MadameBastet-Firing-Neurons
A Nightmare on Celebrity Street
My nightmares are getting worse.
I dreamt about Lindsay Lohan.
And now, I'm off to Book Soup in Hollywood
to go with my friend Jill to see Anderson Cooper
and have him sign his beautiful book
This is only the second book signing I've ever attended.
Normally I have a "don't feed the celebrities" policy.
I will break it for Anderson, who's made me believe in
journalistic integrity again
And of course, for SK, who makes me feel alive
and happy and sad and glad to be.
Monday, June 12, 2006
MadameBastet-Firing-Neurons
Fly Me to The Moon
Tonight whilst I was studying science
(geology and rocks and minerals to be exact)
the movie "Fearless" came on TV.
I seem to actually study better with the TV on
so I just left it on, recalling so clearly
how I'd seen this movie at a theatre in Pacific Heights
in San Francisco with my brother in 1993.
God I love Peter Weir; he is definitely one of my favourite directors.
The Year of Living Dangerously one of his masterpieces I think.
Anyway, the movie is about this man, played by the oh so gorgeous
Jeff Bridges, who survives a horrific plane crash and afterwards
becomes 'fearless' an goes into a profound state of denial about the crash.
The scenes of the crash were so realistic and so horrifying;
yet I could not look away now, as I could not look away 13 years ago
despite my deeply entrenched fear of flying. In fact, it dawned on me
that it was yesterday, June 10, 1996 that my mom, brother and I
were returning from Hawai'i (a trip my mom thought would do us good
as we'd both just finished grad school and we wanted to get our minds
off my dad's death - as if that were possible).
And naturally, a little over 4 hours into the flight, I'd just
finished eating - a major feat for me as I'm usually too nervous
to eat on flights - though I've gotten better. Too bad the food hasn't.
And the credits were rolling on some Al Pacino movie called "City Hall" and
we were flying over the Pacific Ocean with about 45 minutes left
when I heard the loudest sound - it was like the plane had hit a building
but the plane itself was still intact. It is indescribable how loud this sound was; it drowned every other noise out and immediately we all knew it was BAD.
It was simply deafening. Immediately all the electricity went out
and I remember looking down at the floor lights going up the aisle
and thinking, this can't be happening. What was happening? The most
frightening thing is no one seemed to know...even the flight attendants
were running up and down the aisles looking out the windows - really
not the most reassuring image. I distinctly recall one getting on a phone -
no doubt talking to the pilot. I felt like screaming, "Are you fucking kidding me?"
"Is this your idea of a disaster/emergency plan? LOOKING OUT THE GODDAMN WINDOWS!???" I mean, why didn't they just have the passengers do it and make a game out it. "Oh I'll put $100 on the tail."
"No Bob, I think it's the hydraulic system."
"Hey put me down for $500 for the left engine."
"No, no, I think the wings fell off."
MY GOD.
I remember I was sitting on the aisle, and I looked across at an older
couple sitting in the window seats and said in small voice, "What was that?"
They just smiled wanly at me, and didn't say anything.
Inside, I was frozen. I was gone. My mother grabbed my hand. She leaned over to tell us she loved us. My brother kept saying we'd be OK, we had two more engines. And Delta, those fucking assholes, never told us anything.
My mother says a woman behind me was crying. I didn't hear this.
I didn't hear anything. I kept thinking, oh who will take care of my babies,
my cats....and dad, I'm coming to see you a lot sooner than I thought.
You know it's never like you picture it will be.
I always imagined, with my panic attacks and fear of enclosed
spaces, 30,000 feet up, I'd be screaming. But I wasn't. I sat
silently in my seat, looking straight ahead. I did not pray.
If I said any kind of prayer, it was that it would end quickly.
Please God, just let it happen. Don't let us sit here and suffer and wonder. Let it happen now. Please God. I can't take the waiting.
Later we found out the engine had exploded and caught fire.
The only thing those fuckers said to us, about 20 minutes after it happened
was that when we landed (ha, if we landed) we'd see a lot of emergency vehicles
on the tarmac. Waiting no doubt, to see what kind of landing we would make.
And in my head, the chant went on. I don't want to die I don't want to die
I don't want to die I don't want to die.
But still I was silent. I'd moved to a place deep inside myself.
The same place I went to after I found my father dead.
I was practical and efficient; waiting for the coroner, signing his papers, talking to the police. Oh I'm a peach in a crisis. It's daily life that's a bitch.
I also thought what everyone must think, at one time or another.
This can't be happening to me. This can't be happening to us!
This kind of thing only happens to other people. True.
Until one day you become The Other People and it is happening
to you.
No one on the plane screamed I was told; it was very quiet.
And the scariest thing I thought was that it doesn't happen fast;
it probably rarely happens fast.
Pan Am 103 probably happened in an instant, pray to God.
And you always think, well, if I go, it'll be quick.
Not always. In fact sometimes there is an eternity of agony.
And so when those images from inside the crashing plane flickered
across my television set tonight, I sat and watched them, mesmerized
and I started to cry and I didn't know why.
I have, like so many people, thought so much about the people on the 9/11 planes...we know some of what happened on United 93. But what of the other planes? How much emotional and psychological terror did those poor souls
go through before oblivion blessfully took them away?
When we landed, I could see the flashing red and yellow lights of the fire trucks
and ambulances and the entire plane burst into spontaneous applause.
And I have never seen an entire jumbo jet full of people get the hell out of their
seats so fast. They stood up, ignored all the rules and the only thing that made me smile, was seeing a guy standing behind me, a cigarette in one hand and a lighter in the other, waiting to get off. I thought, "Oh fuck it buddy, just light up!"
I grabbed my things and left my mom and brother behind and as I left the plane
the flight attendant went back into Robotic-Perky mode, saying goodnight, thank you for flying Delta. I said "Thank you for taking ten years off my life and scaring the shit out of us." Seriously, they acted like nothing at all had happened out of the ordinary.
I was never so happy to see LAX in all my life. I was even happen to go into the bathroom. I went into the stall and just leaned my head against the door. But I did not cry. I never felt more alive. Everything was illuminated. Everything held some kind of strange inner glow to it.
We got our bags and got in the shuttle to take us home.
Ha - that's what you should really fear. The airport shuttles. This was the time when they were working on the new 105 freeway and it was dark and our shuttle driver was driving like he was in the Indy 500 and I leaned over to the driver and said, "Are you sure this freeway is finished?"
I don't think he thought I was serious. I was.
Because in the dark, it looked like we were going to sail off into oblivion.
And the lights in the San Fernando Valley glowed and glittered and everything
was a miracle. Stoplights, road signs, drustores, houses, apartment buildings, everything I looked at - it was like the first time I'd ever seen anything in my life.
We made it home and I joked about it to my friends.
I've told the story many times, but without much feeling.
The first time I flew after that Ride From Hell was January of '97.
I took a plane to San Francisco to see my brother, my mom and her boyfriend, who were visiting up there as well. I flew alone. Luckily going up, I sat next to a pilot. He was sweet, and I told him my story and he helped keep me calm.
Going home was another matter.
We took off in a nasty rain storm with a lot of turbulence.
I was having an anxiety attack on the plane; I could feel it.
I fucking hate turbulence. I don't care how 'normal' it is.
A woman across the aisle must have noticed my white face and my shaking hands. She kindly leaned over and said,
"Is this your first time flying honey?"
I almost laughed. What was I going to say?
I literally grabbed the flight attendant's arm and said, "Is this normal? Should the plane be shaking so much?"
She tried to reassure me, to no avail.
I turned to the woman and said, "No. I'm just not a good flyer."
What was I going to say? No, this is just my first flight since I had engine explode and catch on fire over the ocean coming back from Hawai'i. Why get everyone all upset?
Oddly, when I am scared, I start saying Hail Mary's and I am not even Catholic. Somehow, it comforts me. Mother Mary, who will take me into the abyss ....or into the light. I just don't want to go alone.
A month later TWA Flight 800 blew up leaving New York...for France I believe. All sorts of conspiracy theories abounded about that; missiles shot it out of the sky, etc. A while later, I saw a Dateline episode that focused on a woman who lost her husband and son on the flight. Her name is Anne Allen. Her family was traveling to France. But for some reason I can't recall, the father and the brother took an earlier flight, and Anne and her two other children, a boy and girl, would meet them there. It was heart-wrenching to see what this has done to the family.
I believe they did a follow-up story on her later...they were doing OK. What can you do? But I have never forgotten her. I have never forgotten her and her family. As Grant McLennon said (RIP)...funny how some people manage to stay with you, even if you've never met them. So ten years later I still wonder about Anne Allen and her family and how they are doing. I will always remember her.
So I don't know what happened tonight.
Reading SK's blog on flying was reassuring.
Sometimes I feel like the only idiot on earth who's afraid to fly. I know people who adore flying and it makes me sick! It's like somehow they're morally superior to me. But most of these people have never had ANYTHING happen on any plane they've been on. Wait until your engine blows up, wait until you're told emergeny vehicles are going to meet you on the ground and you are 29 years old and you've just buried your father.
Wait until you become The Other People.
So tonight, I think I cried, for the first time, over what happened.
I watched the scene inside that plane and I wept at how lucky we were.
I love travelling, so I will not let my fear cripple me. I take drugs, get philosophical about my own demise and just keep getting on those big tin cans
filled with jet fuel going 500 miles an hour. I still approach every flight like it's going to be my last - haha. Drama queen. My will is here, my cats will be taken care of, please bury me here. It's all worked out.
Flying is a lot like life. Hours and hours of tedium interrupted by brief moments and sheer terror. My advice? Bring tranquilizers and a lot of magazines.
As for the possibility of being taken hostage? The brave souls of United 93 taught me one thing. I may go down, but goddammit, I will go down fighting those bastards. That is one thing I'm sure of. I will not sit passively. At least I've made some progress, sad as it is.
Fly Me to The Moon
Tonight whilst I was studying science
(geology and rocks and minerals to be exact)
the movie "Fearless" came on TV.
I seem to actually study better with the TV on
so I just left it on, recalling so clearly
how I'd seen this movie at a theatre in Pacific Heights
in San Francisco with my brother in 1993.
God I love Peter Weir; he is definitely one of my favourite directors.
The Year of Living Dangerously one of his masterpieces I think.
Anyway, the movie is about this man, played by the oh so gorgeous
Jeff Bridges, who survives a horrific plane crash and afterwards
becomes 'fearless' an goes into a profound state of denial about the crash.
The scenes of the crash were so realistic and so horrifying;
yet I could not look away now, as I could not look away 13 years ago
despite my deeply entrenched fear of flying. In fact, it dawned on me
that it was yesterday, June 10, 1996 that my mom, brother and I
were returning from Hawai'i (a trip my mom thought would do us good
as we'd both just finished grad school and we wanted to get our minds
off my dad's death - as if that were possible).
And naturally, a little over 4 hours into the flight, I'd just
finished eating - a major feat for me as I'm usually too nervous
to eat on flights - though I've gotten better. Too bad the food hasn't.
And the credits were rolling on some Al Pacino movie called "City Hall" and
we were flying over the Pacific Ocean with about 45 minutes left
when I heard the loudest sound - it was like the plane had hit a building
but the plane itself was still intact. It is indescribable how loud this sound was; it drowned every other noise out and immediately we all knew it was BAD.
It was simply deafening. Immediately all the electricity went out
and I remember looking down at the floor lights going up the aisle
and thinking, this can't be happening. What was happening? The most
frightening thing is no one seemed to know...even the flight attendants
were running up and down the aisles looking out the windows - really
not the most reassuring image. I distinctly recall one getting on a phone -
no doubt talking to the pilot. I felt like screaming, "Are you fucking kidding me?"
"Is this your idea of a disaster/emergency plan? LOOKING OUT THE GODDAMN WINDOWS!???" I mean, why didn't they just have the passengers do it and make a game out it. "Oh I'll put $100 on the tail."
"No Bob, I think it's the hydraulic system."
"Hey put me down for $500 for the left engine."
"No, no, I think the wings fell off."
MY GOD.
I remember I was sitting on the aisle, and I looked across at an older
couple sitting in the window seats and said in small voice, "What was that?"
They just smiled wanly at me, and didn't say anything.
Inside, I was frozen. I was gone. My mother grabbed my hand. She leaned over to tell us she loved us. My brother kept saying we'd be OK, we had two more engines. And Delta, those fucking assholes, never told us anything.
My mother says a woman behind me was crying. I didn't hear this.
I didn't hear anything. I kept thinking, oh who will take care of my babies,
my cats....and dad, I'm coming to see you a lot sooner than I thought.
You know it's never like you picture it will be.
I always imagined, with my panic attacks and fear of enclosed
spaces, 30,000 feet up, I'd be screaming. But I wasn't. I sat
silently in my seat, looking straight ahead. I did not pray.
If I said any kind of prayer, it was that it would end quickly.
Please God, just let it happen. Don't let us sit here and suffer and wonder. Let it happen now. Please God. I can't take the waiting.
Later we found out the engine had exploded and caught fire.
The only thing those fuckers said to us, about 20 minutes after it happened
was that when we landed (ha, if we landed) we'd see a lot of emergency vehicles
on the tarmac. Waiting no doubt, to see what kind of landing we would make.
And in my head, the chant went on. I don't want to die I don't want to die
I don't want to die I don't want to die.
But still I was silent. I'd moved to a place deep inside myself.
The same place I went to after I found my father dead.
I was practical and efficient; waiting for the coroner, signing his papers, talking to the police. Oh I'm a peach in a crisis. It's daily life that's a bitch.
I also thought what everyone must think, at one time or another.
This can't be happening to me. This can't be happening to us!
This kind of thing only happens to other people. True.
Until one day you become The Other People and it is happening
to you.
No one on the plane screamed I was told; it was very quiet.
And the scariest thing I thought was that it doesn't happen fast;
it probably rarely happens fast.
Pan Am 103 probably happened in an instant, pray to God.
And you always think, well, if I go, it'll be quick.
Not always. In fact sometimes there is an eternity of agony.
And so when those images from inside the crashing plane flickered
across my television set tonight, I sat and watched them, mesmerized
and I started to cry and I didn't know why.
I have, like so many people, thought so much about the people on the 9/11 planes...we know some of what happened on United 93. But what of the other planes? How much emotional and psychological terror did those poor souls
go through before oblivion blessfully took them away?
When we landed, I could see the flashing red and yellow lights of the fire trucks
and ambulances and the entire plane burst into spontaneous applause.
And I have never seen an entire jumbo jet full of people get the hell out of their
seats so fast. They stood up, ignored all the rules and the only thing that made me smile, was seeing a guy standing behind me, a cigarette in one hand and a lighter in the other, waiting to get off. I thought, "Oh fuck it buddy, just light up!"
I grabbed my things and left my mom and brother behind and as I left the plane
the flight attendant went back into Robotic-Perky mode, saying goodnight, thank you for flying Delta. I said "Thank you for taking ten years off my life and scaring the shit out of us." Seriously, they acted like nothing at all had happened out of the ordinary.
I was never so happy to see LAX in all my life. I was even happen to go into the bathroom. I went into the stall and just leaned my head against the door. But I did not cry. I never felt more alive. Everything was illuminated. Everything held some kind of strange inner glow to it.
We got our bags and got in the shuttle to take us home.
Ha - that's what you should really fear. The airport shuttles. This was the time when they were working on the new 105 freeway and it was dark and our shuttle driver was driving like he was in the Indy 500 and I leaned over to the driver and said, "Are you sure this freeway is finished?"
I don't think he thought I was serious. I was.
Because in the dark, it looked like we were going to sail off into oblivion.
And the lights in the San Fernando Valley glowed and glittered and everything
was a miracle. Stoplights, road signs, drustores, houses, apartment buildings, everything I looked at - it was like the first time I'd ever seen anything in my life.
We made it home and I joked about it to my friends.
I've told the story many times, but without much feeling.
The first time I flew after that Ride From Hell was January of '97.
I took a plane to San Francisco to see my brother, my mom and her boyfriend, who were visiting up there as well. I flew alone. Luckily going up, I sat next to a pilot. He was sweet, and I told him my story and he helped keep me calm.
Going home was another matter.
We took off in a nasty rain storm with a lot of turbulence.
I was having an anxiety attack on the plane; I could feel it.
I fucking hate turbulence. I don't care how 'normal' it is.
A woman across the aisle must have noticed my white face and my shaking hands. She kindly leaned over and said,
"Is this your first time flying honey?"
I almost laughed. What was I going to say?
I literally grabbed the flight attendant's arm and said, "Is this normal? Should the plane be shaking so much?"
She tried to reassure me, to no avail.
I turned to the woman and said, "No. I'm just not a good flyer."
What was I going to say? No, this is just my first flight since I had engine explode and catch on fire over the ocean coming back from Hawai'i. Why get everyone all upset?
Oddly, when I am scared, I start saying Hail Mary's and I am not even Catholic. Somehow, it comforts me. Mother Mary, who will take me into the abyss ....or into the light. I just don't want to go alone.
A month later TWA Flight 800 blew up leaving New York...for France I believe. All sorts of conspiracy theories abounded about that; missiles shot it out of the sky, etc. A while later, I saw a Dateline episode that focused on a woman who lost her husband and son on the flight. Her name is Anne Allen. Her family was traveling to France. But for some reason I can't recall, the father and the brother took an earlier flight, and Anne and her two other children, a boy and girl, would meet them there. It was heart-wrenching to see what this has done to the family.
I believe they did a follow-up story on her later...they were doing OK. What can you do? But I have never forgotten her. I have never forgotten her and her family. As Grant McLennon said (RIP)...funny how some people manage to stay with you, even if you've never met them. So ten years later I still wonder about Anne Allen and her family and how they are doing. I will always remember her.
So I don't know what happened tonight.
Reading SK's blog on flying was reassuring.
Sometimes I feel like the only idiot on earth who's afraid to fly. I know people who adore flying and it makes me sick! It's like somehow they're morally superior to me. But most of these people have never had ANYTHING happen on any plane they've been on. Wait until your engine blows up, wait until you're told emergeny vehicles are going to meet you on the ground and you are 29 years old and you've just buried your father.
Wait until you become The Other People.
So tonight, I think I cried, for the first time, over what happened.
I watched the scene inside that plane and I wept at how lucky we were.
I love travelling, so I will not let my fear cripple me. I take drugs, get philosophical about my own demise and just keep getting on those big tin cans
filled with jet fuel going 500 miles an hour. I still approach every flight like it's going to be my last - haha. Drama queen. My will is here, my cats will be taken care of, please bury me here. It's all worked out.
Flying is a lot like life. Hours and hours of tedium interrupted by brief moments and sheer terror. My advice? Bring tranquilizers and a lot of magazines.
As for the possibility of being taken hostage? The brave souls of United 93 taught me one thing. I may go down, but goddammit, I will go down fighting those bastards. That is one thing I'm sure of. I will not sit passively. At least I've made some progress, sad as it is.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
MadameBastet-Firing-Neurons
BREAKING NEWS
This just in:
Shocking news!
Violence persists after Al-Zarqawi's death!
Yeah, that's the thing about cockroaches.
You step on one,
ten more come out of hiding.
I watched the Lewis Black special on HBO last night.
It wasn't as funny as the one I saw in January but still
I loooooooooove Lewis and want to marry him!
Any man that can make me laugh.....
He was riffing on Dick "I am Satan" Cheney and his quail
hunting 'accident'
And talking about how tiny and helpless quail are.
It would've been funnier had I not started thinking about
how this fucking war criminal, this monster
had paid to go some rich bitch's ranch in Texas
with his rich corporate whore friends
and use buckshot to take down small birds for fun
while he and the Puppet (GWB) have sent our troops
into Iraq to be hunted by I.E.D.'s and to use 500 pound
bombs to hunt
innocent Iraqis.
His tour is called "Red, White and Screwed" and that
pretty much sums it up.
I'm going to see him live in August and I can't wait.
Nero fiddled while Rome burned
And all we can do is laugh while our leaders
have turned our country into a killing machine.
BREAKING NEWS
This just in:
Shocking news!
Violence persists after Al-Zarqawi's death!
Yeah, that's the thing about cockroaches.
You step on one,
ten more come out of hiding.
I watched the Lewis Black special on HBO last night.
It wasn't as funny as the one I saw in January but still
I loooooooooove Lewis and want to marry him!
Any man that can make me laugh.....
He was riffing on Dick "I am Satan" Cheney and his quail
hunting 'accident'
And talking about how tiny and helpless quail are.
It would've been funnier had I not started thinking about
how this fucking war criminal, this monster
had paid to go some rich bitch's ranch in Texas
with his rich corporate whore friends
and use buckshot to take down small birds for fun
while he and the Puppet (GWB) have sent our troops
into Iraq to be hunted by I.E.D.'s and to use 500 pound
bombs to hunt
innocent Iraqis.
His tour is called "Red, White and Screwed" and that
pretty much sums it up.
I'm going to see him live in August and I can't wait.
Nero fiddled while Rome burned
And all we can do is laugh while our leaders
have turned our country into a killing machine.
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Zoe's Little Nightmare
Ok, it's almost 2:30am and as usual the cats are asleep on the bed.
Fletcher is on her pillow, dead to the world on the edge of the bed.
Zoe is in her usual spot, which is on my pillows, where I sleep.
All of a sudden I hear this *thud* and then hear Zoe hissssss
really loudly....at nothing. She just sort of flipped over and went back to sleep.
I don't know why, but it's cracking me up.
It's like she had a nightmare or something.
At first I thought that one of the cats' grooming sessions had turned into
another bitch-fight, but no, Fletcher is still sound asleep across the bed.
Man, I am *scared* now to get in bed with this freaky cat.
Wait til she finds out she has to get off my pillows.
Ok, it's almost 2:30am and as usual the cats are asleep on the bed.
Fletcher is on her pillow, dead to the world on the edge of the bed.
Zoe is in her usual spot, which is on my pillows, where I sleep.
All of a sudden I hear this *thud* and then hear Zoe hissssss
really loudly....at nothing. She just sort of flipped over and went back to sleep.
I don't know why, but it's cracking me up.
It's like she had a nightmare or something.
At first I thought that one of the cats' grooming sessions had turned into
another bitch-fight, but no, Fletcher is still sound asleep across the bed.
Man, I am *scared* now to get in bed with this freaky cat.
Wait til she finds out she has to get off my pillows.
Friday, June 09, 2006
MadameBastet-firing-neurons
Yes, Thank God It's Friday
Well, "Water Day" went over with a splash
All the kids were so adorable in their little bathing suits.
Natalie, so cute...she asked if she could change in the storeroom
since someone was using the bathroom
and I took her in there but all she did was take off her little dress
and her bathing suit was already on.
I don't think she realized she didn't need privacy to do that.
There were Sponge Bob Square Pants towels all over the place
and Barbie and Hello Kitty towels
And I put sunblock on little faces even though...
The weather did NOT cooperate. It was grey and dull
and gloomy and cool - but the kids didn't care!
They ran through ice cold sprinklers and blew giant bubbles
and we had an awesome squirt bottle fight (no water guns or weapons of any kind allowed)
I got drenched! It was three against one!
They soaked Ms. D good
and I didn't have a towel!
Blake forgot his towel so I gave him mine
And my shorts were dripping.
So it was muggy and hot and cold and I was sweaty
and sticky and tired but happy in the end.
The played with wild abandon as their
kindergarten year comes to a close;
and mine as well. Oh what fun we've all had
together!
Just one week left...they 'graduate' on Wednesday
I've got to write out their cards this weekend
It's hard for me to think I'll probably never see these ducklings again
Yes, there will be many more,
but these were my first and you never forget your first class.
This was the best kindergarten I ever had!
We had Pajama Day
and Valentine's Day
and St. Patrick's/Leprechaun's Day
and Dress- Up Day
and Bubbles Day
and Water Day
and Birthdays
and Pizza Day
the Mother's Day Tea
the Father's Day Picnic
and dogs and cat and snakes and fish and even a chicken came to visit us
not to mention an entire mobile marine lab!
There was Ocean Day
and on Wednesday, the chicklets bought their first hot lunch
from the cafeteria.
It was soooooooooooooo cute.
They had milk, or chocolate milk, a peach, little chicken tenders, tator tots
and s'mores. 33 years later - the lunches are basically the same. They've thrown a piece of fruit in there for good health.
They ate with the 'big' kids - what a thrill!
I was helping them open their ketchup packets when I saw a little girl
eating alone and my heart skipped about 100 beats...
I was crushed immediately!
Funny, because luckily, I was never the kid who had to eat alone.
I always had friends to play and eat with.
Kathleen saw my face fall and assured me the little girl would be fine; she was social -
and sure enough she got up and just sat her little 6 year old self down at a table with other kids
That's confidence!
But I worry about the ones who don't have that confidence and to see a small
child eat alone in the middle of a huge playground with other kids eating together
is a heart-breaking scene indeed. There's just something so sad about it.
That same day I took the kids to Mrs. Johnson's 1st grade classroom
and Mrs. Johnson talked to them about first grade and what to expect
and told them not to be afraid.
They were going to have their own desks!
And a class pet! (A smelly gerbil or something)
I felt like saying, "And from here on out kids, it's pretty much work, work, work...."
But alas, they'll find out as they go along
and never even remember how good they had it at 5.
Well, "Water Day" went over with a splash
All the kids were so adorable in their little bathing suits.
Natalie, so cute...she asked if she could change in the storeroom
since someone was using the bathroom
and I took her in there but all she did was take off her little dress
and her bathing suit was already on.
I don't think she realized she didn't need privacy to do that.
There were Sponge Bob Square Pants towels all over the place
and Barbie and Hello Kitty towels
And I put sunblock on little faces even though...
The weather did NOT cooperate. It was grey and dull
and gloomy and cool - but the kids didn't care!
They ran through ice cold sprinklers and blew giant bubbles
and we had an awesome squirt bottle fight (no water guns or weapons of any kind allowed)
I got drenched! It was three against one!
They soaked Ms. D good
and I didn't have a towel!
Blake forgot his towel so I gave him mine
And my shorts were dripping.
So it was muggy and hot and cold and I was sweaty
and sticky and tired but happy in the end.
The played with wild abandon as their
kindergarten year comes to a close;
and mine as well. Oh what fun we've all had
together!
Just one week left...they 'graduate' on Wednesday
I've got to write out their cards this weekend
It's hard for me to think I'll probably never see these ducklings again
Yes, there will be many more,
but these were my first and you never forget your first class.
This was the best kindergarten I ever had!
We had Pajama Day
and Valentine's Day
and St. Patrick's/Leprechaun's Day
and Dress- Up Day
and Bubbles Day
and Water Day
and Birthdays
and Pizza Day
the Mother's Day Tea
the Father's Day Picnic
and dogs and cat and snakes and fish and even a chicken came to visit us
not to mention an entire mobile marine lab!
There was Ocean Day
and on Wednesday, the chicklets bought their first hot lunch
from the cafeteria.
It was soooooooooooooo cute.
They had milk, or chocolate milk, a peach, little chicken tenders, tator tots
and s'mores. 33 years later - the lunches are basically the same. They've thrown a piece of fruit in there for good health.
They ate with the 'big' kids - what a thrill!
I was helping them open their ketchup packets when I saw a little girl
eating alone and my heart skipped about 100 beats...
I was crushed immediately!
Funny, because luckily, I was never the kid who had to eat alone.
I always had friends to play and eat with.
Kathleen saw my face fall and assured me the little girl would be fine; she was social -
and sure enough she got up and just sat her little 6 year old self down at a table with other kids
That's confidence!
But I worry about the ones who don't have that confidence and to see a small
child eat alone in the middle of a huge playground with other kids eating together
is a heart-breaking scene indeed. There's just something so sad about it.
That same day I took the kids to Mrs. Johnson's 1st grade classroom
and Mrs. Johnson talked to them about first grade and what to expect
and told them not to be afraid.
They were going to have their own desks!
And a class pet! (A smelly gerbil or something)
I felt like saying, "And from here on out kids, it's pretty much work, work, work...."
But alas, they'll find out as they go along
and never even remember how good they had it at 5.
Thursday, June 08, 2006
MadameBastet-firing-neurons
War is Hell, But Governments Are Worse
In the news now, a little over three years after the invasion of Iraq, another possible My Lai massacre. Haditha, Iraq. Word that American soldiers went apeshit and killed 24 civilians – even babies, without provocation. Dear God, shooting a baby? How do you do it? What place do you have to get to inside yourself? What monsters have we created of our own soldiers? What part of your humanity has left you when you are able to pump a bullet into an infant? It’s unreal and so wrong and sad that mere words cannot do it justice. My heart breaks for every lost soldier, every lost innocent Iraqi life. Oh God, especially the children. The waste is so magnificent and mind numbing. It is surreal. The lost lives, the lost futures, the grief that cannot be properly articulated.
This was a long-planned, illegal, immoral, unjust invasion of a country that had nothing to do with toppling Saddam Hussein, or pre-emptively stopping his non-existent 'weapons of mass destruction' or the threat of terrorism, past or future. In fact, this corrupt, sick, corporate-whoring Fascist government was so hell bent on going to war with Iraq that now they've created a cruel, unending, hotbed of terrorism in a country that was essentially no real threat to us ever.
Democracy is a dream; civil war and relentless killing is the reality. The trial of Saddam Hussein proceeds like some kind of Dali-like circus. Who’s running the asylum? Dead children lying in bloody heaps. We've lost whatever credibility we had for whatever good we've done in the eyes of the world for invading a country without good reason (9/11 doesn't count - there's no proven connection between Iraq and 9/11) or U.N. support, we've killed well over 2,000 soldiers and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis. Yeah, remember them? Men, women, children. Dead. Forever. Gone. A country destroyed at the cost of thousands of lives and billions of dollars. A country that has turned into Vietnam via attrition; yes, I'll make the comparison because I feel like it, and where's Walter Kronkite when you need him? The White House Press Corps are a bunch of pussies. They ought to just eat this administration alive. Oh but now we can rebuild the very country we destroyed by handing out nice fact contracts to companies like Halliburton and spend billions more, making the regime of men who caused this nightmare even richer. I doubt that'll ever happen with the way the killing is going. Whereas that money could've gone say, hmmm, to Africa, to helping to wipe out malaria, to Medicines San Frontiers, to the American Red Cross, to Oxfam, to Heifer International, to UNICEF, to the continued rebuilding of the tsunami-ravaged areas of East India, Sumatra, Thailand, or even to the victims of fucking hurricane Katrina - yes, people in OUR OWN COUNTRY.
Sure, it's nice to know a psychotic dictator like Saddam Hussein is currently wasting Iraqi time and money by not showing up to his own puppet court/trial and complaining that he's been wearing the same underwear for three days in a row. Pardon me while I simultaneously vomit and shed a few crocodile tears.If America was really serious about pre-emptively striking down leaders and countries we think are legitimate threats to our national well-being, why haven't we sent a few hundred thousand troops and SCUD missiles over to North Korea....or Iran….oh yeah, because they actually have nuclear weapons and might blow us to kingdom come. When push comes to shove, we don't actually fuck around with those who could truly fuck us over. Despite the massive lies of WMD, Iraq posed no threat whatsoever to the United States.
Retribution for 9/11? When you're sleeping with the enemy that's hard to come by. 19 out of 20 terrorists on those planes either came from or held Saudi Arabian passports. But who does Bush invite down to the OK Corral in Crawford for a little bar-b-que? The kings and princes from the family of Saud, who are as corrupt and evil as any single mad dictator. But they've got something we want: black gold. And then he has the gall, the fucking gall to tell us we’re addicted to oil and we have to change. Tell us something we don’t know. We’re addicted to oil? I’ll stop driving my car when you stop sleeping with the fucking enemy.
I'm old enough now not to see things in black and white. America has done great good for the world. We have also done great evil for our own interests and you don't even have to read Noam Chomsky or subscribe to Z-net or be a fan of Michael Moore to know that. Actually, perhaps a lot of people DON'T know that - or choose not to believe that America has tortured, killed, looted, pillaged, destroyed, controlled, and manipulated thousands of people and many countries for its own benefit. Isolationism is a moot point now; we're damned if we do and damned if we don't. Certainly we learned over 60 years ago that some madmen can't be ignored; Neville Chamberlain's attempt at appeasement basically allowed Hitler the power he sought and we know the price the world paid to destroy that monster and his killing machines. And yet still today, there are heinous dictators in charge of countries, destroying people's lives...and we do not get involved. We are not there to 'liberate' those people or give them a taste of 'democracy'. Probably because they don't have anything we want or need. If America truly cared about humanity, where were we - indeed - where was the WORLD 11 years ago as almost 1 million people were hacked to death in less than two months in Rwanda? We deliberately pulled our people out of that conflict, and played the isolationist card, because who cared if a bunch of Tutsi's and Hutu's hated each other and wanted to fight some tribal war? Something tells me though that if their blood ran black and could power a Hummer, you bet we would've been there with buckets in hand, draining those bloated corpses to the last bitter drop.
What can we do? What we can do is face the awful truth. Maybe this isn't like Vietnam at all. Because haven't you ever wondered why you rarely if EVER see the dead coming home? Where are the pictures of the flag-covered coffins lined up, one after one on aircraft carriers? Where is President Bush seen greeting those dead, saluting them and their families for sacrificing their lives for essentially a pack of lies and his own personal agenda? Oh that's right, he's back at the ranch, hiding out from Cindy Sheehan. And giving orders to absolutely, under no circumstances let the press photograph those flag-draped caskets being taken off those planes - because God forbid - Americans might actually start to realize people are DYING in this war.
Here is what I know for sure: The world is an infinitely complex, complicated place where even trying to live in the gray area is difficult at times. I believe most Americans, by and large and good and decent people. I believe too many however choose to plead ignorance and laziness and follow this government like lemmings, swallowing lie after lie while driving around in their fat SUV's. America has done tremendous good for many, and it has done some very, very bad things to many as well. Whatever our government has done over the years, there is no excusing or apologizing for 9/11. If our government supports Israel to the detriment of the Palestinians, that is wrong: but three thousand people did not deserve to die horrific deaths because of acts of governments they could not control. Apologetics for 9/11 are free to express their views but they live in a black and white world.
No matter the reason, or exit strategy, if there even is one, what I know for sure is that hundreds of thousands of people's lives have been destroyed by this senseless war. There are young men who will never, never get married, and never see their children grow up. There are young women who will never have children, never get married, and never have a career. There are children without parents and parents without children. There are mothers who have had to bear the absolute unbearable: the loss of a child, or God forbid, children. This is what I know for sure: President Bush's children, Dick Cheney's children, Donald Rumsfeld's children are all safe and sound. This is what I know for sure: War is hell, but what would any of them know about war?
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
MadameBastet-firing-neurons
And The Spaniards Dreamt of You Too, Califia
There will never be any real goodbye. I will leave you, but you will remain with me, always. There is no place far enough in this universe for me to escape you – to escape what you’ve done to me, to escape my feelings for you, however conflicted and mixed they have become.
I believed we would be together forever. I loved you once, with a madness, intensity, fierceness, a blindness, and an insane devotion that others laughed at. Who could love such a hollow land? Who could find truth in a city where truth is bought and sold to the highest bidder? Who could find beauty in this wax museum, this horror show of vanitas?
I loved you, even as you shook me to the very core of my being, the earth under my feet unstable, no promise of stability ever to come in this desert-cum-oasis of disingenuous promise. I let you corrupt me. I gave into your seduction. I fell for your empty promises. I believed in a tinsel-town world of glitterati and all your stinking, lousy lies.
MadameBastet-firing-neurons
MadameBastet-firing-neurons
It dawned on me that I never listed my 1o Favourite Things About Life, and I need to balance out the negativity with some positive vibes here. So here are....
10 Things I Love About Life (in no particular order really)
10) Animals. Especially, as everyone knows, cats, and little dogs. I must've been an Egyptian in a past life; my love of cats borders on wackiness. And yes, I'm coming out of the closet as a small dog lover. What I *really* adore are Jack Russell Terriers. I guess those would come under the heading of "Little Crazy-Ass Hyper Dogs." I know I probably could never handle one, but I see them, and I melt. I'm a pile of goo. I just adore wittle bitty dogs. I do like Labs too. I think animals are one of God's greatest gifts to us. It does bother me that I am not a vegetarian. I don't like to think of any animal suffering. But I can't seem to subsist on a purely vegetarian diet. Anyway, I think a lot of times I love animals more than people. Someday I hope to have a house with a big yard so I can get a dog. I won't trap a dog in my little apartment; plus Zoe and Fletcher would probably attack the poor thing. Especially Zoe. She knows she's momma's girl; she's sleeping on my spot in bed now. I gaze at animals the way other people gaze at babies. Screwy.
9) Music. Where would I be without music? Some of the great moments of my life have been listening to music at concerts. I'll never forget my first real rock concert. 1986 at the Hollywood Palladium. It was like a drug; I was hooked. Music has saved me, it has been with me as I've grown up from a really scary kid to an even scarier teenager to a fairly decent functioning adult. Music has given me, what I like to call, "Top of the Triangle" moments. In college, we learned over and over about Abraham Maslow's "hierarchy of needs." At the top of the triangle, was self-actualization. I feel like it is nirvana, bliss, almost leaving your body and going into another state of being. Some concerts have done that for me. And yeah, love 'em or hate 'em, The Church are always, always going to be The Band for me. Not The Band with Robbie Robertson, haha. But The Band apart from all other bands; the music apart from all other music. Stupid bastards. I've loved 'em, I've hated them. I've even pseudo-fought with Marty and turned my back on them. But if anything has been the soundtrack to my entire life for the last 22 years, it's the music of The Church. Their music has found a place in my soul where nothing else has ever been. There are holes in my soul, and that music filled one of them, and for that, I guess I should be grateful, no matter how irritated I get with them sometimes.
8) Men. Oh god, this is a complex one. Because ya know, naturally I love 'em and hate 'em sometimes. But biology will out I suppose. So many things to love about men. When you're in love, it's everything they do that you love. Of course there are the obvious things; the sex, the kissing, the intimacy, the meeting of minds. Sometimes I like to think of men as great works of art; if I find a man attractive, I just like to look him. It doesn't even have to be in a sexual way. I just like appreciating their beauty. But they still need to learn to ask directions, put the seat down, and why do I meet so many men allergic to cats? Damn. I can't be throwin' the furry babies out. I like the fact that I want a man, but I never feel I need to have a man validate me. Also, I need a MAN man. I'm not quite sure what that means. Not in a John Wayne sort of way - let's put it this way - my last serious relationship - this guy wanted to move in here, and get married. It wasn't going to work for various reasons, but the worst one was that I was more of man than he was about too many things. Is that sexist? Oh well. So be it.
7) Laughter. This may seem odd, coming from someone whose blogs often read like Sylvia Plath's diary. But I love to laugh. I have an entire collection of comedy DVD's I watch constantly because hey, Reader's Digest said it best, laughter IS the best medicine. Laughing with your friends over stupid stuff is great. Laughing so hard you can't breathe, your stomach hurts and you get that fabulous endorphin rush - beautiful. I don't think scientists know why we laugh. WHO CARES? It feels good.
6) Philanthropy of mind and body and spirit. Sure, I admire Bill and Melinda Gates for the money they give to make the world better. But it's people like Medecins san Frontiers - people who put their own lives and health at risk to help others I admire. They are my heroes. It's easy to give money away. It's harder to dedicate your life to people living in war, poverty, disease. I admire anyone who sincerely tries to make this crazy world a better place, no matter how small. Whether it's by helping sick people, writing a beautiful piece of music, holding a dying person's hand, taking in a stray animal, teaching a difficult child...sure, there's something in it for everyone, there always is...but as Martha Stewart says, it's a good thing.
5) Art - Naturally this would have to be here. Why would I bust my butt to get an M.A. in art history if I didn't adore art? Especially paintings. Especially the art of the Baroque period, the Renaissance and the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Caracci, Vermeer. I almost wept when I saw The Death of the Virgin by Caravaggio in the Louvre. Manet's Absinthe Drinker. Renoir's beautiful young girls. Raphael's sweet Madonnas. The Dadaists, the Surrealists, those crazy Futurists. Frida Kahlo. Ernst, Dali, Marc. David Hockney's swimming pools. Degas' dancers. And naturally, the greatest sculptor who ever lived...Michelangelo. The Pieta. To see that in St. Peter's is to see the face of God. Such brilliance is almost incomprehensible. My art. How I miss it sometimes.
4)Family and friends. Oh sure, half of them are nuts and those half you're usually related to. Half the time they drive you crazy, and you probably drive them crazy. But as independent and anti-social as I can be, where would I be without my family and friends? My parents, who sacrificed so much for me so I could have so much opportunity. My brother, who despite ignoring my emails for weeks on end, is the only other person in the world, who knows me so well, who remembers my dad like I do. My mom, who is my hero, despite some wretched fights we've had. And my friends, present, future and past. They put up with me. They love me. The infuriate me. I infuriate them. We laugh, we cry, we shop, we eat, we trade war stories and we help each other through life. I'm starting to sound like a fuckin' Hallmark card here.
3) Traveling. It's tough, traveling. Especially as you get older, you get more settled in your ways, you get extremely attached to your own, perfect bed. (That would be my perfect bed). If you hate to fly, like I do, it makes it even harder. Also, with the unpredictability of my fibro, traveling can be rough on me. But I wouldn't trade my travels for anything. Traveling is the best education a person can have. God, just open your eyes, your mind, take in other cultures, be open, talk to other people, see the great art of the world, the great buildings, the history, the magic, the wonder of it all. I've traveled extensively through America, which I think more Americans should do. Geographically, this is a magnificent country, with some fantastic people. I hope someday to return to Europe, and to go to South America, Africa and Australia. I don't care how tired I get, how badly I hurt, I'll never stop traveling as long as I'm able to.
2)Books. Well if you know me, you know I love reading. And books. And bookstores. I'm like a junkie with a book habit. I used to read mostly fiction. Then suddenly I became a non-fiction person. So now I mostly read true crime, history, biographies, current affairs, etc. I cannot imagine not reading. I love the look of books, the feel of books, the weight of books. I can't throw any book out. Moving is a total bitch because of my books. I've left most of them in the huge library wall in my mom's living room. And still I have a ton of books all over the apartment. I've been in loving with reading ever since I learned to read. Books ARE your friends. I actually KNOW people who don't like to read. They don't read. I don't know how they live. Are they aliens? Maybe I read too much. But it soothes my soul. It is travel by thought. By the way, I HATE that song. HATE. It is not only the Church's worst song, it is one of the worst songs of all time.
1) Life itself. Well, I guess it sounds stupid, but again, given the sorry nature of so many of my blogs, and my tendency towards low-grade depression, you'd think I'd be kinda down on life. Yeah, I find it hard sometimes. I don't like chronic pain. I've had a few seriously tragic moments in my life. But despite it all, the good, the bad, the ugly, I can still say, it's fucking worth it. It's a grab bag - we don't know the cards we're dealt and sometimes I want to pound the earth with frustration and sadness...but I wouldn't opt out for anything. What's the alternative? As much as I long to believe in an afterlife, and sometimes do...I can't imagine it at all. So I get scared. Because who knows? This life is all we do know, and all we have. And for better or worse, this may be it. I hope not. I do long for something after this; I've always felt this was just part of the deal; that this is leading up to something else. But even if it isn't, this is it. I'm glad I'm along for the ride.
It dawned on me that I never listed my 1o Favourite Things About Life, and I need to balance out the negativity with some positive vibes here. So here are....
10 Things I Love About Life (in no particular order really)
10) Animals. Especially, as everyone knows, cats, and little dogs. I must've been an Egyptian in a past life; my love of cats borders on wackiness. And yes, I'm coming out of the closet as a small dog lover. What I *really* adore are Jack Russell Terriers. I guess those would come under the heading of "Little Crazy-Ass Hyper Dogs." I know I probably could never handle one, but I see them, and I melt. I'm a pile of goo. I just adore wittle bitty dogs. I do like Labs too. I think animals are one of God's greatest gifts to us. It does bother me that I am not a vegetarian. I don't like to think of any animal suffering. But I can't seem to subsist on a purely vegetarian diet. Anyway, I think a lot of times I love animals more than people. Someday I hope to have a house with a big yard so I can get a dog. I won't trap a dog in my little apartment; plus Zoe and Fletcher would probably attack the poor thing. Especially Zoe. She knows she's momma's girl; she's sleeping on my spot in bed now. I gaze at animals the way other people gaze at babies. Screwy.
9) Music. Where would I be without music? Some of the great moments of my life have been listening to music at concerts. I'll never forget my first real rock concert. 1986 at the Hollywood Palladium. It was like a drug; I was hooked. Music has saved me, it has been with me as I've grown up from a really scary kid to an even scarier teenager to a fairly decent functioning adult. Music has given me, what I like to call, "Top of the Triangle" moments. In college, we learned over and over about Abraham Maslow's "hierarchy of needs." At the top of the triangle, was self-actualization. I feel like it is nirvana, bliss, almost leaving your body and going into another state of being. Some concerts have done that for me. And yeah, love 'em or hate 'em, The Church are always, always going to be The Band for me. Not The Band with Robbie Robertson, haha. But The Band apart from all other bands; the music apart from all other music. Stupid bastards. I've loved 'em, I've hated them. I've even pseudo-fought with Marty and turned my back on them. But if anything has been the soundtrack to my entire life for the last 22 years, it's the music of The Church. Their music has found a place in my soul where nothing else has ever been. There are holes in my soul, and that music filled one of them, and for that, I guess I should be grateful, no matter how irritated I get with them sometimes.
8) Men. Oh god, this is a complex one. Because ya know, naturally I love 'em and hate 'em sometimes. But biology will out I suppose. So many things to love about men. When you're in love, it's everything they do that you love. Of course there are the obvious things; the sex, the kissing, the intimacy, the meeting of minds. Sometimes I like to think of men as great works of art; if I find a man attractive, I just like to look him. It doesn't even have to be in a sexual way. I just like appreciating their beauty. But they still need to learn to ask directions, put the seat down, and why do I meet so many men allergic to cats? Damn. I can't be throwin' the furry babies out. I like the fact that I want a man, but I never feel I need to have a man validate me. Also, I need a MAN man. I'm not quite sure what that means. Not in a John Wayne sort of way - let's put it this way - my last serious relationship - this guy wanted to move in here, and get married. It wasn't going to work for various reasons, but the worst one was that I was more of man than he was about too many things. Is that sexist? Oh well. So be it.
7) Laughter. This may seem odd, coming from someone whose blogs often read like Sylvia Plath's diary. But I love to laugh. I have an entire collection of comedy DVD's I watch constantly because hey, Reader's Digest said it best, laughter IS the best medicine. Laughing with your friends over stupid stuff is great. Laughing so hard you can't breathe, your stomach hurts and you get that fabulous endorphin rush - beautiful. I don't think scientists know why we laugh. WHO CARES? It feels good.
6) Philanthropy of mind and body and spirit. Sure, I admire Bill and Melinda Gates for the money they give to make the world better. But it's people like Medecins san Frontiers - people who put their own lives and health at risk to help others I admire. They are my heroes. It's easy to give money away. It's harder to dedicate your life to people living in war, poverty, disease. I admire anyone who sincerely tries to make this crazy world a better place, no matter how small. Whether it's by helping sick people, writing a beautiful piece of music, holding a dying person's hand, taking in a stray animal, teaching a difficult child...sure, there's something in it for everyone, there always is...but as Martha Stewart says, it's a good thing.
5) Art - Naturally this would have to be here. Why would I bust my butt to get an M.A. in art history if I didn't adore art? Especially paintings. Especially the art of the Baroque period, the Renaissance and the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Caracci, Vermeer. I almost wept when I saw The Death of the Virgin by Caravaggio in the Louvre. Manet's Absinthe Drinker. Renoir's beautiful young girls. Raphael's sweet Madonnas. The Dadaists, the Surrealists, those crazy Futurists. Frida Kahlo. Ernst, Dali, Marc. David Hockney's swimming pools. Degas' dancers. And naturally, the greatest sculptor who ever lived...Michelangelo. The Pieta. To see that in St. Peter's is to see the face of God. Such brilliance is almost incomprehensible. My art. How I miss it sometimes.
4)Family and friends. Oh sure, half of them are nuts and those half you're usually related to. Half the time they drive you crazy, and you probably drive them crazy. But as independent and anti-social as I can be, where would I be without my family and friends? My parents, who sacrificed so much for me so I could have so much opportunity. My brother, who despite ignoring my emails for weeks on end, is the only other person in the world, who knows me so well, who remembers my dad like I do. My mom, who is my hero, despite some wretched fights we've had. And my friends, present, future and past. They put up with me. They love me. The infuriate me. I infuriate them. We laugh, we cry, we shop, we eat, we trade war stories and we help each other through life. I'm starting to sound like a fuckin' Hallmark card here.
3) Traveling. It's tough, traveling. Especially as you get older, you get more settled in your ways, you get extremely attached to your own, perfect bed. (That would be my perfect bed). If you hate to fly, like I do, it makes it even harder. Also, with the unpredictability of my fibro, traveling can be rough on me. But I wouldn't trade my travels for anything. Traveling is the best education a person can have. God, just open your eyes, your mind, take in other cultures, be open, talk to other people, see the great art of the world, the great buildings, the history, the magic, the wonder of it all. I've traveled extensively through America, which I think more Americans should do. Geographically, this is a magnificent country, with some fantastic people. I hope someday to return to Europe, and to go to South America, Africa and Australia. I don't care how tired I get, how badly I hurt, I'll never stop traveling as long as I'm able to.
2)Books. Well if you know me, you know I love reading. And books. And bookstores. I'm like a junkie with a book habit. I used to read mostly fiction. Then suddenly I became a non-fiction person. So now I mostly read true crime, history, biographies, current affairs, etc. I cannot imagine not reading. I love the look of books, the feel of books, the weight of books. I can't throw any book out. Moving is a total bitch because of my books. I've left most of them in the huge library wall in my mom's living room. And still I have a ton of books all over the apartment. I've been in loving with reading ever since I learned to read. Books ARE your friends. I actually KNOW people who don't like to read. They don't read. I don't know how they live. Are they aliens? Maybe I read too much. But it soothes my soul. It is travel by thought. By the way, I HATE that song. HATE. It is not only the Church's worst song, it is one of the worst songs of all time.
1) Life itself. Well, I guess it sounds stupid, but again, given the sorry nature of so many of my blogs, and my tendency towards low-grade depression, you'd think I'd be kinda down on life. Yeah, I find it hard sometimes. I don't like chronic pain. I've had a few seriously tragic moments in my life. But despite it all, the good, the bad, the ugly, I can still say, it's fucking worth it. It's a grab bag - we don't know the cards we're dealt and sometimes I want to pound the earth with frustration and sadness...but I wouldn't opt out for anything. What's the alternative? As much as I long to believe in an afterlife, and sometimes do...I can't imagine it at all. So I get scared. Because who knows? This life is all we do know, and all we have. And for better or worse, this may be it. I hope not. I do long for something after this; I've always felt this was just part of the deal; that this is leading up to something else. But even if it isn't, this is it. I'm glad I'm along for the ride.
Monday, June 05, 2006
MadameBastet-firing-neurons
MadameBastet-firing-neurons
Sweet Mary mother of Jesus! Ok, Steve Kilbey's not the only one having blogger problems today. Something's up with E-blogger. It's taking eternities to load. I've tried to load the page about 10 times. It's moving at a snail's pace. What, is everyone pissing and moaning on their blogs at once?
Monday. What a crap day. Woke up late, had an fight with a FAX machine and lost, gave and arm and leg for a tank of gas, was late to work/school and the kids were grating on my last nerve. Poor things. It wasn't their fault Ms. D was in a shitty mood. I had ZERO patience. My behaviour management techniques ranged from yelling "STOP IT!" to "SIT DOWN." I'm surprised I didn't tell them to grow up and shut up. LOL! I did say, "In 9 days you will be 1st graders. And 1st graders don't act like this." That excites them. The prospect of being in 1st grade is so thrilling! Ah, my little ducklings, how I hate to see you scatter and move on, but such is life, and we must. Sometimes I think, "I'll probably be teaching children that aren't even born yet." Maybe their parents haven't even met yet.
Maybe I'll go insane by then. I have The Offical Headache From Hell. I've taken some aspirin but so far, no luck.
I've decided I may have some extra testosterone in me. Not really actually, because I had my hormones tested and they're fine...but last night I was watching my new favourite show, "Entourage." God I love that show! It just struck me, is it a 'guy' show? Maybe. I seem to like a lot of 'guy' shows and movies. Take "Swingers." Brilliant. Genius. So money.
If you looked at my DVD collection, it's seriously testosterone-heavy. We've got:
The Deer Hunter
Serpico
Dog Day Afternoon
Taxi Driver
Mean Streets
Good Fellas
Full Metal Jacket
Apocalypse Now
Cool Hand Luke
Heat
Marathon Man
Dirty Harry (and the next two or three Dirty Harry installments)
Paths of Glory
The Warriors
The French Connection
Blazing Saddles
Dr. Strangelove...
The Taking of Pelham 123
Resevoir Dogs
Dogs of War
Pulp Fiction
Deliverance
Catch-22
Oh and a slew of horror movies. So I like war movies, horror movies and murder mystery movies. And everyone who knows me knows my love of all things mafia-related. Why? I am not a violent person. I don't advocate violence. I'm not for war. But I am fascinated with the concepts, perhaps. The cosa nostra has always fascinated me. It's dying out in many ways. It ain't like it used to be that's for sure. I am fascinated by the idea of these guys who live in a world with their own rules, their own morality, their own code of conduct.
Naturally I go see movies like this alone, unless I've met a guy who'll see them with me. My girlfriends think I'm nuts. It is strange, as I really, really am very 'female' - I enjoy being a woman ( that sounds so old!) and enjoy dressing up and being sexy and I thoroughly enjoy men - except when they're irritating the shit out of me, haha. These movies are like the opposite of the chick flicks. I'm into some of those too. But what *is* it with me and war? Of course, many of these movies are actually anti-war which is so great. Catch-22 shows the absurdity of it all, as does Dr. Strangelove, and of course Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket show how war makes men into monsters. For some reason that reminds me of Francisco Goya's painting "The Third of May, 1808."
The painting shows a line of faceless Frenchmen cold-bloodly gunning down innocent Spaniards; Napoleon's brother was in charge of Spain then, and he feared an uprising by the Spaniards. These men were being shot and killed and they were falling in blood-soaked heaps on the ground. Goya, who despised war, said he painted it to show the true horrors of war, so that men would learn these horrors, and that there would never be another war again.
If only. Men do not learn. And I doubt they ever will. How cynical I am. I believe someday, thanks to the stupid fucks who created the A and H bombs, that we'll destroy ourselves, and the planet. If global warming doesn't do it first. It's a race to see which method works fastest. What a sorry lot we are.
Man have I just been all over the place with this blog today or what?
Sweet Mary mother of Jesus! Ok, Steve Kilbey's not the only one having blogger problems today. Something's up with E-blogger. It's taking eternities to load. I've tried to load the page about 10 times. It's moving at a snail's pace. What, is everyone pissing and moaning on their blogs at once?
Monday. What a crap day. Woke up late, had an fight with a FAX machine and lost, gave and arm and leg for a tank of gas, was late to work/school and the kids were grating on my last nerve. Poor things. It wasn't their fault Ms. D was in a shitty mood. I had ZERO patience. My behaviour management techniques ranged from yelling "STOP IT!" to "SIT DOWN." I'm surprised I didn't tell them to grow up and shut up. LOL! I did say, "In 9 days you will be 1st graders. And 1st graders don't act like this." That excites them. The prospect of being in 1st grade is so thrilling! Ah, my little ducklings, how I hate to see you scatter and move on, but such is life, and we must. Sometimes I think, "I'll probably be teaching children that aren't even born yet." Maybe their parents haven't even met yet.
Maybe I'll go insane by then. I have The Offical Headache From Hell. I've taken some aspirin but so far, no luck.
I've decided I may have some extra testosterone in me. Not really actually, because I had my hormones tested and they're fine...but last night I was watching my new favourite show, "Entourage." God I love that show! It just struck me, is it a 'guy' show? Maybe. I seem to like a lot of 'guy' shows and movies. Take "Swingers." Brilliant. Genius. So money.
If you looked at my DVD collection, it's seriously testosterone-heavy. We've got:
The Deer Hunter
Serpico
Dog Day Afternoon
Taxi Driver
Mean Streets
Good Fellas
Full Metal Jacket
Apocalypse Now
Cool Hand Luke
Heat
Marathon Man
Dirty Harry (and the next two or three Dirty Harry installments)
Paths of Glory
The Warriors
The French Connection
Blazing Saddles
Dr. Strangelove...
The Taking of Pelham 123
Resevoir Dogs
Dogs of War
Pulp Fiction
Deliverance
Catch-22
Oh and a slew of horror movies. So I like war movies, horror movies and murder mystery movies. And everyone who knows me knows my love of all things mafia-related. Why? I am not a violent person. I don't advocate violence. I'm not for war. But I am fascinated with the concepts, perhaps. The cosa nostra has always fascinated me. It's dying out in many ways. It ain't like it used to be that's for sure. I am fascinated by the idea of these guys who live in a world with their own rules, their own morality, their own code of conduct.
Naturally I go see movies like this alone, unless I've met a guy who'll see them with me. My girlfriends think I'm nuts. It is strange, as I really, really am very 'female' - I enjoy being a woman ( that sounds so old!) and enjoy dressing up and being sexy and I thoroughly enjoy men - except when they're irritating the shit out of me, haha. These movies are like the opposite of the chick flicks. I'm into some of those too. But what *is* it with me and war? Of course, many of these movies are actually anti-war which is so great. Catch-22 shows the absurdity of it all, as does Dr. Strangelove, and of course Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket show how war makes men into monsters. For some reason that reminds me of Francisco Goya's painting "The Third of May, 1808."
The painting shows a line of faceless Frenchmen cold-bloodly gunning down innocent Spaniards; Napoleon's brother was in charge of Spain then, and he feared an uprising by the Spaniards. These men were being shot and killed and they were falling in blood-soaked heaps on the ground. Goya, who despised war, said he painted it to show the true horrors of war, so that men would learn these horrors, and that there would never be another war again.
If only. Men do not learn. And I doubt they ever will. How cynical I am. I believe someday, thanks to the stupid fucks who created the A and H bombs, that we'll destroy ourselves, and the planet. If global warming doesn't do it first. It's a race to see which method works fastest. What a sorry lot we are.
Man have I just been all over the place with this blog today or what?
MadameBastet-firing-neurons
MadameBastet-firing-neurons
In The Valley of The Kings
Venice coffee shops and used record stores
Greasy spoons and the blue man on the moon
down on Broadway by the glittering sea
it was all like pharaoh's gold
in the Valley of the Kings.
There were vinyl dreams so melodic and sweet
and we were never too young, never too naive
to become enslaved by the strange geography
of the streets.
Remember when! Remember when!
You could feel! Angry happy sad raging insane crazy mad
as fucking hell about life, death, taxes, injustice, parking tickets
health insurance, AIDS, Rwanda
stolen elections and immoral wars!
Remember when you could feel....and now....
In your bedroom, bare walls and all
is the death bed and there lies quietly, so still
the American Dream, the death rattle echoing off the walls
Yes, the American Dream
flatlining finally after years and years behind the brittle
cries, the unheard screams
a custom-made cliche
but dying, leaving, going, gone just the same.
Hell, it wasn't as if you didn't help it along
I mean come on - remember standing in smoky rooms
of carefully measured discontent?
Wondering how to fuck without dying;
wondering how to pay the rent.
There were songs you loved and words you knew;
once you sang along and now you don't even want the radio on
anymore.
You gave years and years away like worthless currency
not knowing that nostalgia is simply brain chemistry
and love just a strange attractor; and memory itself
some kind of sad self-pity.
Now all the record stores have closed up and have gone away
disappeared into the future tense of technology
and Broadway by the sea is just another street
It's a game you play and you're getting so good at it now
just think dear lady once upon a time you didn't even know how.
Yeah, rock and roll could've saved your soul
but that was yesterday
And rooms hold ghosts
but they will never haunt you
like the words you gave away.
Now the music's just too damn loud
though the words sound strangely familiar;
the meaning is unclear and the sad semiotics
of despair is the only melody you can hear.
You're a stranger in strange places now
You're a ghost, an apparition, a pathetic dream
Die die die you long to scream!
in cheap cerveza bars and cigarettes
fall limply from your lips and glow in the gleam
looking for a light is a bitch in these haunted spaces
there's no smoke no fire and you wonder
was it you that died first
or was it desire?
So you stalk the velvet crush, the glittering comedown,
remembering decaying downtown faces in crimson mirrors
and you fall like Alice but the story is much more grim
You tumble through time back to the event horizon.
And you still haven't figured out
how to black out
before the band leaves the stage;
and it's on someone's else face
that you watch yourself age.
Hollywood calls your name and laughs while you weep
Phantom fucks and full blood-burst harvest moons
universes that go bang! or collapse in the street
and you suck on nicotine for hours and dream of long-ago rooms
now long torn down and gone.
And nostalgia is just a dream, a memory
you once believed it was all real, it would last forever
the smell of cheap leather and sweat and smoke and tears
the spilled emotions on the table mixed with the leftover stale beers
It was beautiful here, once upon a time
We skipped down Broadway by the azure sea
We sang the songs and knew all the words
and we loved the pure and sweet sound of a 12 string
playing gently across the city at night
and it was like pharaoh's gold in the
Valley of the Kings.
In The Valley of The Kings
Venice coffee shops and used record stores
Greasy spoons and the blue man on the moon
down on Broadway by the glittering sea
it was all like pharaoh's gold
in the Valley of the Kings.
There were vinyl dreams so melodic and sweet
and we were never too young, never too naive
to become enslaved by the strange geography
of the streets.
Remember when! Remember when!
You could feel! Angry happy sad raging insane crazy mad
as fucking hell about life, death, taxes, injustice, parking tickets
health insurance, AIDS, Rwanda
stolen elections and immoral wars!
Remember when you could feel....and now....
In your bedroom, bare walls and all
is the death bed and there lies quietly, so still
the American Dream, the death rattle echoing off the walls
Yes, the American Dream
flatlining finally after years and years behind the brittle
cries, the unheard screams
a custom-made cliche
but dying, leaving, going, gone just the same.
Hell, it wasn't as if you didn't help it along
I mean come on - remember standing in smoky rooms
of carefully measured discontent?
Wondering how to fuck without dying;
wondering how to pay the rent.
There were songs you loved and words you knew;
once you sang along and now you don't even want the radio on
anymore.
You gave years and years away like worthless currency
not knowing that nostalgia is simply brain chemistry
and love just a strange attractor; and memory itself
some kind of sad self-pity.
Now all the record stores have closed up and have gone away
disappeared into the future tense of technology
and Broadway by the sea is just another street
It's a game you play and you're getting so good at it now
just think dear lady once upon a time you didn't even know how.
Yeah, rock and roll could've saved your soul
but that was yesterday
And rooms hold ghosts
but they will never haunt you
like the words you gave away.
Now the music's just too damn loud
though the words sound strangely familiar;
the meaning is unclear and the sad semiotics
of despair is the only melody you can hear.
You're a stranger in strange places now
You're a ghost, an apparition, a pathetic dream
Die die die you long to scream!
in cheap cerveza bars and cigarettes
fall limply from your lips and glow in the gleam
looking for a light is a bitch in these haunted spaces
there's no smoke no fire and you wonder
was it you that died first
or was it desire?
So you stalk the velvet crush, the glittering comedown,
remembering decaying downtown faces in crimson mirrors
and you fall like Alice but the story is much more grim
You tumble through time back to the event horizon.
And you still haven't figured out
how to black out
before the band leaves the stage;
and it's on someone's else face
that you watch yourself age.
Hollywood calls your name and laughs while you weep
Phantom fucks and full blood-burst harvest moons
universes that go bang! or collapse in the street
and you suck on nicotine for hours and dream of long-ago rooms
now long torn down and gone.
And nostalgia is just a dream, a memory
you once believed it was all real, it would last forever
the smell of cheap leather and sweat and smoke and tears
the spilled emotions on the table mixed with the leftover stale beers
It was beautiful here, once upon a time
We skipped down Broadway by the azure sea
We sang the songs and knew all the words
and we loved the pure and sweet sound of a 12 string
playing gently across the city at night
and it was like pharaoh's gold in the
Valley of the Kings.
Sunday, June 04, 2006
MadameBastet-firing-neurons
MadameBastet-firing-neurons
Disenchanted
Everyone knows
that Sunday kind of sadness;
the pale decline of universal despair
that hangs delicately around the edges
of the dinner table, the laundry basket, the empty chairs...
as the pink-orange crush of dusk
drops slowly down
the velvet blanket of jasmine and musk
far away voices and far away sounds
And you knew
this
was
the
end.
The promise
was forgotten.
And the small, sad, empty feeling
you felt
watching The Wonderful World of Disney
staring through the windows at the falling darkness
and Tinkerbell in stardust flying away
comes back to you now...
...in cars and bars and steel gray cubicles
at high noon and in the shrill tinny banter
of silver spoons and conversations in conference rooms.
Everyone knows
that Sunday kind of sadness
sitting alone on the front porch steps
the sky bleeding pink into gunmetal grey
and you
listening to the distant hum of the dishwasher
the faraway rushing of the bathwater upstairs
and the television in the den ticking away
"60 Minutes"
(sometimes, you watched The Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew)
while Mom ironed your little shirts
and you knew
that it was over
again...
....like you do now
and you think how
you would've made Nietzsche, Sartre and Camus
oh so proud.
Disenchanted
Everyone knows
that Sunday kind of sadness;
the pale decline of universal despair
that hangs delicately around the edges
of the dinner table, the laundry basket, the empty chairs...
as the pink-orange crush of dusk
drops slowly down
the velvet blanket of jasmine and musk
far away voices and far away sounds
And you knew
this
was
the
end.
The promise
was forgotten.
And the small, sad, empty feeling
you felt
watching The Wonderful World of Disney
staring through the windows at the falling darkness
and Tinkerbell in stardust flying away
comes back to you now...
...in cars and bars and steel gray cubicles
at high noon and in the shrill tinny banter
of silver spoons and conversations in conference rooms.
Everyone knows
that Sunday kind of sadness
sitting alone on the front porch steps
the sky bleeding pink into gunmetal grey
and you
listening to the distant hum of the dishwasher
the faraway rushing of the bathwater upstairs
and the television in the den ticking away
"60 Minutes"
(sometimes, you watched The Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew)
while Mom ironed your little shirts
and you knew
that it was over
again...
....like you do now
and you think how
you would've made Nietzsche, Sartre and Camus
oh so proud.
MadameBastet-firing-neurons
MadameBastet-firing-neurons
Earlier this evening, while ignoring the Evil Math Books
on the table, I was lying on the couch, channel-surfing.
I caught the last half-hour of the final Star Wars trilogy.
Which trilogy you ask? Oh hell, the most recent trilogy.
I purposely never saw any of those films; George Lucas
really frosted my cake with these 'prequels' and I had NO
interest in seeing what led up to one of the great films of
my youth, Star Wars. I preferred to pretend there were
no prequels, ha. But out of sheer boredom and a sudden need
to see how Darth Vader became Darth Vader - or shall I say,
how Anakin became Darth, I watched. I really only got to see him
have that neat CGI laser battle with Obi-Wan. Good casting there!
And then, and then...ewwwwwwwwww...so that's what happened to him!
He kind of caught on fire and was incinerated and his face kind of...
melted off.
However, I am now confused. Was he a machine? It looked like
his limbs, what was left of them, were robot-like or something.
Oh crap, that'll teach ME to come in on the last half hour of a movie
trilogy! Anyway, poor Padme, or whatever her name is. Pops out the twins,
Luke and Leia and then she's off, with funeral flowers in her hair.
And Luke goes to live with his aunt and uncle and
we end with those two glorious suns in the distance...
the same suns Luke looks at when he grows up and becomes
the hottie that all 10 year olds will swoon over.
Seriously. Someone answer my question. What was up
with Anakin? Did he have a metallic body? He was like this
pile o' goo, and then they gave him the DARTH VADER outfit
and voila!
I can't believe Jimmy Smits was in this movie. That was just wrong. In
so many ways.
Earlier this evening, while ignoring the Evil Math Books
on the table, I was lying on the couch, channel-surfing.
I caught the last half-hour of the final Star Wars trilogy.
Which trilogy you ask? Oh hell, the most recent trilogy.
I purposely never saw any of those films; George Lucas
really frosted my cake with these 'prequels' and I had NO
interest in seeing what led up to one of the great films of
my youth, Star Wars. I preferred to pretend there were
no prequels, ha. But out of sheer boredom and a sudden need
to see how Darth Vader became Darth Vader - or shall I say,
how Anakin became Darth, I watched. I really only got to see him
have that neat CGI laser battle with Obi-Wan. Good casting there!
And then, and then...ewwwwwwwwww...so that's what happened to him!
He kind of caught on fire and was incinerated and his face kind of...
melted off.
However, I am now confused. Was he a machine? It looked like
his limbs, what was left of them, were robot-like or something.
Oh crap, that'll teach ME to come in on the last half hour of a movie
trilogy! Anyway, poor Padme, or whatever her name is. Pops out the twins,
Luke and Leia and then she's off, with funeral flowers in her hair.
And Luke goes to live with his aunt and uncle and
we end with those two glorious suns in the distance...
the same suns Luke looks at when he grows up and becomes
the hottie that all 10 year olds will swoon over.
Seriously. Someone answer my question. What was up
with Anakin? Did he have a metallic body? He was like this
pile o' goo, and then they gave him the DARTH VADER outfit
and voila!
I can't believe Jimmy Smits was in this movie. That was just wrong. In
so many ways.
Saturday, June 03, 2006
MadameBastet-firing-neurons
MadameBastet-firing-neurons
Oh my GOD I'm having the worst math anxiety attack I've ever had. Honestly, I feel like I'm going to throw up. This is insane. FUCKING MATH! I hate it. HATE IT! I have to take my final CSET test - math and science - my two worst subjects. At least I LIKE science somewhat, even if I wasn't good at it in school. Try as I might, I cannot ever learn to love algebra or geometry. No, I'm sorry, I don't see the beauty in a math equation. I'm an art history teacher! I see beauty at the Louvre - not in a quadratic equation.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Pardon my French but this is my blog and if you don't like it, go away.
I haven't had any serious math since 1984. I'm trying to study for this beast and I'm getting stuck on fucking fractions! All those horrible terms are coming back to haunt me - numerators, denominators, flip this, turn this inside out. If there are two negatives then it's a positive! WHY GOD WHY!
And I remember myself, walking around during those halcyon days of grad school, in existential despair, saying God was probably a mathematical equation. Very mechanistic of me, nice and reductionistic. Reading "The Three Pound Universe" convinced me for a while there was no soul, there was no ME! I was just a head injury away from losing myself. Where do people who get Alzheimer's go??? Who ARE we? Are we ego? Are we spirit? If we are something like x-m = z +y then screw it. If that is God, I am not taking His class!
I'm visual, visual! There's been very little logic to me. I can't do it. How can one tiny test stand in the way of me getting a teaching credential? I KNOW I am a good teacher already - I love my kids - I want to open their minds, help them experience the wonder of the world, teach them creativity, thinking for yourself - I cannot be trapped by numbers forever!
Seriously. This is one of those times where I feel like falling on my knees and praying. Over a stinkin' test! That is how panicked I am. Ah, but I'm good at panic! I may suck at math, but I've got panic down pat! And I try to clear my mind, just breathe, relax, pray...and then as usual, I'm stuck. What do I pray for? Who do I pray to?
Dear God,
Please help me love math. No, scratch that. Please help me pass this horrible test.
And then My Little Problem begins. Voice in the back of my head says "Do you really think God/Universe/He/She/It/Energy/Vishnu/Krishna/Jesus/Buddha/Muhammad CARES ABOUT YOU AND YOUR STUPID MATH TEST! Do you think that God even KNOWS you are alive!
Yes, the deist in me is alive and well. Me: Well, really, doesn't God have more important things to think about? What about those poor children dying of starvation, cancer, bombs, etc.? What about the Congo? Iraq? Darfur? Do you think one person and her stupid math test amounts to a hill of beans in this crazy world?
Ok, then. God, please just give me strength to do what I need to do. To keep going. Give me courage and confidence, if you can't magically give me all the answers to the test on test day.
This is insane. I am NOT going to the gas chamber, but it feels like it.
911 what's your emergency?
Yes, I'm in my house, I can't breath, my heart is racing, it's the linear equations! Dear Sweet God, I can't stand it anymore!
My cats are sleeping like little lumps of cuteness. I am so jealous of them right now. I've lost my mind.
I think I was supposed to write 10 Things I Love About Life yesterday. But yesterday was Bubbles Day at school and I came home so soapy and sticky and hot and tired I forgot what I love about life. Bubbles Day was good.
Math will never be on that list. A Caravaggio, yes. A Renoir, for certain. Algorithms, never.
Oh my GOD I'm having the worst math anxiety attack I've ever had. Honestly, I feel like I'm going to throw up. This is insane. FUCKING MATH! I hate it. HATE IT! I have to take my final CSET test - math and science - my two worst subjects. At least I LIKE science somewhat, even if I wasn't good at it in school. Try as I might, I cannot ever learn to love algebra or geometry. No, I'm sorry, I don't see the beauty in a math equation. I'm an art history teacher! I see beauty at the Louvre - not in a quadratic equation.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Pardon my French but this is my blog and if you don't like it, go away.
I haven't had any serious math since 1984. I'm trying to study for this beast and I'm getting stuck on fucking fractions! All those horrible terms are coming back to haunt me - numerators, denominators, flip this, turn this inside out. If there are two negatives then it's a positive! WHY GOD WHY!
And I remember myself, walking around during those halcyon days of grad school, in existential despair, saying God was probably a mathematical equation. Very mechanistic of me, nice and reductionistic. Reading "The Three Pound Universe" convinced me for a while there was no soul, there was no ME! I was just a head injury away from losing myself. Where do people who get Alzheimer's go??? Who ARE we? Are we ego? Are we spirit? If we are something like x-m = z +y then screw it. If that is God, I am not taking His class!
I'm visual, visual! There's been very little logic to me. I can't do it. How can one tiny test stand in the way of me getting a teaching credential? I KNOW I am a good teacher already - I love my kids - I want to open their minds, help them experience the wonder of the world, teach them creativity, thinking for yourself - I cannot be trapped by numbers forever!
Seriously. This is one of those times where I feel like falling on my knees and praying. Over a stinkin' test! That is how panicked I am. Ah, but I'm good at panic! I may suck at math, but I've got panic down pat! And I try to clear my mind, just breathe, relax, pray...and then as usual, I'm stuck. What do I pray for? Who do I pray to?
Dear God,
Please help me love math. No, scratch that. Please help me pass this horrible test.
And then My Little Problem begins. Voice in the back of my head says "Do you really think God/Universe/He/She/It/Energy/Vishnu/Krishna/Jesus/Buddha/Muhammad CARES ABOUT YOU AND YOUR STUPID MATH TEST! Do you think that God even KNOWS you are alive!
Yes, the deist in me is alive and well. Me: Well, really, doesn't God have more important things to think about? What about those poor children dying of starvation, cancer, bombs, etc.? What about the Congo? Iraq? Darfur? Do you think one person and her stupid math test amounts to a hill of beans in this crazy world?
Ok, then. God, please just give me strength to do what I need to do. To keep going. Give me courage and confidence, if you can't magically give me all the answers to the test on test day.
This is insane. I am NOT going to the gas chamber, but it feels like it.
911 what's your emergency?
Yes, I'm in my house, I can't breath, my heart is racing, it's the linear equations! Dear Sweet God, I can't stand it anymore!
My cats are sleeping like little lumps of cuteness. I am so jealous of them right now. I've lost my mind.
I think I was supposed to write 10 Things I Love About Life yesterday. But yesterday was Bubbles Day at school and I came home so soapy and sticky and hot and tired I forgot what I love about life. Bubbles Day was good.
Math will never be on that list. A Caravaggio, yes. A Renoir, for certain. Algorithms, never.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
MadameBastet-firing-neurons
MadameBastet-firing-neurons
Dispatches from the Comfort Zone and Why I Love Anderson Cooper
Last week I received Anderson Cooper's book "Dispatches From The Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival" in the mail from Amazon.com. I read it in two hours. In his beautiful book interweaving his own life with the wars and disasters he's covered over the years, Anderson put into words what I have been feeling about my life for the last decade. Odd, because we have led completely different lives. He was born to American royalty; an iconic mother....a glittering life of famous names and places in New York. I grew up in an upper middle class suburb of Los Angeles; the only connections we have is that we were both born in 1967, we both went to private, expensive universities, we both have a brother, and we've both experienced the suicide of a close family member. We both lost our fathers suddenly; Anderson at the terribly early age of 10; I at the more reasonable, but still somehow almost unbearable age of 28. Now Anderson is famous, and talented, and probably the only journalist and news anchor I trust anymore. I am a teacher, unknown but not dissatisfied with that - I think fame would drive me insane. He's adored by thousands - I'm adored by two cats. Actually, I had to make up that last line. I think the cats just tolerate me.
On page 15, Anderson writes: "Sometimes I wonder if I'm the person I was born to be, if the life I've lived really is the one I was meant to, or if it is some half life, a mutation engineered by loss, cobbled together by the will to survive."
No human being on earth has ever spoken the words my soul has been trying to find for years and years. Therapy, pills, ghosts, tears, my own writing - nothing worked to articulate the sense that perhaps my life would've been different had I not fallen so ill in 1994, and lost so many years to illness. What of my father's cruel and untimely death? What would things be like now? Who would I be if I did not fight pain and fatigue daily? Would I have done more? Less? Does it really matter? No. Because I'll never know. I don't really torture myself too much with the questions anymore; it's pointless. I have made more peace with my dad than with my body; my body reminds me everyday that it will battle me day after day. That's a tough war to walk away from. So although I'm sure Anderson Cooper wrote that for far different reasons, perhaps they are not so different in the end; perhaps they are all about loss, and just for those few sentences I am eternally grateful.
Anderson Cooper and I have had a long and strange relationship, although of course, he doesn't know it. Hee. And he doesn't have to worry, I am not, as he called them so politely on Larry King tonight, one of those 'highly motivated people' (aka stalkers) that thinks I know him, or have a personal relationship with him, or will, and I'm not planning on taking long walks past his apartment in New York. I'm not going to sit outside CNN waiting for him to walk out. That's just craziness; although poor guy, apparently he's been dealing with it more and more, and with the publication of this book, I fear he is going to simply become more and more trapped by his success. Sad.
I remember first seeing Anderson many years ago - maybe a decade or so, thanks to my ever-present insomnia. I believe it was just before my dad died; I'd wake up at odd hours of the night and turn on the TV. I'd watch ABC News at like 3am and 4am and there was Anderson, so amazingly young! I guess I was young too, as we are the same age. But I remember with such clarity that he seemed older than his years; I don't even recall if his hair had gone completely gray yet. He just posessed a certain intellectual and emotional weight - I knew absolutely nothing about him, his family, his past. I didn't even think he was particularly handsome or anything, and yet something inexplicable drew me to him during those wee morning hours. Perhaps I wondered, "Wow, who's the poor guy who got stuck with this gig?"
Then my father died; death by severe lead poisoning. Ba- dum dum. Thank you, I'll be here all week. And at some point in the insane numbness of grief, when I was reaching out to anyone and anything for comfort, for survival, like a drowning woman clutching at a life raft, I came across a book written by Gloria Vanderbilt called "A Mother's Story" which was about the suicide of her young son Carter, 23, in the summer of 1988. I'd read every book I could find on grief and especially suicide, so naturally I read this one too. Despite the difference in our circumstances; she had lost a child who'd leapt from a building right in front of her and I'd lost a parent who'd I'd found dead in his apartment, her book was one of the most comforting I'd read. I loved reading about Carter; I ached for him, and for Gloria. All I ever knew about Gloria was the 'poor little rich girl' story, that she was a socialite, and had designed some jeans in the late 1970's that were extremely popular when I was in middle school. I never bought a pair.
I remember the cover of that book so clearly - it was a picture of Carter - a full-faced but very handsome young man, and I was so sad for her. I'd worked in the suicide survivors group with so many parents who'd lost children to suicide and I always found them the hardest to work with. Perhaps because I did not have children of my own; perhaps because I felt my grief could never measure the anguish of losing a child, especially in such a horrible manner as suicide. We were not supposed to 'compare' grief; but when you see a parent mourn a child, it is as if everything in the universe has gone topsy-turvy, upside down, inside out. It is beyond wrong. Parents, as it is said, are not supposed to outlive their own children. Parents are not supposed to watch their children leap off balconies 14 floors up; parents are not supposed to watch their 13 year old child immoliate himself in the backyard. So many people asked me, "How can you do that group every week? Doesn't it depress you?" On the contrary.
After Carter committed suicide, Anderson graduated college, and said he felt the need to go where people were experiencing loss; to see how they survived. He needed to be around loss; he was still reeling from his own loss. That is exactly how I felt. How could I /not/ be around other survivors? They were my people, my brothers and sisters. Only /they/ could truly understand what I was feeling. I now belonged to a special group; obviously a group I never would've willingly joined - but I'd crossed the Rubicon, so to speak. I could not go back. My life was forever divided. I needed to tell my story, over and over and over. And I needed to hear others' stories and I needed to tell them in any way I could, Byou will surviveB! I threw myself in the trenches for four years.
What I find odd now about Gloria's book is that perhaps she mentioned Anderson; I honestly don't recall connecting them though. And yet somehow, some years down the line, I finally understood that Anderson Cooper was the son of Gloria Vanderbilt and her last husband, Wyatt Cooper. I found it mildly interesting but not overwhelmingly so.
Now with the publication of Anderson's book (which is currently at the #1 spot on Amazon) everyone who's interested will know. Gloria is 82 years old, and has led an amazingly fascinating life - not the least that she had Anderson at 43 and she's still going strong! And yet I'm more interested in Anderson's passion with keeping the dead alive, with exposing the horrors that most of us turn away from, telling the stories of those who cannot speak for themselves anymore - Rwanda, Serbia, Haiti, Iraq, Darfur, the Congo - talking openly about his brother's suicide, and daring to show compassion, and emotion - even on air.
I will never forget his coverage of Katrina, when he was talking to some moronic Senator who was rambling on and on, thanking politician after politician, and Anderson interrupted her and basically said 'do you realize while politicians are thanking each other, bodies are decomposing in the streets...I saw a woman who's been lying out in the sun for two days being eat by rats and people are angry...do you get that people are angry about this???'
It was a high point in journalism if you ask me. I don't give a shit if he wasn't retaining his 'objectivity' - someone had to finally call those monstrous politicians on their B.S. and glad-handling. People were rotting in the streets, and they were thanking each other for a job well done. Were they blind? Are they sociopaths? Where were their consciences? Well, we now know how Katrina and the aftermath turned out. A horror show. It can't happen here. Oh yes it can. A national tragedy. Anderson's voice cracked during his confrontation of this woman, and I thought, Jesus, finally! Finally, someone who is NOT afraid to tell the truth! To say what we all want to say! To speak truth to power. To cut through the bullshit. He was, and is my hero, just for that one moment. If he never did another thing in his life, that would be enough.
From watching Anderson on about a billion interviews this week, reading his work in Details magazine, reading his book, his blog and watching his show on CNN, I see a lot of myself in him. Perhaps I am projecting. I'm sure a million others feel some mystical connection to him and just know he's their soul mate. I don't feel that way; I don't know him, I don't feel mystically connected to him. I just listen to him speak, and I hear my thoughts about suicide and loss said aloud, and it feels so good to have someone talk about it, without fear, without shame. I am not really allowed to talk about my Dad anymore in my family. I can't talk about his death - which is fine, because I'm all talked out on that subject. I lost the need for answers to my questions years ago. However, even when I talk about my dad's life - the good person he was, the great dad he was, the good things he did I manage to upset my mother and brother. This infuriates me as I feel I worked so fucking hard for so many years to deal with my grief and loss in as healthy a way as possible, and to integrate my dad's death into my life, and to learn to focus more ON HIS LIFE than on how he died. That is no easy task with suicide. I feel sorry for my mom and my brother. I think they are emotionally stunted and choose to live in denial. They have chosen to bury my father, literally and figuratively, forever. They have lied to people about how he died; I refuse to do that. I find that reprehensible. What does that say about my dad, about suicide, about mental illness, depression - what does that say about my brother? Is he ashamed? Of what? He did nothing wrong. If people don't like the truth, they can move on. I am different than my mom and brother. I have always been accused of being too sensitive. Overly sensitive. I cry too easily. I see the cover of Time magazine in the market with victims of Darfur on the cover and my eyes well up. I plead guilty. I am highly sensitive. Sometimes I have to purposely back off and become cynical, use black humour - whatever - to keep me from falling totally apart. I always said I'd rather be too sensitive than not sensitive enough.
It helps to hear someone my age say that we don't talk about loss in America. Someone people look up to and respect. Because we don't talk about loss; we don't want to read about anything but Paris Hilton and the latest plastic surgery innovations. We are more afraid of death and dying than any culture I've ever seen. We're a spoiled, insulated culture. How lucky we are.
We still stigmatize people who take their lives. Sometimes I think we are downright medieval. When my brother's best childhood friend shot and killed himself in his house several years ago, some fucking idiot asked his sister if he was going to be allowed to be buried in a Catholic cemetery. Good God, what century is this? Even the Church, which I detest, finally came around at Vatican II and stated that suicide is a result of mental illness - it's not some sin where the person's going to Hell to burn for all eternity.
Anyway, I'm glad there's an Anderson Cooper out there. I'm grateful. I've gotten so cynical I don't trust anyone anymore. The government, the media - fuck 'em all. However, when I finished his book, I had a little hope. Hope that there is someone out there who truly cares. Anderson goes back to a time when journalists had integrity and honor. He has class, and compassion. He cares. I believe that.
The inevitable backlash will begin, I know. Hell, the poor guy has been raked over the coals for years over his sexual orientation. Straight? Gay? Why won't he just admit he's gay? He has a responsibility to come out for the gay community! Uh, no he doesn't actually. What the hell does it matter what his sexual orientation is? How does this affect his work? How does this impact our lives? Our sexually/celebrity obsessed pathetic lives. It makes no difference to me. I don't see a straight man, a gay man, a handsome man, an ugly man. I see a man who has suffered deeply in his life, despite all the trappings of money, fame, success. I see a man who has made a difference in the lives of thousands. I see a peer I can be proud of. I see a man who is not living a half life - but the fullest life possible. I see an inspiration, a hero. And I don't believe there are very many heroes left anymore.
Dispatches from the Comfort Zone and Why I Love Anderson Cooper
Last week I received Anderson Cooper's book "Dispatches From The Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival" in the mail from Amazon.com. I read it in two hours. In his beautiful book interweaving his own life with the wars and disasters he's covered over the years, Anderson put into words what I have been feeling about my life for the last decade. Odd, because we have led completely different lives. He was born to American royalty; an iconic mother....a glittering life of famous names and places in New York. I grew up in an upper middle class suburb of Los Angeles; the only connections we have is that we were both born in 1967, we both went to private, expensive universities, we both have a brother, and we've both experienced the suicide of a close family member. We both lost our fathers suddenly; Anderson at the terribly early age of 10; I at the more reasonable, but still somehow almost unbearable age of 28. Now Anderson is famous, and talented, and probably the only journalist and news anchor I trust anymore. I am a teacher, unknown but not dissatisfied with that - I think fame would drive me insane. He's adored by thousands - I'm adored by two cats. Actually, I had to make up that last line. I think the cats just tolerate me.
On page 15, Anderson writes: "Sometimes I wonder if I'm the person I was born to be, if the life I've lived really is the one I was meant to, or if it is some half life, a mutation engineered by loss, cobbled together by the will to survive."
No human being on earth has ever spoken the words my soul has been trying to find for years and years. Therapy, pills, ghosts, tears, my own writing - nothing worked to articulate the sense that perhaps my life would've been different had I not fallen so ill in 1994, and lost so many years to illness. What of my father's cruel and untimely death? What would things be like now? Who would I be if I did not fight pain and fatigue daily? Would I have done more? Less? Does it really matter? No. Because I'll never know. I don't really torture myself too much with the questions anymore; it's pointless. I have made more peace with my dad than with my body; my body reminds me everyday that it will battle me day after day. That's a tough war to walk away from. So although I'm sure Anderson Cooper wrote that for far different reasons, perhaps they are not so different in the end; perhaps they are all about loss, and just for those few sentences I am eternally grateful.
Anderson Cooper and I have had a long and strange relationship, although of course, he doesn't know it. Hee. And he doesn't have to worry, I am not, as he called them so politely on Larry King tonight, one of those 'highly motivated people' (aka stalkers) that thinks I know him, or have a personal relationship with him, or will, and I'm not planning on taking long walks past his apartment in New York. I'm not going to sit outside CNN waiting for him to walk out. That's just craziness; although poor guy, apparently he's been dealing with it more and more, and with the publication of this book, I fear he is going to simply become more and more trapped by his success. Sad.
I remember first seeing Anderson many years ago - maybe a decade or so, thanks to my ever-present insomnia. I believe it was just before my dad died; I'd wake up at odd hours of the night and turn on the TV. I'd watch ABC News at like 3am and 4am and there was Anderson, so amazingly young! I guess I was young too, as we are the same age. But I remember with such clarity that he seemed older than his years; I don't even recall if his hair had gone completely gray yet. He just posessed a certain intellectual and emotional weight - I knew absolutely nothing about him, his family, his past. I didn't even think he was particularly handsome or anything, and yet something inexplicable drew me to him during those wee morning hours. Perhaps I wondered, "Wow, who's the poor guy who got stuck with this gig?"
Then my father died; death by severe lead poisoning. Ba- dum dum. Thank you, I'll be here all week. And at some point in the insane numbness of grief, when I was reaching out to anyone and anything for comfort, for survival, like a drowning woman clutching at a life raft, I came across a book written by Gloria Vanderbilt called "A Mother's Story" which was about the suicide of her young son Carter, 23, in the summer of 1988. I'd read every book I could find on grief and especially suicide, so naturally I read this one too. Despite the difference in our circumstances; she had lost a child who'd leapt from a building right in front of her and I'd lost a parent who'd I'd found dead in his apartment, her book was one of the most comforting I'd read. I loved reading about Carter; I ached for him, and for Gloria. All I ever knew about Gloria was the 'poor little rich girl' story, that she was a socialite, and had designed some jeans in the late 1970's that were extremely popular when I was in middle school. I never bought a pair.
I remember the cover of that book so clearly - it was a picture of Carter - a full-faced but very handsome young man, and I was so sad for her. I'd worked in the suicide survivors group with so many parents who'd lost children to suicide and I always found them the hardest to work with. Perhaps because I did not have children of my own; perhaps because I felt my grief could never measure the anguish of losing a child, especially in such a horrible manner as suicide. We were not supposed to 'compare' grief; but when you see a parent mourn a child, it is as if everything in the universe has gone topsy-turvy, upside down, inside out. It is beyond wrong. Parents, as it is said, are not supposed to outlive their own children. Parents are not supposed to watch their children leap off balconies 14 floors up; parents are not supposed to watch their 13 year old child immoliate himself in the backyard. So many people asked me, "How can you do that group every week? Doesn't it depress you?" On the contrary.
After Carter committed suicide, Anderson graduated college, and said he felt the need to go where people were experiencing loss; to see how they survived. He needed to be around loss; he was still reeling from his own loss. That is exactly how I felt. How could I /not/ be around other survivors? They were my people, my brothers and sisters. Only /they/ could truly understand what I was feeling. I now belonged to a special group; obviously a group I never would've willingly joined - but I'd crossed the Rubicon, so to speak. I could not go back. My life was forever divided. I needed to tell my story, over and over and over. And I needed to hear others' stories and I needed to tell them in any way I could, Byou will surviveB! I threw myself in the trenches for four years.
What I find odd now about Gloria's book is that perhaps she mentioned Anderson; I honestly don't recall connecting them though. And yet somehow, some years down the line, I finally understood that Anderson Cooper was the son of Gloria Vanderbilt and her last husband, Wyatt Cooper. I found it mildly interesting but not overwhelmingly so.
Now with the publication of Anderson's book (which is currently at the #1 spot on Amazon) everyone who's interested will know. Gloria is 82 years old, and has led an amazingly fascinating life - not the least that she had Anderson at 43 and she's still going strong! And yet I'm more interested in Anderson's passion with keeping the dead alive, with exposing the horrors that most of us turn away from, telling the stories of those who cannot speak for themselves anymore - Rwanda, Serbia, Haiti, Iraq, Darfur, the Congo - talking openly about his brother's suicide, and daring to show compassion, and emotion - even on air.
I will never forget his coverage of Katrina, when he was talking to some moronic Senator who was rambling on and on, thanking politician after politician, and Anderson interrupted her and basically said 'do you realize while politicians are thanking each other, bodies are decomposing in the streets...I saw a woman who's been lying out in the sun for two days being eat by rats and people are angry...do you get that people are angry about this???'
It was a high point in journalism if you ask me. I don't give a shit if he wasn't retaining his 'objectivity' - someone had to finally call those monstrous politicians on their B.S. and glad-handling. People were rotting in the streets, and they were thanking each other for a job well done. Were they blind? Are they sociopaths? Where were their consciences? Well, we now know how Katrina and the aftermath turned out. A horror show. It can't happen here. Oh yes it can. A national tragedy. Anderson's voice cracked during his confrontation of this woman, and I thought, Jesus, finally! Finally, someone who is NOT afraid to tell the truth! To say what we all want to say! To speak truth to power. To cut through the bullshit. He was, and is my hero, just for that one moment. If he never did another thing in his life, that would be enough.
From watching Anderson on about a billion interviews this week, reading his work in Details magazine, reading his book, his blog and watching his show on CNN, I see a lot of myself in him. Perhaps I am projecting. I'm sure a million others feel some mystical connection to him and just know he's their soul mate. I don't feel that way; I don't know him, I don't feel mystically connected to him. I just listen to him speak, and I hear my thoughts about suicide and loss said aloud, and it feels so good to have someone talk about it, without fear, without shame. I am not really allowed to talk about my Dad anymore in my family. I can't talk about his death - which is fine, because I'm all talked out on that subject. I lost the need for answers to my questions years ago. However, even when I talk about my dad's life - the good person he was, the great dad he was, the good things he did I manage to upset my mother and brother. This infuriates me as I feel I worked so fucking hard for so many years to deal with my grief and loss in as healthy a way as possible, and to integrate my dad's death into my life, and to learn to focus more ON HIS LIFE than on how he died. That is no easy task with suicide. I feel sorry for my mom and my brother. I think they are emotionally stunted and choose to live in denial. They have chosen to bury my father, literally and figuratively, forever. They have lied to people about how he died; I refuse to do that. I find that reprehensible. What does that say about my dad, about suicide, about mental illness, depression - what does that say about my brother? Is he ashamed? Of what? He did nothing wrong. If people don't like the truth, they can move on. I am different than my mom and brother. I have always been accused of being too sensitive. Overly sensitive. I cry too easily. I see the cover of Time magazine in the market with victims of Darfur on the cover and my eyes well up. I plead guilty. I am highly sensitive. Sometimes I have to purposely back off and become cynical, use black humour - whatever - to keep me from falling totally apart. I always said I'd rather be too sensitive than not sensitive enough.
It helps to hear someone my age say that we don't talk about loss in America. Someone people look up to and respect. Because we don't talk about loss; we don't want to read about anything but Paris Hilton and the latest plastic surgery innovations. We are more afraid of death and dying than any culture I've ever seen. We're a spoiled, insulated culture. How lucky we are.
We still stigmatize people who take their lives. Sometimes I think we are downright medieval. When my brother's best childhood friend shot and killed himself in his house several years ago, some fucking idiot asked his sister if he was going to be allowed to be buried in a Catholic cemetery. Good God, what century is this? Even the Church, which I detest, finally came around at Vatican II and stated that suicide is a result of mental illness - it's not some sin where the person's going to Hell to burn for all eternity.
Anyway, I'm glad there's an Anderson Cooper out there. I'm grateful. I've gotten so cynical I don't trust anyone anymore. The government, the media - fuck 'em all. However, when I finished his book, I had a little hope. Hope that there is someone out there who truly cares. Anderson goes back to a time when journalists had integrity and honor. He has class, and compassion. He cares. I believe that.
The inevitable backlash will begin, I know. Hell, the poor guy has been raked over the coals for years over his sexual orientation. Straight? Gay? Why won't he just admit he's gay? He has a responsibility to come out for the gay community! Uh, no he doesn't actually. What the hell does it matter what his sexual orientation is? How does this affect his work? How does this impact our lives? Our sexually/celebrity obsessed pathetic lives. It makes no difference to me. I don't see a straight man, a gay man, a handsome man, an ugly man. I see a man who has suffered deeply in his life, despite all the trappings of money, fame, success. I see a man who has made a difference in the lives of thousands. I see a peer I can be proud of. I see a man who is not living a half life - but the fullest life possible. I see an inspiration, a hero. And I don't believe there are very many heroes left anymore.
MadameBastet-firing-neurons
MadameBastet-firing-neurons
10 Things I Hate About Life:
1) Perfectly-abled people who take handicapped parking spaces.
I hope Karma gets their license plate numbers.
2)Rudeness. There are very few reasons we should be rude to each other on this planet.
3) People who hurt/kill/harm in any way small, defenseless animals. My blood boils. My eyes tear up. I become enraged. I saw a story about some boys who beat some ducklings to death with a stick, all the while, laughing. I hope there is a special place in Hell for sick bastards like this.
4)People who speed and tailgate on the freeway, then dart in and out of traffic at 120 mph and never get caught. They are the ones who will cause someone else to get killed. If I ever see one of these idiots wrapped around a pole, don't expect me to call 911.
5)Naturally, the Evil Triumvirate, with which I have become oddly obsessed lately, seeing as how I was never very political. However, when I heard the Constitution being put through the shredder, I woke up.
6)America's total disregard for education in any form. I live in a country that embraces, and celebrates, mediocrity and stupidity. As an educator, this saddens me beyond words.
7)Laziness. Slothfulness? Sloth-like behaviour. People who will circle a parking lot 100 times to get a spot close to the doors of the Wal-Mart. You know, a little walking won't kill you America!
8)Extremism and fundamentalism in any way, shape or form. And it comes it all sizes, shapes and colours too. European arrogance and anti-Western hatred falls under this umbrella of generalism. Not all Americans are lazy, stupid, Bush-loving racist pigs who have no respect for human life and dignity. I'm talking to you Frenchies.
9)Brangelina and their supid Shiloh-Messiah baby. Ok, so the baby can't help being born. But for the love of Christ on the Cross, will someone please STOP THE MEDIA FROM REPORTING ON THESE PEOPLE!
10) Sports obsession. Actually, all sports. I admit it. I pretty much hate all sports. Except a really, really good hockey game. And by that I mean, lots of fights! LOL! Seriously, what is it with the sports??
Tomorrow, 10 Things I Love About Life.
I'm sure you can hardly wait.
10 Things I Hate About Life:
1) Perfectly-abled people who take handicapped parking spaces.
I hope Karma gets their license plate numbers.
2)Rudeness. There are very few reasons we should be rude to each other on this planet.
3) People who hurt/kill/harm in any way small, defenseless animals. My blood boils. My eyes tear up. I become enraged. I saw a story about some boys who beat some ducklings to death with a stick, all the while, laughing. I hope there is a special place in Hell for sick bastards like this.
4)People who speed and tailgate on the freeway, then dart in and out of traffic at 120 mph and never get caught. They are the ones who will cause someone else to get killed. If I ever see one of these idiots wrapped around a pole, don't expect me to call 911.
5)Naturally, the Evil Triumvirate, with which I have become oddly obsessed lately, seeing as how I was never very political. However, when I heard the Constitution being put through the shredder, I woke up.
6)America's total disregard for education in any form. I live in a country that embraces, and celebrates, mediocrity and stupidity. As an educator, this saddens me beyond words.
7)Laziness. Slothfulness? Sloth-like behaviour. People who will circle a parking lot 100 times to get a spot close to the doors of the Wal-Mart. You know, a little walking won't kill you America!
8)Extremism and fundamentalism in any way, shape or form. And it comes it all sizes, shapes and colours too. European arrogance and anti-Western hatred falls under this umbrella of generalism. Not all Americans are lazy, stupid, Bush-loving racist pigs who have no respect for human life and dignity. I'm talking to you Frenchies.
9)Brangelina and their supid Shiloh-Messiah baby. Ok, so the baby can't help being born. But for the love of Christ on the Cross, will someone please STOP THE MEDIA FROM REPORTING ON THESE PEOPLE!
10) Sports obsession. Actually, all sports. I admit it. I pretty much hate all sports. Except a really, really good hockey game. And by that I mean, lots of fights! LOL! Seriously, what is it with the sports??
Tomorrow, 10 Things I Love About Life.
I'm sure you can hardly wait.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
MadameBastet-firing-neurons
MadameBastet-firing-neurons
Summer is coming
not on little cat feet though!
Almighty Ra has shown us a glimpse
of what is to come with a blast of furnace heat;
and a bright and shiny day.
The skies are cornflower blue
and the mountains are losing much of the spring greenery
the rains from past years brought.
The kids know it too; only 12 school days left
When told this, 16 eardrum-piercing screams -
didn't you hear them? I thought the entire
coastal valley would've rejoiced with their excitement.
Ah, summer! Oh, parents.
Good luck!
Today was Dylan's birthday.
He wore the king's crown and announced
"Six! Six! Finally I am six!"
as if he'd waited decades for it to happen.
In his world, it no doubt seemed like decades.
He was so excited. Six! If six is this good, then surely seven will be better!
And eight and nine and ten so fine...
at what age do we start to NOT rejoice the day of our birth?
When do we STOP looking forward to it, and START dreading it?
The proverbial 30?
I think for me, it was 25. After that baby,
well you know, it was all down hill. Never mind
getting my health screwed over at 26 -
it just seemed for me, the magic marker that I was leaving true youth
behind.
Suddenly the strangest thing started to happen.
People all around me were getting younger and younger.
Thirty wasn't too bad. And now I wait for 40 - with glee!
Why not? Why keep dreading the celebration that you are still here,
still breathing, still privy to all the madness, the good, the bad, the ugly,
even the desperate hours when all seems lost.
I am tired of dreading.
I am utterly positive that some strange creature
gathered all my little chicklets together before class this morning
and gave them immense amounts of sugar.
They all seemed like they were high as kites; bouncing off the walls
unable to sit, be quiet or even impersonate a well-behaved child.
They took their first and last writing test for their report card.
Griffin misunderstood and only wrote one sentence. He cried.
Jamie started to give him grief and I sent him away to let Griffin know
it was OK; he could have another chance. His little tears crush my heart.
I know he is having a hard time with the divorce and I wonder,
what will this do to his life? You can see so clearly how it affects a child so deeply, so utterly profoundly at this age.
We played with coins today; the goal was to teach the value of money.
Ha! Children, we know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Please go home and look up Oscar Wilde.
They took magnifying glasses to look at all the States' quarters.
Glee!
Dylan said, "Metal on metal makes me nervous. So does metal on concrete."
I guess the sound of change in his pocket makes him nervous. Haha! For some reason, the way he said it, cracked me up.
Someday he'll come to love that ka-ching noise!
I asked, "Who is on the quarter?"
George Washington they all cried!
And "Why is George Washington important to us?"
Because he flew jet planes really fast, said Tyler.
I wonder what program Tyler was watching in his head.
Who is on the nickel I asked?
No one knew this.
I had two students answer,
"George Bush?"
I laughed, and said "No, Thomas Jefferson."
Inside I screamed and thought, "DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN NO! THANK GO NO!"
So Dylan blew out his candle as birthday king, Natalie cut her finger, Dominique went home with an earache, Griffin cried, Tanner and Jamie got in a shoving match over a chair, Brooke was Superstar, and two students thought the Devil was on our money.
All in all, a pretty normal day.
Summer is coming
not on little cat feet though!
Almighty Ra has shown us a glimpse
of what is to come with a blast of furnace heat;
and a bright and shiny day.
The skies are cornflower blue
and the mountains are losing much of the spring greenery
the rains from past years brought.
The kids know it too; only 12 school days left
When told this, 16 eardrum-piercing screams -
didn't you hear them? I thought the entire
coastal valley would've rejoiced with their excitement.
Ah, summer! Oh, parents.
Good luck!
Today was Dylan's birthday.
He wore the king's crown and announced
"Six! Six! Finally I am six!"
as if he'd waited decades for it to happen.
In his world, it no doubt seemed like decades.
He was so excited. Six! If six is this good, then surely seven will be better!
And eight and nine and ten so fine...
at what age do we start to NOT rejoice the day of our birth?
When do we STOP looking forward to it, and START dreading it?
The proverbial 30?
I think for me, it was 25. After that baby,
well you know, it was all down hill. Never mind
getting my health screwed over at 26 -
it just seemed for me, the magic marker that I was leaving true youth
behind.
Suddenly the strangest thing started to happen.
People all around me were getting younger and younger.
Thirty wasn't too bad. And now I wait for 40 - with glee!
Why not? Why keep dreading the celebration that you are still here,
still breathing, still privy to all the madness, the good, the bad, the ugly,
even the desperate hours when all seems lost.
I am tired of dreading.
I am utterly positive that some strange creature
gathered all my little chicklets together before class this morning
and gave them immense amounts of sugar.
They all seemed like they were high as kites; bouncing off the walls
unable to sit, be quiet or even impersonate a well-behaved child.
They took their first and last writing test for their report card.
Griffin misunderstood and only wrote one sentence. He cried.
Jamie started to give him grief and I sent him away to let Griffin know
it was OK; he could have another chance. His little tears crush my heart.
I know he is having a hard time with the divorce and I wonder,
what will this do to his life? You can see so clearly how it affects a child so deeply, so utterly profoundly at this age.
We played with coins today; the goal was to teach the value of money.
Ha! Children, we know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Please go home and look up Oscar Wilde.
They took magnifying glasses to look at all the States' quarters.
Glee!
Dylan said, "Metal on metal makes me nervous. So does metal on concrete."
I guess the sound of change in his pocket makes him nervous. Haha! For some reason, the way he said it, cracked me up.
Someday he'll come to love that ka-ching noise!
I asked, "Who is on the quarter?"
George Washington they all cried!
And "Why is George Washington important to us?"
Because he flew jet planes really fast, said Tyler.
I wonder what program Tyler was watching in his head.
Who is on the nickel I asked?
No one knew this.
I had two students answer,
"George Bush?"
I laughed, and said "No, Thomas Jefferson."
Inside I screamed and thought, "DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN NO! THANK GO NO!"
So Dylan blew out his candle as birthday king, Natalie cut her finger, Dominique went home with an earache, Griffin cried, Tanner and Jamie got in a shoving match over a chair, Brooke was Superstar, and two students thought the Devil was on our money.
All in all, a pretty normal day.
Monday, May 29, 2006
MadameBastet-firing-neurons
MadameBastet-firing-neurons
Monday morning, six a.m.
Been up since 4 - can't sleep again.
Memorial Day today.
Seem to be having some hormone -induced crisis
Where am I, where am I going, where have I been
what am I doing?
I'm in some self-imposed purgatory now...
I'll be leaving my kids in less than two weeks
School's out...for summer
I'll have other classes but these chicka dees and chicka doos
were my first and I won't ever forget them
(Oh yeah you will, you say)
No I won't...I got a loooooooooooooooong memory. Too long.
My little pumpkins are 'graduating' on the 14th - being promoted to 1st grade
Dominique told me she's scared to go to first grade...
I felt like Dr. Seuss - oh oh but the places you'll go!
You have so much ahead of you!
I know it all won't be a bed of roses;
But my little darling buds, I'll miss you more than you know.
So no school, no classes this summer;
another bitch of a test - math and science, my two worst subjects.
I'm neither here nor there; still waiting to see about my credential status.
I feel like I have no identity when I'm not working.
I am what I do?
How American is that.
I hate that about this country.
What do you do? Fuckin' stupid question.
It's hard to just be.
The Eastern world has it all over us with that...just be, not do.
Easier said than done.
It's hard to shut out the voices saying
you should be more
you should weigh less
you should have more
do more
see more
you should not be in pain
you should not get depressed
you should have this and have that
you should should should
what did we tell people in the grief groups?
Oh yeah, don't should all over yerselves...haha.
I ain't go no...satisfaction
and I tried and I tried and I tried...
Is this all there is? Is this as good as it gets?
Sometimes it's so good I can't stand it (my kids, music, art, laughter, books, movies, yummy food, family, friends, the warmth of Zoe sleeping next to me)
Sometimes it's so bad I don't want to stand it anymore.
Yesterday I listened to After Everything, Now This
which I think is the greatest title ever and one of my all-time favourite CD's.
Reminds me of Cathy and Alex and other times and places long gone
and that makes me kind of sad. I never thought Cathy and I would not be friends. What happened? Four years in and sometimes I think, what a waste. It should never have happened this way.
Sometimes I just want to say:
Shut the hell up
spoiled girl!!
I have the luxury of paralysis through analysis as my pop used to say
I know this.
I can sit here with my 1000 thread count sheets in my over-priced but tiny apartment...
Still, with all the food I want, all the things I need, kitties sleeping at my feet
Creature comforts abound.
Indonesia hit with another mind-numbing disaster
Why is it the places that are so fragile, still recovering from major disasters
keep getting hit again and again?
They don't have time to sit around and say "Oh what shall I do today?"
As Eliot said, "Should I eat a peach? Dare to wear my trousers rolled..."
No they must search through the wreckage of their lives
bury the dead
try to stay alive
No luxurious existential moments for them.
I wish I was there....moving concrete...giving food, holding a hand
because I need to get out of myself and into the rest of the world
to shake off this narcisstic indulgence;
the what ifs the what fors the poor me's.
As St. Oprah says (oh and maybe that thing called the Bible? )
This too shall pass.
Monday morning, six a.m.
Been up since 4 - can't sleep again.
Memorial Day today.
Seem to be having some hormone -induced crisis
Where am I, where am I going, where have I been
what am I doing?
I'm in some self-imposed purgatory now...
I'll be leaving my kids in less than two weeks
School's out...for summer
I'll have other classes but these chicka dees and chicka doos
were my first and I won't ever forget them
(Oh yeah you will, you say)
No I won't...I got a loooooooooooooooong memory. Too long.
My little pumpkins are 'graduating' on the 14th - being promoted to 1st grade
Dominique told me she's scared to go to first grade...
I felt like Dr. Seuss - oh oh but the places you'll go!
You have so much ahead of you!
I know it all won't be a bed of roses;
But my little darling buds, I'll miss you more than you know.
So no school, no classes this summer;
another bitch of a test - math and science, my two worst subjects.
I'm neither here nor there; still waiting to see about my credential status.
I feel like I have no identity when I'm not working.
I am what I do?
How American is that.
I hate that about this country.
What do you do? Fuckin' stupid question.
It's hard to just be.
The Eastern world has it all over us with that...just be, not do.
Easier said than done.
It's hard to shut out the voices saying
you should be more
you should weigh less
you should have more
do more
see more
you should not be in pain
you should not get depressed
you should have this and have that
you should should should
what did we tell people in the grief groups?
Oh yeah, don't should all over yerselves...haha.
I ain't go no...satisfaction
and I tried and I tried and I tried...
Is this all there is? Is this as good as it gets?
Sometimes it's so good I can't stand it (my kids, music, art, laughter, books, movies, yummy food, family, friends, the warmth of Zoe sleeping next to me)
Sometimes it's so bad I don't want to stand it anymore.
Yesterday I listened to After Everything, Now This
which I think is the greatest title ever and one of my all-time favourite CD's.
Reminds me of Cathy and Alex and other times and places long gone
and that makes me kind of sad. I never thought Cathy and I would not be friends. What happened? Four years in and sometimes I think, what a waste. It should never have happened this way.
Sometimes I just want to say:
Shut the hell up
spoiled girl!!
I have the luxury of paralysis through analysis as my pop used to say
I know this.
I can sit here with my 1000 thread count sheets in my over-priced but tiny apartment...
Still, with all the food I want, all the things I need, kitties sleeping at my feet
Creature comforts abound.
Indonesia hit with another mind-numbing disaster
Why is it the places that are so fragile, still recovering from major disasters
keep getting hit again and again?
They don't have time to sit around and say "Oh what shall I do today?"
As Eliot said, "Should I eat a peach? Dare to wear my trousers rolled..."
No they must search through the wreckage of their lives
bury the dead
try to stay alive
No luxurious existential moments for them.
I wish I was there....moving concrete...giving food, holding a hand
because I need to get out of myself and into the rest of the world
to shake off this narcisstic indulgence;
the what ifs the what fors the poor me's.
As St. Oprah says (oh and maybe that thing called the Bible? )
This too shall pass.
Sunday, May 28, 2006
MadameBastet-firing-neurons
MadameBastet-firing-neurons
It's almost 1am on Sunday morning
and I'm sitting here so pissed off I can barely type.
I have just one question, one tiny question:
WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH AMERICA???????
I mean, besides the triumvirate of Pure Evil that currently
works out of 1600...perhaps I should rephrase the question:
Why can't *anyone* in this fucking country do their job correctly?
Now before I go off on a rant sounding supercilious, smug and self-righteous,
let me be the first to state I am human, and of course I too make mistakes.
But I do my job, I go to school, I do my work, I do what's asked of me. I try very, very hard to do whatever job I have correctly.
Is it me? Am I crazy? I swear to whatever exists in this ass-backward universe that I spend at least 1/3 of my time rectifying other people's mistakes.
Cases in point:
1) I have recevied one letter from the IRS telling me I owe them $700.
I have now also received one letter from the Social Security Administration telling me my last name does not match up with my social security number.
HOW IN THE FUCK DID THIS HAPPEN? The IRS told me their 'system' (is this a machine system, or a human system?) has somehow split my last time into two parts. One part of me owes them nothing. The other part of me owes them $700 and is now in trouble with the Social Security Administration. I'll probably be put on some freakin' list now at the airport.
I have had the SAME mother****** last name for 39 years and 31 days! I have not married! I have not changed it! I have been filing tax returns for 20 years with the same last name! ARE YOU PEOPLE SMOKING CRACK????? Put the PIPES DOWN and DO YOUR JOBS!
2)Mail delivery. Oh this is a favourite of mine. Yes, the question here is not why postal workers go 'postal' - but why more people don't go postal on their mail carriers. Today I opened my door to find a bag of mail hanging from it. Why? Where did it come from? Did someone leave it there? Was an entire day's worth of my mail stuck in someone else's box? Because I got my mail in my box today! I have lost more mail, and have had more mail NOT GET TO ME because of the major incompetence of postal carriers. I wish I had a killer dog.
3) Bills - specifically, medical. Ok. I have been billed $84.32 TWICE in a week from the SAME hospital - even AFTER they received my check for said amount and cashed it. I've also just received a bill for $12.00 for a chest x-ray from another hospital and I have NO IDEA WHY. Check your records you morons - the CHECK CASHED! STOP SENDING ME THE SAME BILL EVERY 30 SECONDS!!!!
4) Banks. Oh god. Where do I begin? Once I ordered checks from the bank and they sent box after box after box after box with the wrong design. Why did I keep insisting they send me the right box - I mean, who cares about a stupid design right? I really didn't but it became very quickly a matter of principle I guess. And I am a Taurus. I can outwait anyone. I wanted them to pay and pay and pay and pay for the wasted checks until they got it right. It wasn't freakin' brain surgery.
5)Florists. I must have the worst luck in the world with these people. Whether I use florists in town, or online, they NEVER get the order right. The flowers look like crap, or it's the wrong arrangement, or they're sent on the wrong DAY, too late, too early - I have given up on flowers. Or they arrive half dead. Just pick a weed and know I love you.
6) The cable company. Every.Single.Month. My.Bill.Is.Different. I mean, apparently I don't have any set rate for my cable. Every time I call and try to get them to explain to me what the hell they're doing, they start speaking Greek. We finally settle on a number, and then the next month I'm paying $120, the month after that, $65, the month after that $95. What? Do they just pick a number out of their asses and give it to me? ALL for the same cable every month.
7) Academia. Oh my sweet Lord, where do I begin on this one. I've spent the majority of my life either as a student or a teacher in schools. I've been on both sides of the podium. And both sides pretty much suck, but I gotta say, no one entity could be more screwed up and bitter than the administration at colleges. They hate the faculty. I mean, HATE. They hate the students. They probably hate their miserable little lives. When I worked at two colleges as an instructor, I spent more time correcting the mistakes that the administrators made than I EVER DID CORRECTING MY STUDENTS. These people are one step away from monkeys. Or how about being a student? Just last week, I call the school, they tell me my class is in one building. I get there, and by the grace of God, run into other lost people, because, as it turns out, the class was moved to an entirely different building in a different classroom. So I spent 20 minutes in one building, looking for a room that didn't exist. NO ONE BOTHERED TO TELL US THE CLASS HAD BEEN MOVED. It was a miracle we found it.
8) Pharmacies: Inevitably, I also have bad luck with pharmacies. As I have fibromyalgia, I'm on a few medicines, so I have to interact with these people on a monthly basis. I can't count the times I've been given the WRONG pills. Hello! This could kill someone! Like me! Or how about they don't even HAVE the medication in stock? Or they give you a few pills until they get the medication in, and you run out because it's been a week, but they still don't have the medication, and they REFUSE TO TRANSFER YOUR PRESCRIPTION so you can get your medicine!
9) Mechanics: Well, right off the bat I'm screwed here because I'm a woman. So I try really hard to know what's wrong with my car, and to find out how much it SHOULD cost. And yet, how many times have I picked up my car, driven 25 feet and found THE VERY PROBLEM I TOOK IT IN FOR WAS STILL THERE!
10) Dry cleaners. Again, this problem really seems to follow me more than others. AM I CURSED? I took a beautiful green silk skirt to the dry cleaners last year, and someone stole it. At the dry cleaners. Naturally, the owners would not admit this. They wouldn't admit they lost it. They tried to insinuate that I never brought it in. I am not insane. I wanted that skirt dry-cleaned for my brother's wedding. I BROUGHT IT IN. I tossed my house upside down and inside out three times looking for it and even looked IN THE OVEN for the skirt. It was gone. Somehow, my clothes disappear, buttons break, and things generally look worse when I get them back from the drycleaners. I have tried different ones, believe me. THIEVING BASTARDS! I'll never get over that skirt. I LOVED THAT SKIRT! It was a thing of beauty.
11)Doctors. After 12 1/2 years of being in the medical mill, I have nothing kind to say about doctors except that yes, they are a necessary evil. I have met doctors who are so stunningly arrogant, smug, nasty, mean, dismissive and downright fuckin' nuts that the only thing I can wish for them is Karma. I wish they could experience the pain of the patients they so easily dismiss. Doctors are treated like Gods here. They make you wait obscene amounts of time, shove you in a cold examining room, make you wear a napkin and sit there like an idiot for an even more obscene amount of time, before they come in, don't listen to you, and then leave.
I could go ON and ON and ON and ON...as I said, of course I make mistakes, but it seems to people like this country is truly falling apart. Why? No one seems to take pride in their work. No one can communicate, especially in California, and if you think that's racist, it's REALISTIC. Come live in Los Angeles for a while. Why is it racist to want everyone to speak ONE common language so we can all communicate for business purposes? No one seems to care. Corporations are so huge now that customer service is a quaint thing of the past. Go on, complain. Call the manager, write a letter. No one gives a shit. They don't care if they lose you as a customer because there are 10 more schmucks behind you ready to take your place.
How do you fight the post office? Oh I can't wait to call Social Security on Tuesday. They sent me a form. They want me to prove I'm me. It's genius. I guess I have to send them, what? A copy of my social security card? Shouldn't they have that on file? Should I just explain, look, I've been me since 1967. These are my numbers, this is my name. It hasn't changed. I'm not two people. I'm one person, the same person, I'm me. And me doesn't owe the IRS shit.
I have just one thing to say to them: You turn me back into ONE person, with ONE name or the Evil Half of Me is going to make your lives a living hell.
Now that's something I promise I'll make good on.
And these are just tiny, fairly inconsequential mistakes, I realize that. What about hurricane Katrina? My God in Heaven, was that the biggest disaster ever? Or people who are 'accidentally' killed in hospitals...given the wrong drugs, wrong limbs being cut off...or, how about, oops, we didn't find any weapons of mass destruction, but hey, the war's on now, so we can't stop...I could go on and on. Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky.
Or maybe this country has gotten worse. Sadly, I honestly think it's the latter.
It's almost 1am on Sunday morning
and I'm sitting here so pissed off I can barely type.
I have just one question, one tiny question:
WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH AMERICA???????
I mean, besides the triumvirate of Pure Evil that currently
works out of 1600...perhaps I should rephrase the question:
Why can't *anyone* in this fucking country do their job correctly?
Now before I go off on a rant sounding supercilious, smug and self-righteous,
let me be the first to state I am human, and of course I too make mistakes.
But I do my job, I go to school, I do my work, I do what's asked of me. I try very, very hard to do whatever job I have correctly.
Is it me? Am I crazy? I swear to whatever exists in this ass-backward universe that I spend at least 1/3 of my time rectifying other people's mistakes.
Cases in point:
1) I have recevied one letter from the IRS telling me I owe them $700.
I have now also received one letter from the Social Security Administration telling me my last name does not match up with my social security number.
HOW IN THE FUCK DID THIS HAPPEN? The IRS told me their 'system' (is this a machine system, or a human system?) has somehow split my last time into two parts. One part of me owes them nothing. The other part of me owes them $700 and is now in trouble with the Social Security Administration. I'll probably be put on some freakin' list now at the airport.
I have had the SAME mother****** last name for 39 years and 31 days! I have not married! I have not changed it! I have been filing tax returns for 20 years with the same last name! ARE YOU PEOPLE SMOKING CRACK????? Put the PIPES DOWN and DO YOUR JOBS!
2)Mail delivery. Oh this is a favourite of mine. Yes, the question here is not why postal workers go 'postal' - but why more people don't go postal on their mail carriers. Today I opened my door to find a bag of mail hanging from it. Why? Where did it come from? Did someone leave it there? Was an entire day's worth of my mail stuck in someone else's box? Because I got my mail in my box today! I have lost more mail, and have had more mail NOT GET TO ME because of the major incompetence of postal carriers. I wish I had a killer dog.
3) Bills - specifically, medical. Ok. I have been billed $84.32 TWICE in a week from the SAME hospital - even AFTER they received my check for said amount and cashed it. I've also just received a bill for $12.00 for a chest x-ray from another hospital and I have NO IDEA WHY. Check your records you morons - the CHECK CASHED! STOP SENDING ME THE SAME BILL EVERY 30 SECONDS!!!!
4) Banks. Oh god. Where do I begin? Once I ordered checks from the bank and they sent box after box after box after box with the wrong design. Why did I keep insisting they send me the right box - I mean, who cares about a stupid design right? I really didn't but it became very quickly a matter of principle I guess. And I am a Taurus. I can outwait anyone. I wanted them to pay and pay and pay and pay for the wasted checks until they got it right. It wasn't freakin' brain surgery.
5)Florists. I must have the worst luck in the world with these people. Whether I use florists in town, or online, they NEVER get the order right. The flowers look like crap, or it's the wrong arrangement, or they're sent on the wrong DAY, too late, too early - I have given up on flowers. Or they arrive half dead. Just pick a weed and know I love you.
6) The cable company. Every.Single.Month. My.Bill.Is.Different. I mean, apparently I don't have any set rate for my cable. Every time I call and try to get them to explain to me what the hell they're doing, they start speaking Greek. We finally settle on a number, and then the next month I'm paying $120, the month after that, $65, the month after that $95. What? Do they just pick a number out of their asses and give it to me? ALL for the same cable every month.
7) Academia. Oh my sweet Lord, where do I begin on this one. I've spent the majority of my life either as a student or a teacher in schools. I've been on both sides of the podium. And both sides pretty much suck, but I gotta say, no one entity could be more screwed up and bitter than the administration at colleges. They hate the faculty. I mean, HATE. They hate the students. They probably hate their miserable little lives. When I worked at two colleges as an instructor, I spent more time correcting the mistakes that the administrators made than I EVER DID CORRECTING MY STUDENTS. These people are one step away from monkeys. Or how about being a student? Just last week, I call the school, they tell me my class is in one building. I get there, and by the grace of God, run into other lost people, because, as it turns out, the class was moved to an entirely different building in a different classroom. So I spent 20 minutes in one building, looking for a room that didn't exist. NO ONE BOTHERED TO TELL US THE CLASS HAD BEEN MOVED. It was a miracle we found it.
8) Pharmacies: Inevitably, I also have bad luck with pharmacies. As I have fibromyalgia, I'm on a few medicines, so I have to interact with these people on a monthly basis. I can't count the times I've been given the WRONG pills. Hello! This could kill someone! Like me! Or how about they don't even HAVE the medication in stock? Or they give you a few pills until they get the medication in, and you run out because it's been a week, but they still don't have the medication, and they REFUSE TO TRANSFER YOUR PRESCRIPTION so you can get your medicine!
9) Mechanics: Well, right off the bat I'm screwed here because I'm a woman. So I try really hard to know what's wrong with my car, and to find out how much it SHOULD cost. And yet, how many times have I picked up my car, driven 25 feet and found THE VERY PROBLEM I TOOK IT IN FOR WAS STILL THERE!
10) Dry cleaners. Again, this problem really seems to follow me more than others. AM I CURSED? I took a beautiful green silk skirt to the dry cleaners last year, and someone stole it. At the dry cleaners. Naturally, the owners would not admit this. They wouldn't admit they lost it. They tried to insinuate that I never brought it in. I am not insane. I wanted that skirt dry-cleaned for my brother's wedding. I BROUGHT IT IN. I tossed my house upside down and inside out three times looking for it and even looked IN THE OVEN for the skirt. It was gone. Somehow, my clothes disappear, buttons break, and things generally look worse when I get them back from the drycleaners. I have tried different ones, believe me. THIEVING BASTARDS! I'll never get over that skirt. I LOVED THAT SKIRT! It was a thing of beauty.
11)Doctors. After 12 1/2 years of being in the medical mill, I have nothing kind to say about doctors except that yes, they are a necessary evil. I have met doctors who are so stunningly arrogant, smug, nasty, mean, dismissive and downright fuckin' nuts that the only thing I can wish for them is Karma. I wish they could experience the pain of the patients they so easily dismiss. Doctors are treated like Gods here. They make you wait obscene amounts of time, shove you in a cold examining room, make you wear a napkin and sit there like an idiot for an even more obscene amount of time, before they come in, don't listen to you, and then leave.
I could go ON and ON and ON and ON...as I said, of course I make mistakes, but it seems to people like this country is truly falling apart. Why? No one seems to take pride in their work. No one can communicate, especially in California, and if you think that's racist, it's REALISTIC. Come live in Los Angeles for a while. Why is it racist to want everyone to speak ONE common language so we can all communicate for business purposes? No one seems to care. Corporations are so huge now that customer service is a quaint thing of the past. Go on, complain. Call the manager, write a letter. No one gives a shit. They don't care if they lose you as a customer because there are 10 more schmucks behind you ready to take your place.
How do you fight the post office? Oh I can't wait to call Social Security on Tuesday. They sent me a form. They want me to prove I'm me. It's genius. I guess I have to send them, what? A copy of my social security card? Shouldn't they have that on file? Should I just explain, look, I've been me since 1967. These are my numbers, this is my name. It hasn't changed. I'm not two people. I'm one person, the same person, I'm me. And me doesn't owe the IRS shit.
I have just one thing to say to them: You turn me back into ONE person, with ONE name or the Evil Half of Me is going to make your lives a living hell.
Now that's something I promise I'll make good on.
And these are just tiny, fairly inconsequential mistakes, I realize that. What about hurricane Katrina? My God in Heaven, was that the biggest disaster ever? Or people who are 'accidentally' killed in hospitals...given the wrong drugs, wrong limbs being cut off...or, how about, oops, we didn't find any weapons of mass destruction, but hey, the war's on now, so we can't stop...I could go on and on. Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky.
Or maybe this country has gotten worse. Sadly, I honestly think it's the latter.
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