A L&D; Update

There is no baby in our outside world yet! She is having pains but she adamantly declares that they are not contractions because she has read every drop of everything and it is not a contraction. How read the new mothers are. She wants to have her baby without any drugs and has made me promise that I will not let the baby’s father or her best friend talk her into it when she is in pain. What am I to do I asked. What if she is screaming and says to me “get me drugs now” or something like that. She told me if she says that then do it but I should be able to monitor the peer pressuring and read her mind. I have no clue. I did not have any drugs when I had her. It was not because of a decision on my part, it was out of pure ignorance. My sister, who had her daughter six weeks before I had mine, had pain medicine. However, it was because her daughter was delivered breech and the whole ordeal was intense. When I had this child, I did not think it was something a woman could choose. I thought childbirth was meant to be painful. When I did find out I could have something after the nurse asked me, amazed, I said “sure, okay.” Alas, the anesthesiologist came over and told me I was too far along, that I was going to have to manage.

All of this is far too much drama for my delicate sensibilities (mental and physical indolence LOL). She will not come over here, the husband is crying about his deviled eggs for the super bowl, the precious darlings are messing with the vacuum cleaner, when anal man gets back from buying his coronary inducing potatoes chips and sour cream he is going to have a cow, cry about his vacuum parts going missing, hopefully the stench from the boiled eggs will calm him down (there is something misogynically Freudian in that, but I cannot bother with it right now), and my mother had her sister call me, even though my aunt did not say that, but I know, because I have not heard from that aunt since I was twelve years old, she called because my daughter is not speaking to my mother, imagine that, seven children, and a zillion grandchildren and none of them want to talk to her, but we are all the problem, not her. I spend every day of my life trying not to have anxieties. If this lasts any longer, I may need to pass out like one of those ladies in a nineteen-century British novel just to survive.

And I cannot stop thinking about poor Bob Woodruff. Can you believe Rush Limbaugh wasted no time crying “see see, Bob Woodruff survived, so what are all those bleeding heart liberals crying about the troops not having enough armor?” Newsflash, you fat fuck, the last I checked, Bob Woodruff was not a “troop” but a reporter who probably got his gear from ABC, or if in fact he was wearing the same stuff that the troops wear, he is still in very critical condition, --how in the hell can anyone forget that. Take a Perocet you unscrupulous blowhard and pipe down.

A Lady In Waiting

February 3, 2006 is officially the expectant date for my grandson to be born. We are all waiting. It is a weird thing. I never waited for a birth before, not one I was not having at least. Actually when I had my two children, there was no conscious waiting. The first one, twenty-four years ago was born to a child (me) that did not have a clue. The doctor told me she would come around January 9. I counted 270 from the day I knew I had sex and it was January 9. So I just knew January 9 would be the day I would have a baby. I did not think much about it. When you are poor and/or living day to day, you literally think day to day. It always amazes me how prepared my six year old is for the New Year. When I was a child, it would be one year one minute and then like an electric shock it would be another. I can never remember thinking about the number for the next year. I do not even think I realized the years grew larger. I was in downtown Houston waiting for a bus about two weeks before I delivered in 1982 when a man said to me, “Are you ready to deliver.” I was like, no, not yet, it is not January 9.

The second child was a scheduled C-section because she refused to turn, plus one of her legs was hanging down and the other was crossed. Yet we did not make it to the scheduled day, she decided she wanted to come two days earlier, so no waiting there either.

Now we wait.

I squandered last week’s Sisterhood Sunday. I should have asked everyone what age they think is too young to be in the delivery room. Because the six year old believes that she is to be there. Supposedly, her sister told her she could. If we had any inhibitions or plans about telling her where babies come from, that went out the window around Thanksgiving. I was snoozing one day after I got pissed off because my new DVD copy of The Pianist was fucking up when I was abruptly awaken with a picture in my face and a husband asking me if I knew who told Sugarplum that babies come out of vaginas. I said, “I did.” I thought I was in trouble or something. He had found a picture hanging on the refrigerator with her sister lying down, and a baby boy coming out of her vagina. There was a doctor and a few other people in the room. I think she had a cartoon caption of the baby crying. I only told her because she asked me point blank. She caught me off guard. I was not going to lie. Not after the trauma my mother put us through. I was probably six when I was at the dinner table and one of my brothers was persistently trying to find out how babies were born. I know for a fact that I could have easily went another ten years without even concerning myself over the matter. Finally my mother shouted, “your butt, ----okay,----- your butt” in an angry shut the hell up kind of voice. She should have told the truth or nothing at all. Because I was so baffled (more like traumatized) over a baby coming out of someone’s butt.

I really do not see the big deal with telling children. However, I must confess I have guarded the “how” the baby is made like Bush guards the Truth from the American people. My daughter does not need to know the “how” right now. The time will come. It went well with the oldest, I think she was twelve or thirteen and I did not have to do one of those corny little after school special methods either. A few of her friends were over and one of them asked me. Suddenly the room went quiet and all four of them had a desperate need to know in their eyes, a clear desire to know the Truth and nothing else, so I told them. I told them plainly with no embarrassed hesitation. I think they appreciated it. I know they appreciated it. None of them did anything stupid while they were going through adolescent, well not until they were over 21 anyway.

I do not think my little grandson can hold out until my birthday, that is almost three weeks away. We have no one else in our family with a February birthday. It will be just the two of us, ---how supremely nice. Mu ha ha ha.....I am going to teach him to like carrot cake. None of this must have chocolate cake for a birthday crap.

I am sure my daughter is glad she does not have a commander's wife hovering over her in a birthing chair like it is done in The Handmaid's Tale. Talk about freaky. Good God, who was having the baby?!!!! Which reminds me, I need to update. That book is so insane and scary.

I had a topic I was going to write about, but I cannot remember it now. I really need to get in the habit of writing thoughts down. Oh well.

They Like Me! They Really Really Like Me!

I got an email from an old crusty dusty retired paratrooper who did not take kindly to me saying the 82nd murdered their wives, that they have a few “turd chasers” (his label, not mine) for sure, but the wife killers are from the S.O.F. I had a momentary lapse on the uptake but I finally figured out that he was referring to the elite fighting force, --The special operation forces, or otherwise known when they are drunk ...Special Forces. Actually, anyone and everyone in his brother is Special Forces or Delta Force when he is drunk with Johnnie Walker balls, or perhaps to be more diverse, Hennessey balls. His need to point out a “technicality” is an example of the mass brainwashed absolutism that is currently destroying our potentially great nation. Murdering Special Forces and 82nd Gay Porn participants are both from Fort Bragg, North Carolina (which for some reason North Carolina is very popular on Cold Case Files and American Justice. It is as if murdering loons hang out there or something), both jump out of planes, both belong to the Army, both are cut from the same fabric, the same pattern, by the same tailor, just for one group the tailor adds and subtracts a few stitches and embroiders an extra insensitivity chip in the collar that he does not for the other. Oh hell, I do not really believe one has an insensitivity chip and the other does not, I was just trying to prove a difference. To be honest I think they both have insensitivity chips. Anyway, both are still the same thing, they are useful underpaid idiots whoring themselves to big corporations unbeknownst to most of them. Instead, their motivation is derived from some misguided Honor, Courage, and Commitment, that just happens to benefit the two percent (Bush and Company) of Americans that has the United States Government (Bush and company) in their pocket. To be fair, the government should just admit the military are corporate whores and transfer them over to the corporation’s payroll, which is somewhat just the government’s payroll, because all the companies that we are fighting for in Iraq are in fact contracted up the ass by the government. Halliburton anyone? At least there could be a pretend pretense of someone else paying taxes, or perhaps using soldiers to do corporation business is what they mean by corporate welfare. Hmmmm.

This namby-pamby "you are joining to protect our national security" is complete bullshit. The potential candidate (unemployed sucker or worn-out and owes tons of student loans defeatist) should at least be given the choice to be a corporate whore instead of being made to believe he or she is doing something honorable. Since we are bowing down to the Absolute God, we need to keep it absolute,--- keep it real. None of this cognitive dissonance for the taxpayers or recruitees please. Hang extenuating circumstances, we need OIL dammit! As inspiring absolutists we want to call a duck a duck! Not water dweller, floating bird, bath toy, supper, origami, etc. By God, as an American, a fucking duck is a duck!

I tell you what old crusty dusty paratrooper, why don’t you load up that big old gas-guzzler Ford of yours, stop by Wal-Mart and fill up the bed with a bunch of rounds, drive thru McDonald's for a butt load of Freedom Fries, then swing by and pick me up. We can drive around low-income housing and shoot cats while we blast Lee Greenwood on the pawn shop retrieved system. It would be justified; I heard most cats emigrated from France.


And the paratrooper says to the lady, "You are mocking me, aren't you?

In the Today's Headlines:

“Tell Us What He Should Say.” AOL, with all of their brilliancy decided to introduce Bush’s State of the Union survey with “Tell Us What He Should Say.” WTF? Same people who decided Star Jones would make a great love coach!

Everyday AOL is reminding me more and more of Blockbusters. By the way, if you love someone who works for Blockbusters, strongly encourage him or her to seek further employment. They are going down faster than video rentals. Anyway, they want us to tell them what Bush should say? WTF? Who gives a flying fuck what he says. How about what does he mean! That is what the heading should say, “Tell us what he should mean.” He said anyone responsible for the Plame case would be fired. That fat fuck Rove is still inhaling garlic chicken drowning in Alfredo sauce prepared by the white house chef,---- so not fired. Bush can say whatever the fuck he wants to say, it does not mean a hill of beans.

I guess the fruit does not fall far from the tree. After all, his daddy was the one that said, “Read my lips, no new taxes.” What he said and what he meant were two different things. He meant, “Read my lips, my friends will not have any more taxes.” It is no wonder they went after Clinton with his “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” They knew the drill. They knew the deal. They knew how one could say one thing and mean a totally different thing and how the general population would lap it up and not ask questions. “How dare some illegitimate sophisticated liberal scholar utilize the same technique that we have been using. By God, sixty million dollars or not, we shall impeach that bastard!” Apparently, oral sex carries stiffer penalties than war crimes.

Fascist Organization Reprimands Dissenters (F.O.R.D), boo fucking hoo, tell it to OPEC. Starting next month Ford will not allow its employees who do not drive a Ford or one of its subsidiaries to park in the company lot. Sounds a little desperate to me. The genius who devised this plan for F.O.R.D either has been borrowing a page out of Karl Rove and George’s Bush playbook or underestimated the backlash mistreating employees will create. Snicker. Okay, I really do not believe that because the sheep are still asleep out in the meadow, but hey, even the most cynical can have moments of optimism.

Here is the problem with F.O.R.D,-- they sell Excursions, Expeditions, Explorers, and those big stupid trucks that are known by a number, 250, 350 or some shit like that. The other vehicles that they try to peddle have the life expectancy of a Hyundai at best. In other words, they suck. Instead of trying to make a more efficient, affordable, and comfortable car (Honda, Toyota, and Nissan can do, what is Ford's problem?) they make shit. Do you trust your seventeen year old to make it to and from school without breaking down in a Ford Escort or a Honda Civic? Okay maybe for the first two years, but then what? Should you have to buy a new car every two years just to trust that you will get somewhere without breaking down?

And of course, F.O.R.D has not been that successful convincing the K.K.K. and other good old boys that they are more patriotic than Chevy. Chevy seems to beat Ford in the winching department as well. Nothing is more refreshing than having a tow friendly vehicle during muddin' gone wrong outings.

RALEIGH, North Carolina (AP) -- Army officials are investigating allegations that members of the celebrated 82nd Airborne Division appear on a gay pornography Web site, a spokeswoman said Friday.

Say it ain’t so. Hey! The 82nd paratroopers want to get in on the broke back mountain craze too. What is a little coerced military Code of Conduct when steroid enriched homophobes by day want to get their nasty on by night? I mean they are married right? They cannot be gay. See “Tell Us What He Should Say” above. We can't be gay we are fighters!

The 82nd is full of sponges waiting to soak up every cue their commanders send them and they received the message loud and clear. A few years back when husbands were coming home from the Iraq disaster and murdering their wives at record numbers, the commanders told the troops that they needed to find some other way to relieve their stress. Murdering wives was just too difficult to cover up. Now that the troops have discovered that a good jerk circle after injecting steroids and spotting weights for each other can lead to other pacifiers, people want to hate. Don’t hate 82nd commanders, ----appreciate! The military can kill two birds with one stone. As long as they are doing each other, they will not have to send home pregnant troops from the Iraq disaster and Rummy can keep bragging that his retention numbers are increasing, ---or at least remaining steady. Not to mention the military can open up recruitment to more men and leave those annoying can do everything (and one) you can do better females back on the farm. Problem solved.

Oprah Blunders

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- In a stunning switch from dismissive to disgusted, Oprah Winfrey took on one of her chosen authors, James Frey, accusing him on live television of lying about "A Million Little Pieces" and letting down the many fans of his memoir of addiction and recovery.

"I feel duped," she said Thursday on her syndicated talk show. "But more importantly, I feel that you betrayed millions of readers."

Frey, who found himself booed in the same Chicago studio where he had been embraced not long ago, acknowledge that he had lied.

A sometimes angry, sometimes tearful Winfrey asked Frey why he "felt the need to lie." Audience members often groaned and gasped at Frey's halting, stuttered admissions that certain facts and characters had been "altered" but that the essence of his memoir was real.

Oprah’s behavior is exactly what I am talking about in my previous entry. If the people who bought A Million Little Pieces decide that the book is now worthless because it has embellished parts in it, then they need to deal with, censure him in an appropriate matter, perhaps by not buying any more books written by Frey. What was Oprah's point with bringing him on the show but to put on a big display. Why not just let his career go off to the woods and die if that is what the public wants.

Oprah needs to sit down and shut the fuck up! This forced absolutism is destroying human interactions and exploration of philosophies that can possibly lead us to a Truth. I do not see Oprah crying that George W. Bush is a war criminal. However, if we were to be absolute and look up the definition of a war criminal, it will tell us, noun. A crime (as genocide or maltreatment of prisoners) committed during or in connection with war. George Bush in an absolute world, would be a war criminal.

With the racism accusation in Paris last year and this current need to castrate Frey, I would hope it is some untangling of consciousness that Oprah is working on. But I am afraid it is nothing so engaging, just her over inflated ego, exaggerated self-importance, and pocketbook at work. She acts like Frey wrote the book just to trick her. He could not possibly have any other motives.

I will tell you what happened, a few prissy ass duped debutantes who feel betrayed by the lies their husbands or S.O told them did a little transference maneuver and pinned all their hostilities on old Frey. Then they got their little lap tops and sun flowered linen paper out and wrote Oprah. Oprah’s alarms went off, “there are people who will not like me anymore, there will people who I cannot sell products to, I have better change my story.” Without thought, without sponsor pressure Oprah called Larry King and declared that Frey’s message still had the same significance, whether it was embellished or not, but now that some time has passed, now that sponsors have contacted her, she is singing a different tune. I think using absolutism; I can call Oprah, A SELL-OUT!

I am not defending his lies. However, if it worked for people who needed to hear a story such as the one he presented, what is the problem? He did not claim to be a medical doctor, or to have the cure for cancer. Besides, I live with a man that embellishes every day, I do too at times. No one, NO ONE can recount a story exactly the way it happened. It is impossible, we all come to the story with our own schemas in mind, our own clouded perceptions. What has been proven a lie could have in fact happened in a drug-induced dream. If so, the words written helped others feel there was someone who understood their journey. That seems to be what helps most people, knowing that someone else knows what they feel like.

Poorly done Oprah! Very badly done. You have set your journey back a few notches on this one.

Never Having To Say You Are Sorry: Politician and Celebrity Apologies

I do not think celebrities and public servants should be forced to apologize. If one of them says something that is against public opinion or offends a majority or a minority it should simply stay as it is unless/until that celebrity/public servant decides to redeem him or herself and apologize. Why not let him or her walk around with their foot in their mouth? Think O.J. Okay he owes far more than apology, but you see how the system (not the legal system but the community web/wheel system, I shall get into that in a minute) is not working for him? Not in the long run anyway. One must have patience with these things.

I think at the core of most people is the sense of right and wrong. Not right and wrong with religious connotations but with a humanly-moralistic significance. I think to the advantage of hypocritical bible thumpers and convenient play now and pray later holly rollers, the words “moral” “morals” and “moralistic” have been hi-jacked to mean other things such as Godly acceptable, God-valued, more specifically all things Christian-God-valued. Yet not the Christian values that are truly Christian, but the Christian values that have been pimped as beneficial to capitalism (psst, do not say that aloud, they are watching), which seems to be the values that get the most credence in our contemporary times.

In today’s current climate, no one could possible imagine that Jesus did not probably sell autographs, trinkets, and blessings, and limited those autographs and trinkets to only paper and products produced by the corporations representing him under an iron clad contract. How one can possibly imagine that he just went about signing and blessing folks willy-nilly is humorous fodder for underutilized boardroom stiffs. In this case, his values would be held as honorable with the utmost integrity. He was an honorable man that had the integrity not to give his services away but to keep it within his company, ---a good company man, a stockholder’s dream. That makes him a good Christian man (forget that he was Jewish, that is just a mere technicality and stockholders only care about the bottom line anyway). I suspect when he was crucified, some CEO retired to Crete with a golden parachute and never looked back. If there is a hell, I hope some parachute packer forgot to include the CEO's pull cord, ---filthy bastard (the CEO, not the parachute packer, or Jesus).

There are layers, many layers in our capitalistic Christian mandate because fifty percent of the low number percent of our nation’s voters was blind enough to follow George W. Bush like a bear to honey (or of course let’s not forget the conspiracy theory about those voting machines, which by the way, I believe, because I think that fat ass Karl Rove was involved some how). Moreover, by the lack of outrage and cry for impeachment it seems that those fifty percent of the low number percent of voters are still sitting on their asses and sucking up the rhetoric that sexual harasser Bill O Reilly, pill-popping Rush Limbaugh, and Sean embryonic-scrotum Hannity are spewing. I have not seen anything about impeachment; I am only seeing who needs to apologize and who does not from the talking heads and AOL headlines. Like really, who gives a fuck, but my education has given me the ability to write 10,000 words on the subject. HAH!

The community web/wheel (thought developed while reading George Eliot’s Middlemarch), must be allowed to work through celebrity and public servant verbal blunders in order to know how and if to censure/redirect/reward/rebel and at times, hush celebrities and public servants in the best way that meets the moral sensibility of the people, (note, not the “morals” of the bible thumping, generational tyranny driving SUVs big trucks, blind conformity, war for oil people, but the people, you know, the ones that have a good heart and know right from wrong and try to practice true morality). Moreover, if that web/wheel is not media brainwashed guided then I take comfort in trusting that the people will get to the heart of the matter on their own. The media should not dictate when and if a person should apologize, nor should the media be used as a vehicle for some one else who has a financial interest in the outcome of that celebrity/public servant forced apology. The media needs to report the who, where, when, and how the blunder occurred and there would end the extent of the “reporter’s” (report) job.

The media, being the corporate whores they are, could not give a flying fuck if the citizen slothing on the sofa at home watching the television is left to think on his or her own. No, they want that citizen to have the opinions and attitudes that they dictate, and those opinions and attitudes will somehow involve money, either making more of it or safeguarding from losing some of it. They are all whores. You see how cute and compassionate Anderson Cooper looks now, how he is benevolent and sincere with his tears while talking to the Katrina victims and his shock at the outcome of those WV miners, ---check back in seven years. Poor thing has no mysterious future, the path ahead of him is transparent. Maybe he will be my great white hope (the second definition of the word, not the first), but I am too cynical to believe that, really I am, but I am rooting for him anyway.

Who cares if Pat Robertson apologizes? What is an apology if there is no remorse, no regret, and no true commitment to prevent it from happening again? Isn’t this recent whatever God’s current agenda according to Robertson declaration, like his third or fourth forced apology? A black man cutting through West University Place in Houston more than once would be deemed a malicious pattern by the Houston Police Department. Would this not be considered a malicious pattern for Robertson? And if the community web/wheel decided it was (without the help of the media’s guidance) wouldn’t we come to the conclusion that Robertson is in fact a nutcase and no longer deserves our time, money, or attention, or perhaps collectively decide that he is the next Messiah?

Why should Hillary Clinton apologize for accusing Congress of using the operational manual of a slave plantation? Can we not as citizens research the techniques of slave masters and the repercussions it had on their slaves and compare that to today’s master/slave public servant/citizen relationship?

My first memory of a similar incident was when good old boy Earl Butz prattled on Air Force One. Here is a little gem from Wikipedia to refresh memories:

Butz allegedy uttered the following comment while on board Air Force One during Ford's 1976 re-election campaign, "I'll tell you what the coloreds want. It's three things: first, a tight pussy; second, loose shoes; and third, a warm place to shit." The closest the media could come to informing the public about what Butz had said was: "good sex, comfortable shoes, and a warm place to go the bathroom."

The Houston Post did not have any trouble reporting it, they simply quoted Butz verbatim and left blanks in certain places like tight p_s_y, .....and a warm place to sh_t. I remember the day it appeared in the paper. My parents were discussing it and my father showed me after I asked what they were talking about. He hid the tight pussy comment or I could not figure it out because I only remember thinking what could possibly be wrong with “coloreds” not wanting tight shoes, I hate tight shoes. I certainly saw no fault in that! Who is this man to criticize “coloreds” for wanting comfortable shoes?

The media reported the incident and the community responded,--- morally----outraged!

The negative publicity from the statement forced Butz to resign from his Cabinet post on October 4, 1976.

On May 22, 1981, Butz pleaded guilty on federal tax evasion charges, for having underreported income he had earned in 1978. On June 19 he was sentenced to five years in prison; however, all but 30 days of the term was suspended. He was also fined $10,000 and ordered to pay $61,183 in civil penalties.

As of 2004, Butz is the oldest living former Cabinet member, regardless of department or administration served in. At age 96, he is also the oldest prominent politician in the world.

Out of 365 days in a year, what day was Butz sentenced on? June 19! That is amazing! Either someone (if so I have heard nothing about it and I am far too lazy at this point to research it) purposely planned that day for sentencing or the nation’s collective moral conscious (be a non believer if you must) guided that date. I mean June 19th of all days! LOL! That is more justice than any old forced apology could give. And the mean old bastard Butz is still alive as far as I know. I wonder if he knows “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by heart.

What do we want? For people to silence their own tongue and not let us know what they are really thinking about or after? It’s like not talking about racism/sexism or any other –ism. I prefer to talk about it and know where someone stands than to find out the hard way.

What good is a forced apology anyway? It is like demanding children to apologize. “Now, say you are sorry” and start over with a clean slate. People, whether they realize it or not give the celebrity/public servant a free pass to shit on them. We have become so something, maybe afraid that we will not be forgiven ourselves, because I do think we are too much of a moralistic (in the harsh eye for an eye kind of way) society, that we are giving out free passes and relinquishing our control of censuring/rewarding the behavior of the people who work for us in some misguided way in hopes of it not happening to us. I say, if you fuck up, take the heat, it teaches lessons and builds character.

Tie Me To A Mast, Sirens Are Singing

I have no time to write or read. Not because I am doing anything in particular but because I have a child home all day. I do not think my mother or father ever spent more than five consecutive minutes in my face as a child. It is almost as if this generation learns intrauterine that they are to be coddled and attended to every second, because it cannot be coming from my vibe. My vibe is screaming, give me some fucking space and gain a little independence already. Either they do not have the chip that detects that vibe or I do not have the chip that sends the signal out properly.

I only play with children because I know what it feels like when a mother or father does not play with their children, at least how it feels when the child asks and the mother or father says no all the time. I remember everything like it was yesterday. I am not in tuned with people who think twenty years ago was a long time ago, because I remember twenty years ago like it was last week and the only thing that keeps my time clock in perspective is a glance in the mirror. I am getting old with sad eyes encased in dark circles, engulfing resentment, little patience (particularly for repetition of errors) and a propensity to romanticize everything that was halfway good before as being the best and is now lost because of ungracious squandering. I am sure all the image conscious moms will hang their mouths open when I say this, but I do not particularly care to play with children. It is boring and painfully tedious. I feel guilty saying it because I know that I would cry a river if something would happen and I no longer had the option or wail with regret when my adult children say what I gave simply was not enough.

Today when I was trying to read Media Matters, I had one child doing my hair and the other one rubbing the Homedics Professional Percussion Massager on my left side fat roll until the vibrating created an annoying itchiness. I cannot express the degree that I hate my hair touched. If it is pulled, even accidentally by a hairdresser or someone in close proximity, etc, a rage ignites and dangerously erupts if I do not suppress it quickly. Growing up, my good friend was the same way but with his back. If his brother or anyone else played around and slapped him in the back, he would instantly become furious and hit them back harder with more intensity than the initial strike warranted. When I was around twelve or thirteen, a man who lived on our street named Chris was questioning if we talked to the police about an alleged rape he was accused of. He was the owner of a home that was being built on a vacant lot next to his older house. I knew nothing about the incident, but heard all about it from everyone around. When Robert (RIP) and I were walking by, he stopped me and demanded to know why I went to the police. I told him I did nothing of the sort and knew nothing about it. He grabbed my hair and wrapped it around his fist holding me there standing on my toes. I was furious and if there were a gun, I would have fired it. My father drove up just when this was happening and asked what was going on. Chris went on to tell my father that we had been badmouthing him. Naturally my father took his side and I was in trouble, I probably even got a “switching.” I hated that bastard (Chris) and did not shed a tear when he was sent away for ten years because of the rape (which is a shock because it was a black on black crime in the 70’s). Supposedly, it was not all of that, nothing but him and his “woman” fucking and fighting after a long and hot day of drinking and smoking weed. Nevertheless, I was more than pissed when my brother became friends with him after he was released from prison. Last I heard that bastard was still living over there in the house that he built, the one that everyone saw him raping that woman at. For years, well into my twenties he remained on my bullet in the head list. I do not like my fucking hair pulled, I do not see what is so difficult to understand.

Anyway, I let the girl brush and twist my hair up in scrunchies, Cindy Vortex style, as long as I could tolerate it. It was painful. And I have discovered the worst sound in the world, ----children fighting. How the hell my mother ever consciously or unconsciously pitted her children against each other cannot be comprehended (by me) as anything but pure unexplainable human evil. Pure hell on earth, because it takes a truly miserable and sadistic person to want to hear children fighting. Besides the sound of dying or hearing someone who has learned that someone died, I cannot think of anything that sounds more excruciating.

The Night After

I am on the brink of a self-discovery, I think, or it could just be a morning and evening after anesthesia and three Vicodins. Something is brewing, searching, but not connecting. Yesterday my tooth extraction went fine. The nurse put a “oxygen” mask on me "just to breathe", then the doctor came in and asked how was my breakfast and if the mask was helping me to relax, told me that there will be a little stick in my arm, asked where my vein was (they can never find it), joked a little bit about some guy who had to cancel yesterday because he forgot and ate breakfast and that was the last I remember. I woke up in a different room and asked the nurse how did I get there and she said we walked. Can you believe that? I wonder if my eyes were opened or closed because I do not remember walking. It must be how drunks feel who say they remember nothing from a night of debauchery (LOL! I always love that word). When I got in the car, I had an episode of clear emesis. I think it was the lack of food, the medicine, and/or smell and sight of the big double guacamole bacon cheeseburger my husband had. It was disgusting, ---for breakfast no less. Then he had the nerve to get perturbed because he and the boy brought their breakfast into the waiting room just to find out I was ready so he had to pack it up and eat in the car. I swear he is the most proper man any other time until I specifically ask him not to embarrass me. I asked him that because on the way to the office he was going over some sinister plot to ask the surgeon for a note for his employer because they may question his excuse; -----------this is what I call the what-ifs that I have to live with every friggin day of our lives. They gave him the day off and did not ask for a note, so why he frets over the what-if, just makes me want to clunk his head with a boot or maybe the extracted #19. Instead of the note causing me grief, he brought breakfast into the waiting room, and I am sure before he got started the smell prompted the front desk staff to ask him who he was waiting for and subsequently shuffled him out as quickly as possible. Some people! LOL!

I will scream in a heartbeat “where the fuck is my space,” but I have come to realize that in between the disappointment of not getting that space, working around not having it, complaining, and resenting my reality, the space never materializes and the one-sided giving continues. I guess I saw this yesterday when my husband was taking care of me. I went home and went to bed while he went to the pharmacy, had the boy with him, did the homework with the girl, administered my medicines on time, made me soup, etc. When I surfaced before bath time, the boy asked twice if my video was over. Finally I understood what he was asking. The only time he has ever been forbidden to disturb me is when I had to watch Native American Author videos. We had a three hour designated time each Saturday two semesters ago when no one could disturb me. It was a class that required knowing the author's interviews thoroughly. At first I thought he was talking about the Wives and Daughters DVD I had been watching, but then I saw how he ran in my room to prepare to hug with me, jump on the bed, climb on the dresser, ask to iron, play in the closet, and to watch him potty that he was thinking of the forbidden Saturdays from last year.

Having the care was so wonderful yet I knew for certain it had an expiration time because my husband had work Wednesday morning. I found myself coughing later as the night went on and asked myself why was I doing it. It was not a natural cough. Then I understood how it was a subconscious attempt at prolonging the care, an appearance of being ill. I concluded how silly I had been and went to sleep.

I woke up around 2:30 am surrounded by the three books on my bed that finally came from Barnes & Noble: Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale, Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, and Nikhilananda’s The Upanishads. The feeling of silliness resurfaced. What is the point was the first thing I asked myself. The blurry breaking moment right after sleep is when I feel I think the clearest. My anger ascends, the depth of my depression emerges, my feeling of worthiness hangs in the balance, and I question everything that has passed and everything that is supposedly my future. Hope, despair, anger, depression, despair, hope, anger, silliness, from start to finish takes no longer than my morning grooming. What is the point of all of my readings? When I am done and have a PhD I will have barely enough to live independently if I ever choose to, --at least not as a lecturer only. How can I become a tenure professor? I hate politicking and passive aggressive team building, and most of all dealing with pomposity. I am not sure if I ever want to write. The few stories that I have written has gotten me very little feed back from my peers, not enough to help me develop them further anyway. And if I were published, will it even do anything for me? What self-fueling will I get from it? In addition, if I am self-fueled, it will probably just lead to a further lack of encouragement. Because that is the main drawback to self-empowerment, no one feels the need to sincerely encourage a self-empowered person. Then I am not sure if I even want to be among the people who call themselves writers. Some of the contemporary ones I read seem pretentious as hell. They use a repetitious pseudo-philosophical style that I detest, “I’m a tree. I am a powerful oak. I am the force the wind dares not disturb. I’m the roots of all of life, blah blah blah....”

Anyway, what is the point? What do I know now that I did not know before I began reading extensively? I still cannot articulate a thought without giving it considerable thought. I cannot help a friend find a workable solution to a societal woe. I cannot even quote from memory out of a book that I know the plot and the author's intentions from beginning to end. Who or what am I benefiting? What is the point of reading anything but how to make money in a capitalistic society? It feels like I am feeling sorry for myself, but I wonder if I should feel sorry for myself or what is wrong with feeling sorry for myself. I wonder what I am trying to do, what is the point to all of it.