Don't Get Me Started with Linda Sharp

Someone I Love Is Transgender

The graphic was sent to me this morning.  Simple, beautiful, and I posted it immediately.  On this Trans Day of Visibility, it is impossible to overstate how deep to me is the meaning in these few words.

Not because today is TDOV - a day when transgender and nonbinary people are highlighted in this world.  

Not because someone saw it and sent it to my inbox.  Make no mistake, friends who do these things and make their ally-ship so open are cherished.

Rather, it is the candor of the statement that catches my heart.  It is simple.  It is declarative.  And for me, it is a dare.  I dare anyone to come for me because of it.  I dare anyone to espouse their personal bile and bigotry, to spew their ignorance and oogies.  I dare anyone to tell me I am wrong. 

I am unashamed, I am unabashed.  I am the very vocal, proud and protective mother of a transgender human being.

He, like his siblings, is the air I breathe.  His existence is part of how I exist.  And his gender is simply one piece of a very complex young man.

Like all of us.  None of us are simply ONE THING.  We are physical attributes, personality traits, likes, dislikes, quirks, talents, hopes and dreams.  Yet because he is something not universally shared or understood, he is reduced to ONE THING.  He is mocked.  He is scorned.  He is threatened.  He is caricatured.  His very existence is suspect, his very existence, to some, should not even be.

Think about that for a moment.  As a parent, look at your child and imagine society wishing him/her/they harm, or worse, extinction, simply for being who they are.  I had zero control over being 5'2" with green eyes.  I just am.  He has zero control over being transgender.  He just is.  He did not set out to be.  He did not fall down some internet rabbit hole and become gender radicalized.  He did not choose a supremely difficult path through life out of boredom.

He transitioned to save his life.  To finally live his life.

Like so many decent parents of trans kids, I have often used the word "brave" in describing him.  The reality is, most transgender people dislike the adjective being applied to them.  Being your true, authentic self should not be an act of bravery.  Coming out and declaring who you are is an act of self love, of literal survival.  The bravery aspect exists because in doing so they must deal with a society that reviles them.

My child wakes up each day knowing how so many in this world view him.  He knows how many bills are currently winding their way through legislatures targeting him.  He knows that an act as simple as grocery shopping could get him hurt.  Yet he grocery shops anyway.  He is forced by society to be brave in order to simply exist.  He doesn't want to have to be brave.  He simply has no choice.

As his mother, there is not a day that goes by when I do not worry about him.  People often check in and ask me about that, assuming that since we are four+ years down the road that somehow the worst is behind us.  Hardly.  I look at the road we have walked with him thus far and while it has not been perfectly smooth, we have walked it together, walked it with love, walked it with support.  But the worst actually resides ahead of us.  Because we don't know what will happen.

Arkansas just made it possible for medical persons to deny services to members of the LGBTQIA based on the make believe choices of the provider.  Yes, make believe.  Whatever your chosen religion, and yes, YOU CHOOSE TO PARTICIPATE, you believe yours is right and others are wrong.  Yours is sacrosanct and others are bullshit.  The reality is they are all manmade opiates for the masses.  Which is fine until you start hiding behind yours to deny the humanity of others.

That is what laws like the one in Arkansas do.  They strip the humanity from people like my son, instead allowing doctors to paint them with whatever wrongheaded, lie laden, meme generated, Facebook group make believe suits them.  It allows bigotry to hide behind religion (although the two booty call regularly), and allows my son to be placed in jeopardy.  These bills also target trans youth - wanting to completely deny them gender affirming care like reversible puberty blockers and hormone therapy.  These bills, if passed, are literal death knells for a segment of society which already has a 41% suicide attempt rate.

Between bills and laws like this and the number of hospitals in this country that are affiliated with religions like Catholicism, my heart is forever held hostage by the "what ifs" - What if he is in an accident?  What if he needs emergency care?  That his life depends on who responds to the scene, who cuts his shirt off and sees his top surgery scars, who cuts his pants off and sees what they don't expect to see.  That his life could end because someone's personal biases, bigotry, hate, and ignorance take precedence over 'First do no harm'?

That is the worst.  That is what keeps me up at night,  That is what can leave me breathless if I think too much about it.

My son is not a threat to you, to your child, to their sports team.  My son played on a woman's college soccer team.  After he had come out to us.  Yes, we knew he was transgender and he went back to school and completed another season, another full year of school under the radar.  Presenting as a female did not make him less transgender.  And being a trans man did not suddenly make him more or less of a soccer player.

But it makes good press with which Republicans can scare their fact challenged constituency.  Like Target bathrooms were, sports are now the new frontier in trans panic.  And it is as pathetic as it is unfounded.  My son played with girls, some of whom were physically bigger than many of the players on the men's team.  Should they have been disqualified?  Of course not.  

My son is honestly not some big mystery.  He is not a ghoul, a fiend, a monster.  He is not a pedophile, nor is he a pervert.  He's a human being.  A pretty ordinary one.  And if you didn't know, you wouldn't know.  His voice is deep.  His face is whiskered.  His hair, like millions of other guys out there. 

Is that the part that scares you?  (You being the bigger you, not specifically YOU - I trust if you are reading this YOU are a decent person.)  That you might meet a transgender person and have no idea?  Or worse, GASP!, like them?!?!?  I promise you, no trans person is attempting a ruse with you.  Use the word 'passing' if you like, but the reality is they are simply just being themselves.  You know, like you.  And honestly, so what if you can tell?  So what if someone is early in their transition?  They, too, are simply being themselves.  They are not setting out to be a threat to you - the reality is that you are a far greater threat to them.

My son wants to be happy.  Pretty simple.  He wants to wake up, have friends, take care of his pets, do his classwork, draw commissions for his followers, watch the latest season of Hell's Kitchen, Facetime me to show me what his new kitten is up to, make a smoothie, go to Target, scroll Zillow, play Subnautica, plan for his future.  Nowhere on his personal To Do list will you find terrorize a public bathroom, threaten another human being, deny someone their humanity.

He just wants to go from sunup to sundown safely.  Again, like you.  And perhaps this is what bothers you, too.  He is far more like you than you care to acknowledge.  Because should you open your eyes to just how much you have in common, how ordinary is his life, how he doesn't want more than you, just the same as you - then you would be left with a bunch of bullshit that you have chosen to cling to instead of opening your eyes, your brain, your heart.

On this Transgender Day of Visibility, think about that.  Think about how you wish to be treated by society, by your employer, as you navigate this life.  Then take a moment and apply that to my son.  Let your hate, fear, and willful ignorance wash away and maybe, just maybe, you will begin to see the humanity in everyone.

Someone I love is transgender.  His name is Toby and he is my extraordinarily ordinary hero.

Mourning In America ... Again

I had spent yesterday continuing to recuperate, cleaning, chatting with my kids, doing laundry, petting my cats, and writing about the murderer from last week's mass shooting in Georgia.

So as I had been writing, I had not been watching the news for a few hours.  Rudy came home and assumed I had already seen the reports out of Boulder.  I had not.  I finished posting the piece on Robert Aaron Long and set to catching up.

A mass shooting again.  This time in Colorado.

Again.

That word.  It wears a person down.  Sitting here, I realize it is almost worn by a person because it cloaks me now, reducing my response to two heavy sighs, a setting of my jaw in anger, and the inevitable feeling of a sort of weary acceptance.

Again.

Innocent lives were brutally taken for no other reason than they were simply in the wrong place at the "right" time.

Again.

Ten families did not sleep last night, will not know rest again - at least not in the form they had come to know.  The kind where you know your loved ones are safely at home, too.  

Again.

Candles will be lit in vigil.  A community will mourn in the dark.

Again.

Politicians, those who do have the power to effect change, will offer up rote "thoughts and prayers" on Twitter.

Again.

It will happen again.  And again.  And again. And again, and again, and again, andagainandagainandagain...

Because this is what happens when a country simply doesn't give enough of a shit to stand up and do something. 

Again.

Those of you sitting at home in your tiny towns and hamlets, much like Boulder in Colorado, thinking, "Oh, that could never happen here"?  Think again.

Every person who ever finds themselves staring into the camera lens after a tragedy echoes the same words, "I never thought it would happen here."

No one ever does.

The problem is that "Here" is a moving target. "Here" is an equal opportunity destroyer. "Here" shows no allegiance to a single location. And "Here" likes nothing better than to sneak up and surprise an entire community.

At this writing, the details are far from complete. What they do know is yesterday afternoon, a 21 year old, armed with an AR-15, walked into a King Soopers grocery store, and began shooting.  The shooter was ultimately apprehended.

But not before ending the lives of 10 completely innocent human beings and injuring more.

Police have released the name of the shooter - Ahmad Alissa - and the investigation continues as to who he is, his background, family, motives, etc.  

In the end, that makes no difference.

Whoever this murderer was, he came, saw, deliberately unloaded his weapon, leaving only trauma, and no answers.

Not that any answer could ever justify the bloodshed and loss of innocent life.

Again.

Like you, my heart goes out to the myriad shoppers who now join the club of those who have survived a mass shooting.  I physically ache for the parents, friends, relatives of all victims – as they desperately attempted to reach their children, spouses, BFFs to verify their safety.  And I cannot begin to imagine the anguish of those who heard only an endless ringing and no answer.

What I also feel is anger. Anger that better systems do not exist to protect the public, yes, but mostly anger that yet another waste of oxygen has decided to play God and end the lives of so many innocent people.

My message to people like him, to the families of people like him?  Ask for help.  In an interview with one of his brothers, he spoke candidly about how they suspected Ahmad had mental health issues for years, open paranoia, repeatedly spoke of being followed, was easily provoked, yet did nothing.  Or sadly, perhaps felt there was nothing they could do.  In a country where natural born citizens struggle to have even the most basic of health issues addressed, a family of Syrian immigrants needing and accessing mental health care is almost impossible. 

Yes, Syrian refugees.  Muslim, too.  None of which matters or makes this more or less terrible and terroristic than the white man who killed 8 people in Georgia less than a week ago.  The Alissa family came here in 2002 when Ahmad was only three years old.  So spare me the 'where was he radicalized' trope.  For all intents, THIS is the only country he has ever known.  And his religion matters as much or as little to the equation of his dead than Long's evangelical Christianity matters to his body count.  

But oh, how it does matter in the GQPersphere.  FOX, which could not be bothered to cover the shooting last night throughout its myriad bullshit hours when word on the street was that the suspect was white, is now verbally masturbating its flock because his name came out and he is gasp brown, and horrors Muslim.  Right wing pundits and comment boards are overflowing with rage, self righteousness, and vengeance, despite having been completely quiet, unless defending, the white man in Georgia who killed 8 people the same way.

And while there is so much to unpack with each of these killers, the common denominator is the ease with which they both acquired a deadly weapon and went on a killing spree.  

Politically it is all playing out the way it does every single time there is a mass shooting.  Worthless thoughts and prayers.  Admonishments from the right that it is "too soon" to talk about seeking answers.  And of course, the bullshit fearmongering that Dems are "cummin' fer yer guns."  Just stop.  There are currently 393 million guns in the hands of our citizens.  We are a nation with roughly 330 million people meaning every single one of us, whether in the cradle or near the grave, can have at least 1.  And we are not safer for having them in circulation.  And you cannot tell me that every one of those is owned by someone sane, competent, responsible.  And do not give me the worn out old excuse, "Well, if there had been someone with a gun..."   Besides the firearm, surprise is a mass shooter's next biggest weapon.  As such, we are in danger every single fucking second of our lives.

Let me repeat that part:  We are in danger every single fucking second of our lives.

Like so many places, Colorado is open carry.  That means: No license or permit is required to open carry in Colorado. A Colorado permit to carry a concealed weapon is unrelated to the right to open carry and if you do have a concealed carry license, you may carry weapons both openly and concealed anywhere not prohibited by law.

So anyone can strap themselves up like a cosplay Rambo and go grocery shopping, walk into a McDonald's, saunter down your street, load up on Cheese Puffs at Walmart.  And we're just supposed to know who is a good guy, albeit a paranoid one that thinks he/she needs a weapon of war strapped to their chest while buying eggs, or a bad guy intent on killing as many people as possible in the cat food aisle?

YOU could be strapped up like Rambo, too, and have it not make a tinker's damn worth of difference.  These shooters rely on the element of surprise.  They do not send a calling card indicating when they shall arrive to kill.  And even if you could get to your weapon?  Your own abilities paired with panic and adrenaline mean the outcome could leave more innocent lives taken as you try to "protect" them.  (I point to the example out of Texas when a concealed carry enthusiast shot a car jacking victim in the head while trying to "protect" him.  He ran after realizing what a Great White Hunter he actually was not.)

But back to Long and Alissa.  Two 21 year old men, two terrorists, who took out their personal demons, hate, and rage on innocent people.

I don’t care if your childhood was/is pure shit. I don’t give a rat’s ass if your girlfriend dumped you or if you just lost your job. I don’t care if you have chronic acne and never got laid. I don’t give two shits in a whirlwind that you believe you have been slighted, maligned, misunderstood, or marginalized by someone or something in this life.  I do not care if you have been over-religicized or not at all.

We all go through shit. We all get treated in ways we don’t appreciate at some point in our lives. We all experience disappointments, let-downs, slights, heartbreaks, dashed hopes, crushed dreams, bad people, and life’s general ability to make us feel small.

That does not give us the right to strike out and demand some gory retribution.  A 21 year old knows this.  Hell, a 10 year old knows this.

So to Ahmad and Robert?  You are waaaaaay old enough to know better, to understand the import of your plans, the permanence of your actions. Your life as you knew it may be over, but at least you still have a life.  You stole that from 18 other people.  

I’ll save my thoughts for the victims, and especially for all those who now have to learn how to take the next breath in this life, knowing that their child, their loved one, their friend, their spouse, their father, their mother, their grandparent is not taking it with them.

Boulder is not a massive city, roughly 100,000 people.  It is a college town.  It is eclectic, has history, is beautiful, is one of my favorite places in Colorado.  And it is a town that will feel this tragedy to the bone.  Smaller towns may have some drawbacks, but one of them is not a lack of community.  Smaller towns, for better or worse, have that one down cold.

People know one another.   They have grown up together.  They look out for one another.  Yes, sometimes they are WAY too much in one another's business, but that's part of the tradeoff.

Their community will rally, they will mourn, they will move forward.  What else is there to do? 

I'll tell you.

Look at your child.  Hold the baby you just birthed.  Embrace your spouse.  Call your parents.  Hug your friend.  And then ask yourself if you are willing to sit idly by anymore and allow them to be sacrificed to a mindset that believes "more guns" is any kind of answer.  Or that ignoring the mental health care access need in this country is an acceptable gamble.

Because if you think it cannot happen in your town, you are wildly naïve.  If you think it won't happen again, you have not been paying attention.  This is only March 23rd, and our nation has suffered 107 mass shootings (4 or more injured or killed), leaving 122 people dead and 325 injured, for a total of 447 total victims (some including the shooter).  Further, this is the 7th mass shooting in 7 days.   It will happen.  

Someone in your town is seething.  In fact, there are hundreds, thousands of these shooters out there.  They inhabit every school, at every grade level.  They are your co-workers, the people choosing apples next to you at the store.  They are there, feeling invisible, marginalized, penalized in life for things over which they feel they have zero control.  Feeling feelings that are too big, overwhelming, desperate.  Mainlining hate.

And most of all angry. 

Angry at their circumstances.  Angry at the perceived inequities of their life vs the lives they see others living where everything appears Nirvana-ish.  Anger because they have been told to be angry at someone, something, some group.  Directed to blame their life's lot on someone else.  The government, a skin color, women who won't date them, someone of opposite politics, an ideology, a religion.

And that anger sits, ferments, begins to boil, until one day it runs over, cannot be contained, and with the help of 393,000,000 guns - explodes.

Changing yet another town's name to Here.

Again.

I know this because this article has been written by using entire LARGE sections of past articles I have written after past mass shootings.  All I had to do is change the town, adjust the numbers.

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

Post script

It started immediately yesterday while the bodies were still on the cold tile throughout the grocery store.  Q idiots and conspiracy theorists loudly banging the "false flag" drum.  To all of you whose grasp on reality is so tenuous, whose relation to facts and data is non-existent, who insist only you have all the answers and are part of some exciting Dan Brown novel come-to-life, who cannot seem to navigate a world where things like this DO happen - just shut the ever loving fuck up.  People died for no other reason than deciding to go buy strawberries at the wrong time.  Young people, old people - DEAD.  Whatever is so broken inside you that you have zero compunction about compounding the unimaginable grief being felt by so many?  You are horrid, hateful, wretched creatures.  Just sit the fuck down and keep your ignorant gobs closed.

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

In memory of the 18 who were gunned down in Georgia and Colorado, and let down by the "greatest nation on Earth."

Denny Stong, 20
Neven Stanisic, 23
Rikki Olds, 25
Talona Bartkowiak, 49
Suzanne Fountain, 59
Teri Leiker, 51
Ofc. Eric Talley, 51
Kevin Mahoney, 61
Lynn Murray, 62
Jody Waters, 65

Xiaojie Tan, 49
Delaina Yaun, 33
Paul Andre Michels, 54
Daoyou Feng, 44
Hyun Jung Grant,51
Soon Chung Park,74
Sun Cha Kim,69
Yong Yue, 63

Holy Hell

So, I admit to being well over a decade late to the party, but I have been binging Grey's Anatomy for two solid months now.  Better late than never, as they say.  Great drama, cool medical anomalies, strong characters, plenty of sexcapades and innuendo, and I now know what the word anastomosis means.  (Seriously, ER peaked with us all only adding CBC, Chem 7 to our vocabularies.) 

Each episode has strong storylines, some following through for multiple episodes.  Wide ranging topics are tackled, but I love that they are tackled.  LGBTQIA characters are casually mixed into the stories and as repeating characters - as they should be.  Religion appears, with one of the characters almost irritating in her obeisance.  But in Shonda-land, somehow it all works.  

The episode I watched this morning had a young man rushed to the ER bleeding from the wrist.  The paramedics naturally assumed suicide attempt and presented it that way.  In the ER he was quick to correct them and tell the doctors that he was not trying to kill himself, he was just trying to cut off his hand.

<insert incredulous doctor faces>

He then began justifying his efforts with scripture.  Ahhhh, that classic from Matthew: if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.

Seems the young man had been masturbating a lot.  And as that is a sin unto God - or some such bullshit - his natural conclusion was to take the words to their literal extension and grab a Ginsu.

Sadly, what was a slightly humorous, extremely frustrating religious storyline in a TV series, plays out in real life daily.  We just saw it again last week when 8 people were slain in Georgia. 

While the Asian American bigotry component cannot be underestimated in his murderous rampage, what has come to the fore of his defense is the word responsible for more bloodshed in our history than all others:  RELIGION.

Welcome to my FED (up) Talk, please have a seat.

Religion has destroyed from the beginning.  People, brainwashed and steeped in certitude about their learned beliefs, have always felt justified in not only lording over others, but in shedding the others' blood as a means to justify their end - dominance.  And it is why I left it when I was 18.

It is why so very many leave it daily.  Realizing that you do not need to sit in a pew and be shouted at; that you do not require permission to live your life; that you do not need the carrot of everlasting life in order to behave; that the too-well-dressed man or woman on the dais has but one true message each time - MONEY - well, it makes it easy to not only walk away, but to sprint.

Yes, yes, yes, I shall add my disclaimer here as I always do on this subject:  Religion is fine if it helps you find peace, a sense of community, doesn't threaten you in the process.  But it needs to stay in its lane.  I don't care who or what you worship.  Slugs?  Tapeworms? Thetans?  (Given Scientology's sacred writings, thetans may well be tapeworms.  Hubbard was more than a little on the batshitty side.)  Have at it.  Just keep it to yourself.  I am under zero obligation to join you or even listen to you wax crapsodic.

The very real problem religion, especially the evangelical flavor in this country, causes the populace is that it produces specimens like Robert Aaron Long - oozing with self contempt, bullshit, and certitude.  

Raised a strict Southern Baptist, he was taught all the things you would imagine.  The Bible is sacrosanct - do not question it.  Sex is baaaaaaaaad.  Don't touch yourself.  Women are temptresses.  Their brand of fire and brimstone holds that “adultery, fornication, homosexuality, bisexual conduct, bestiality, incest, polygamy, pedophilia, pornography, or any attempt to change one’s sex, or disagreement with one’s biological sex” as “sinful and offensive to God.”

Jesus, they take the fun out of everything.

OK, seriously, I think we can all agree on the bestiality, incest, pedophilia front.  Leave the poor animals alone, cast a wider net for partners, and don't touch your children or anyone else's children.  But the rest?  GTFO.  

The rest - sex, sexuality, gender identity- none of your goddamned business.  And frankly, nothing your God ever sent dictates about.  Man decided what to fixate on in order to control the flock.  And as a result, the flock is forever getting caught with its pants down, abusing a sheep, molesting a trusting son or daughter, niece or nephew, or keeping the servers warm at Pornhub.

Robert is just one example of what a lifetime of blinding sanctimony, guilt, and fear can produce.  Repeatedly taught that the most natural thing in the world - rubbing one out - YES, I said it - is a sin is just fucking fantasy.  It is about control and fearmongering and instilling self loathing so wretched, so deep, so ingrained that it buys a gun and takes 8 lives because he and his dick cannot be trusted in their presence.

There's a reason that the biggest consumers of online porn are in the Bible belt of this country, in those red states that just love to preach about God, and chastity, and family values.  It's because when you tell someone they cannot do something, that is the exact thing they will then fixate upon.  

Don't want your child to have sex till marriage, want them to think it is all sinful and dirty?  Fine.  Teach them that.  Just know that you are likely setting them up for years and years of uncertainty, self doubt, feelings of failure when they are attracted to someone, feelings of self loathing when they feel every normal thing a teen feels, feelings that they have sinned should they make out.  Far too many children are raised in homes where God is everything (He, She, It are not), where the Bible is all they need to know (it's a man scripted storybook, not a literal guide to life), where cavemen rode dinosaurs (hahahahahahahahahahahaha), where the rest of the world is evil (just such a load of horseshit), and the body is dirty (pardon me while I laugh).

Countless children are never taught about their bodies, let alone given agency over them.  They are taught that their "parts" are dirty, that touching them is a sin, that sex is only for marriage and that the man gets what he wants, when he wants it.  No ownership over their own bodies, choices, feelings.  So when their bodies begin to grow and change, when puberty begins to force those delicious hormones through, they have these feelings and physical reactions and the only things they know are that they are sinful.

Not that they are NORMAL.

With Robert Long, he went to be with a girlfriend when he was 19 - feeling all the things one does in young love.  She lived in Tennessee.  What did his parents do?  They called the police and reported him missing.  He refused to come home.  The police had to explain to Mr. and Mrs. EvangHELLical that he was not missing and they would not write it up as such.  In fact, the deputy wrote in the report, "He wanted a fresh start."

Translation: he wanted to be 19.

Well, things didn't work out with the girl, but then not much does at that age, so he went back to Georgia and entered a rehab of sorts - Maverick Recovery, a 12-step transitional-housing facility - to seek treatment for his pornography habit and repeated buying of sexual services at massage facilities.  Basically 12 steps of Your dick is bad.  Your dick is the devil.  Your sexual thoughts are dirty and a personal affront to God.  

Reinforcing all the bullshit he was taught as a child.

It didn't work.  Of course it didn't work.  

He still sought out companionship at massage parlors, watched porn.  And yes, horrors, he still masturbated.  All the while having it reinforced in him that his "obsession" with sex was immoral.

Can I get all the guys out there who have been "obsessed" to raise a calloused hand, please?  Ladies, too.  Put down the rabbit and be counted.

Obsession?  IT'S NORMAL AND HEALTHY.  And a male teenager?  Cum on.  Sorry, had to.

After leaving Maverick, he entered an evangelical rehab facility called HopeQuest.  For sex addiction.  That was his treatment angle.  Now, bear in mind that this place is also famed for their ex-gay therapy - you know, praying away the gay.  Their treatment for SA was just as beneficial and realistic.  

In a piece in WaPo about Long, it reads, several experts have said this week that Long’s ties to evangelicalism shine a light into a subculture called “purity culture,” a belief among some evangelicals that promotes the idea that any sexual desire outside of marriage is lustful, and therefore sinful. Some evangelicals are taught from a young age to control their sexual urges and if they cannot, they are sometimes labeled sex addicts or porn addicts.

So at HopeQuest, instead of true therapy in which Long would be taught that his feelings were perfectly normal, completely age appropriate, and ones that every human being has, he was further taught to hate himself, his urges, see himself as weak, and seek out whose fault it actually was.  

The wimmin.  It's always us wimmin's fault.  Poor little man people and their hard pee pees.  How ever are they supposed to live in a world where wimminfolk are allowed to walk free, showing off our calves, putting on lipgloss?!?!?  We shebeasts should be ashamed.

Le sigh.

On their websitie, HopeQuest writes “Although most men struggle with lustful thoughts, acting on those thoughts — whether through fantasy and masturbation, using pornography or actual contact with another person — is always hurtful to God..."

Hurtful to God.  Seriously.  Again, this is where religion just drives me crazy.  Unless and until God sends a celestial cease and desist order, we have zero idea what is hurtful to Him.  I would posit that God has a whole raft of more important hurts to deal with - you know murder, child rape, genocide, Donald Trump - and that your desire to crank your shaft is of no interest to Him.  In fact, He probably prefers it to murder, genocide, child rape, and Donald Trump because if you are um, self involved, there is less murder, child rape, genocide.  Still too much Donald Trump either way.

It's like preachers demanding you tithe till it hurts because God needs money.  No, He doesn't.  But that Rolex on Osteen's wrist, his private jet, and those alligator shoes sure as shit aren't free.  Their propersity gospel is about them prospering.  Do you have a private jet?  $2,000 tennis shoes?  A mansion with 10 rooms to spare?  The Osteens and Robertsons and Warrens get your money by deigning to speak for God, by selling you fear, fear you willingly purchase with your weekly offerings to the basket.  Without fear, they have nothing.  Without fear, you figure out that you can speak to God anytime you please, that you don't need a man in Gucci and Prada to act as intermediary, that maybe, just maybe, you aren't damned to hell for every breath you take.

In Long's case, not damned to Hell for every "move" you make.  Sex is normal.

And I am beyond tired of people, especially men, crying addicktion when they get caught playing around, cheating on a spouse, tapping under a bathroom stall, or watching porn online.  It is not an official psychiatric disorder according to the American Psychiatric Association.  In fact, it was removed from the DSM a decade ago.

You may like sex a lot.  You may like a lot of sex with a lot of people.  You may seek it out at every turn.  It may get you in trouble.  But it is about impulse control, choices, decision making in the individual.  So you really enjoy sex?  Great!  Make good choices in that arena.  But when it bites you in the ass (you probably like that, too, cool, cool, cool), don't cry addiction, as in it being beyond your control.  It is completely in your control - it just feels so damned good.  We ALL know that.

Well, most of us know that.  Robert Long did not.  And 8 people paid the price for his warped, wretched, twisted upbringing via his religion.  8 people should still be alive had someone only taught him that his urges were normal not damned.  8 people who perished at the hands of puritanical theology.  MANMADE theology.

He's a murderer.  Period.  A white, homegrown terrorist.  And none of what I wrote above excuses a thing he did.  He will find no harbor here.  But it is backstory.    He carelessly, callously ended 8 lives and needs held accountable for the rest of his pathetic life. 

Maybe if he had only watched that episode of Grey's Anatomy to see even the irritatingly-Christian Christian go off on the young man, shouting at him that the Bible is full of stories and metaphors and things aren’t meant to be taken so literally.  She repeatedly rebuffs his lamentations about it all being real with it should only be followed “within reason.” That people don’t go chopping babies in half. 

Then again, maybe Robert should have just chopped off his "sinful" hand, too.  At least the one that held the gun.

Thank you for coming to my FED (up) Talk.  There are refreshments in the lobby.  

Poor Little White Man Syndrome

The news broke while we were watching Rachel last night.  8 people gunned down in Georgia.  

It made me realize that, while shootings have not disappeared during the past year of quarantine, in fact we reached a record high number of them in 2020, they have been quieter.  

Quieter, translation for smaller in bloodshed.

A mass shooting, by definition, is one in which 4 or more people are injured or killed.  In 2020, mass shootings actually surged by 47%, but then a steady diet of economic anxiety, protests, and idle hands due to the pandemic were bound to lead to something terrible (beyond the current 550,500 COVID deaths).  The United States sustained 611 mass shootings in 2020.  But because they did not take place in high schools or concert grounds, they did not percolate to the top of the national news after they happened.

Last night's did.  And while the tag 'hate crime' will be bandied about and investigated, there is no avoiding the fact that 6 of the 8 people were of Asian descent.

If you have been paying attention, you have seen that Asian Americans in this country have been under increasing attack since COVID-19 hit our shores.  The Inciter-in-Chief was quick to try to distance any blame he and his clowncar of toadies may have for the spread by labeling it, repeatedly, the China Virus.  That came out of his earthwormish gob at every turn.  Then some in his administration actually referred to it in interviews as the Kung Flu.  The bigotry and targeting were heinous then, and fed into the steady diet of victimhood that is the lifeblood of a pathetic Trump worshipper.

Someone is responsible for their woes.  Someone must be responsible.  Trump directed their easily led gaze to an entire group of people - anyone who looked Asian.  It mattered not that they may have been born and raised here in the United States, that generations of their families have called this land home - all that mattered is that they looked like the ones Trump was targeting.

Harassment of Asian Americans began to climb during the pandemic in 2020 with 2,800 hate crimes being reported.  In 16 cities alone there was a 150% increase in attacks ranging from targeted harassment to violence to vandalism against Asian owned businesses.  With every utterance of China Virus, every tweet Trump sent out with those words, every ha-ha-how-funny-is-Kung-Flu? interview on FOX, his followers internalized the xenophobic rhetoric and continued to lash out.

Last night, 8 people lost their lives across three locations - all Asian owned massage parlors.  6 of the people were Asian women.

The murderous twat who took them is this incel looking chinbeard, Robert Aaron Long, 21 years old.

Now, I again state that labeling this a hate crime is an investigatory process, and quite frankly, performative in nature.  Whether it is or not will never unshed the blood, breathe life back into the lungs of the 8 people.  But while that is being hashed out, what is emerging is just as disturbing.  It is also sadly, pathetically, disgustingly, sickening predictable.

Poor little white man syndrome.

We can start with the fact that sack of flesh was taken alive, unscathed, no neck kneeling police, hell, he was even provided with a Kevlar vest when apprehended.  No Black man would have been afforded a single breath between vehicle and falling to the pavement riddled with bullets.

Next came the He's-a-Christian bullshit, as if that has anything to do with anything.  Some mystical Jesus cloaking device for his white ass.  Would we ever see that afforded a Muslim in the same position?  Rhetorical question, we know the answer.

And then this morning, there it was - the I Ching of Poor Little White Man Syndrome, the guiding principle, the North Star - he was having a bad day. 

I'm not kidding.  At the police press conference, this is what Sheriff Chromedome McApologist had to impart:

It’s insane to me that the Sheriff just casually says “He was fed up, at the end of his rope...yesterday was a really bad day for him and this is what he did" about the killer pic.twitter.com/fNFMrvfoST

— Wu-Tang Is For The Children (@WUTangKids) March 17, 2021

Fed up.  End of his rope.  Pretty bad day for him.

Excuse me, Sheriff, but fuck you and fuck you twice again.  With a cactus strapped to a pogo stick.

I am beyond tired of this pity-the-poor-white-man pap when another one of you decides to grab your metal phallus and end lives.  This notion that you are lone wolves, disturbed, misunderstood, that your mental health grants you a free pass to slaughter?  GTFO here with that.  Somehow those same acts carried out by Black men earns them terms like thug, brute.  Brown skin immediately gets labeled terrorist.

But a white man, a Christian, no less?  Get him a bulletproof vest, a trip to the Mickey D's drive thru on the way to the precinct, and a GoFundMe, STAT!

Look, when mass murder is involved mental health is always an issue at some level.  A well adjusted, rationally thinking, decent human being does not do these things.  But to then try to wipe away some layer of guilt with words like "having a bad day"?

We all have bad days.  Hell, we have been having a collective bad day for over a year now.  We suffer the end of marriages, relationships, mourn deaths, lose jobs, worry about finances, wish we had a love life, and on and on, but you know what we don't do?  Kill 8 people.

My son is having a bad day.  He had to put a beloved pet to sleep today.  He is angry, he is in pain, he is at the end of his rope.  He is having a bad, fucking day.

What he's not doing is picking up a weapon and dragging innocent lives into his personal trauma.  So miss me with this Snuggle-fabric-softener, gentle as a butterfly kiss, pity-the-white-man garbage.

Last night, whatever the motivation (seems his disdain for porn, sexual temptation are now on the radar), that Hefty bag of hate was not thinking about his Christianity, Jesus, or loving thy neighbor.  He methodically visited three locations and ended 8 lives.  There is not a thing to be pitied there except the people who died and those who loved them and must now go on living without them.

Invest two minutes and see where our problems are actually at.  The enemy is within.  And he is a WHITE MALE.

Conservative extremists have killed countless Americans:

Minutemen
Union Soldiers
Abolitionists
Journalists
Blacks
Children
Gays
Muslims
Sikhs
Jews
Catholics
Protestors
Civil Rights Activists
Students
Doctors
Police
Immigrants

Take this tour of American terror. Spot a pattern? pic.twitter.com/7KfwTZCTJH

— Bryan Dawson (@BryanDawsonUSA) March 14, 2021

When are we going to begin to actually deal with this FACT?  When  are we going to stop making up excuses based on skin color?  When are we going to start holding white people to the same accountability, terminology, and justice that we so easily apply to anyone of a different color?  How many more poor, little white men are going to terrorize this nation before we actually call them terrorists?

Robert Aaron Long is a thug, a brute, a terrorist, a murderer.  (That is the last time I will type his name, but do me a favor.  As the names of his victims come out, please say them out loud so at least they are remembered from your lips for a few seconds before they disappear into the ether forever.  And please, check on your Asian friends - they are scared, they are hurting, they are traumatized because they know they are being targeted.) It does not matter what else was roiling around in his cream cheese soft head - what imagined grievances he had, who he blamed for his temptations, what he considered his right to do to others.  None of it matters.  HE. KILLED. THEM.  He made a series of conscious decisions.  He chose to end their lives.

As more comes out, expect to see misogyny, xenophobia, and bigotry all making appearances.  Because 6 of those people were women, they were Asian, and he was butthurt about it all.

Poor, little white man.  FUCK YOU.

Send In The Clown?

Early this morning, my husband received his first vaccine shot.  And he was glad.  He didn't complain about the time I was able to grab for him.  He needed no prodding when his age group opened up.  No convincing that it was in his best interests.  No plea for the greater good.  No reassurance that it does not contain anti-freeze, mind control chips, or aborted fetuses.

But then, the man is smart, not filled with constant paranoia, and knows the smell of conspiratorial bullshit when it wafts near his nose.

Not so, so many.

As I wrote yesterday, the Insane Clown Posse that worships the most insane clown in the tent, are filled with hubris, willful ignorance, lies, and whatever has been dumped into the FOX trough from which they feed.  Ergo, they refuse to even go looking for an appointment for a shot.  But then, we can't expect much from the gaggle of grey matter that thinks Tom Hanks drinks the fresh squeezed elixir from frightened, kidnapped children, can we? 

It's not just in the lower levels of the mental pyraMAD scheme where these pants shitters are found though.  This ego, bluster, and abject stupidity goes all the way up into the halls of Congress.  A quarter of our nation's lawmakers have yet to be vaccinated.  While some owe to medical issues, the remainder simply refuse to do so.  Instead of setting an example for their dullardly followers, they feed into the hysteria.

That has ramifications.  While so many of us are ready to jump at the first opportunity to receive a shot, millions are not.  Every expert states we must reach at least 80% inoculation.  “Vaccines are our only way out of this,” Dr. Paul Offit, a member of the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisory committee, told NBC News on Sunday. “If we don’t have 80-plus percent of the population vaccinated before next winter, this virus is going to come back raging.”

The fact that so many are already flocking to indoor dining, Spring Break beaches, and warehouse raves (not kidding) has already worried those tracking this pandemic.  They fear we are on the verge of another surge, a wave filled with the new variants that have already obliterated so much of the progress that many countries had made in fighting COVID. 

Combine the capriciousness and nothing-can-touch-me attitude of youth with the indoctrinated belligerence of Cult45 and the murmurs have already started - suggestions that we send in the clown to convince his adoring Bozos to get in line for a shot.  Even Dr. Fauci said on Sunday that it would be a "game changer" if the jaundiced jester would use his "incredible influence" to urge them to step up to the needle.

Pardon me while I do two things.

1.  Laugh to the point of embarrassing snortage.

2.  Say loudly and without hesitation ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY NOT.

The last thing we need to do is give that impeached bag of bile any more attention than he has already received since leaving office.  His current station in life at Mag-a-Lago is exactly what he deserves.  He lives in a glorified hotel suite with an office that was once the bridal changing room for the property's weddings.  He cheats golfs daily, and enjoys the tepid adoration of those still stupid enough to run into him on the way to the omelet bar.

To go begging for his intervention is at our nation's peril.  It would only serve his ego, not the common good.  It would only reignite the belief that he has any real power moving forward.  And it would compromise the incredible job this new administration has done in less than two months.  It would be akin to asking Charles Manson to reach out to Ted Bundy and talk him into not killing more women back in the 70s.

Manson would have felt important, would have reveled in the attention.  And Ted would have just gone on killing.

There is nothing Chuckles Trump can do to make these morons help themselves.  They already know he contracted COVID.  They already know that he was in much more dire straits than we were led to believe at the time.  And they already know that he received the vaccine in January before leaving office.  

If they cannot do the math there, then fuck every single one of them. 

The Halloween hued harlequin's entire administration is to blame for where we are, for the resistance to getting the vaccine, to the ongoing tantrumps they throw in public places over mask wearing, and the 548,736 lives this nation has lost so far.  They are responsible for the United States having a full 20% of COVID deaths and 25% of all infections GLOBALLY.  Think about that.  We account for only 4% of the world's population.

4% of the world's population, but 20% of all the coronavirus deaths.

Because we allowed a clown into this nation's highest office, and our country is replete with bullies more interested in liberal tears than in true patriotism. They literally would cut off their runny noses to spite their painted faces if it makes Dems uneasy.

So beseeching the mango mountebank to intervene is a fool's errand.  And we cannot afford any more foolhardy behavior.  We have already lost too much, plunged far too many into unbearable grief, and are finally making progress that will actually lead us somewhere out of this morass instead of spinning in place and listening to a clown with a piss colored mop on his head talk about hydroxychloroquine and shoving grow lights up our asses.

These people are adults.  They have made their choices.  They are not now, nor have they been, held hostage by him and his goon squad.  They CHOSE their ridiculous conspiracy theories.  They CHOSE to adopt the letter Q as their belief system.  They CHOSE to worship a Rit dyed reprobate.  And now they are CHOOSING to not do the most common sense thing possible - vaccinate themselves and their loved ones against a deadly virus.   

They say that speaking truth to power is one of the most difficult things to do in life.  I would posit that speaking truth to stupid is exponentially harder.

His chance to move them to reason, sanity, common sense sank with the Titanic of his presiduncy.  Asking that clownshoe to now pull them into the public square?  

Don't bother, they're here.  (Unmasked and endangering us all.)

Do Not Throw Away Your Shot

It was right about this time last year when the world went to shit.  (Sorry, with COVID, I dispense with the pleasantries.)

My husband and I had just returned from a wonderful trip back to Kauai and he was ready to begin a new job overseeing a large resort in Phoenix.  We were excited about our new life in Arizona - a move that placed us near my parents and my sister and brother-in-law.  

On the trip to the islands, we were aware of this new virus that had been percolating in the lower levels of the news.  But without facts and information - greatly hindered by an administration ill equipped to handle even the most minor of crisis - we ventured forth focused on enjoying a few days together before the demands of a new job took hold.

It was idyllic.  It was romantic.  It was fifty years ago.  Well, it feels like it was fifty years ago.

While we were away, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic.

"In the days and weeks ahead, we expect to see the number of cases, the number of deaths, and the number of affected countries even higher," WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. "WHO has been accessing this outbreak around the clock and we're deeply concerned, both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction."

Coming back, March 15th stats showed 152,428 cases and 5393 deaths worldwide.  Their warnings were dire and people were now paying attention.  Hand sanitizer, toilet paper, food stocks were flying off grocery store shelves.  Masks became something far beyond a child's Halloween costume staple - they became imperative and synonymous with keeping ourselves and others safe from a virus transmitted via aerosol droplets. 

The writing was on the wall.  As the song goes in Tangled, "the world has somehow shifted."  Entire industries were going to suffer and that pain was the kind of trickle down no economist wants to see.  Restaurants, cruise lines, live theater, concerts, the entire hospitality industry - all affected virtually overnight.  My husband walked into his new position and immediately had to furlough over 400 employees.  

It was, and is, astonishing to me how differently factions responded. 

Those with an appreciation for facts, science, and people who had demonstrably dedicated their lives to keeping ours safer, responded to the available data, the warnings, the common sense of it all.  Stay home as much as possible.  Wear a mask to limit the transmission of droplets or the receipt of same while in public.  The words 'social distancing' entered the vernacular and we stepped up, or back, 6 feet.   We took it seriously then.  We continue to take it seriously one year later.

Contrast that with the Fuck Your Feelings crowd.  Disdainful of anything they cannot understand and unwilling to even try to process the available information, they did what they do best - puffed out their chests, grabbed their dicks, and bleated loudly about their freedumbs.  It did not help that they were cultists in the Church of the Spray Tanned Succubus.  He didn't wear a mask, so why should they?  He scoffed at it being any big deal, so they were acquitted in their piss poor behaviors.  And as governors took matters into their own hands, he attacked them from his bully pulpit and his Twitter account, encouraging them to attack legislators in person at state houses.  He threw the word hoax into the mix, and his dullardly horde acted accordingly.  

Huge numbers of his followers still believe it to be a hoax.  Despite him having contracted it himself and being whisked away by helicopter.  Despite him having received the vaccine before leaving office.  Despite death numbers that did nothing but climb higher and faster all last year.

By the new year, we had lost 350,000 people to COVID.  And just over a month later, last month, we passed half a million.

This is honestly one of the ways I can guaran-damn-tee you wetbrains that your cantaloupe hued conman is a fucking idiot.  Always has been.  He has not been playing some 5 dimensional chess game.  The idiot would struggle playing tic-tac-toe.  And he is not now, nor has he ever been, a great businessman.

Why do I say that?  Here's why.

A great businessman with a nose for opportunity and the constant enhancement of his own image and bank account, would have gotten filthy, stinking, Jeff Bezos level rich from the masks alone.  If he were a smart man, he would have seen the opportunity to step forward and say, "This pandemic is dangerous and real.  And if you are a true patriot, one who cares about his/her country and countrymen, you will wear a mask.  And the best masks can be found at DonaldTrump.con, er, com."

He would have made a killing on masks with his face, his Trump 2020 logo, the flag emblazoned all over them.  And he would have probably won re-election.  But he didn't.  The only killing he made was the current 547,909 citizens who have perished because of his jaw dropping incompetence and pathological narcissism.

Kicking his flaccid ass to the curb was the only way to right this ship, and thank whatever god you pray to, that we did.

Joe Biden may not be flashy, something the media is struggling with as they attempt to create drama and scandal - He hasn't held a press conference!!!  He is traveling home to Delaware on some weekends! - but he is getting shit done.

Not only were he and Kamala Harris inaugurated on January 20th, but science and data and facts were sworn back in.  As such, we now have three COVID vaccines in the mix and getting into people's arms.  There is, dare I type it out loud, hope on the horizon.

Yes, people are still contracting COVID, and yes, people are still dying.  Make no mistake, we are not out of the woods yet with new variants emerging and our death toll still averaging over 1,000 per day, but deaths have dropped 90% since President Biden and science came into office.  And vaccine distribution is making serious inroads in inoculating the public.  

There have now been over 100,000,000 doses given - nearly 1 in 5 Americans - this past Saturday setting a record of 4.6 million of them injected.  That is great news, despite so many states still struggling to implement solid action for dispensing widely and with equity for all.  

Millions of us are chomping at the bit for our age group to open up.  Here in Phoenix, two 24 hour vaccine locations are open at stadiums and people vie for time slots online.  Manage to grab one at 3am?  AWESOME!  I'll be there!

Yet even with these vaccines giving us hope for a return to some semblance of normalcy, some ability to travel again, the chance to reinvigorate our economy, the Fuck Your Feelings crowd continues to grab dick, scream without a mask on, and refuse to step up to the needle.  In the latest poll, 60% of unvaccinated Republican men have stated they will not get the shots. 

Idiots.

Combine that with the Qanon qrazies, the anti vaxxers, the 5G chip conspiracy theorists, the Facebook groupies who believe the vaccine will alter their DNA, the pro-lifers who believe they are being injected with aborted babies, and the proudly belligerent who think nothing can touch them and after all, it's a hoax anyway horde and our problems are not going away anytime soon.

It would be easy and, quite frankly, feel good to just tell them all to fuck off and die then.  We'll all get vaccinated and they can just pass the virus around as Darwin laughs from beyond the grave, but it's not that simple.  The longer they swap spit, the more variants can be exchanged and grown into new variants, and the chances that the vaccines we have now may not be able to handle those variants drags all of us back into peril. 

In short, we are still being fucked by the low information-chemtrails-hoax-loving-science-denying-don't-talk-sense-to-me mouthbreathers.  And they just shouldn't have that power. 

We have the ability to vaccinate our entire populace in the coming months.  That means our destiny is literally in our hands.  We can get back to work, grow our economy, enjoy one another's company at Happy Hour, travel, visit, reopen schools, attend birthdays, plan weddings, celebrate graduations, hug our grandparents, embrace having made it to the other side of a pandemic.  We are within reach of being able to emerge from our protective cocoons - wiser, with a greater appreciation of every little thing we now know we had taken for granted for so long. 

But we cannot do it alone.  If ever the words 'It takes a village' were applicable, this is the time.  We need one another to step up, roll up a sleeve, and take one for the team, for the greater good.  

We have lost a year of our lives to this pandemic.  We have lost family members, friends, coworkers.  But we still have a chance.  If you are alive, you still have a chance.

We may not all be young, but after the year we have endured, we are scrappy and hungry, Hamilton.  So please, when your vaccine window opens, do not throw away your - OUR - shot.   

 

 

 

 

It Just Should Not Be This Way

Food.  We cannot exist without it, yet so many are pushed to the very edge of our human existence by hunger, by the threat of hunger.

I have taken a break from writing for a couple weeks now.  My mind has been closer to home.  My sister has breast cancer, and I am once again battling skin cancer - this time 5 biopsies came back in need of surgery. 

I have also needed to get away from the obsessiveness with which I have covered COVID.  The pandemic is no less important, no less deadly, but I needed to walk back from being able to quote the numbers at the drop of a hat. 

But for the record?  We now chart 29,693,869 positive cases since this time last year.  We have lost 537,826 lives.  That translates to 1,618 lives lost per million citizens. 

537,826 families who have been left with a gaping wound on their hearts.  Over half a million families who lost a spouse, a son, a daughter, a grandparent, an aunt, a sibling.  Millions who lost a friend.

That last one hits hard.  None of us liken ourselves the center of the universe - well, not the majority of us.  But think about how many lives you touch dally.  Co-workers, school chums, pals we have had since high school or earlier.  Friends who are our safe spaces, our go-tos.  Millions upon millions have been affected by the loss of 537,826 people.

This pandemic has taken its toll in schooling, in socialization, in the most basic of human needs - that to be companionable with others.  It has decimated entire industries - hospitality, food and beverage, cruise lines.  Islands and land locked destinations that count on tourism to exist have been hurting for a full year.

And the meager "stimulus" - aid provided from OUR tax dollars to our citizenry has been shameful.  Yes, we sit on the cusp of another check sent out to our citizens, but only if you meet certain financial parameters set down before the world went to shit. 

That has never made an ounce of sense. 

Basing relief checks on 2019 income has zero to do with the reality so many have endured since March of 2020.  I am "lucky".  My husband walked into a new job last March, immediately furloughing nearly 500 people, but he still had employment.  Yes, he took an immediate 20% decrease in salary (it was across the board), but we managed.  But our "managing" includes two kids in school, their rent, car payments, etc.  So while I would love to receive a stimulus check, we won't.  And that's ok.  As long as the status stays quo, we are managing.

But so many are not.  And that is why I am writing tonight.

I have received many requests in the past couple weeks for aid for the most very of basics: FOOD.  And nothing hurts me harder than that because no one should be going to bed hungry or worried about how they are going to feed their children tomorrow.

Up until now I have fielded the requests myself (sorry, Rudy, news to you), sending gift cards from our savings to people who simply need to eat, to feed their children.  All they want is to know they can take care of their kids, or take care of themselves in the absence of their jobs and a government that is far too peopled with millionaires to actually understand the terror.

So I am asking tonight - if you are in a position to help me, please help me.  If you can donate anything to help me feed people, feed children, keep someone afloat in ramen noodles and a carton of milk, PLEASE HELP ME.

The past year has opened my eyes even more than 12 years of Yes, Virginia Christmas elfing has.  My heart has always broken at the requests for a simple Christmas dinner for a family.  But this year of COVID has broken people to their core.  These are not bad people, not irresponsible people.  THEY. ARE. PEOPLE.

People who lost a job through no fault of their own.  People who lost a wage earning spouse through no fault of their own.  People who had good, productive lives, supporting their children, who now face those children each morning and wonder how to feed them as cheaply as possible.

Because that is what a parent does.  They care for their children, they sacrifice for their children, they do anything so that their children are not hungry, scared, without. 

Recently, when Texas plunged into freezing temps, no water. no heat, my mother's heart was caught in a vice of despair and impotence.  My daughter and future son-in-law were not only without heat for eight days, they were perilously low on food, and while they had money, they could not even get on the frozen roads to make their way to the empty grocery store shelves. I can take the hit on heat, they managed, moving into a smaller bedroom in their home, but knowing they were rationing their food?  My heart broke.  And I could not do anything to fix it.

That is why I have been using savings to try to fix it for so many people the past couple weeks.  But I now cry Uncle.  I need your help.

If you can throw some dollars at the Yes, Virginia link, there are people hungry RIGHT NOW who we can help.

Yes, I know - it's emotional blackmail, and I know I do it well.  But it is based in the reality we are all living.

It's just some of us are living it better than others.  And we can help those who are not.

PLEASE.

 

 

 

 

Remembering Coach Carol: The Gift Of Memories

I wrote the following piece back in 2014.  My beloved theater "coach", Carol, contained in the lines below, passed away earlier this week.  I have often written about how a death leaves a hole in your universe.  How, while we may not see someone daily, speak to them regularly, or even think about them consistently, there is space in our universe where they reside.  When they leave this world, their space is suddenly open and we are intensely aware of their absence.  That is how I feel about her passing.

There are people who come into your life and leave an impact so profound that you are changed forever. That was Carol. I know my life is better, bigger, and DIFFERENT for having drifted into her orbit as a teenager. Being able to stay in touch with her as an adult was just icing on an already amazing cake.

That we all may touch even one life and be remembered this way.  I love you, Carol.❤

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

High school.  Those two words conjure up as many responses as there are people who read them.

Our high school years are pivotal.  They are when we begin to define ourselves, testing the waters of responsibility and conviction, sometimes sinking, sometimes damn near drowning.  Four years in which we make friendships, break friendships, find "true love" or turn into serial daters - trying people on and discarding them like yesterday's fashions.

We laugh, we learn, we experience embarrassments, triumphs, heartbreaks, disappointments, peer pressure, drama, joy, and pathos.

Oh, the pathos.

At no time in our lives do we so completely invest in our own emotions.  Every high, every low, every look, every perceived slight, flirt, rebuff - we lived and died moment to moment, so convinced that our every breath was the center of the universe.

For some people, graduation could not come quick enough - so ready to be free of the hallway hierarchy and bullyshit.  For others it was a scary, unwanted end to a great ride - meaning they would no longer rule the hallway hierarchy or be the dispensers of bullyshit. 

But all people, regardless of where they ranked in the peer pecking order - cheerleader or jock, band geek or drama queen/king, valedictorian or stoner - managed to take something with them besides the diploma:  Memories.

Memories than make us shudder (oh, the hair...); memories that make us smile (late night rehearsals, football games, first kisses); memories of the friends and teachers who endured the years with us, making them more bearable.

May will mark 30 years since I graduated high school.  THIRTY.  That is such a huge number, yet it seems to have gone by in a blink.  So much has happened, so many life experiences lived.  So many people who live in the vault of my own high school memories, who are pulled forward from time to time by an appearance on Facebook, a "housecleaning" dream where they pop in - certainly due to my brain's odd defragging process, and for me, many who have lived rather close to the surface for the past 8 years as my own children have moved through their high school experiences in which we have all had something in common.

Theater.

My four years were anchored by a stage and a morphous, riotous blob of people dedicated to the words on the page, the breathing of life into them.  Theater was my safe haven, full of like minded students whose personalities were far too big to be confined to the hallways and classrooms.  We may not have worn the homecoming crowns or scored the winning touchdowns, but in our environment, we were cool.

Culley, Kendall, and Toby all gravitated to their high school's theater program, becoming a part of their own morphous blob of love, talent, genius, madness, acceptance.

I think that is what I remember the most about my group - the acceptance.  Realizing I was safe.  Safe to explore, spread my wings, take risks, fall on my face, or soar - and I did - ALL OF THOSE THINGS.

Those spectacular people have lived in my memory all these years, afforded real estate in my head and heart, space reserved for those who made an impact, stayed an impact.

My theater director, Carol Wharton, always having a prime spot.

She taught me to be brave, to be big, to be bold.  Not just on the stage, but in my life.  She nurtured, she pushed, she screamed, she coddled.  And she forged, in the fires of her endless emotional furnace, students like me who went into the world stronger, more confident, less worried about what others think of us, and more concerned with what WE think of ourselves.  

This morning I checked the mail and my heart smiled.  There was an envelope from Carol.  Totally unexpected, a complete mystery.  I came home and opened not only the envelope but the floodgates on a tidal wave of memories.

Picture after picture of me in performances, at awards nights, just hanging out.  Faces in the pictures pulled the faces from my own memories - Georgie, Carol, Shan, Aaron, Linda P., Stephanie,  on and on.

Spoon River Anthology - I well remember completely losing my voice, missing school, yet still going on to perform (just behind my box was a Tupperware cup filled with whiskey and juice to continually burn the phlegm off my throat so I could do my characters)

LOVED this scene from Harvey - to this day still not sure what I am most proud of:  My believable hysterics or the fact that I managed every night to remove those damned seamed panty hose and put them back on backwards.  In twenty seconds.  In the wings.

My fellow Thespian officers and Carol.

It was a gift.  Not simply the Kodak moments in the envelope, but realizing that I, too, have been granted real estate in someone else's memories.  That I was a place, a time, a person who was allowed to stay in the ether of someone else's dreams.

I cannot think of a higher compliment.  Carol Wharton - THANK YOU and I LOVE YOU - always know that you, too, came and stayed, and you will live in my heart forever.