger comes from your own thoughts makes it easier to manage, I think.
Good luck, and hugs. You are not alone.
I think a common method is try not to become too hungry, too lonely or too tired helps with controlling your temper.
Also there is the last straw that breaks the camel’s back. Most people just solder on, until it builds up to the inevitable explosion, when you actually need to pay attention and try to overcome, change or adapt for the first thing or the biggest thing that really bothers you.
Maybe you should map out the time spent on your day or your week to see where it is coming from.
Hug, hope you feel better
I wouldn’t mind of all the rich people went to the moon. They can have it as long as they leave their assets down here. You really don’t need money on the moon
On dealing with anger and other emotions, I’ve found non-violent communication (NVC) very good lately. It’s about learning new ways of thinking about emotions and transforming them. The basic idea is that you work out what unmet needs your emotions point to, and appreciate how valuable those needs are.
I have a hair-trigger temper for a few days every month. I didn’t pick up the pattern until a friend who is just a few years older than me pointed it out, from her own experience. Excuse my language here, but fucking hormones.
Also school holidays. Term starts Monday, hooray.
I can’t give you any tips on managing anger, because I suck at it myself. I collect angerthings until I explode. I need to learn to let things out every now and then to prevent the big bangs.
But, at least I can send you a lot of hugs. <3 Hope you'll feel better soon!
I love the moon. Of course, I am a nature and goddess worshiping pagan, and we’re big on the moon. Going out and looking at the full moon lifts my heart, and I usually do some sort of small ritual that night, even if it is just lighting a candle and saying hello to goddess.
I remember as a small child being absolutely enthralled by the moon launches (I was born in 1960). A friend and I have just been rewatching a bunch of movies based on the real life efforts, including Apollo 13, First Man, and my favorite Hidden Figures, about the black women who did the math behind the scenes. If you haven’t seen that one, it is amazing.
Sure Thing–all I can tell you is that anger tends to come from fear or frustration. (For an example, see “All of America.”) Can you identify what you are afraid of or frustrated with? Hugs.
I love the pale gray light that comes from a full moon. My gardens and woods lose color and depth yet seem to shimmer.
I watched an indistinguishable form at the edge of the yard in the moonlight. After gazing a long time, I began to distinguish its silhouette and contours, and I realized it was a buck.
I haven’t seen fireflies in recent days, but last night we had a glowing red sunset — the landscape turned a golden hue — and a pair of bats sailed about, zooming in on bugs then beating their ways back up to height.
Once, we were at the beach and there was a full moon. The light would ripple in the waves. It was peaceful and awesome. I’d love to grow moon flowers.
I’m feeling moderately hopeful.
I got a corneal infection in my left eye late Wednesday, woke up on Thursday in a very unhappy state, and reacted with my usual calm, decisive confidence when faced with a medical challenge. I’m known by my family and friends as Diane The Courageous.
Just kidding! I absolutely panicked. As usual. Courage in the face of adversity? Pfffft.
But antibiotic drops and ointment are making it better. This morning it just feels vaguely scratchy, instead of on fire and filled with ground glass. Light is once again my gentle friend, instead of an invisible mortal enemy wielding a thousand daggers.
So moderately hopeful.
I love science fiction as much as the next former nerd girl, but the more I read about conditions on the moon, cost of getting people there (both monetary and environmental), difficulty of managing all the most common activities we have become used to living on earth (start with breathing, eating, drinking, defecating, building things, disposing of things, getting medical care — pretty much anything that means anything to you on a daily basis would be super hard on the moon) and then add in the people who are promising to pour their fortunes into the endeavor for some kind of glory, I am really drawing the line.
The last thing I read talked about moon dust and its challenges. Apparently what happens when you walk, drive, or otherwise disturb the surface, dust particles and small pebbles immediately fly everywhere, and they behave really oddly in 1/6 Earth gravity. For example, the smaller they are, the faster and further they are accelerated. That means the lower gravity can capture heavier stones but not the smaller ones, so the small ones and dust particles turn into tiny weapon clouds. Any satellites orbiting the moon or vehicles either landing there or operating there would be dust-blasted over and over by small rock particles going really really fast. And it clings to things too.
So as far as the moon goes, I feel we should just stay here, admire its looks, and use our efforts and resources to make the earth a better place for everyone and everything that lives on it.
Here for this!! 🙌🏼
I could go for a moon pie or cookies with white and chocolate frosting.
I recall a joke page quoting a TV Guide regarding The Wizard of Oz, something to the effect of “A teenager visits a strange country and immediately slays one of the inhabitants. She forms a gang and kills again.”
One of my favorite SF Novels was The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein. I would love to see it made into a movie, but not unless and until it can be filmed on location. Another favorite was Heinlein’s The Menace From Earth, the only romance written by him. Set in that same Luna City as Mistress, but later, it contains descriptions of flying in the low gravity. Young Holly has to compete with a beautiful actress from Earth for Jeff’s affections – all the SF stuff is just background.
I love the moon.
The fairy tales are open to that, Jack & the beanstalk especially
Imagine Rumplestitskin, it always bothered me.
Man commits treason, by lying to royalty, condemns daughter to death sentence
I wore a much shorter dress than I ever do these days, and actually changed my undergarments to a closer color match, to be less eye catching in case I forgot and leaned over… so no moons here. I do love the one in the sky though, it was quite beautiful a few nights ago.
It’s also National Lollypop day on July 20. Sees Candy gives a free lollypop to everyone who visits one of their stores.
What I loved about the movie Hugo, it brought this silent movie back to life. The moon is so deep and mysterious in other ways too.
The Moon. A little rock in the sky. Compared to the earth. When compared to say, a boulder it would be the big rock in the sky. Space has always intrigued me, but the moon, as lovely as it is when viewed from earth, is not a place I’d want to visit. There’s nothing to do there.
I wouldn’t be suitable for space travel – asthma, it puts the deep seas and the high skies out of reach. Not that I’ve suffered from in recently but it scars the lungs and makes an embolism a possibility.
There is plenty to do here on earth.
My favorite movie moon is in Moonstruck. My husband and I loved that movie; my first gen Italian in laws didn’t think it was funny at all.
They are celebrating the anniversary on the mall by a light show on Washington’s monument replicating the moon landing which I gather is spectacular but I can’t imagine going to watch it in this heat so I will be watching it on YouTube. This is a link to at least part of it: https://youtu.be/KILNOhY5g7E
I pressed the arrow next to the Google doodle and it played remarks by Michael Collins, the astronaut who piloted the capsule in space while the other 2 guys landed on the moon. I had no idea at the time how much the whole operation was flying by the seat of their pants. He said that the LEM almost ran out of fuel before they found a landing place and the huge rows of computers at mission control had less computing power than the average smart phone.
To him getting to the moon was not nearly as interesting as seeing the earth from space. That, he said, was life changing.
My favorite memory of the moon is going down to the shore of Lake Michigan on a hot summer night and watching the moon reflected off the lake. It is a heart stirringly beautiful sight.
I always check the moon if I have a night shift, because according to superstition, those are the most brutal. I’ve had two nurses say that two nights before and two nights after are even worse.
During a break from night shifts, I felt free to admire the moon instead, which I find extremely beautiful. We have fireflies, and it all feels like magic.
This week, my husband showed me a Tweet/post renaming all constellations “bees,” to simplify night gazing. This seemed perfect to me.
Thank you all. 🙏🏻
I’ve always thought this the best of the lunar songs, and I think the NASA folks are partial to it, too. Don’t know how Leslie came up with the title.
Hope Eyrie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGk5I6Fejh4