I hate paying bills.

For a long time I hated paying bills because I never had the money to pay them on time. But even after I could afford it I hated it. Bill paying is a certain kind of abstract process that doesn’t sit right in my brain. It’s bureaucratic and the downsides are conceptually disconnected from the upsides.

So one year I just stopped paying my bills. I lived in a regular house, but I did not have electricity or natural gas. I had running water, but it was not hot water.

I used oil lamps for light, a camp stove for cooking, a hand operated washing machine for clothes, a propane heater to heat one single room in the winter, a propane water heater to take quick showers. Buying a can of propane, and then using it, and then buying another has a flow that I can wrap my head around. (Those are affiliate links to the exact products I used – I recommend them all!)

I value simplicity, even if it makes things a little more expensive or a little more inconvenient.

For the 2000 census I was living in a hotel. I was seen as homeless and was considered part of an invisible and at-risk population. From my perspective I was living the dream!

My monthly “rent” was not much more than what I could find an apartment for in my area. Yes, the room was smaller than an apartment. But for the same money I got “free” utilities, once a week house cleaning, and no one ran a credit check on me.

And I was always ready to go, able to pick up and leave at a moment’s notice. When I went to a festival I would move out – everything I owned fit in my car – and on Monday I’d move back in, saving myself 3 days rent.

Writing for parents makes gendered language tricky. I’m often referring to the single hypothetical child of an imagined reader. Since I don’t know the gender of that child, I’m left with awkward choices that I discarded for one reason or another.

• Using only he – not going to happen. It’s sexist.
• Using only she – not that much better.
• Switching between he and she throughout the text – requires too much attention to detail for me.
• Using he or she each time – too clunky, especially when I use a pronoun multiple times in a sentence.

Here on LoveLiveGrow, I’ve been using the invented (or reclaimed) pronoun – ou – which I heard of through s.e. smith. Ou is the pronoun ou uses to refer to ouself.

I’ve used ou in my writing for about 3 years now. I’ve even had a couple of friends adopt it. But I’m getting a little weary of explaining it. I’m also less enthused with it as I try to write for a larger audience. In a blog post I can link back to explanation of my use of ou. But I’m working on an eBook, and I worry that it might alienate that audience.

I hate singular they. I don’t care so much about the “it’s improper grammar” argument. Grammar shifts. It’s natural. However, I am sometimes legitimately confused when it’s used in conversation. Especially when referring to a specific known person, I tend to think multiple people are being mentioned, and it leads to some confusion.

However, a goal that’s important to me is supporting the language preferred by any marginalized people affected by the language. A language shift happens faster the more people get on board. If adding my voice will help enable a shift desired by the affected people, then I want to contribute.

I see various gendered and non-gendered invented and reclaimed pronouns being used in transgender and genderqueer circles. But it seems that more and more often I am seeing a preference for singular they.

I want to add to that chorus and help shift the language that direction.

I have decided to drop ou and use singular they, despite my personal discomfort with it.

As a bonus, I won’t have to explain myself so much like I need to with ou. People might think my grammar is off, but they’ll understand what I’m saying.

We haven’t talked about gender and language here in awhile. What’s your take? Do you have a gender-neutral pronoun choice?

Curious Critters Volume Two is a gorgeous book for kids of any age who have a passion for or fascination with animals. If you’re not fascinated by these critters before you see this book, you will be afterwards!

David FitzSimmons has loved animals since childhood. He’s turned that love into a career as an author, photographer, and naturalist.

Curious Critters Volume Two is his latest book. It would make a perfect addition to a homeschooling program or the bookshelf of anyone who digs animals.

The star of the show is FitzSimmons brilliant photographs of the animals. The detail and intimacy of these photos is simply stunning.

The American Kestrel

FitzSimmons gives each animal a unique voice and character. He tells you about the animals and their habits by letting them speak for themselves in the first person.

Some of the animals are even poets, like the striped skunk who says:

My skunk reputation’s maligned.
One bees and small rodents I dine.
And that spray that you fear,
Coming out of my rear,
I think odoriferously fine!

Curious Critters Volume Two is both funny and informative. I love how all the animals are from right here in the USA. We don’t need to peer much farther than our own backyards to find exotic and fascinating creatures worth getting to know.

Curious Critters will appeal to young children, but I love how FitzSimmons doesn’t dumb down the language. Kids will learn new facts about the animals and new words to add to their life science vocabulary. Did you know that Easter cottontail bunnies eat their own poop? Did you know that a granivore is an animal that eats mostly seeds?

Gold-Green Sweat Bee

With beautiful images and fascinating facts about delightful animals from bunnies to birds to bugs, Curious Critters is right for any reader who wants an up-close and personal encounter with some wondrous animals.

Buy Curious Critters Volume Two on Amazon or check out Wild Iris Publishing where you can buy an audiobook version to bring the animals’ voices to life.

It’s no surprise to most people who know me that I am in love with smart phone technology.

If you’ve seen a headline in the last five years, you also know that people are prone to hang-wringing about possible “addiction” to our devices.

{Image credit}

Here’s one headline: Giving up technology is as ‘stressful as getting married’ from The Daily Mail.

Citing software firm FrontRange, it contains such frightful tidbits as:

If the very thought of being without your smartphone brings you out in a cold sweat you could be suffering from a form of technology addiction.

New research has found that more than half of gadget owners (53 per cent) worldwide admit to suffering anxiety when they can’t use their phones and added having a tech detox was ‘as stressful as a trip to the dentist or even their own wedding day.’

and then this:

Almost half said they use their phone at least once every hour and two thirds claimed they couldn’t go without their smartphones for a day.

‘When people feel an uncomfortable sense of withdrawal when not online, we know that the relationship with technology is not being managed properly,’ said Dr Graham from the Capio Nightingale Hospital…

Well, that sure sounds dire.

It’s popular to raise this alarm these days. Take Conrad Gessner, a Swiss scientist who wrote an entire book about how the modern world overhwhelms people with data, which he calls “confusing and harmful” to the mind. Better put down my cell phone. Too bad Gessner lived in the 1500s and was talking about the printing press. Oops.

The truth is that smart phones are easy and useful to integrate into your regular, daily, habitual life. They are incredibly valuable. As such, it’s not really any surprise that they then become stressful to do without.

Try plugging in some other ultra-useful technology into these dire little warnings and you can see how stupid they sound.

Study finds half of people feel anxious when they can’t use their car.

Well, yes. My car is kind of necessary for my day to day life. Being a little anxious when it’s in the shop is perfectly understandable.

Your car makes a really great analogy, since cars are really integrated into modern life. For many people cars are second in material importance only to homes.

But my favorite technology for this thought experiment is electric indoor lighting. Not all electricity, mind you. JUST indoor lighting.

• Half of people feel anxious when they can’t turn on their lights.

• 45 percent said they use indoor lighting at least once and hour

• Two thirds admitted they couldn’t go a day without turning on the lights

• When people feel an uncomfortable sense of withdrawal when the lights aren’t on, we know that the relationship with technology is not being managed properly.

Joshua pointed out that a lot of people experience a serious discomfort when their electricity goes out. It’s unusual. It’s confusing. The sensations are strange. All of a sudden you have to figure out how to do things differently. Annoyingly differently.

It would clearly be absurd to say those people have a technology addiction or an unhealthy relationship with their light switches.

The same is true for smart phones. Oh no! A tool is really useful and so people use it a lot! Let’s panic! It’s simply a fear of technology, an attachment to the past, and we will get over it just as we got over our fear of the printing press.