"the entire history of you"

black mirror season 1, episode 3 - the entire history of you

if you could record everything, would you? there's a quotation that goes something like "memories aren't what happened. they're what you remember." that's really true. but anyway, if you could record everything then your memories would be the truth, right? lol, no, of course not.

there's a quotation from a map of the world, a novel by jane hamilton, that i used to think about a lot, but that i can't remember or find, but it was something about how the thoughts in my head are *mine* and how horrible it was that some people wanted to know them all. they're my private thoughts, and even though they may be about you, they're mine and mine alone. this was a bit of a thing with rip and me. i would think things, and he knew it, and he would ask and i would refuse to tell him, especially if they were silly non sequitur nothings, tho often times they were serious things too. anyway, it drove him (and me) nuts.

j's different. he can see me thinking things and when he asks and i say "nothing" he doesn't press. he waits for me to want to tell him. i appreciate that. tho it also means that i let a lot of things go. i see him too, thinking, and i often times won't even ask.

overthinking is poison. thankfully i don't do it very often. i'm generally able to stop thinking about what i don't want to think about. ...which is also bad because it makes procrastinating and not confronting the truth really easy, too easy. in other words, i wouldn't be liam (from black mirror). i could never be liam. but, at the same time, isn't it maybe better to be liam? he suspects something and it turns out that he was right: jonas meant more to fi than she admitted, she did cheat with him, and the child's paternity is unclear. the episode got to me because i felt like rip would totally identify with liam. he wouldn't break into jonas' house or anything crazy, but he would "make" me tell him stuff. but again, that's maybe not a bad thing. the truth may not always be pretty, but it is important. and you may not be entitled to my thoughts, but you most likely are to the truth, especially if it affects you.

bread crumbs

recently had someone online stalk me. she knew my instagram account and traced it back to my twitter. i wonder if she also found my fb. or even this blog?! anyway. weird stuff. for some reason i didn't feel terribly violated. i just accepted that, yeah, of course people can find me. it's all public. i don't privatize any of my accounts and i don't intend to either.

since then i haven't changed any of my posting habits. but i probably should, right? i mean, it is a little scary. i'm sure i've "accidentally" posted all kinds of info i shouldn't have. tho i guess the real question is, *what* kinds of info shouldn't you be posting? it's probably best not to post anything at all...

one thing i will be more careful of tho, is posting friends' names. i used to use first initials only and in the last few years have switched to first names. i won't be doing that anymore.

ps. i googled myself and found my old flickr account!!

no lectures, please

last year a friend of mine cheated (once) on his fiancee. he told me about it before he broke up with her. he basically just told her that it was over and didn't mention the cheating. i think in the space of him cheating and him telling her, it was a few days to a week. i didn't immediately tell rip, but i did tell him before my friend told his fiancee.

this week there was poll thing going around on fb. someone asked if they saw the friend's significant other cheating, would they want to be told. this friend of mine very quickly and unequivocally answered yes.

i messaged him to say that his answer was interesting because rip and i actually got in a fight about just this thing last year over his situation.

rip had met the fiance a few times. he didn't know her well, but he would have recognized her on the street. rip felt that he should tell the fiancee about my friend's cheating. if nothing else, it would help her get over my friend faster. i didn't argue that point, but i felt he shouldn't say anything. i mean, he only knew her because of me and my friendship. he's knew my friend way before the fiancee came into the picture, and i don't think he's ever personally contacted either of them. certainly not the fiancee! i figured he also shouldn't say anything because my friend was imminently going to break up with her. and, yeah, also cause him telling her would put me in a really terrible position.

there is a little big more to the story, but it's too long to type out, and is besides the point. but basically, rip wanted to tell and i didn't want him to. he eventually didn't.

at the time, i didn't tell my friend that i told rip. i mean, i kind of figured he knew. rip and i had been dating for 14 years so yeah, it's a pretty good assumption that i'll probably tell him what you tell me. mind you, i don't tell him everything. he doesn't know your sexual predilections, your serious crimes, your drug or sex abuse, or any trauma in your life. he doesn't know anything you would basically only tell a therapist or a priest and for some reason trusted me enough to tell me. i wouldn't tell him that stuff unless it was actually imperative he knew. and i can't imagine why that would ever be. but he does know why you and your last relationship didn't work out, and what i honestly think about that.

anyway, back to my friend. so i told him what happened with rip and me. my friend said:
"Well I didn't think they were friends. And I didn't know you decided to tell rip but that's fine." etc "It's one thing to tell someone something you saw. It's another to say something you know third hand that you probably shouldn't know anyway."

you know what also isn't okay? a fucking lecture. esp an indirect one. you know that saying? "don't do something if you don't want people talking about it." now, that's obviously a general statement that doesn't hold true in every situation, but... it's a big fucking deal: you cheating on your fiancee. we've all known each other for years and here we all thought you two were well on the way to marital bliss. i kept my mouth shut for the months afterwards when you decided to not tell any of our mutual friends. and in fact, i don't even know /remember if you did tell them because we all generally respect your privacy so none of us have discussed that portion of the breakup.

and, dear reader, i know you might think i may be reading into his message to me, but no, trust me. there was more to his message to me that i'm not including. anyway, i just had to vent this a little. but what do you think? do you tell your significant other everything, nothing, or something in between?

what's mine?

rip recently "confessed" to me something that he's been holding in for years: something happened to a friend of his. i'm not going to reveal it here, cause, well, it aint none of our business. i don't really care that he kept quiet about it for so long.* it happened to his friend and has nothing at all to do with him, and certainly not with me. but rip feels that his friend's stories are his. things that happen to your friends happen to you. and i definitely agree with him. but not completely. marriage, unmarriage, children, unchilden, cheating, jail, funny and scary stories generally become my stories once my friend tells me about them. but a few things, you probably shouldn't share with your significant other.

occasionally a friend will tell you something deeply personal. and it's because they trust you. they're trusting you with their shame or trauma or soul, not just their story. and it doesn't become your story. and even if it did, it's certainly not your story to share. it's just something you keep in your heart to help you understand your friend, and to maybe help them later if it somehow comes up.

at some point your friends understand, tho it's unspoken, that you will tell your significant other most of the things they tell you. but... everything? i'm uncomfortable with that. i'm telling my bestie something because i've known her for years and we love each other unconditionally and as much as she may be judging me, she will always have my back. her husband? not so much. not to say that i haven't told my married girlfriends things anyway. i would just hope she doesn't tell her significant other everything. but i also trust her judgement enough to not question what she does or does not disclose to him. so long as he doesn't throw things back in my face or tell other people my secrets. ..but i'm getting off topic a bit now.

anyway. what about you? do you tell your significant other everything? why or why not?

* the only reason it does kind of bother me he didn't tell me so many years ago is his reason for not telling me. cause i totally disagree. he thought it would make me feel differently about him. which i'm nearly positive it wouldn't have.

unfriend!

i've felt this way before, tho i've certainly never done it! (i also don't have his password were i ever truly tempted to, hahahah!)

keys to my...

password sharing: for teens, access to online accounts is a sign of love

rip and i used to tell each other our passwords. and yeah, sometimes one of us would "get in trouble". eventually tho, we stopped updating each other, tho i think more because we both change our passwords pretty often and not because we were hiding stuff from each other.

for other stuff tho we're pretty open. since we both use drive-thru atms we have given each other our atm pins (tho i never remember his). and i think if i asked for his other passwords he'd probably tell me. tho he'd probably ask why and i don't think he'd be too happy if i said "in order to spy on you."

anyway, i don't have a problem with telling him my passwords but i don't think he needs to know them. if he told me he wanted them so he could "check in on me" i wouldn't tell him, and i'd probably become very paranoid and make him turn around every time i typed it in.

i think at a certain point you need to just trust someone. if he really wanted to hide something from me, he would find a way, regardless of how much i tried to spy on him. so why bother spying?

donor rights

recently the view profiled a woman who used a sperm bank to get pregnant. years later she and her son tracked down the donor, who did not want to be contacted. eventually the donor's sister called back and told the woman that several members of their family had died of the same inheritable genetic disease. the son was tested, and it turned out he had the same defect. he has since had corrective surgery, but he will need screenings every year.

the mother now wants a federal law requiring sperm donors to report major changes in medical history. she mentioned that there is another state that requires, once the child turns 18, for the donor's medical history and contact info be released. while i do think that a person is entitled to their medical history, i don't know that they are entitled to their knowing their genetic parents.

i think a lot of people put their kids up for adoption or donate genetic material and really just don't want to know about it afterwards. if i were raped and decided to have the baby but not keep it, i don't think i would want this child finding me later. i'm okay with giving them updated medical history, as i think they have a right to stay physically healthy, but i think that i have a right to privacy, because your emotional needs to not trump mine.

if the govt sent me a form every year asking for changes in medical history, there could also be a yes / no box: do you want us to release your contact info should the recipient of your genes want it? i think this would be a pretty easy way for me to attempt to keep my identity hidden, and every year i would be asked the same question should i change my mind.


(new pornographers - my rights versus yours)

prying noses

was watching the news the other night and heard the calabasas is banning smoking cigarettes inside your own apartment. as usual, i did some research before updating my site and saw that i got a few things wrong. they're only banning smoking in 80% of apartments (why 80%? the article doesn't say, but i read elsewhere that these days only about 20% of americans are smokers). but it doesn't matter cause appt the city of belmont has already passed legislature outlawing smoking in multi-unit housing legislature (aka, attached apartments and condos), and since there are no %s named, i guess this means that there's no smoking in any belmont apartment (multi-unit ones anyway).

i have mixed feelings about this. on one hand, i'm thinking this is great. i kind of feel like we should outlaw all smoking anyway, so this is in line wit that. but i think it's really weird how you can regulate otherwise legal activity in someone's own home. i understand that you don't own an apartment and that your second-hand smoke might get into someone else's space but... why can't we just regulate the second hand smoke factor? as in, if your neighbors file several complaints against your smoke getting into their apartment, you're gonna have to make sure it doesn't get in their way. i do feel like my right to cancer free air trumps your right to kill slowly yourself by smoking, but... this might be going a little too far.

Tags: morality, ethics, smoking, clean air, apartments, condos, law, violation, privacy

prying eyes

best buy's geek squad finds child porn on janitor's computer, janitor arrested.
obviously child porn is bad and the guy should have been arrested. but do you think that the geek squad also violated the law by snooping?  i think so. think about it. if the police can't even search your house witout a warrant (which they get after supposedly demonstrating that they have a good reason to search your house) then how can the geek squad randomly search thru your stuff?
if you read the wiki article you should've noticed part where if a person gives consent, there is no need for a search warrant. but does handing over your hard drive to be fixed mean that you're giving permission for them to search the whole thing? i think not. the geek on that squad should be punished if they can't show that they had a legitimate reason for looking thru that part of the hard drive.
some people might argue that, but really now. imagine this: a person breaks into your house and has already loaded up their car wit all your stuff. you come home and suffer a heart attack (maybe because of the shock of finding them, maybe not). they call the paramedics who come and rescue you. they later tell you that witout that burglar calling 911, you would've been dead. does that mean that you should no longer press charges for trespassing, breaking and entering, and theft? i don't think so. just cause they did a good deed does not mean that they didn't break the law in the first place. (and yes, i realize this analogy doesn't work perfectly wit the best buy situation, but this analogy isn't for that).

Tags: morality, ethics, best buy, geek squad, pornography, law, violation, privacy