Don't Get Me Started with Linda Sharp

Joy Interrupted: When The Only Choice You Have Is Mercy

I have written over the past week about the number of women finding themselves triggered by the carelessness and callousness being displayed by the GOP nominee in regards to women.  The hot mic video and tape of Donald Trump, coupled with his blatant denial of what he has spent decades proudly grandstanding - that of groping, grabbing, and making women grimace sent countless women reeling down the backroads of their worst memories.  After 34 years, I liberated my own story of rape in writing about it here at DGMS.  So many of you came forward sharing your own assaults in the comments, on FB, and in private emails.  

And as always, I cannot express the deep sense of humility I feel at providing a safe space to do that sharing.  Your stories are important.  And the sharing of them makes us all feel less alone, allows us to take back some part of what was stolen.  

Tonight a dear friend reached out to me with her story.  I am humbled by the words she has shared, the brutal truth involved, and the staggering bravery at play in offering this piece of her life.  

Triggered by the additional callousness displayed in the last debate, again by the GOP nominee, this time the topic being our right to control our decision making.  The profound ignorance and carelessness of words like, "You can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb..." in regard to late term complications, are as painful as they are moronic as they are offensive.  Ending a pregnancy - at any stage - is a private, personal decision.  But sometimes that choice must be faced when choice was not anywhere in the dreams, planning, and delighted preparation of the people involved.  When the tests reveal the parents' worst nightmare; when the longed for baby is compromised beyond imagining, and when hope is extinguished by reality - this is why choice is paramount.  This is why we cannot go backwards.  This is why my friend, Jennifer, has bravely shared the most personal, painful experience of her life.

Because sometimes the only choice you have is mercy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My husband and I have four living children. I have never spoken or typed that sentence before today. It hurts.

I met my hubby in college. It was truly love at first sight. We met on a Sunday evening. On Tuesday morning he asked me to marry him. I was already sure he was The One. But, being a sensible gal who didn't want to rush into anything, I waited three whole weeks before accepting. This was after I'd met his whole family, and after we drove six hours to introduce him to my mother. Yeah, we were not inclined to wait to start our lives.

I got pregnant right away. Before the wedding. We were frightened, of course. Neither of us were near graduation and we knew it would be hard. But we were so excited. We told everyone.

It was an easy pregnancy. Normal morning sickness went away after a couple of months. I felt great. I had that "glow". It shows in all my pictures from that time. Especially our wedding photos. That day was easily one of the best days of our life. So. Much. Joy!

My first ultrasound was normal and my prenatal appointments all went well. My belly was measuring right on target for gestational age. We were making lists of names. I declined an amniocentesis and my doc agreed. There was no glaring need for one. At 18 weeks my doctor scheduled the Alpha- fetoprotein(AFP) test.

The phone call with the results of that test is burned in my brain.

The doc called, all excited, and said "The results came back high, and usually that means twins!" I froze in fear. It took me a second to unglue my tongue from the roof of my mouth. "But Dr. ------, we already did an ultrasound and there's only one baby."

My husband heard the fear in my voice. He stopped what he was doing and stared at me. The doctor paused for a moment. I'm quite sure he forgot about the first ultrasound. It was done very early because my uterus was tipped back and it was hard to hear a heartbeat with just a stethoscope at that point. The doc thought he was giving me great news. He hadn't stopped to read my chart.

The doc's tone of voice was very different when he said "Well we better schedule another ultrasound then and see what's going on." My reaction was visceral. My gut clenched into a hard knot. It got hard to breathe.

I don't remember making the appointment. But I remember going to it. My husband almost didn't come with me. Several days had passed and we had talked ourselves into thinking everything was okay. At the last minute he decided to blow off work and come with me. Denial is a powerful thing but no match for instinct.

This ultrasound was very different from the first. The tech was all business. No smiles or chit-chat. I cringe to remember my husband and I trying to make small talk and not being able to break the ice. After a really thorough circumnavigation of my belly the tech asked to bring in some doctors. Plural. We said okay and four people came in. One of them pointed at the screen and said, "Well, there's the problem right there." I will never forget his voice. I had only a second to pray he meant something benign (I don't know what - a technical glitch in the ultrasound? A mistake in the AFP results?) before he turned to me and said, "Your baby has a problem."

I burst into tears. I've never felt so absolutely crushed. I was falling apart and my belly was still covered in goop. I reached for my husband and was stopped by someone in the room. I was given a towel to clean up and told that we needed to go down the hall to meet with the genetic counselor. Looking back, I can see just how skillfully they managed to prevent a couple of parents sobbing on the floor of a medical suite. We were whisked into an office with a couch but no windows and told the counselor would be there soon.

I sat down and bawled. My husband began to cry so hard he got a nosebleed. He spent the next hour in a bloodstained shirt while we listened to the explanation of what was wrong with our first child. It was surreal.

Anencephaly. Neural tube defect. No frontal lobe, just a brain stem controlling basic bodily functions like heartbeat. No chance of life outside my body. Dangerous pregnancy. Dangerous delivery.

This was in Utah. At an LDS hospital. I figure 99% of the staff had to be Mormon as were we at the time. The word "abortion" was never uttered. Instead the term used was "pregnancy interrupt". We were counseled to go home and discuss our options with our "spiritual advisor" (in Mormonland this means Bishop) and our doctor. It's still funny to me that she listed them in that order.

The doc explained that without a functioning brain our child would not produce the stimuli my body needed to start labor and delivery. The pregnancy would likely last 10 months if we waited for nature to take its course and they still might have to induce me. The delivery would be traumatic because the baby would be so large and the damage could impair any future pregnancies. Assuming I could deliver at all. I'm 5'3" and weighed 115 lbs. I was not a great candidate to deliver a huge baby. And the baby would most likely be stillborn. Any survival would be measured in hours. The child's neural tube had never closed. There was no top of the skull. Literally nothing there. No brain, no skull, no protection, nothing keeping anything in place. It was perfectly hopeless. Absolutely black and white. No chance of survival.

The choice was obvious. We were devastated, but resolute. We knew we wanted a family and we were not going to jeopardize our future children to avoid a stigma. Even our Bishop, when we discussed it with him, knew what we had to do. Not that his opinion otherwise would have swayed us at that point, but it was comforting at the time.

And still no one said the word abortion. I was to be induced. I would deliver the baby.

It was not an easy process. My body wasn't ready and it took drugs and interventions to make me go into labor. The nurses were so kind. All of them said how sorry they were for me. I was at the end of the hall. Well away from any mothers who would get to go home with a baby.

When my daughter was born they carefully wrapped her up and covered her head in a knitted cap. To hide the mess. She never took a breath. In all my life I think I will never be as thankful for anything as I am that she died before she felt the pain of her head outside of my womb.

We held her. My husband and my mother cried. I was way past tears. I was so emotionally destroyed I responded only to direct questions. I looked at her perfect, tiny body. Her long and graceful fingers. And I lifted her cap. I saw how her forehead did not rise up from her eyes but sloped back at an angle. I saw how the back of her head stuck to the blanket because there was. no. skull. And I wondered for the umpteenth time why this had happened to her. To us. I didn't know why she wasn't okay. But I knew that I - we- had done the right thing for her. As her mother. As her parents. We did the right thing for her and for her as yet unborn siblings.

And so, at 22 weeks, I said hello and goodbye to my firstborn. I had a late-term abortion. And as hard as that day was; as hard as losing my child was, I know it could have been so much worse. There is no pain greater than the death of your child. But at least I did not have to explain to a judge, or an ethics committee, why I should be ALLOWED to act in her best interests. To save her a pain-filled exit from our world. I did not have to defend my future children's right to exist. No, my doctor and I made the decision. Alone. For her. And for my family. Alone.

The well worn pink envelope from the hospital is everything I have of her. Three bracelets. Her hat and blanket. All the cards from the hospital staff and our family. Her hand and foot prints. The hand prints don't do her justice. The nurses must not have been able to get her hands to lay flat on the paper. Her fingers were longer than that. I remember.

I have opened that envelope so many times in the last two decades. On her due date. On her birthday. I am sad both days. But I don't look at her picture often. Despite the photographer's best efforts the full extent of her birth defect is very visible and is so very painful for me to look at. I wish, with every fiber of my soul that I had five living children.

 

But I don't. I have four. And the memory of the worst day of my life is why I will fight for all of them to have the right to do what is best for their own children.

Jennifer Maw is a forty-something (she stopped counting) wife and mother. A former stay-at-home mom with a slew of volunteer stints under her belt, she now has a full time gig making gardens pretty. She can't believe people pay her for that. She's still learning and growing everyday. She's raising / raised four kids to know their own worth and is madly in love with her husband. There's a milestone anniversary coming up but they're both unsure exactly which year.

Today I Voted

Today I voted because early voting started at 7:00am here in Texas.

Today I voted because I view it as not only a privilege, but as an informed citizen, a duty.

Today I voted because I am allowed to.

Today I voted because brave, strong women who came long before me fought to have their, and ultimately my, voice heard.

Today I voted because I have two daughters - both brilliant, engaged, full of the autonomy, confidence, and personal agency I tried so hard to instill.  I voted that they have dominion over their bodies, their medical decision making.  I voted that their rights may stay protected.  I voted that their place as equals will continue to be fortified, shored up, strengthened.

Today I voted because my son is transgender.  I voted that his rights as a full citizen of this country are protected, upheld.  I voted because there is a party whose entire platform is written to discriminate against him, against those like him, against anyone who does not fall into their narrow view of what is acceptable.  I voted because he deserves the same rights, protections, equality as any citizen of this country.

Today I voted because I recognize what the writers of our founding documents held as their vision of greatness for this country - checks and balances, religion staying out of power, religion being freely practiced regardless of which religion that may be, the idea that we are ALL equal.  I voted because perhaps that line, above all others, is so great in that while they wrote it in a time when not every man/woman was equal, that very omission of detailing who they meant left it open for future generations to stand upon it and define that YES, ALL OF US ARE CREATED EQUAL.

Today I voted because now, more than ever, we do live in a global community.  I voted because we need leaders who understand nuance, compromise, strength.  I voted for experience, for knowledge, for foresight.

Today I voted because an entire party has made a mockery of our election system, finally being hoisted upon their own petard for their decades of inciting, misinforming, scaring, and manipulating.  I voted because they allowed a proud bigot, misogynist, and bully to be elevated to the top of their ticket which is now leading to their final fall to the very bottom of the political sewer they have long dug and filled with their disgusting and putrid offerings.

Today I voted because the world is an amazing place, scary though elements of it may be.  I voted that alliances will be strengthened, not broken.  That our future may be brighter, not dismal.  I voted that the world may see we have not all lost our sanity.  I voted because I have traveled abroad and know how amazing are the people beyond our borders and that working with them will secure a safer future for all of us.

Today I voted for every group that has been targeted, demeaned, marginalized, and threatened.  I voted that they will be protected from the baser elements in our society.  I voted that they may walk freely, worship freely, breathe easier knowing that the majority of citizens in this country are not racists and zealots who cling to willful ignorance and feed at the trough of fear.

Today I voted because I love my family, both those related by blood, and those who are part of the tribe I have built around me.  I voted that my best friend continues to have insurance coverage.  I voted that science is supported and respected so that all my friends who struggle may see advances in facing their challenges.  I voted that the great minds in this country will continue moving forward in their quest to protect us from ourselves and our disregard for this planet.

Today I voted because I believe our greatness already outshines our inadequacies.  I voted because our ideals and our ideas are worth fighting for.  I voted because Mayberry never existed, and the Beaver only lived on TV.  I voted because I see our shortcomings, our past failings, and the historical markers where we stood up and changed for the better.  I voted because I believe we are at one of those moments again.

Today I voted because the societal swamps need drained.  And those who have been emboldened to ooze into the daylight will remain exposed and taught, in no uncertain terms, that this society, and where it is headed, has no room for their ugliness, hatred, bigotry, and blindness.  I voted that Bullshit Mountain will eventually be barren, a relic, a bemusement park shut down and overgrown.

Today I voted because I believe in a future where everyone can thrive openly as who they are, with who they love, living in the light.

Today I voted because I do want to show the world that the good people of this country will not allow it to go low, that we will go high, and higher still.

I am a United States citizen and TODAY I VOTED.

From Now On I Will Always Go Guarded

Last week, after 34 years of silence, and triggered like so many women have been of late, I sat down here and typed out what happened to me in my neighborhood when I was 16 years old.

Trauma, pain, rape are not political footballs.  These things happen to people regardless of which side of the aisle they find their leanings.  And your choice of candidate does not protect you from danger in your own orbit.  Since I wrote my piece last week, countless others have shared their own intensely personal stories on Twitter, Facebook, in blogs, and news stories across the country, around the world.  It is a cleansing of sorts, an emotional vomiting of what we have swallowed and what we have silently wallowed in since that day.

And like so many, I, too, have floundered a bit.  I have felt sick.  I have lost sleep.  I have had bad dreams.  I have caught myself staring into space, falling down that rabbit hole of memory, and having to jerk myself back to the present.  And I have only left my house once.

Now, that last part is not history making, per se, for me.  My close friends know that when I am home in Austin, I circle my own little wagons and stay in, usually forced out by my cats' impending empty food bowl or me running out of yogurt.

But I have spent a lot of time since last week truly looking at part of this behavior.  No, I don't like places that are "people-y" but what I am realizing is that I like even less the feeling of being exposed.  Of being available to accident, incident.  That's why so many days find me opting for my treadmill or running the stairs in my house instead of hitting the pavement of my own neighborhood.  As the line sung by Burr in Hamilton goes, "I am the one thing in life I can control..."

It is part of the hangover of being grabbed and attacked once.  That once inflicted enough of a memory, and instilled enough fear, that some days I just can't.

And for someone who prides herself on being strong, it is a detestable trait I fight against constantly.

Fortuitous then, that as I was slowly making this connection within, I ran across a Facebook Share from one of Toby's long time soccer friends.  She is an avid runner.  The Share was for a product called Go Guarded.  I clicked the link.  I read.  I watched the video.  And I bought the product.

Go Guarded is simple, but woe betide the person who would make me find out just how effective it is.   No scrambling for a Mace can or unattaching a Pepper spray.  Just bend my finger.

Today it came in the mail.  I adjusted it with an included sizer and then left my house and took my run.  Of course still completely head-on-a-swivel observant, but I cannot explain the feeling of security I had in having this lethal little guy attached to my finger.

Reclaiming your life, sorting out the messed up pieces of your emotional puzzle is, as I am finding, going to be a process.  No magic wands, no instant cures.  Deep breaths.  Baby steps.  And for me, neighborhood runs.

Not to ruin it for my kids, but they can expect this stocking stuffer come Christmas morning.

From this point on, I will leave my house and take my run, because dammit, I enjoy my morning run.  And while I know it cannot completely protect me from someone intent on harm, I can guarantee you I will lay open a rather important vein in their leg and take half their face with me on the way down.

Again, pain and violation know no political ideology or boundaries.  You are abused and simply left to figure out how to move forward.  

As for me, I am slowly taking back what was stolen from me, and I will always Go Guarded from now on.

I Didn't Want To Make It Worse

As painful as the past week+ has been for so many victims of sexual abuse, discrimination, inequity - it has also done something heartbreakingly cathartic.  As day after day (let's be honest - two nights ago it was hour after hour) we have seen and heard from victims of Donald Trump's self admitted behavior through the decades, a dam has also burst, flooding the social mediasphere with story after story from women who have lived their own quiet nightmare.

Quiet nightmare.

Let that sink in for moment.

For every asshole who is trying to write Trump's accusers off, hell, anyone's accusers off with the "Why did they take so long to come forward?" - that is at the heart of it.

It is a quiet nightmare.  One from which our souls never fully awaken.

Yes, OUR.

I do not know any woman who has not been on the receiving end of unwanted, unsolicited attention from men.  Catcalling, being brushed up against, being blatantly groped in close quarters, whispered to in passing, touched in a way that immediately made their skin crawl, or followed making their heart beat faster as they desperately look for a place to enter and be surrounded by people.

I do not know how to make it any clearer to men that catcalling is not some innocent compliment you are throwing our way.  SHUT THE HELL UP.  It is immediately internalized as a threat.   IMMEDIATELY.  We did not ask for your attention, much less seek your verbal approval.  And when we ignore you and keep walking, we can literally feel our blood moving under our skin when you immediately change to abusive language for not appreciating your "interest."

I have been disgusted, sickened, and frightened by catcalling.  At no point have I felt complimented or pretty.  I have always felt objectified and in danger.  But I did not turn around and respond because I DID NOT WANT TO MAKE IT WORSE.

If you are on a subway train and crammed in like sardines, it is not some unwritten rule that you get to grope us.

To the man on the subway train in NYC when I was 19?  My ass was not your property just because I was standing in close proximity.  I went cold when it happened.  I just froze.  I told my best friend when we got off.  Guess what?  You had groped her, too.  Yet we did not tell the adult chaperones on our trip because WE DID NOT WANT TO MAKE IT WORSE.

To the disgusting waiter in Las Vegas who purposefully leaned hard into my breast as we were leaving and thanking you for a nice evening?  I may have laughed it off with my sister as we walked away with a whispered "he touched the boob" but let me make this very clear, you were not invited to touch my body.  Joking with you through dinner, leaving you a nice tip, did not grant you access to my breasts.  And in retrospect, through the years, I know I should have gone to your manager.  But I can also tell you why I walked away.  I DID NOT WANT TO MAKE IT WORSE.  I just wanted to get away.

To the smarmy Italian I wrote about years ago here at DGMS following another trip to Vegas with my sister?  The one who came up to me as I played slots and began getting way too close, and way too familiar?  The one who went on and on about my "teets"?  I was frightened.  I felt ill.  I felt trapped.  And I should have gone to security.  But I DID NOT WANT TO MAKE IT WORSE.  I just wanted to get away.

And finally to the teenager I knew who pushed me into the back of a parked car when I was 16, held me down, and forced himself into me while calling me a whore?  Walking home through my neighborhood was not an invitation to grab me.  Ignoring your attentions in the locker banks did not make me a whore.  And never going to the police does not make it less than what it was - a rape.  And a memory that will never go away.  I remember everything.  Your smell, the streetlight through the window, the hard metal seatbuckle digging into my shoulder.  EVERYTHING.

What did I do?  I went home.  I went to my room.  I cried.  I wrote in my diary.  I bathed.  HARD.  But I said nothing.  We were being watched by my grandmother while my parents were out of town.  So I wrote.

I did not tell a friend.  I did not call my sister who was in college out of state.  I spun in that place of self hate, denial, and self recrimination.  That it was MY FAULT.  

But I told no one until I thought I might be pregnant.  Then I could not even form the words, I just let my mom read my diary.

Her response was, in retrospect, largely generational.  And I stress I do not hold her responsible in any way here.  We are all formed by the times we are born in and live through.  The response was to be quiet, we could not even let my dad know.  So we went on acting like it never happened because WE DID NOT WANT TO MAKE IT WORSE.

Thankfully I started my period and simply moved through the days and years.  What followed were shame spirals, questionable behavior, eating disorders, cold rages, dark thoughts.  But never again speaking of it.

Until now.

In my life, so many of those near to me have suffered at the hands of men in the same ways.  Made to feel uncomfortable, violated.  My own daughter was hit.  I have friends who have endured sexual abuse beyond imagining.  And the refrain is the same when it comes to why they never went to police.  Even Culley said the words when I found out she had been abused and threatened by her then boyfriend.  I DON'T WANT TO MAKE IT WORSE.

What we are seeing play out on the national stage right now goes to the heart of those words.  The People reporter, the woman on the plane (I have been inappropriately touched by seatmates on planes NUMEROUS TIMES), the pageant contestants, the former employees - all of them - young women in powerless positions to confront a billionaire when he touched them, leered at them, walked in on them.  And now that they have come forward, spurred on by his own words caught on tape, proudly boasted about repeatedly in interviews, hell, written in his own books - they have come forward verifying his own admissions to how he has treated women throughout the decades, and what is happening?

They are being called liars.  Written off as opportunists.

I have news for the Trump defenders who don't want to believe these women - you cannot have it both ways.  You cannot act like champions of the women who have accused Bill Clinton in the past, and then write off these women because you think Trump is your hero.  If every accuser deserves to be believed, that means EVERY ACCUSER, not just the ones that demean your opponent.

Michelle Obama's impassioned speech yesterday was why I lay in bed awake most of the night, playing every scene in which I was an unwilling co-star over and over in my head, trying to decide whether I could sit down and finally type the words above about what happened to me.  Words that will be new to my children, my friends, my sister, my husband.

“It would be dishonest and disingenuous to me to move on to the next thing like this was all just a bad dream,” she said. “This is not something that we can ignore. It’s not something we can just sweep under the rug as just another disturbing footnote in a sad election season.”

Yet sweep I have done.  Like so many women who have a rug covering their own secret abuse.

“The shameful comments about our bodies. The disrespect of our ambitions and intellect. The belief that you can do anything you want to a woman,” she said. “It is cruel. It is frightening. And the truth is, it hurts. It hurts.”

"The belief that you can do anything you want to a woman."

That has played on repeat in my head since yesterday.  

You CANNOT do anything you want to a woman.  You simply CANNOT.  And because victims of sexual abuse are not just women - please know my heart includes everyone - but we are talking right now about what women endure every fucking day.

Trump is unqualified for so many reasons, I would need two extra keyboards to wear out in the typing of all of them.  But his own words, his own actions top the list.  He had bragged for DECADES.  He was caught on tape bragging about actions, how because of his status he can just "grab 'em by the pussy."  How he just starts kissing women all the time, uninvited.  This was not just banter, these were descriptions of what he does, listen to him - he is proud of it.

Yet now that women have begun to bravely come forward to simply say, "Yes, he is telling the truth" they are labeled "whores" and "liars".  And worse, at a rally yesterday, Trump's defense of himself against the People reporter?  "Look at her.  I don't think so."  I see, so she wasn't hot enough to molest, Donald?  I've seen her pictures.  The woman is beautiful and intelligent, and when you did this to her, she was young, intimidated, frightened, and DID NOT WANT TO MAKE IT WORSE.

I guess, if there is one thing I can laud Trump for, it is this.  You have awoken us from our quiet nightmares, Donald.  And in solidarity with one another, we are now talking.  For years I have told myself that my silence was because I am STRONG.  No, my silence has been me mired in fear, and shame, and avoidance.  And typing it now won't change my past. It won't make what happened to us disappear.  It won't mean we will never again stare into the distance reliving what was done to us. But it does mean that we are throwing off the shackles of shame, thanks to you. 

We may not have wanted to make it worse for ourselves when we endured our violations, but we have no compunction now about making it exponentially worse for YOU.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Share your own stories in the comments here or on Facebook.  The only way this dynamic changes is if we finally make it obvious that IT HAPPENS, ON SOME LEVEL, TO ALL OF US.

 

Can You Bear It?

Given the logistics of my family's long term living arrangement, I am often asked how we keep the family strong, "together" even when we are apart, how we communicate?

Well, we ARE Sharps, so let's just start there.  Humor kind of pushes everything we do.

This afternoon I got off the treadmill and checked my phone.  There were 7 text messages.  I hate that.  A lot.  Because they were in the family group text, and that scares me.  Any parent will understand that.

I opened the thread and this is what greeted me...

(For reference, Zeb is the Curator of Curiosity at Gateway Canyons Resort in Colorado where Rudy, Culley, and Toby live and work.  They have a group in house and this is apparently one of their activities today.)

Yes, Toby, I concur.  WTH?

Leave it to Culley to offer a compliment.  And for Kendall to basically be "Dafuq, NOOOOOOOOO, Bye-eeeeeeeeee."

And Toby can always be counted on to find just the right song lyric to sum a situation up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I love my family.  Together or apart.

"I Have The Best Words."

Do you, Donald?  Do you really?

Let's see...

“You know, it really doesn’t matter what the media write as long as you’ve got a young, and beautiful, piece of ass.”

“If I were running ‘The View’, I’d fire Rosie O’Donnell. I mean, I’d look at her right in that fat, ugly face of hers, I’d say ‘Rosie, you’re fired.’”

“My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body.”

“I think the only difference between me and the other candidates is that I’m more honest and my women are more beautiful.”

“Number one, I have great respect for women."

"Women find his power almost as much of a turn-on as his money.” - Speaking in third person about himself.

And adding to those "best words", the revelations revealed yesterday:

“I did try and fuck her. She was married.”

“I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there. And she was married.”

“Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”

“Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”

Grab. Them. By. The. Pussy.

Wow, if those are his best words...

It has been no secret to anyone with semi-functioning grey matter, self respect, morals, and even the tiniest understanding of governance, that Donald Trump has had no business being in the running for our nation's top office.  From the moment he came down the escalator in Trump Tower - descending from the gilded heavens of his penthouse to begin conning the rubes - he has been a joke, a punchline, an eye roll, an eyesore, an embarrassment.

Yet he was embraced.  Running his mouth, dropping his rude bon mots like year old candy corn falling from a festering pinata, and wooing the baser instincts of racists, phobes, and zealots, he moved forward, leaving equally dim GOPer wannabes in his wake.  What so many of us considered a joke, a run that would never culminate in the convention nomination, did.

Trump had found his people.  Palin leftovers whose attention span and understanding is best served by bumper sticker stump speeches and 3 am Tweets.  Racists who heard the dog whistles and came running, thrilled that someone was legitimizing their irrational hate.  Religious zealots who only care that an "R" is after a candidate's name because surely that candidate will save them from hellfire, damnation, legal abortion, and transgender people in their Target bathrooms.  Islamophobes, homophobes, phobes of all ilk flocked to him as he promised to save them from, from, well, from the bogeymen in their fearful heads.

We have watched, dumbfounded, as his Twitter tantrums, misogyny, lies, and bigotry have not diminished his appeal, but solidified it.  

This is a country that turned out Howard Dean for ONE over exuberant yell during a campaign stop during the election cycle.  He was accused of being "loud, peculiar, and unpresidential."   It literally cost him his shot.  Yet here we are watching upwards of 40% of the citizens in this country embrace Donald Trump.

This pretty much sums things up:

2004: "loud, peculiar, and unpresidential" = Loses shot at Democrat Nomination

2016: "loud, peculiar, and unpresidential" = Ensured Republican Nomination

A year ago I referred to these people as The-I-Wish-I-Could-Tell-Everyone-To-Fuck-Off-Too Club.  I stand by that.  Watch any footage from a Trump rally, any interview with his cadre of dullards.  These people behave badly in their own lives, victimhood being the air they breathe, balling a fist being their first response to anyone challenging them on anything.  Nothing is ever their fault.  Science is sorcery.  Everything they don't understand is a liberal conspiracy.  Any coverage of their hero that does not prop him up and reinforce their inner narratives is a lie, the lamestream media out to get him.

No.

I have written before that these people who support him cannot stand in shit and profess to be clean.  They cannot stand shoulder to shoulder with KKK members and not be with them.  They cannot hear his tantrums and misogynist attacks and while one side of their mouth lauds his lack of filter, the other side is constantly saying, "that's not what he meant."

I am done with the rose colored notion that some of his supporters are actually good people.  No, no they are not.  I do not care if they take care of their sick grandma, foster neglected dogs, volunteer in the classroom, or go to church on Sundays.  If you support this reprobate, you are NOT a good person.  Something in you is profoundly broken that you can hear him, watch him, see who else supports him, yet still stand there wearing a Make America Great Again hat.

And after yesterday's revelation?  The disgust should be complete.  Any person with heart, a brain, a child - should be running from him as fast as possible.  You should be standing in a chemical shower sobbing, as you try to get the stench, the shame, the poison off yourself.

Listen to the tape.  Listen to Donald Trump, in his own voice, thinking no one could hear him, refer to women as "it."  Listen to his contention that sexual assault is okey dokey if you are a celebrity.  Listen to him brag about going after married women like a bitch.  Listen to him regale Billy Bush with tales of popping some Tic Tacs and then just starting to kiss women uninvited.

LISTEN TO HIS WORDS.

Then look at your children.  Not just your daughters, your sons, too.  If you even begin to defend this piece of shit with eyes, play this tape for your children, instructing them that this is how you want them to behave.  Teach your daughters they are objects to be fondled, groped, kissed, and grabbed - and that it's OK.  Teach your sons that women are simply on this planet for their enjoyment, and that no respect or invitation is necessary - they can just see "it" and "grab them by the pussy.  You can do anything."

As the tape was heard by more and more people, the articles being shared and reshared on Facebook, Twitter, the response was sadly predictable.  Comments sections were deluged by Trump apologists defending his words as "locker room talk".  Trump supporters deflecting by bringing up Bill Clinton's transgressions, Hillary's emails, and their favorite big word:  BENGHAZI!.  

Stop.  Just stop.  You are embarrassing yourself badly.

You cannot write it off in one poorly spelled sentence as "locker room talk" and that it was waaaaaay back in 2005, and then bring up Bill in the next grammatically challenged string of words.  Pssst, Bill's consensual affairs took place back in the 90s, and you just established that 2005 was ancient history that no longer mattered.

As for Benghazi and emails?  FFS, this is so tired, lame, played out.  Your own party tried repeatedly, spending millions and millions of our tax dollars, to find Hillary guilty of something.  They found nothing.

What part of NOTHING do you not comprehend?  Your derangement syndrome will not be legitimized by constantly stomping your feet and wishing something to be true.  All the Breitbart articles in the world will not change the outcome.  Sean Hannity can fellate the Tangerine Taint till the cows come home, but HIllary is not going to prison just because you want her to.  

The complete rejection of facts by Trump supporters in this election cycle has been shameful.  It is how he is still hanging on this morning.  They will simply not let go of their inner narratives of "conspiracy" "victimhood" and "Hillary is the anti-Christ."

Another shameful aspect of this is, as Keith Olbermann put it, that GOP politicos finally started scrambling for the "Trumptanic lifeboats" in the wake of this verbal iceberg.  FINALLY.  That everything leading up to "Grab them by the pussy" was not enough to make them disown him.  Every Tweet, every heinous finger point at Mexicans, Muslims, gay people, every mocking of the handicapped, every misogynist attack on any woman who dared call out his bullshit, every verbal diarrhea stump speech in which he repeatedly showed he is unqualified - they stood by him.  They genuflected, they sucked up, they ate his shit politely with a fork and knife - all because they put party over country, winning over actually governing.  

But "pussy" pushed them over the edge.  Sorry, GOPers, but you built this.  You broke it, you buy it.  You do not get to have a hand in injecting this poison, and then walk away with the "vapuhs."  You do not get to have stood quietly by as Trump has fomented hatred, emboldened racism, and incited violence - and now act holier-than-thou.  You cannot act like every word he has uttered up to now was somehow acceptable, forgivable, simply misunderstood.

Listen up - the words he spoke to Billy Bush are not some one-off.  His trail of misogyny has never stopped.  There is decade after decade of proof, in his own proud words, of his view and treatment of women.  This is not some "gotcha-Sarah-Palin-word-salad" conspiracy against him.  THIS IS WHO HE IS.

As for his forced non-apology he released late last night?  The one best described as a "hostage video"?  The one in which he said, "Anyone who knows me knows these words don't reflect who I am."?  No, Donald.  This is who you are.  As recent as one week ago you were attacking a former Miss Universe, and going after Rosie O'Donnell again.  Your misogyny and entitlement has never stopped or altered course.

And your own deflection?  The inability to get through that string of choked out words without bringing up Bill Clinton?  Let's get it clear once and for all.  What he did was consensual, Donald.  Wrong, but consensual.  AND HE IS NOT YOUR OPPONENT.  Not him, not the cigar, not his dalliances.  So stop being a petulant 6 year old who got caught and who immediately begins pointing the finger at a sibling to deflect guilt.  You are a reprobate, an embarrassment to the United States, a stain that will never be washed away from our electoral process, and the man responsible for unleashing the emotionally incontinent in this country - endangering everyone.

The office of the Presidency requires intelligence, strength, compromise, nuance, compassion, worldview, world understanding, and an ability to grasp that every word you utter has consequences.  Every word.

So let's just use your "best words" right now to sum up your entire life, candidacy, and personal ethos.  

"I know words, I have the best words. I have the best, but there is no better word than stupid. Right? There is none, there is none. There’s no, there’s no, there’s no word like that.”

STUPID.

Yes, Donald.  You and your supporters have that one nailed.

"'Tis The Season" Is Closer Than You Think

The weather has turned cooler (ok, ok, COLDER in some places), the commercials have already begun, and the lights will be strung up before we know it.

Carols will fill the air, homes will twinkle from within as trees herald the coming of another Christmas.  And hearts will swell with excitement, joy, and peace.

Well, at least that is the version of the holidays so many of us are privileged to experience.

A lot of us, without giving it much thought - face it, when it is your every day life, you tend to take much for granted - will shop, decorate, give, receive.  Especially to our children.  Any parent knows, the gift we really look forward to on Christmas morn is the heart lifting glee we feel when we watch our child/ren opening something dearly wished for.

Every parent wants that, but sadly, not every parent can provide that.  For so many, they face this season with despair, sadness, and the heaviness of heart because they simply cannot afford a gift for their child.  Not one.  For so many, food is a gift.  Electricity for warmth is a gift. 

As is always the case at this time each year, I have already begun receiving emails from needy families inquiring if we will again be doing our annual DGMS Yes, Virginia fund to help keep the spirit alive this Christmas.

And I have replied as I do each year - That it is my sincere wish we can, but that it depends, as it always does, on our blogmunity's ability to raise the necessary funds.

As some of our DGMSers try to give a little throughout the year, we are starting off with a couple hundred dollars already. 

If you have been around through the past years, you know the incredible moments we have created in homes across the country.  You have bought mattresses, comforters, toys, shoes, boots, coats, clothes, food, paid energy bills.  You have not simply kept Santa alive for small children, you have touched lives across the entire age spectrum.

I know, I know, Halloween is still weeks away, but before we know it we will be carving turkeys and then heading full speed towards Jingle Bells and Joy To The World.

If you can help this year, I promise you, you will be part of bringing JOY to the WORLDS of many, many people.  (And to yourself.  God knows how heavy we all feel, mired in the midst of another wretched and ugly election.  But helping others should never be partisan, and the wonderful feelings that come from it certainly are not.  Our efforts are not about political affiliation, they are about unburdening hearts and lifting the corners of little mouths with joy.)

The page detailing our fund is always available HERE and ready to be shared with others you may know who may be in a position to chip in and change some lives.  (The instructions for safely donating via Paypal are included. )

The DGMS sleigh is empty and ready for some elves to start filling it!