Sturm und Traum

This morning, it was one of those utterly implausible, plausible, detailed dreams. I was shot in a mass shooting - four times. My right flank, side (right in the imaginary tattoo - though I do have one on my left), shoulder, and right below my eye. As happens in dreams, I was initially terrified of death, but my dream kept going. Something about getting to my house (the one I grew up in, but now mortgagetually "mine"; that address seems to have appeared more, through the past year, hmm), getting to my mom, protecting someone else, and failing, failing, failing, failing to get ME to a hospital. At some point I was driving myself, again through the old neighborhood, not apparently to get care.

In the dream, the medical upshot of my injuries was unclear apart from bruises rising up from each bloodless bullet hole. One wound, indeed, couldn't be seen for the bruising and the tattoo. Even in the dream, I dismissed the caliber as a small one, since I could keep moving. For what seemed like hours.

The thing is, the real impact of the dream was that first moment: that fear of death. The shock.

The stunning truth of it.

I'm not special. ANY of us is subject to dying this way, in the United States. Land that I love. Sigh.



2019 has not been the worst year, for me, in recent memory. Yes, we still endure under the increasingly authoritarian and demented regime of the puppet Drumpf. Yes, there is much still to do. But even with that, much is happening, too. HR8 passed last week, and in a time of inured sensibilities, Cohen's testimony was scathing. (His redemption narrative, I could personally live without, but perhaps the benedictions he has received are not positivities best dismissed.)

And but personally, so far this calendar year is kicking 2018's ass.

The time I have taken off (quite a bit, so early in the year) has been for VACATION, not illness and death and mourning. So far.

I have spent time with far-flung friends, and family-by-adoption, people I love, and a new puppy I don't have to train. Mom's doing better, and my house has not fallen down around my ears. Yet.

Three four-day weekends in, I have celebrated a birthday, a bar mitzvah, and a long-distance visit.

2019 ... well, to quote something I said about 2009: it's been better than it had a right to be.


Breathing is good.


Now if I can just avoid being shot.

I have eaten the plums

The sun is back out. America's midterm elections are over. My friend V ... well. Losing her is awful, it's cruel. But she is not hurting now. Doctors can't use her body to experiment now. And those who love her - I am humbled they embrace me. Her husband, her family, her beloved friends: beautiful, beautiful, wonderful people.

This time has been hard. Like so many families, the remains of our nuclear unit - just me, mom, and my brother now - endure terrible political strain in these times. But, just for this morning, it's virtual hugs and three courses of "I love you." Because these strains have everyday, real consequences - this has, in some ways, been even harder than watching my lifelong friend die. Or, perhaps, it only got in the way of comprehending and mourning. I only know this has been the hardest thing to bear, over this past week.

We are all enduring a confluence. My brother is traveling to the memorial of a friend of his, and beautiful V's will be remembered on Saturday. As her kids do this, my mom is now watching her own oldest friend in town "giving back", as some say in the South. It may be we all suffer the loss of our dear Deebo, my stepfather - and each of our dear friends.

The light of inspiration peeked out not too long ago - unsurprisingly, after The Conference, but also very much under the influence of other friendships. Leila, especially, uniquely lights my creative way. She and I have so much in common, but we write such different works, and about the time I did a recent beta-read for her, I also happened to find the ENDING for a short work we began an embarrassing number of years ago in our writing group. It's been drafted two different ways, I let it settle in a certain direction, and for now it is sitting quietly, resting, rising, awaiting both her feedback and my final attentions.

Writing. Feels. So. Good.

There truly is nothing else like writing.

And so, with voting done and the sun out and my family whole ... I open up the WIP, the big dog, the "real" work. The novel. Just open it. I shall scroll about in it, find something to alight upon, and read a little bit.

Research feels like a good way to go. I fear it may have to be, at long last, the pogrom. (Yes, now, of all moments.)

Sometimes, the way writing feels "good" is different from other times. It's not always pleasure.

Sometimes, it's memorial.

Florence and the (disaster preparedness) Machine

Yes, it is coming this way. Forecasts, of course, vary - but the upshot in more than one tracking-map I've seen seems to point to pretty intense inland flooding, which means: for all the frustration it took me dealing with JES (ugh) to get it, I *am* provisionally glad I have a pretty new sump pump and waterproofed basement.

For all the frustration JES caused me over a year and a half trying to get it right, I will also be WATCHING carefully to see how well the 'proofing and pump will perform.

As for the rest of it ... I stopped this morning for gas. There was a pretty impressive (but blessedly not static) queue, and this at a station with ten pumps. There are several gallons of water for me and the fur kids, kibble enough for them for more than a week, and for me some less-perishable foodstuffs and a non-electric can opener. Tonight, I need to remember to throw several large bags or bottles of water in the freezer; these can help it act as a cooler for at least *some* period of time in the event of an outage. Other than that, plentiful candles and funeral fans.

Funeral fans, for those not familiar with this Southern tradition, are good-sized stiff paper fans, most often provided by funeral homes for those ladies sitting beside a burial in the hot Southern summer. These fans outpace any folding fan I've ever had, for maximal air-movement output. And, fella babies, I can tell you: as a woman enjoying the frequency of hot flashes reserved for those of us passing out of August and our fertile years, moving air is not low on my priorities list in facing this possible emergency.

It tends to be hard for me not to be amused at the way my hometown responds to the merest whiff of emergency. We go mad for grocery stores and water when weather calls for anything beyond routine, and so when a disaster may actually be looming, the drama still looks quaint - because, frankly, I've seen this city go nuts time and time again, when six flakes of snow were in the offing. Sixty miles away.

So, facing what could end up being a twenty-four-incher on uncertain heading, but looking likely to visit here, even if peripherally ...


Yeah. I'm amused by my community. But don't think I didn't buy gas on purpose, and that inventorying the hand-fans and water available are just entertainment.

As seldom as I have troubled to actually *write* anything here since my stepfather died, I will check in.

For those of you so much closer to the impact of winds and real danger: my prayers are with you. Be well, and check in when you can too, please. Donna. Colin. Anyone in the Carolinas.

Independence Day

I'm an American.

American dreams are built on words we dare not say.

Are you at liberty today? Remember those who are not; maybe help them out.

If you are American, are you one of the (shamefully few) who vote? This right is under attack. We can fight that.

Are you enjoying Teh Intarwebs? Do you believe all media should be controlled by one party? Is a free press worthy of protection? Defend it.

Be well today - and every day. Be safe. And let's hope we get through this holiday without that uniquely American institution, the mass shooting.

Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.
--Eisenhower

It was a day ...

... and it is an evening.

One of those days it's hard to keep yourself together. One of those days you feel like this, or this - or wish you did, because actually you are so much more fragile. One of those days you break, because of music. One of those days you are angry - and impotent. Cruelly, inhumanly, inhumanely - impotent. To help, to love, to DO.

It was a productive day. The sort of day you clear out the "pending work" folder and fill the recycling bin. You lob a few balls into other peoples courts, and check off a few things, completed, too. And even still, the sort of day you still have time to realize ... terrible, terrible things. Things you have always known, even articulated before, in different ways. But which still have the power to devastate.

Sometimes, it is a good thing to know that, when I say I am possessed of a  wee and paltry brain, really it is a joke.

Sometimes, it is a burden. To understand too well. And still be powerless. And still be the little girl, who is desperate and too tender and devastatingly weak.

Sometimes, it is a good thing, having a daily routine, having discipline - it keeps us together, most of the time.

Sometimes, it is a burden - the routine, the discipline. Keeping it together. And being devastatingly weak.

It is time to feel this. Instead of maintaining, to succumb.

It is evening.

It is night. Oh, Lord.

Flagged

Last Year

I set out my clothes for the next day, after I get home from work every day. The ritual is this: come in, greet Penelope and Gossamer, put down some kibble for them, put my cell phone on the couch so I won't miss important messages from my boss. Check the mail. Pen's done eating by now, or has had enough to start following me around, so she goes in the yard. Goss and I go upstairs. On the best days, he races me, and he ALWAYS wins.

In the bedroom, I put down the things of the day, take off the jewelry - always a nice moment, a physical relaxation - change clothes, check the weather, and decide on what to wear the next day.

I rarely dither, in this wardrobe selection. But last night, instead of weather, that local channel served up two campaign ads in quick succession, so I forwent the forecast. And laid out shoes, pants, and a short-sleeved blouse. It took me a while to pick something, even the purse to carry. But it had to be something with red in it - to remind myself: "tomorrow is election day."

Wearing red/white/and/or blue is rather on the nose, but I am all for obvious symbolism for any occasion. (On 11/9 last year, I wore cream and pale aqua - laid out the night before - meant to be a celebration of our freedom from the long, stressful campaign ... things did not turn out as I had hoped,of course; but I wore the cream and aqua anyway.) (And I wore brown on 11/8; good fall colors - and a locket with my dad's picture.)

So yesterday I had my nod to patriotism ready - but when I came up for bedtime, I saw the weather forecast at last, and found (hurray!) it was not expected to be short-sleeve weather. Time to rethink.

Today I am wearing a soft sweater, light beige.

So far this morning at the office, I have spotted: two red sweaters, and another work pal in royal blue.

Seems I am not the only one who goes in for symbolism - whether they did this consciously or not.

Accessorized to the nines.

How do you observe election day (even if today is not one for you)? Some do it with a memento, I know. We often respond to participating in democracy with something less concrete - prayers, even tears.

Do you carry something with you? Do you find yourself wearing a color or a shirt that gives you confidence, makes you feel bold?

Do you vote?


I voted today. Whatever else comes, that is a magnificent privilege still to treasure. That is a blessing to be thankful for.

Collection

The (Not) Just No Stories ... Casey Karp tells us about yet more ways for The Internet of Things not just to run, but to ruin, our lives. Not scary at all!

Art history, religious history - on the history of the fig leaf, all the way to Instagram. Spiff.

Reider reading! I am shamefully late to getting to it, so probably anyone here who frequents the comments at Janet Reid's blog has read this already, but Jen Donohue was published recently, and her short story is very good. Hop on over to Syntax and Salt, sink into it slowly, and enjoy.

Can we please dispense with the precious little phrase "open secret" now? In the past three weeks alone, we've encountered an open secret in Hollywood - oh, and in politics - now it's academia - and media-curated regions of the world or remoter reaches of the United States - and it's been discussed about Silicon Valley for many years, at this point. "Casting couch" is a phrase probably nearly as old as the phenomenon is, which may be about a century at this point (if you only count *film*). THIS IS OUR CULTURE. Not some isolated little "secret" - open or otherwise - affecting isolated little islands of people other than ourselves. This is the world. Women have never not-known this. So who thinks this is any sort of a secret? Oh yeah. All those men who're so surprised that rape and sexual extortion/blackmail/revenge is a thing. And it's not a secret, even from them. They've just enjoyed the privilege of obliviousness.

Collection

Rest in peace, Wallace.

This is frustrating. Labor is being paid first again. Shareholders get leftovers.

Revisiting the shareholder-first business model - courtesy of The New Yorker.

On the unexpectedly morbid history of ribbons as adornment. Naturally, this piece brings to mind the Beresford Ghost, and other stories.

To my knowledge, this lady hath much joy and pleasure in death.

I have to say, this makes more sense to me than fear, perhaps *especially* in the direst of circumstances - precisely because those people are facing deliverance from suffering.

The real point of this article - or, really, the research it discusses - is the guiding force in American healthcare: avoidance of death. I have known more than one person who would have been happier had they not been treated not-to-death, honestly. I do not intend to become the dying person constantly snatched back from the brink, either, and I don't wish to die in a hospital. This morning, I said to someone who said, "Getting old sucks!" "Yeah, but it beats the alternative." The fact is, sometimes death beats some of the medical alternatives, too. The trick is to know when to choose what. At some point, perhaps I will have the grace and blessing to choose not to incur obscene debt for life"saving" measures which prolong my agony and deplete my earthly resources. If I get there, I don't expect I'll face the end with horror or regret.

To people furious over the Kathy Griffin photo I ask, where were you when effigies of Obama were lynched and burned across the eight years of his administration...?

The Boston Globe has an EXCELLENT piece looking at the outrage surrounding the Trumpian Shakespeare in the Park production of Julius Caesar. And I say: um, yeah. Anyone who thinks this play is a celebration of assassination is ... well, let us use the term "uninformed" to be kind.

Throwback post - because it needs to be said. Again and again and again.

And again. Because we KNOW it's about power, not sex.

Now Who's the One Percent?

He who doesn't lose his wits over certain things has no wits to lose.
--Gotthold Lessing

So now we're looking at the defunding of the NEA, and killing off Big Bird. Again. I began my recurring donations to PBS about two minutes post-election-results, y'all.

Sales of George Orwell's 1984 shot up TEN THOUSAND PERCENT this week, thanks to Kellyanne Conway.


Ya know. Because facts are relative .... to your position of power.


I suspect that "getting people to read more" has not been any part of the GOP's radical agenda.



What the current Powers What Be's seem to have forgotten is that they have no mandate. When ONE PERCENT* of the entire population of the United States comes out on Day One to remind them of our power, it is the people who carry the mandate, and the power.

We do still have power, you know.

Let's exercise it thoughtfully and consistently - before we are forced to exercise it with cudgels.





*"(T)he low estimate for turnout on Jan. 21 was 3.2 million, according to researchers at the University of Connecticut and University of Denver--leaving aside the demonstrations on every other continent, including, thanks to an expedition tour, Antarctica." Current US population: 3.23 million.

January 20

Back in December, my brother and I were on the phone, and he asked me whether I was going to take off work on January 20. I thought about it, but really right now the place for me to be is here. There have been some protests locally - and, indeed, I am not so far from DC I could not have trekked up there to join the Women's March - but my job, I hope, has nothing to do with politics. I LOVE my job. And today, it kept me ... well, to use a political term ... occupied.

There's nothing to protest, with my work. When I was a public servant, really - probably even LESS. It might have meant more still than it does here, to man my post, to soldier on.

So, to take off today would only have been taking a day off, and I would not have been with any of my friends, DOING something in the world. Napping with Gossamer behind my knees while Pum snoozes and snores beside us on the floor is not the world's most efficacious piece of activism.

And so I worked.

I worked a LOT, in fact. It was a highly productive day. I reviewed my team's expenses, tweaked only a very few notes, signed off they were ready for approval. I got one of my dreaded piles of notices out, shipped a package for my boss, rescheduled one item, added another, generally spent the day kicking asparagus and taking names.

When, around 12:30, I heard the sound of the national anthem coming from a nearby office, I knew what it was, and just put in my earbuds for a while. RuPaul, of course, and a few of the Drag Racers.

By accident, the new sweater I chose to wear today with my poo-kickin' boots and comfortable, flattering pants happens to be perfect, primary, royal blue. All entendres intended, sure. I decided it is Hillary Blue. Bless her, I was late to be With Her, but my loyalty's confirmed.



So much of today's productivity came early on in the day. It seemed a VERY long work day, and that even knowing I would leave by 3:00 or 3:30 to make a supply run.

Emotionally, I have been neutral - numb, probably. But gratitude is something more than an emotion.

I immersed myself in my blessings today - one of the greatest being my living.

I love my job.



How did you spend Inauguration Day?

Not Done Yet

Holy crud, that was FAST

Remember that depressing and frightening Collection post I JUST put up like a minute ago? With this post linked?

Yeah. Well. Now this.

"BE SOVEREIGN, UNPLUG, AND READ A BOOK."

--Mojourner

______ Porn

Life being what it is these days, I recently had to explain to my tender-eared mother the concept of "food porn." You can't always trust that your little parents won't be exposed to such outre' things; you can, of course, take control of how you explain them to your family.

Food porn is this thing where people take photos of their food so they can share both the deliciousness they are about to enjoy, and tease others with how well they are eating.

It's the ubiquity of television food shows, reveling in exotic ingredients and watching judge after judge ooh-ing and ahh-ing over delicacies we may never be able to enjoy. It's both a sharing and a teasing with food. It's the basis of, at this point, SEVERAL industries - not just one.

The key to food porn of the description in quotes, roughly what I said to my mom, is the teasing, the punishment, the 'better than thou' art eating aspect. Tantalization is *meant* to be a bit cruel.

Substitute other words for "food" and we have all the teasing habits and infotainment making cultural forces we barely knew about when I was a kid.

Tantalization is meant to be cruel.

HGTV specializes in, essentially, architectural porn, a lifestyle on sale - with all the sponsors clearly delineated along the way, so you can ensure your life is properly equipped with hardwood floors never walked upon by anyone before you, white custom cabinetry, granite kitchens, stainless steel appliances.

Wealth porn has been around a long time. Pioneered during the Great Depression in movies of opulence and glamour, it was industrialized for the first time by the likes of Robin Leach, and by now the cultural landscape is rife with people essentially famous for living wealthily, and people becoming wealthy by selling their lives in order to finace ever-more eye-popping lifestyles.

Not so long ago, the sellability of economy porn - specifically, financial scare porn, brought us that glorious year, 2008. (HGTV's specialty, selling homes beyond the means of buyers, indubitably deserves credit for marketing tie-ins.

We've come to a place of generalizing this last variety, to where FEAR PORN all by itself is an engine not merely of lifestyle, but now commands politics worldwide.

Tantalization  is meant to be cruel.

The world is populated with scab-pickers. It hurts. We shouldn't. We do.

Ow, ow, ow. Do it again.

Selling the pain of fear clearly works. Fear the crime rate: ignore real-world statistics; just fear crime, fear that The Other is coming to murder you in your bed. Fear The Other: forget that immigrants are mostly children and their mothers; just fear that *some* of them are men who by dint of their color, or religion, or both, are terrorists. Fear that others' advantage is your disadvantage. Fear everything ... except those most stridently crowing about FEAR.

For them, please vote. Early and often. Leave facts, or facticity (*), to them; only fear, and come to them for protection.

Fear porn. Because it sells. And it's making somebody money.


(*Having not checked the copyright on "truthiness", I coined this term as a pointer to the many statistics and explicit/specific/blatant lies we are being sold of late. But alas, it turns out to be an actual word! Even though spell Czech gives it the red-squiggly underline. Well, durnit.)

All links - which are the same link repeated, involve the language of domination. Hover over the link to read the URL and decide whether you are too sensitive!

YAY! The Plague!

That glass? It's half full. Why?

From the vantage point of "seven hundred years later", the Black Plague is a safe little tragedy to examine. We may wince, we may even feel for individual stories of towns utterly ghosted - perhaps it's even scary, in a way. But overall, the plague is an object of study rather than the inspiration for deep personal feeling. It's not "our" horror.

In a new time, with different horrors, there are of course a lot of people feeling deep personal feelings, direct fear, and actual threats. Who needs medieval barbarity? We unquestionably have our own.


One of the received lessons of history is that after the Plague, society changed for the better - with the decimation of the population, "upwardly mobile" became a thing, the middle class was born, prosperity prospered, and ironically the general state of human health actually improved, along with innovation. Eventually, the feudal system died, democracies and republics were born ...

Oh, wait.

It's a complex question, and the happy ending here is neither unquestionably happy nor even remotely an ending. Even if human progress did occur (and I am not the Whig to comment), was the price worth it?

It doesn't matter.

Let us not forget: democracy existed centuries before the plague, as well. And died then, too. Tragedy is the nature of life, just as much as joy. There's no avoiding it, even when its particulars might be headed off in one way or another. Sometimes it's manmade, sometimes not, sometimes humanity gives an assist to a virus and what was a natural disaster is exacerbated to staggering proportions.

Good and evil are constants. Not cycles.

For all those republics born after the population shift, for all those inheritors a generation after 1348 who owned more and were able to leverage it, for all human innovation - there exist crimes great and small, there are oppressions, there is theft and cruelty and utter, pigheaded stupidity.

The older I get, the more I believe, humanity honestly does not change.

Unfortunately, I've also begun to believe humanity honestly likes to be stupid, as well. It's easy, it transfers responsibility to those who feel they must think, it absolves us of even understanding the consequences of our own slovenly communal behavior. It is also an act of will.

I can put quite a few faces of people I know to the sentiment "I just don't know that much about politics." And it does kind of make me angry, but more than anything it makes me despair, because that is a choice.


And yet, and yet. And yet.

For all we endure shock on an international scale at Brexit, at Trump, at what-have-you outrage of the day, I am the kind of researcher, burrower, study-er, learn-er, need-er who must find the other side of a coin.

"Nearly a quarter of the population of the world died in a pandemic? Yeah, but look at what happened next."

We're not going to survive if we don't contemplate what might happen next.  Humanity can't NOT look to tomorrow, it's how we are wired. It's the mechanism of both how we hope and how we fear. "Even if not for me, there will be a tomorrow - for someone, for almost everyone."

This is how causes are born; we fight today in the name of tomorrow, and we fight for ourselves in the name of everyone else. It's not altruism: it's a relay race. Someone must carry the baton of hope, of dissent, of anger or righteousness. The baton becomes the thing, and we carry it for ourselves but we don't fail to pass it along so it can keep going.



I don't believe evolution - history - has been a progression from ignorance to enlightenment. But I don't believe it's a cultural decline, either.

I don't believe in the end of times, I don't believe in complete human degradation, even when so many examples can be found.

For many, religion is the tool to manage fear that humanity's going to end someday. For me, it is entirely the opposite. It's the tool with which I grapple up and down the eternal landscape of mankind's own eternal good and evil, right and wrong. They are always with all of us, always options. So I have to daily make the choice - today, right, or wrong. Today, goodness or wickedness.

Because: the sun's going to come up tomorrow. Even if it doesn't come up on me.



What hope is there for our fears today? Bipartisan cooperation reborn? That could be good. Indeed, a redefinition of the terms that even give rise to the idea of "bipartisan" - the end of the two-party system? As tired as almost everyone is of negative campaigning and candidates who fail to engage us (American voter turnout is horrifyingly low), that could be an improvement, if a bit giddy-making for those of us codgers used to easy (hah) duality.

Let's find out, shall we?

This Week

This week, I've seen those who are horrified at the United States' election outcome galvanized, all but instantly.

I'm not one of those people.

That first reaction I had, of gritting my teeth and practicing gratitude, didn't come easily, but it came unbidden. It was unexpected. I might have expected anger (I do have anger, but it is secondary with me), but perhaps I was too tired, too shocked. And anger is not my go-to. So gratitude and determination are not natural to me, but outrage apparently is less so. So.

The comments section at Janet Reid's blog is not a homogeneous slice of like-mindedness. The "Reiders" (I came up with that name thinking it was a bit on the nose, but it seems to have stuck) don't like the same things, we don't do the same things, but the people there - those who comment, and the many who read and seldom speak or never do - comprise a community.

The conversation there has always been one place I recommend as the one place on the internet you can - and *should* - read the comments.

This week, it has been one of the few places into media/social media/Teh Intarwebs I have not been afraid to go. It was impossible for me to listen to punditry or analysis of any kind. Until today, the actual physical pain of what has been done has been too much; being alone at night has been devastating. (Sometimes, even Gossamer the Editor Cat is not enough.) But the Reiders have been my reminder, COMMUNITY is what we come down to. (Okay, the Reiders and Jeff Sypeck, who commented on that post above with such sensitivity and insight.)

The open communication there - from the silent majority, from those who voted Trump but unhappily, and from the many who have shared something of my own horror, has been intelligent and reasonable. Utterly constructive.

I'm grateful for the Reiders, this week.

Monday's post - memories and hope.

Tuesday's discussion - little post, but so many there to speak.

Wednesday's continued management of the situation - and hope - and such a wave of creative galvanization.



Me, I'm still working through. I haven't really begun to act. I'm cutting some things out of my life - shows that are "edgily" wrong to be funny, and normalizing homophobia (bye-bye, Big Bang Theory) and even racism (Archer). Those that don't even think they're edgy, but propound reductive, retrograde gender roles (any reality TV other than RuPaul's Drag Race) and feminine lack of education/intelligence.

Once I'm less afraid of where the economy is going to go from here (augh), if I have money, I'll put it where my principles are more than I do now.

I will speak.

And, Janet: I will write.

Rabbit Holes

Today, I was talking with my oldest friend, The Elfin One, and she asked how my mom and stepfather are doing. He is the one to whom I've alluded a time or two, who has for some years now been slowly dying. A part of this has been deterioration of his cognition. ... and my mom has endured a chronic, profound disruption of her sleep patterns, as he loses track of time completely. The result is she's not quite the woman of stunning recall I have always been used to her being.

TEO asked me whether this is stress or some reflection of an organic problem. I think it's the sleep issues, the fear and unceasing demands. But it's so easy to forget ... that she forgets. With my stepfather, we've grown used to his lapses.

Last week, she came to my house and thought she had never seen the painting I did in my upstairs bathroom ... six months ago or more.

My mom is fully down the rabbit hole with my stepfather. And honestly, she's getting a little rabbity.


The next question is, "Diane, how are you?"

My response to this tends to be some combination of bewilderment and dismissiveness. I'm *aware* this is hard on me too, but I'm much more aware how much easier it is for me than it is for my mom. There's a tendency to push off sympathy so people will spend it, and their prayers, on my mom instead.

Not with TEO. With my oldest, best friend, I can be honest (with my brother too). And I realized where I stand.

I'm like standing guard at the entrance to the rabbit hole.



G-d has been especially kind to me of late. A few months ago, it was stress helping them do their taxes, and for the past few months I've been doing all I can to be not only on call if they need me, but also to just spend time as much as I can. To be an escape valve and a social distraction that is NOT demanding for them.

There's been a lot of social distraction for them lately - family, after family, after family - and my mom is incapable of not *hosting* her family. So for some weeks, as much as we LOVE them, visit after visit has had her fretting over what to cook, had her shopping, had her squiring loved ones around, had her socially "on" in a way that alone can be demanding. As someone who's lived alone for the bulk of my adult life, over twenty years now, I know how exhausting joy can be. Simply smiling all day - it is a pleasure to be with people, but I come home absolutely shot, and aching for my solitude, my home, the furbabies.

For me, there's been a lot of work distraction lately. Three solid weeks now of quite HIGH productivity - prep for our annual meeting, onboarding an exec I've been waiting for over a year and half, and this past week has been an apple pie hubbub. Multitasking extraordiaire.

I'm the lucky one: I'm not down in that rabbit hole, my world is still the real world. I get to sleep normally. And I have a job with the most extreme level of satisfaction I have ever enjoyed - which is saying something very significant.



So now my own question.

How do you hope your mom can have a life like that - productive, healthy, stimulating ... knowing what has to come for her to have that?

Yeah.

One Fifth

Yesterday at church, our sermon opened with the comment that the United States is turning 240 years old, and I was reminded of the Bicentennial, when I was eight.

It's a funny thing, I know how old the nation is, I know how old I am; yet, for some reason, I have never really thought about the proportionate relationship between these ages.

I am one fifth as old as my country.

That's a hell of a thing. In 1969, I was one one hundred ninety-fourth as old as my country, and now my life takes up a full twenty percent of our living tenure on earth. Twenty percent of Chinese or Russian or pick-your-European(-or-divorcing-therefrom) country measures in centuries. It would take many generations to cover twenty percent of the history of many countries ... and here I am, at that point, and not even entirely decrepit.

This home and this heritage are of great pride for me. I love my country, and pray the best for us.

Now for that "perfect union" part.



*Sigh*

Collection

In the world of quackery - I so love this article. On the mathy of homeopathy: “If a single molecule … were to survive the dilution, its concentration would be 1 in 100200. This huge number, which has 400 zeroes, is vastly greater than the estimated number of molecules in the universe (about one googol, which is a 1 followed by 100 zeroes).”

Without comment on what quantifies “best” in the quote here, the piece I’m linking to it is worth a look. “The best newspaper in the world should not run articles that might as well be headlined “Ladies, You Might Think You Look OK, But You Don’t.””

Damn, this is good writing. Funny, insightful, beautifully expressed. I hope it will be heard. “Empowerment” wasn’t always so trivialized, or so corporate, or even so clamorously attached to women.” “Today 'empowerment' invokes power while signifying the lack of it.”

Brexit. Hmm. “My admittedly primitive understanding of democracy is that we're supposed to move toward it, not away from it, in a moment of crisis.” … an interesting essay, presented without opinions from yours truly. On the concept of “Too much democracy” …

... and here we have a civilized discussion (including actual British people!) at Colin Smith's blog ...

The bandit hero -- the underdog rebel -- so frequently becomes the political tyrant; and we are perpetually astonished! Such figures appeal to our infantile selves -- what is harmful about them in real life is that they are usually immature, without self-discipline, frequently surviving on their 'charm'. Fiction lets them stay, like Zorro or Robin Hood, perpetually charming. In reality they become petulant, childish, relying on a mixture of threats and self-pitying pleading, like any baby. These are too often the revolutionary figures on whom we pin our hopes, to whom we sometimes commit our lives and whom we sometimes try to be...

--Michael Moorcock

Not the NRA ... on the history of Sig Sauer.

On the question at this column, “Joke or Threat” – a joke isn't, if the audience is actually threatened. “If he’s been asked repeatedly to stop making sexual jokes and comments about Sophie, and continues to make them, he is actively and intentionally causing her harm.” It is dispiriting that this needs to be explained, even to people who think they are friends.

“For older folks, automobiles were, and are, the technology of freedom; you’ll get them into autonomous vehicles when you can peel the stick shift out of their cold, dead fingers. For younger people, automobiles, especially in cities, are becoming an unnecessary complication to their busy lives—a car detracts, rather than augments, their freedom and mobility. Rather, it is their smartphone that gives them access to the world and that they perceive gives them freedom.” (Bonus content – the usual dismissal of anyone between the so-called Boomer and Millennial generations: “The shift to on-demand, autonomous personal transportation as a service, rather than vehicles as owned artifacts, that generational change will enable, could happen relatively quickly—perhaps in less than a decade as purchasing power shifts from the boomer to the millennial generation.” Man. It’s a shame, sometimes, that my generation never existed.)

A lifetime of leers. Not an edgy short story, I'm afraid.

Collection

"(W)hen anonymous harassers come along — saying they would like to rape us, or cut off our heads, or scrutinize our bodies in public, or shame us for our sexual habits — they serve to remind us in ways both big and small that we can’t be at ease online. It is precisely the banality of Internet harassment, University of Miami law professor Mary Anne Franks has argued, that makes it 'both so effective and so harmful, especially as a form of discrimination.'”

Have you ever heard that thing, men are afraid that women will laugh at them and women are afraid that men will kill them?

… Is there hope? Hard to say. Rachel Dolezal has all but disappeared from the media, but her life’s not looking easy, given a prurient catch-up peek. But then, there is this ...  “(T)he smartest way to survive is to be bland.” Hmm.

Okay, let's lighten up.

Thanks in part to Kiehl's and the National Museum of American History's Division of Medicine and Science, as well as a number of other famous skin and health care names, a massive collection of beauty and hygiene products' images have been digitized in a photo archive of stunning usefulness for 19th and 20th century vintage fans, historical authors, and just beauty nerds such as myself. This makes a good conservation move as well, as some of the artifacts in the collection are deteriorating and cannot be made to last forever. Cultural/research notes: Cuticura's emphasis on the beauty of white hands hints at the "ideals" of beauty in this period. There are resources on the needfuls of menstrual care, and health tonics galore. I can see getting quite lost-slash-carried away down this rabbit hole!

In other artifactoral news, Gary Corby has a very cool post about the earliest keys - goodly, and of goodly size as well. So cool.

My Letter to you, Damien Echols

It's hard for me to say for how many years I've followed the story of the West Memphis Three, but fifteen years may be about fair, for paying specific attention and actually seeking reading (and the documentaries) about the tragedy.

For those unfamiliar with the story, I won't link Wikipedia, only provide the simple story. The West Memphis Three were Jessie Misskelly, Damien Echols, and Jason Baldwin. In 1993, amid Satanist panic and public furor, these teenaged boys were convicted of the murder of three young boys in West Memphis Arkansas, in one of the more famous miscarriages of justice in the twentieth century. The details abound, so I will not recount them here, but it is a cruelly fascinating episode, and shameful beyond description.

The most famous, and oldest, of the convicted Three, is Damien Echols. He has become well known both for his past and also for his recovery (I will not use the term rehabilitation), but it is always his writing that clings to me when I look again toward this story. It feels cruel to call it a story, though. Perhaps I should say, look again toward these people.

I wish I had a handful of dust
--Damien Echols

One of the things that always strikes me in the heart about these kids - about this one - is that he reminds me indelibly of two of the three great loves of my life. His melancholy and his coloring are powerfully like Mr. X. And his expression of what a disadvantaged - what a battered - life is like echo sometimes in the communications with my first love, who reappeared almost a year ago, and who still breaks my heart at times (not in the way we once felt, of course).

And, seven years younger than I am, I know he's not a child, but his experience sparks in me something like a maternal outrage. The wish it had been possible to protect him. He was just a boy, barely older than the murder victims themselves really, and so the offense at his wrongful conviction and confinement - on death ROW, no less - is compounded by whatever vestige of protectiveness washing around in my guts.



Humanity is filled with so many who respond so much worse to wounds so much less - or illusory - his is an example of grace.

In recent months, face to face with another kind of grace, reading the link above today was inspirational. And, I will admit it, entertaining. In the sense that art entertains, that great writing does - even as it may elevate, or relieve, or release, or evaporate with no ghost but pleasure had - to understand the experience of solitary, of death row, of imprisonment is ... how to choose a word carefully here ... "stimulating" is accurate, but larded with inaccurate implications ... "educational" is right too, but almost so spare of deeper meaning as to fall short rather than overshoot ...

Enlightening. It lightens the soul to know another soul is not burdened by the worst we can do to one another - or has been set free. And it lightens the world to illuminate corners of it most of us will never see, G-d be praised for it.

Image: Wikipedia

His writing is extraordinary, evocative. The piece linked above reads like engrossing fiction; and the fact that it is not is an outrage. Something beyond poignant, something so much more important.

Certain shade of agony have their own beauty
--Damien Echols

Read his writing at the link. It is life itself.