This particular good mood started when I started telling Melissa just how badly I was doing. This was at least a week ago and my pain had gotten worse for sure. The stress of every day life was adding up as well. I decided to find a plan that would deal with stress and all by solving various problems and doing as much as possible on my own. The idea was tried and true: move through the various elements of my life and organize them. Surprisingly, Melissa rejected the first step or two in the plan. According to her, I was in too much pain already.
This was true but I didn't want to admit it so I included fighting through the pain as part of the plan. Melissa rejected it again and reminded me that I was unable to fight through the pain of lying in bed. Lying my head on the pillow gave me a migraine complete with extreme light/sound sensitivity and inability to speak. How did I expect to manage physical labor?
This could have gone badly at this point because I was frustrated. My body and mind have failed me even if it's not my fault. My beloved didn't stop there. She went on to describe how she didn't want to be a cause of extra pain for me and she didn't want me suffering extra pain for any reason. It also helped that she wasn't volunteering to take on avoidable pain of her own. We've both learned to respect pain in our 40s.
After that, it became easier for me to enjoy myself again. It wasn't a matter of pain relief. My skin lesions that seemed so close to healing a week ago peeled down to raw, red skin while what my doctor called circulatory issues in my legs have ballooned back up. They are quite painful but the strangest thing happened. Madeline stopped stomping all over my sore place and launching herself into the air using her back claws on the sorest places. She curled up or stretched out for naps that didn't hurt me and she's gone back to following me around the house the way she did like a kitten.
Writing has gone back to being the great enjoyment that it was once before. Despite my teeth continuing to get worse, I've started enjoying food and drink more again. Part of it is the chance I've had to share a few meals with Melissa recently. Some of these were as great as if we ordered off the menu at a five star restaurant. It was all about the conversation.
Have I mentioned that Melissa is all kinds of wonderful? She decided to get me a cell phone since none of our landline phones actually work. I suspect that the reason for it might have had something to do with my recently increased level of pain and my difficulty dealing with the feelings of intense loss. I've admitted that I grew up with a strange sort of aspiration. My dream was to be like my grandparents and Grandmom Mahoney in particular. Pop Pop (Mahoney - I don't remember knowing his Stapleford counterpart.) was someone I admired as much or more. I just never considered myself capable of working as hard as he did. It took me what I remember as a long time to sit in his chair when he wasn't there. Then he had his heart attacks and I came to know and love him.
Grandmom Mahoney (just Grandmom to her face just like Grandmom Stapleford) was one of those figures who influenced me so much that I'm not sure where it stops and starts. Like her, I cope with a long illness by sitting in a comfy chair and reading favorite books. Okay. I'm not quite that limited thanks to Melissa. My beloved wifey (who turned 45 today) has gotten me good tech stuff. First, it was the tablet which made my favorite books light enough to read plus lit them so that I could read them in bad lighting. Next, I was connected to Facebook even when I hurt too much to come upstairs to sit up here at the PC.
Limited as it was, I was able to stay in touch with people I'd lost in previous decades. I don't care that it makes me a weirdo. I want my time sitting with friends telling old tales. "Do you remember that time you handed me that note to deliver to my best friend in my first two years in high school so that she could deliver it to me? After so many girls felt that crushing my heart was their duty, you were the one who realized that what I wanted was friendship." "Please stop. This is embarrassing." "Okay. Stopped."
Somehow, I don't think that will happen and I have an idea of why. I'm the weirdo and forgetting people is the normal thing to do. So, Grandmom and Pop Pop met terrible ends more than a decade ago not even recognizing each other. Somehow, Grandmom seemed to recognize me but there are so many Johns in the family that it's hard to be sure. I know that I could have conversations that fit into most of her life. I knew who Jack Benny was and I knew about the origins of that expression, "filling your dance card." Then I saw why my Pop Pop was in another room because he didn't react to my presence at all. That's not a request for sympathy because he was like that with everyone. I wish things had been better for him. I wanted to go on one of our walks down at the beach.
A lot of my current friends are trying to console me by saying that those who have abandoned me were never true friends but that's not the case. They were my friends when I needed them most. Now, they can remain my friends if in a way some might find odd. I imagined my Grandmom doing this during all those years in a chair. I can remember and relive those glory days that happened without anyone telling me that they were no big deal. On days when the pain gets to be too much, there are methods of dealing with it that I believe most 40+ married men know well.
I can watch my children play. These are my adopted fur babies, of course. Pippi is the clown of the family who sticks with Melissa making sure she doesn't study too hard. Pippi gets incredibly jealous and chases everyone away when she wants her Mommy's attention. This includes me, of course. She also sends out subliminal signals, "You must pet the Pippi. You must pet the Pippi, now!" Meekers, aka. "The Last Straw" is a very loving cat once she gets to know you. She decides when it's time for snuggles which involves laying out like a human and exchanging full body hugs. If she gets me down, I cannot resist. She's heavy for a cat but not for some object out there. The Great White Belly is too jiggly for me to lift. I'm not one to throw stones, though. She can't lift me either.
Madeline gets her own paragraph because I complain about her so much. She had been hurting me so badly just by stepping on my sensitive places. Well, my health has declined a bit recently with a lot of vascular issues for one thing and so there are a lot of sore places on my legs where I asked her to walk on me if she had to walk on me at all. Well, I had some sleep deprived weeks not all that long ago and Maddie went back to her original role all but overnight. She had been walking across me a dozen times each half hour, only to tire herself and refuse to get up when I very much needed to get up. Now, she's gotten back to settling very quickly on my lap and distributing her weight nicely. I've caught up on sleep quitely simply because Maddie catnapped me. She got very comfy, started purring and I found myself knocked out.
No one's life is always a bowl of cherries and I've been dealt some pretty vicious hands over the course of mine but it comes down to one of my deeply held beliefs. I'm toeing the line here but trying not to cross into hypocrisy. My belief in divine Providence leads me to believe that God would not force me to face obstacles that I could not overcome. I do not ask you to believe that. It's not easy to sustain such a belief in the face of one's own pain and I know of parents so frustrated that they want to punch the next person to suggest their kid can handle whatever. I come down on the value side of the fix the problem/value the person debate no matter how many people tell me that I should risk a metaphorical head explosion from another doctor's opinion because to do otherwise is giving up.
I choose to live my life and that is that.
Saturday, July 23, 2016
Friday, June 17, 2016
Best of Times/Worst of Times
I'm back which should be obvious unless I decide to fade away again before even posting thing entry which would mean that I'd be back later. That didn't always seem so certain when I was in a bit of a slump. There came a point a while back when I decided to put my faith in some people and things that helped me get through some bad times. With the exception of Melissa and some family, most of those people have failed me or needed some time off to any degree. You can guess what's coming next because it's predictable. I decided that it was my fault because decisions may have been made because of things I said or did.
It's okay. I'm going to try to stop putting so much pressure on people. No, I'm not taking the blame or not all of any blame that might exist. I've learned that there is a lot of pressure generated just being in the same room as a frustrated perfectionist. One of the worst ways a frustrated perfectionist like me can inflict harm on others is with the old "don't expect you to live up to my standards" bit. I may mean well because I'm most often telling someone that I realized my "standard" would be literal perfection. Since no one can do perfect, exempting you from my supposed standards is an attempt at kindness that fails horribly.
Here's a belated attempt at keeping this short. Maybe it looks like I'm judging you all the time but I don't mean to do it. I grew up knowing that a critical eye was always on me or very close. I learned to live as if I were under constant surveillance because it was true far too often. I'm just learning to let that go now. Having loved ones who are not seeking to judge me is a luxury that I appreciate more than I can express.
These have been the worst of times in a lot of very obvious ways. Melissa and I were only married very briefly before I got sick with my Arnold-Chiari Malformation. Sometimes, I think I spend way too much time trying to play down how serious and complicated ACM is. I didn't simply have brain surgery the way I simplify it. At the time I had the surgery the probably saved my life very directly, there were possibly a dozen specialist practices capable of handling Arnold Chiari Malformations with complications. One or two of the top specialist neurosurgeons in the world working together found my case challenging. It is quite possible that it took the top two Chiari surgeons with their support staffs to get me to where I am today. This is not bragging because I was unconscious for the hard parts.
This is an explanation for why I am so grateful for where I am in life. More than one person has died from this over the past week alone. Scratch that! More than one child has died from this over the past week. I choose to avoid seeking out explanations for why others die mostly because there's the awful truth concerning why some people die. I got the top team at the top of their game despite having done nothing to deserve this which means someone else way back when got someone else. Do I believe that the other doctors caused the deaths? No. I believe that I got lucky and I've processed those guilty feelings already.
I've written a lot about the symptoms that I suffer so often that I expect you know them pretty well. This isn't my pain blog so I'm going to concentrate on some other things. My job is to find the silver linings in the black clouds. I looked at my life at a particularly chaotic day with my life at a typical low day but still in the reasonable range. That's when I put on some music and a cat jumped up on my lap.
What was so bad about this? I found myself enjoying it. Obviously, I don't enjoy intense pain or diminished mental capacity so why should the occasional perk make me feel so much guilt? The pain is there all day, every day. It is a weight crushing me. I'm not on trial but serving a life sentence. When I think about the pain and other symptoms, I feel like less of a freeloader. I can't work. I can't even play much of the time. This post was supposed to be a one day thing and this is day three or four. If you know me, you know how important writing is to me.
So, there came a day when I realized how my lack of direction was hurting Melissa and I decided to find things I could change. Mostly, I found the best changes to be in matters of attitude. Silver linings, anyone? Let's start with writing. Sometimes, I fret and blame myself for spending so little of my available writing time on writing. Then again, I have several writing projects started and substantially completed over the past few years. My writing output has gone up while I've been sick and I have made some small difference in a life or two.
When I looked at my symptoms, I realized that there were two layers to each of them. First, I had the unpleasant symptom and then had the equally unpleasant feeling of guilt about failing to overcome the pain, dizziness or whatever. My doctors and I made all sorts of incremental improvements with Melissa's help. In fact, I provided a large amount of new information about the new, super-scary infection and the prescription knocked it right out. Why did I wait so long to ask for help? As Dwayne Johnson always told us, "It doesn't matter why I waited so long!"
Officially, the paperwork will tell everyone that I am disabled because it remains true but my feelings about it all have changed. I am in very early retirement as far as I'm concerned. After struggling for my important wins that earned me freedom from my parents and the lifetime of trying to gain their approval, I have retired from the wars. Instead of trying to meet standards, set standards and evade or impose them on others, I am retired. My new goal is to glean what joy I can for my loved ones and me without spending all of our money.at once.
Maybe Melissa and I can live up to my memories of Grandmom and Pop Pop in the Crystal Beach Manor Years. My Uncle Ray, the supposed Grinch who never stopped loving his family, saved every penny that he could so that he could retire relatively young and still able to enjoy life is another excellent example. Gruffness can be justified pride at achieving the "Stapleford dream" as a pared down/focused version of the obsolete American dream. I'm ignoring rumors, stories and family politics here to put everyone in his or her best light because that's how I choose to see them. My older cousins worked hard and always had a smile for me.
If all goes well, Melissa and I will go out to dinner at the diner for eggs. It will be a short trip with minimal pain, tasty food that might not be expensive seafood but will taste just right and conversation with my beloved which is something we've pretty much had to schedule since her promotion. Scarcity is a big part of making something even more precious. I could get a screaming headache or fall because I got dizzy enough to kick away my own cane but so what?! These are all parts of life now.
It's the best of times and the worst of times. I've been making the best of mixed situations for much longer than my worst critics would ever believe. I've had my bad times when life has nearly crushed me but so have you. I've gotten back up every time just like you have. I've also been tested to my limits just as you have. In fact, I'm at my blowout point already twitching for the third day in a row now. Time to post this and hope there's no randomly imbedded (insert random joke here) stuff to insult friends and family alike. That might not have bothered me years ago but I'm retired now.
It's okay. I'm going to try to stop putting so much pressure on people. No, I'm not taking the blame or not all of any blame that might exist. I've learned that there is a lot of pressure generated just being in the same room as a frustrated perfectionist. One of the worst ways a frustrated perfectionist like me can inflict harm on others is with the old "don't expect you to live up to my standards" bit. I may mean well because I'm most often telling someone that I realized my "standard" would be literal perfection. Since no one can do perfect, exempting you from my supposed standards is an attempt at kindness that fails horribly.
Here's a belated attempt at keeping this short. Maybe it looks like I'm judging you all the time but I don't mean to do it. I grew up knowing that a critical eye was always on me or very close. I learned to live as if I were under constant surveillance because it was true far too often. I'm just learning to let that go now. Having loved ones who are not seeking to judge me is a luxury that I appreciate more than I can express.
These have been the worst of times in a lot of very obvious ways. Melissa and I were only married very briefly before I got sick with my Arnold-Chiari Malformation. Sometimes, I think I spend way too much time trying to play down how serious and complicated ACM is. I didn't simply have brain surgery the way I simplify it. At the time I had the surgery the probably saved my life very directly, there were possibly a dozen specialist practices capable of handling Arnold Chiari Malformations with complications. One or two of the top specialist neurosurgeons in the world working together found my case challenging. It is quite possible that it took the top two Chiari surgeons with their support staffs to get me to where I am today. This is not bragging because I was unconscious for the hard parts.
This is an explanation for why I am so grateful for where I am in life. More than one person has died from this over the past week alone. Scratch that! More than one child has died from this over the past week. I choose to avoid seeking out explanations for why others die mostly because there's the awful truth concerning why some people die. I got the top team at the top of their game despite having done nothing to deserve this which means someone else way back when got someone else. Do I believe that the other doctors caused the deaths? No. I believe that I got lucky and I've processed those guilty feelings already.
I've written a lot about the symptoms that I suffer so often that I expect you know them pretty well. This isn't my pain blog so I'm going to concentrate on some other things. My job is to find the silver linings in the black clouds. I looked at my life at a particularly chaotic day with my life at a typical low day but still in the reasonable range. That's when I put on some music and a cat jumped up on my lap.
What was so bad about this? I found myself enjoying it. Obviously, I don't enjoy intense pain or diminished mental capacity so why should the occasional perk make me feel so much guilt? The pain is there all day, every day. It is a weight crushing me. I'm not on trial but serving a life sentence. When I think about the pain and other symptoms, I feel like less of a freeloader. I can't work. I can't even play much of the time. This post was supposed to be a one day thing and this is day three or four. If you know me, you know how important writing is to me.
So, there came a day when I realized how my lack of direction was hurting Melissa and I decided to find things I could change. Mostly, I found the best changes to be in matters of attitude. Silver linings, anyone? Let's start with writing. Sometimes, I fret and blame myself for spending so little of my available writing time on writing. Then again, I have several writing projects started and substantially completed over the past few years. My writing output has gone up while I've been sick and I have made some small difference in a life or two.
When I looked at my symptoms, I realized that there were two layers to each of them. First, I had the unpleasant symptom and then had the equally unpleasant feeling of guilt about failing to overcome the pain, dizziness or whatever. My doctors and I made all sorts of incremental improvements with Melissa's help. In fact, I provided a large amount of new information about the new, super-scary infection and the prescription knocked it right out. Why did I wait so long to ask for help? As Dwayne Johnson always told us, "It doesn't matter why I waited so long!"
Officially, the paperwork will tell everyone that I am disabled because it remains true but my feelings about it all have changed. I am in very early retirement as far as I'm concerned. After struggling for my important wins that earned me freedom from my parents and the lifetime of trying to gain their approval, I have retired from the wars. Instead of trying to meet standards, set standards and evade or impose them on others, I am retired. My new goal is to glean what joy I can for my loved ones and me without spending all of our money.at once.
Maybe Melissa and I can live up to my memories of Grandmom and Pop Pop in the Crystal Beach Manor Years. My Uncle Ray, the supposed Grinch who never stopped loving his family, saved every penny that he could so that he could retire relatively young and still able to enjoy life is another excellent example. Gruffness can be justified pride at achieving the "Stapleford dream" as a pared down/focused version of the obsolete American dream. I'm ignoring rumors, stories and family politics here to put everyone in his or her best light because that's how I choose to see them. My older cousins worked hard and always had a smile for me.
If all goes well, Melissa and I will go out to dinner at the diner for eggs. It will be a short trip with minimal pain, tasty food that might not be expensive seafood but will taste just right and conversation with my beloved which is something we've pretty much had to schedule since her promotion. Scarcity is a big part of making something even more precious. I could get a screaming headache or fall because I got dizzy enough to kick away my own cane but so what?! These are all parts of life now.
It's the best of times and the worst of times. I've been making the best of mixed situations for much longer than my worst critics would ever believe. I've had my bad times when life has nearly crushed me but so have you. I've gotten back up every time just like you have. I've also been tested to my limits just as you have. In fact, I'm at my blowout point already twitching for the third day in a row now. Time to post this and hope there's no randomly imbedded (insert random joke here) stuff to insult friends and family alike. That might not have bothered me years ago but I'm retired now.
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
One Explanation for Trump
Trump has been described as a force of nature that the Republican Party is too weak to withstand. He's also described as a mystery beyond our capacity to understand but this isn't true. There have been politicians like him before. The Trump phenomenon has happened because Republican leaders have spent decades crafting their story of this place called America (pronounced "Amerka") that replaced the United States of America or the USA in far too many minds. Mythical America took all the positive aspects of Republican philosophy and pretended that they could exist on their own.
Most US citizens seemed to vote as if they believed in the myth but they also voted for the Democratic story as well. Unfortunately, the Democratic story was a bucket of cold water realism dumped on the happy optimism of Republican fiction. For too long, we Democrats occupied ourselves with poking holes in the Republican mythos. Like children who remain true believers in Santa Claus, we bought into the idea that taxes weren't necessary. Free market Santa would distribute income to the hard working while the others would have to breathe smog produced by coal fired plants.
What does this have to do with Trump? Well, US citizens are not stupid for the most part. We have to take part in suspension of disbelief as if we're attending a good movie. I happen to be a big "Star Wars" fan like most people and that involves accepting the idea that the Force could have existed "Long ago in a galaxy far, far away." Trump wants us to believe in what the ancient but historical Greeks called the time of giants. The Greeks were among the first in recorded history to discover fossils and fossilized remains. When they added these records to what they knew and added a desire to be extraordinary, those fossils had to be the remains of heroes and the great beasts they fought. Since no one remembered actually seeing a ten foot tall man or a cyclops, suspension of disbelief required that these events took place in a far distant past. The Greeks really were hereoes as long as their poets made them feel great.
Trump says that he wants to make America great again without saying exactly what this greatness is. In truth, this nation has so much concentrated power that a true qualitative improvement would have to be philosophical involving more equitable distribution of wealth. That's not what Trump wants. In fact, any explanation of this greatness would subject it to those who have vastly different ideas. Therefore, his starting point was the great Republican myth with the 1950s as their "long ago and far away."
There is some justification for choosing the 50s as the Glory Days. Things were good for white American men in so many ways. Let's start with the nebulous looking concept of social order. Everyone had their place where they were content to stay according to the myth. White men went to work at the office or the factory then came home to orderly suburban neighborhoods. According to the myth, the houses were bought with money saved through war bonds or rationing. The factories were built for war production then converted to civilian production by brave white men who dared risk to get a chance at the possible riches.
During this great time of social order, women were believed happy to give up their jobs so that men could work. They were depicted on the new mass medium of television as housewives who spent their days keeping their houses and children spotless without breaking out in a sweat. They were the source of stability behind the white man's throne but were, somehow, unworthy of sitting on their own throne. Television depicted black men and women as comedic servants who were in their proper place. After all, television offered us a picture of their comedic laziness balanced out by good and loyal hearts when they were depicted at all. More often than that, they were simply there shown in their proper roles.
I was going to get into separate sections on economics and law but I think you've seen enough of the myth for the reality to stand out. The ugliness of racism from this supposedly ideal time has tarnished our society to the point where I do not believe that reparations to African-American families is a radical idea anymore. US law is all about replacing the Old Testament (Hebrew Scripture, Torah, Pentatuch) concept of "an eye for an eye" with "how many dollars will compensate you for the loss of an eye?" How would I justify reparations? The African-American population was intentionally and systematically left out of the economic boom that started in the 1950s. Two examples are higher education and the real estate.
One thing that everyone knows about the GI Bill is that it allowed returning servicemen to attend college. As a result, these white men able to leave the family farms and poorly paid factory jobs for the office resulting in that 50s stereotype of eight hours in the office followed by their arrival at home. The children would be clean and quiet and the wife would have that drink ready followed quickly by dinner or he might lose his temper. I wonder how much of that was undiagnosed PTSD especially those who kept their tempers yet wanted to retreat into their castle with that liquid numbness helping keep the walls up. After all, men were too tough back then to require treatment for anything mental.
That was the myth. The truth is far uglier since African American men got no GI Bill benefits. They didn't get to go to school and so they had to return to the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs the nation could offer unless they weren't that lucky. The higher education or vocational training that could have gotten African Americans out of humiliating jobs serving their supposed betters was denied them. The trickle down effect of being able to pass the pride of achievement down to their children was denied them.
Of course, those of us who graduated college in the late 20th and early 21st centuries know that the ability to attend college is no guarantee of success or wealth even when we manage to graduate. This is why the denial of federal housing grants and loans to returning African-Americans is one of the worst abuses of governmental power in US history. Home ownership may not be the thing for me and other severely disabled people but it has been the most powerful and reliable engines of economic growth for most.
This began with returning white men returning from the Second World War to be thanked by the GI Bill. Had this simply included African Americans and other minorities, it might have led to ethnic harmony. (I try to avoid using race and its related terms since it has no basis in genetics and seems to exist to promote racism.) Those lucky enough to have white skin were eligible for low interest loans from the government.In the decades of steady appreciation of home values, the white family was able to pay off the mortgage debt and make a paper profit on the home. That home often stayed in the family for generations and white families started businesses by borrowing against the profit they made. This has had time to happen over a few generations so that it continued to be a wealth multiplier each time.
Even when African-American families pulled off the miracle of saving up for that nice home that would have appreciated over time, cruder barriers blocked them from opportunity. Deeds to houses were written in such a way that it was forbidden to sell to African-Americans. Another tactic involved writing a loan where any lateness in payment even by an hour was considered default. In terms that would make most of today's worst "banksters" blush, the African-American could lose his entire investment if his final payment was a dollar short including fees that might be added on at the last minute. I'm not saying that outright theft by fraud was common but the incentive for it was there.
African-American domestic servants oftened suffered the indignity of working for starvation wages all day while being expected to be all but silent and invisible only to be forbidden under penalty of arrest if found within town limits in so-called "Sundown Towns." Just as I do not accuse most whites at the time of theft by fraud, I do not accuse Donald Trump of wishing for the return of the 50s with all the hidden ugliness. What I believe is that there has been a white supremicist, anti-feminist wing of the Republican Party which is becoming its center these days. I suspect that I know what they want from a return to "American greatness."
Trump is the carnival barker who will profit from whatever goes on in the big tent. He is despicable for what he says but that's a small part of it all. Trump is the storyteller who will sell the Republican story or whatever part of it is selling that day. His followers include those who aren't listening to the words yet "Great Again" tugs at their heartstrings so that they remember a time when the neighborhood was all white and they could aspire to succeed their fathers in the big chair.
Even I have memories of coveting the big chair despite owning the actual chair for some time. Sadly, the big chair shrank as I got older and larger. I can reach out and touch the walls on both sides of the hallway in the school I attended at age ten. We kids could keep four lanes going in that same space. As I grew up physically, I grew up intellectually. The Republican idea of greatness is wrong. I want greatness based on increased income equality, greater inclusion and a world where I wouldn't need a law passed for someone to help me with my cane. That's a bad example but I want a world where simple human kindness is not based on laws.
Until we get there, let's start by figuring out a way to make the class of black and brown homeowners/business owners that our ancestors used force to stop from evolving on its own. One big step will be making sure that the people we're trying to repay are satisfied with how they are repaid. That means listening first.
Most US citizens seemed to vote as if they believed in the myth but they also voted for the Democratic story as well. Unfortunately, the Democratic story was a bucket of cold water realism dumped on the happy optimism of Republican fiction. For too long, we Democrats occupied ourselves with poking holes in the Republican mythos. Like children who remain true believers in Santa Claus, we bought into the idea that taxes weren't necessary. Free market Santa would distribute income to the hard working while the others would have to breathe smog produced by coal fired plants.
What does this have to do with Trump? Well, US citizens are not stupid for the most part. We have to take part in suspension of disbelief as if we're attending a good movie. I happen to be a big "Star Wars" fan like most people and that involves accepting the idea that the Force could have existed "Long ago in a galaxy far, far away." Trump wants us to believe in what the ancient but historical Greeks called the time of giants. The Greeks were among the first in recorded history to discover fossils and fossilized remains. When they added these records to what they knew and added a desire to be extraordinary, those fossils had to be the remains of heroes and the great beasts they fought. Since no one remembered actually seeing a ten foot tall man or a cyclops, suspension of disbelief required that these events took place in a far distant past. The Greeks really were hereoes as long as their poets made them feel great.
Trump says that he wants to make America great again without saying exactly what this greatness is. In truth, this nation has so much concentrated power that a true qualitative improvement would have to be philosophical involving more equitable distribution of wealth. That's not what Trump wants. In fact, any explanation of this greatness would subject it to those who have vastly different ideas. Therefore, his starting point was the great Republican myth with the 1950s as their "long ago and far away."
There is some justification for choosing the 50s as the Glory Days. Things were good for white American men in so many ways. Let's start with the nebulous looking concept of social order. Everyone had their place where they were content to stay according to the myth. White men went to work at the office or the factory then came home to orderly suburban neighborhoods. According to the myth, the houses were bought with money saved through war bonds or rationing. The factories were built for war production then converted to civilian production by brave white men who dared risk to get a chance at the possible riches.
During this great time of social order, women were believed happy to give up their jobs so that men could work. They were depicted on the new mass medium of television as housewives who spent their days keeping their houses and children spotless without breaking out in a sweat. They were the source of stability behind the white man's throne but were, somehow, unworthy of sitting on their own throne. Television depicted black men and women as comedic servants who were in their proper place. After all, television offered us a picture of their comedic laziness balanced out by good and loyal hearts when they were depicted at all. More often than that, they were simply there shown in their proper roles.
I was going to get into separate sections on economics and law but I think you've seen enough of the myth for the reality to stand out. The ugliness of racism from this supposedly ideal time has tarnished our society to the point where I do not believe that reparations to African-American families is a radical idea anymore. US law is all about replacing the Old Testament (Hebrew Scripture, Torah, Pentatuch) concept of "an eye for an eye" with "how many dollars will compensate you for the loss of an eye?" How would I justify reparations? The African-American population was intentionally and systematically left out of the economic boom that started in the 1950s. Two examples are higher education and the real estate.
One thing that everyone knows about the GI Bill is that it allowed returning servicemen to attend college. As a result, these white men able to leave the family farms and poorly paid factory jobs for the office resulting in that 50s stereotype of eight hours in the office followed by their arrival at home. The children would be clean and quiet and the wife would have that drink ready followed quickly by dinner or he might lose his temper. I wonder how much of that was undiagnosed PTSD especially those who kept their tempers yet wanted to retreat into their castle with that liquid numbness helping keep the walls up. After all, men were too tough back then to require treatment for anything mental.
That was the myth. The truth is far uglier since African American men got no GI Bill benefits. They didn't get to go to school and so they had to return to the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs the nation could offer unless they weren't that lucky. The higher education or vocational training that could have gotten African Americans out of humiliating jobs serving their supposed betters was denied them. The trickle down effect of being able to pass the pride of achievement down to their children was denied them.
Of course, those of us who graduated college in the late 20th and early 21st centuries know that the ability to attend college is no guarantee of success or wealth even when we manage to graduate. This is why the denial of federal housing grants and loans to returning African-Americans is one of the worst abuses of governmental power in US history. Home ownership may not be the thing for me and other severely disabled people but it has been the most powerful and reliable engines of economic growth for most.
This began with returning white men returning from the Second World War to be thanked by the GI Bill. Had this simply included African Americans and other minorities, it might have led to ethnic harmony. (I try to avoid using race and its related terms since it has no basis in genetics and seems to exist to promote racism.) Those lucky enough to have white skin were eligible for low interest loans from the government.In the decades of steady appreciation of home values, the white family was able to pay off the mortgage debt and make a paper profit on the home. That home often stayed in the family for generations and white families started businesses by borrowing against the profit they made. This has had time to happen over a few generations so that it continued to be a wealth multiplier each time.
Even when African-American families pulled off the miracle of saving up for that nice home that would have appreciated over time, cruder barriers blocked them from opportunity. Deeds to houses were written in such a way that it was forbidden to sell to African-Americans. Another tactic involved writing a loan where any lateness in payment even by an hour was considered default. In terms that would make most of today's worst "banksters" blush, the African-American could lose his entire investment if his final payment was a dollar short including fees that might be added on at the last minute. I'm not saying that outright theft by fraud was common but the incentive for it was there.
African-American domestic servants oftened suffered the indignity of working for starvation wages all day while being expected to be all but silent and invisible only to be forbidden under penalty of arrest if found within town limits in so-called "Sundown Towns." Just as I do not accuse most whites at the time of theft by fraud, I do not accuse Donald Trump of wishing for the return of the 50s with all the hidden ugliness. What I believe is that there has been a white supremicist, anti-feminist wing of the Republican Party which is becoming its center these days. I suspect that I know what they want from a return to "American greatness."
Trump is the carnival barker who will profit from whatever goes on in the big tent. He is despicable for what he says but that's a small part of it all. Trump is the storyteller who will sell the Republican story or whatever part of it is selling that day. His followers include those who aren't listening to the words yet "Great Again" tugs at their heartstrings so that they remember a time when the neighborhood was all white and they could aspire to succeed their fathers in the big chair.
Even I have memories of coveting the big chair despite owning the actual chair for some time. Sadly, the big chair shrank as I got older and larger. I can reach out and touch the walls on both sides of the hallway in the school I attended at age ten. We kids could keep four lanes going in that same space. As I grew up physically, I grew up intellectually. The Republican idea of greatness is wrong. I want greatness based on increased income equality, greater inclusion and a world where I wouldn't need a law passed for someone to help me with my cane. That's a bad example but I want a world where simple human kindness is not based on laws.
Until we get there, let's start by figuring out a way to make the class of black and brown homeowners/business owners that our ancestors used force to stop from evolving on its own. One big step will be making sure that the people we're trying to repay are satisfied with how they are repaid. That means listening first.
Thursday, January 7, 2016
I'll Tell You What
I've been enjoying the Stephanie Miller show on Free Speech TV a lot since I discovered it. It's an extremely funny show with a lot of political comedy from a mostly liberal point of view. It's also teaching me a lot about what life is like for people who live under circumstances different from my own. The host is a lesbian in her 50s and most of her crew used to be gay men until there was some turnover. Almost all of her crew got offered better paying jobs with better hours elsewhere all right about the same time. The replacements are mostly men and they are all straight. Stephanie jokingly asks how she became the only gay in the village.
The things that catch my attention are all the things we have in common. One of those things is a real disdain for right wingers though they do a better job laughing at them than I do. Might have something to do with them being comedians while I end up taking the world too seriously at times. Another difference is the fact that certain things will set off my symptoms that might be funny otherwise. Unless I remember to turn down the TV volume when they talk about Trump supporters, I'll get the violent twitches even though I agree with their jokes. It might have something to do with all the skilled voice actors who sound more like Trump supporters than the actual supporters.
Melissa and I went out to breakfast to celebrate her upcoming interview for which she is trying to tamp down expectations. I'm just excited anyway because she'll get a peak inside the door at what it takes to get hired as the #2 person at a store. It will help her no matter what yet I hold out some hope that she'll get promoted anyway despite not being fully trained for the job. Anyway, we went to breakfast at the diner that's right down the street and I had Eggs Chesapeake. This dish involves poached (I think) eggs on English muffins with a substantial amount of Crab Imperial in between and home fries in between. The whole thing might be topped with Hollandaise (sp?) sauce.
You might be surprised what I'll go through for this particular dish. This time, I went to breakfast during peak breakfast hours instead of my preferred 4 AM or so. The noise hit me like a wall when we went in and I got beyond twitchy. Thankfully, I got used to the background noise but that's when I heard it. "I'll tell you what!" Four men who looked like the Central Casting version of rednecks were holding court and they were close. At first, I laughed because "I'll tell you what!" is a running joke for Stephanie and company on her show where they are better known as "Mama and the Mooks." I had been laughing through an awful pain moment as three or four voice actors some of whom have won Emmys nailed the contradiction you could call rednecks or I'm growing partial to the term "Know It All Know Nothings."
I thought I was getting over my fear of this sort of person when I encountered these four and they went off on the usual right wing rants. It didn't take long to realize that they were bullies trying to pick fights. One of them actually went over to another table to pursue a disagreement. On the serious list of things I least need in life, getting pummeled by these caricatures is pretty far up there. I could just see me getting arrested as well the way a cop once wrote me a ticket for something he did not witness me doing. The closest thing to a witness was another driver who took out a sign pole because he was driving too fast in wet conditions. I stopped to make sure he was okay and he roped me in like an expert con artist. I could just see how it would look in the newspaper. "Local Man Is Too Sick to Work But Fights with Trump Supporter." The national media called one black man being surrounded, verbally abused and pummeled by a crowd a fight.
Therefore, I sat with Melissa suddenly unable to put food in my mouth. These four jackasses sounded like they were shouting slogans back and forth but everyone sounds like they are shouting to me once things get to a certain point. I had to get a takeout box for those eggs which Melissa reheated successfully for me later. We decided to order cheese rolls instead of going home disappointed. I was disabled to the point of not being able to figure out how to get the pastry in my mouth. It was sticky and I have issues about touching sticky things with my hands if I'm already riled up but I managed. I had a running list of things I could have said to the wingnuts if I hadn't been cautious of getting into a fight to amuse myself.
We made it home and I made a stiff drink or two which gave me blissful painless and dream free sleep. I'll tell you what. It was a pretty good day with Melissa home and with me. However, the grey one calls me to my duty. I am the Professional Napping Platform and Can Opener at Maddie's Personal Staff.
The things that catch my attention are all the things we have in common. One of those things is a real disdain for right wingers though they do a better job laughing at them than I do. Might have something to do with them being comedians while I end up taking the world too seriously at times. Another difference is the fact that certain things will set off my symptoms that might be funny otherwise. Unless I remember to turn down the TV volume when they talk about Trump supporters, I'll get the violent twitches even though I agree with their jokes. It might have something to do with all the skilled voice actors who sound more like Trump supporters than the actual supporters.
Melissa and I went out to breakfast to celebrate her upcoming interview for which she is trying to tamp down expectations. I'm just excited anyway because she'll get a peak inside the door at what it takes to get hired as the #2 person at a store. It will help her no matter what yet I hold out some hope that she'll get promoted anyway despite not being fully trained for the job. Anyway, we went to breakfast at the diner that's right down the street and I had Eggs Chesapeake. This dish involves poached (I think) eggs on English muffins with a substantial amount of Crab Imperial in between and home fries in between. The whole thing might be topped with Hollandaise (sp?) sauce.
You might be surprised what I'll go through for this particular dish. This time, I went to breakfast during peak breakfast hours instead of my preferred 4 AM or so. The noise hit me like a wall when we went in and I got beyond twitchy. Thankfully, I got used to the background noise but that's when I heard it. "I'll tell you what!" Four men who looked like the Central Casting version of rednecks were holding court and they were close. At first, I laughed because "I'll tell you what!" is a running joke for Stephanie and company on her show where they are better known as "Mama and the Mooks." I had been laughing through an awful pain moment as three or four voice actors some of whom have won Emmys nailed the contradiction you could call rednecks or I'm growing partial to the term "Know It All Know Nothings."
I thought I was getting over my fear of this sort of person when I encountered these four and they went off on the usual right wing rants. It didn't take long to realize that they were bullies trying to pick fights. One of them actually went over to another table to pursue a disagreement. On the serious list of things I least need in life, getting pummeled by these caricatures is pretty far up there. I could just see me getting arrested as well the way a cop once wrote me a ticket for something he did not witness me doing. The closest thing to a witness was another driver who took out a sign pole because he was driving too fast in wet conditions. I stopped to make sure he was okay and he roped me in like an expert con artist. I could just see how it would look in the newspaper. "Local Man Is Too Sick to Work But Fights with Trump Supporter." The national media called one black man being surrounded, verbally abused and pummeled by a crowd a fight.
Therefore, I sat with Melissa suddenly unable to put food in my mouth. These four jackasses sounded like they were shouting slogans back and forth but everyone sounds like they are shouting to me once things get to a certain point. I had to get a takeout box for those eggs which Melissa reheated successfully for me later. We decided to order cheese rolls instead of going home disappointed. I was disabled to the point of not being able to figure out how to get the pastry in my mouth. It was sticky and I have issues about touching sticky things with my hands if I'm already riled up but I managed. I had a running list of things I could have said to the wingnuts if I hadn't been cautious of getting into a fight to amuse myself.
We made it home and I made a stiff drink or two which gave me blissful painless and dream free sleep. I'll tell you what. It was a pretty good day with Melissa home and with me. However, the grey one calls me to my duty. I am the Professional Napping Platform and Can Opener at Maddie's Personal Staff.
Thursday, December 31, 2015
The Last Retrospective of the Year (Maybe)
Tonight is New Year's Eve. Melissa and I will all but certainly follow our usual New Year's tradition and watch "When Harry Met Sally" once again. It's very nice to have our own life with its own traditions instead of following those dictated by others. There are so many things I am free to do right at long last but this is one with which I have managed to follow through. We don't get tired of this movie yet we enjoy it more some years than others. One of the keys is to avoid watching it during any time of the year and the other is a main benefit of watching a movie so many times. We can chat about it while it's playing and neither of us gets annoyed or misses anything. Thus, I look forward to our evening.
All in all, it hasn't been the best of years. Our finances remain in the hopeless category yet I know one or two good breaks are scheduled to come our way. Melissa is on a career track at work and has been for some time. Now, she has but two rungs remaining on the ladder of goals she set for herself. Each one will take a year or more and I'm leaning toward the more but I expect her to get her own store. I don't know when it might happen, which store it might be or even which company she might be working for by that time but I have faith in her. She works had with persistance and she can take a metaphorical punch better than anyone I know.
For my side of things, I have been writing. Most of my projects are mostly finished but I have come to accept mostly finished as a good state of being. As far as I'm concerned, no project will be truly finished until my signature is on a publishing contract, galleys have been corrected and I find out how to make public appearances even with my symptoms. It won't bear the slightest resemblance to easy but, it it did, I wouldn't need to be involved. I don't do the easy stuff. To put it more practically, I am not letting myself get caught up in steps that are well down the road because I don't understand them yet. The great terrifying unknowns are losing their ability to paralyze me at least where writing is concerned.
Another old habit of mine involves declaring defeat because I haven't passed the great test yet. Great and terrifying tests stand ahead of me yet I have to remember to give them my best when they arrive instead of fretting about them while today's lesser tests get no attention. The best example of how I've improved in practical matters is that I have paid enough attention to the power, phone and water bills to not have to stress over how to get them turned back on. It isn't as easy as it should be for me to declare this to be a form of victory. You know who's voice delivers an assessment of everything I've done measured against perfection and I fall short every tiime.
It took a long time for me to begin the process of letting go the higher standards I held for me. Trying to hold myself to the highest possible standards led to very little but failure and failure was unacceptable. In some ways, life was easier when I had an "eject and die" button to press. When I failed to meet those higher standards and then dropped below what I believed the theoretical "crumb bum" would achieve, I could decide to stop wasting oxygen and end it all. Of course, I failed at that and the shame made me do what I should have done in the first place. I learned to cope with failure first and I've since found a sense in achievement in coping with what I found below my standards.
Let's face it: the obstacles in my way are not the sort that everyone handles. You might be surprised at how well most people in the disabled community handle life's difficulties. That's why I don't try to find standards to use in making comparisons. If you're hurting, I believe you and believe that your achievements are as special as the obstacles can be difficult. A lot of people out there seem to have it easy until it all falls apart one day. They might not have had obstacles to overcome so that they learned the right skills in coping. Try to avoid looking down on the high and mighty when they fall because being high and mighty is poor training for a fall.
Over the past year, I have learned to fall and fall then fall some more. Things got bad but I always got back up with Melissa's help. Therefore, the trials ahead for 2016 scare the hell out of me but I believe we will survive them. We might even come out ahead somehow. I'm not sure it's possible but this is the domain of faith and hope. When we got a car totaled, we replaced it with a better one where we sit more comfortably and everything works despite the fact that it wasn't new. The car payment and increased insurance have been tough but we scrape by.
Tonight, I plan to spend a moment being proud of scraping by somehow. It could all come crashing down on us tomorrow but tonight marks another year of making too few resources stretch to cover too many needs. The numbers didn't balance out in every category but they did in enough to get by. The agony was too much for me some of the time but we kept it bearable most of the time. I wake each day differently from my distant past. Instead of planning how to end it all that day, I plan to find the best way to putter on. That's where we find our pride in this household. Today was another day when we didn't give and held tightly to our vows.
All in all, it hasn't been the best of years. Our finances remain in the hopeless category yet I know one or two good breaks are scheduled to come our way. Melissa is on a career track at work and has been for some time. Now, she has but two rungs remaining on the ladder of goals she set for herself. Each one will take a year or more and I'm leaning toward the more but I expect her to get her own store. I don't know when it might happen, which store it might be or even which company she might be working for by that time but I have faith in her. She works had with persistance and she can take a metaphorical punch better than anyone I know.
For my side of things, I have been writing. Most of my projects are mostly finished but I have come to accept mostly finished as a good state of being. As far as I'm concerned, no project will be truly finished until my signature is on a publishing contract, galleys have been corrected and I find out how to make public appearances even with my symptoms. It won't bear the slightest resemblance to easy but, it it did, I wouldn't need to be involved. I don't do the easy stuff. To put it more practically, I am not letting myself get caught up in steps that are well down the road because I don't understand them yet. The great terrifying unknowns are losing their ability to paralyze me at least where writing is concerned.
Another old habit of mine involves declaring defeat because I haven't passed the great test yet. Great and terrifying tests stand ahead of me yet I have to remember to give them my best when they arrive instead of fretting about them while today's lesser tests get no attention. The best example of how I've improved in practical matters is that I have paid enough attention to the power, phone and water bills to not have to stress over how to get them turned back on. It isn't as easy as it should be for me to declare this to be a form of victory. You know who's voice delivers an assessment of everything I've done measured against perfection and I fall short every tiime.
It took a long time for me to begin the process of letting go the higher standards I held for me. Trying to hold myself to the highest possible standards led to very little but failure and failure was unacceptable. In some ways, life was easier when I had an "eject and die" button to press. When I failed to meet those higher standards and then dropped below what I believed the theoretical "crumb bum" would achieve, I could decide to stop wasting oxygen and end it all. Of course, I failed at that and the shame made me do what I should have done in the first place. I learned to cope with failure first and I've since found a sense in achievement in coping with what I found below my standards.
Let's face it: the obstacles in my way are not the sort that everyone handles. You might be surprised at how well most people in the disabled community handle life's difficulties. That's why I don't try to find standards to use in making comparisons. If you're hurting, I believe you and believe that your achievements are as special as the obstacles can be difficult. A lot of people out there seem to have it easy until it all falls apart one day. They might not have had obstacles to overcome so that they learned the right skills in coping. Try to avoid looking down on the high and mighty when they fall because being high and mighty is poor training for a fall.
Over the past year, I have learned to fall and fall then fall some more. Things got bad but I always got back up with Melissa's help. Therefore, the trials ahead for 2016 scare the hell out of me but I believe we will survive them. We might even come out ahead somehow. I'm not sure it's possible but this is the domain of faith and hope. When we got a car totaled, we replaced it with a better one where we sit more comfortably and everything works despite the fact that it wasn't new. The car payment and increased insurance have been tough but we scrape by.
Tonight, I plan to spend a moment being proud of scraping by somehow. It could all come crashing down on us tomorrow but tonight marks another year of making too few resources stretch to cover too many needs. The numbers didn't balance out in every category but they did in enough to get by. The agony was too much for me some of the time but we kept it bearable most of the time. I wake each day differently from my distant past. Instead of planning how to end it all that day, I plan to find the best way to putter on. That's where we find our pride in this household. Today was another day when we didn't give and held tightly to our vows.
Saturday, December 12, 2015
Friends, Countrymen and Bullies of All Shapes and Sizes
I overextended myself yesterday trying to stick my head up to be noticed in my various outlets and causes that I support. Still, I'm back today wanting to rant about politics. As usual, I'm going to try keeping my political voice as non-partisan as possible but you do know that I'm not just a Democrat to avoid the choices of Republican and Independent. At this moment, foreign policy is dominating the political scene. ISIS, the Muslim version of the KKK on steroids, has been trying to goad the West into a war for as long as it has existed. Unfortunately, the West has certain fools and court jesters willing to pay in the blood of other men and women to serve their common cause with a group better described by an Arabic acronym I've never seen spelled in English or Arabic but is pronounced something like "Dash." Phonetically, "d'YOOSH" might be much closer.
ISIS claims to be Muslim the same way that the Kluckers here at home have claimed to be Christian for centuries. They are a violent gang that exists to maintain their scary reputation so that they can live off the ill gotten gains of extortion. They recruit from a vulnerable population: wannabe rebels and revolutionaries in search of a cause. Having studied the Bible from different points of view for decades, I can tell you that holy texts are a poor place to learn basic reading. They are advanced political textbooks involving a certain range of views and the unchallenged prejudices of the day.
Over the many centuries during which the books of the Bible were written, there was no such concept as "gay rights." Militaristic cultures accepted homosexual acts as a matter of course. Take a very large group of men and put them through the extreme emotions of military life in those days and those men will become very lonely. These men will be of all types before they are put into the casting mold intended to create conformist soldiers who can be put into the sort of unit that will take terrible losses in any war. Extremely poor hygeine, lack of access to reliable supply lines and exhaustion left them vulnerable to disease. The only thing within an infantry soldier's control was staying in close formation so that you and your shield mates protected each other. This led to a closeness that I try to depict in my military fiction but cannot truly understand without having been in the military.
Don't get me wrong. I'm mostly describing the Greco-Roman militaristic cultures when I speak of homosexuality being openly accepted. Somehow, the monotheists managed to get morality all mixed up in the subject. The obviousness of men comforting other men was driven underground but I would bet money that I don't have against you if you think it stopped. After all, no one stopped having wars where men found themselves cold and terrified. When Roman legionaire Mythicus had to go on guard duty before setting up his shelter, Bestus Friendus was the only thing between him and freezing overnight because someone stole his shelter and ate his rations. Mythicus and Bestus would do anything for each other. Sparta was fairly liberal in their own brutal ways. Boys would grow up immersed in military training where they saw no women including their mothers. During the campaign season, a lot of shield-mate relationships would form. At home, men considered too old for military service joined the women who had been doing all the work including decision making. Heterosexual relationships were largely reserved for childmaking.
Meanwhile, a boy as generally obedient as I was, would have been stoned to death at least once a week according to the law. When people want to get back to Biblical principles or Koranic principles (I'm only guessing at this term.) they have to decide which principles to emphasize and which to ignore. I'm not even claiming some shining of honor for modernity. We have far too many laws on the books. Prosecutorial discretion is supposed to be about mercy, compassion and it is a mechanism by which young lives should be saved from the ruin of a prison record. Instead, it ends up being a means by which race based injustice is enforced. There are so many laws on the books that a police officer could (but probably won't) arrest everyone he dislikes enough.
This entry is into its third or fourth day as technical problems have made it difficult to finish. Thankfully, the program saves my work frequently so I lost relatively little of this entry and I broke off with my little fear of police. For some reason, I'm willing to tell people that I have disorders involving irrational fears but I have a lot more trouble explaining what those fears are. One of them happens to be fear of police interaction. Since I happen to be white with no criminal record, I don't fall into any statistical categories where those few bad apples perform their misdeeds. At the same time, I happen to have had more unpleasant interactions with police than pleasant since I got out of convenience store clerking. We're talking mostly very mild stuff like a couple of traffic/parking tickets over the course of my driving life from back when I could drive.
Without getting into any details, these were mild issues where it is likely that I was wrong to some degree anyway. I wished to be given the benefit of the doubt especially during the time when the officer did not witness the single car accident that happened behind me. He gave me a ticket for "failure to yield right of way" when I pulled out into traffic and my limited senses told me that I had plenty of time. The other driver might have been hurt so I stopped in an attempt to be a good Samaritan. The other driver was not hurt but started talking about it being my fault which I thought was a natural reaction. The cop showed up suddenly, took our stories and issued me a ticket.
With the number of times a policeman has saved my life or prevented me from being harmed in some way, I keep a relaxed attitude toward what are honest mistakes at worst. When no one gets shot or has any other form of violence inflicted on him (me), I believe in giving latitude. I'll have to be fair toward authority figures in general because my parents always believe that [whatever] is my fault. I didn't want to call 911 when I was scared half to death by what might have been someone looking in my window with a flashlight. It also might have been someone walking by who was using a flashlight sensibly in the dark. I don't feel safe so I would prefer to live on the second floor or higher in a place with a security door.
Joke as I may about Peeping Toms, my real fear is that I might look out my window and see my father looking in at me. It only happened on and that was in 1992. As a college freshman, I fouled up setting up my phone. We had outgoing only data lines at the time which weren't labeled in my room anyway. After a week of not being able to reach me, he showed up at the window right above my bed. He was being paranoid but I can't exactly throw stones.
The truth is that my house has so much trash that needs to be taken out on the Appalachian trail hike to the dumpster that I might get a ticket for fire code violations or something. In that moment of terror for my life, I chose keeping my problems visually concealed over having my life protected. I can even examine this further. If a cop wrote me a summons to appear before a judge, I might find some way to benefit from it. The cop and the judge would both see the extent of my disability and a door to some help might open up. The (completely made up) "Christian Fund for Helping Shut-Ins Move Their Trash Past Where They Can Walk" might appear and improve my life considerably. Sure, there would be questions about why Melissa feels so awful that she needs to take naps of varying length after work. These are not voluntary naps when they happen but are more of a collapse from exhaustion. Yes, she has a doctor appointment scheduled about this and the bloodwork is done.. The previous appointment or two was/were canceled on account of a sick doctor.
However, I am terrified that the system will share my father's opinions on me and resort to a straw man argument that I believe I should be resolved of all blame..Just thinking about the potential conflict is making me twitch violently. Melissa felt she had to call me from work while she was at dinner because she could tell I was down. I appreciated it a whole lot and was able to sleep some afterward. That ended when Madeline decided that she was hungry. I would have fed her on time except that we were out of food. I what what's going to happen. My sweet baby cat will slip up one day and yowl out, "Feed me Seymour! I'm Hongry!"
ISIS claims to be Muslim the same way that the Kluckers here at home have claimed to be Christian for centuries. They are a violent gang that exists to maintain their scary reputation so that they can live off the ill gotten gains of extortion. They recruit from a vulnerable population: wannabe rebels and revolutionaries in search of a cause. Having studied the Bible from different points of view for decades, I can tell you that holy texts are a poor place to learn basic reading. They are advanced political textbooks involving a certain range of views and the unchallenged prejudices of the day.
Over the many centuries during which the books of the Bible were written, there was no such concept as "gay rights." Militaristic cultures accepted homosexual acts as a matter of course. Take a very large group of men and put them through the extreme emotions of military life in those days and those men will become very lonely. These men will be of all types before they are put into the casting mold intended to create conformist soldiers who can be put into the sort of unit that will take terrible losses in any war. Extremely poor hygeine, lack of access to reliable supply lines and exhaustion left them vulnerable to disease. The only thing within an infantry soldier's control was staying in close formation so that you and your shield mates protected each other. This led to a closeness that I try to depict in my military fiction but cannot truly understand without having been in the military.
Don't get me wrong. I'm mostly describing the Greco-Roman militaristic cultures when I speak of homosexuality being openly accepted. Somehow, the monotheists managed to get morality all mixed up in the subject. The obviousness of men comforting other men was driven underground but I would bet money that I don't have against you if you think it stopped. After all, no one stopped having wars where men found themselves cold and terrified. When Roman legionaire Mythicus had to go on guard duty before setting up his shelter, Bestus Friendus was the only thing between him and freezing overnight because someone stole his shelter and ate his rations. Mythicus and Bestus would do anything for each other. Sparta was fairly liberal in their own brutal ways. Boys would grow up immersed in military training where they saw no women including their mothers. During the campaign season, a lot of shield-mate relationships would form. At home, men considered too old for military service joined the women who had been doing all the work including decision making. Heterosexual relationships were largely reserved for childmaking.
Meanwhile, a boy as generally obedient as I was, would have been stoned to death at least once a week according to the law. When people want to get back to Biblical principles or Koranic principles (I'm only guessing at this term.) they have to decide which principles to emphasize and which to ignore. I'm not even claiming some shining of honor for modernity. We have far too many laws on the books. Prosecutorial discretion is supposed to be about mercy, compassion and it is a mechanism by which young lives should be saved from the ruin of a prison record. Instead, it ends up being a means by which race based injustice is enforced. There are so many laws on the books that a police officer could (but probably won't) arrest everyone he dislikes enough.
This entry is into its third or fourth day as technical problems have made it difficult to finish. Thankfully, the program saves my work frequently so I lost relatively little of this entry and I broke off with my little fear of police. For some reason, I'm willing to tell people that I have disorders involving irrational fears but I have a lot more trouble explaining what those fears are. One of them happens to be fear of police interaction. Since I happen to be white with no criminal record, I don't fall into any statistical categories where those few bad apples perform their misdeeds. At the same time, I happen to have had more unpleasant interactions with police than pleasant since I got out of convenience store clerking. We're talking mostly very mild stuff like a couple of traffic/parking tickets over the course of my driving life from back when I could drive.
Without getting into any details, these were mild issues where it is likely that I was wrong to some degree anyway. I wished to be given the benefit of the doubt especially during the time when the officer did not witness the single car accident that happened behind me. He gave me a ticket for "failure to yield right of way" when I pulled out into traffic and my limited senses told me that I had plenty of time. The other driver might have been hurt so I stopped in an attempt to be a good Samaritan. The other driver was not hurt but started talking about it being my fault which I thought was a natural reaction. The cop showed up suddenly, took our stories and issued me a ticket.
With the number of times a policeman has saved my life or prevented me from being harmed in some way, I keep a relaxed attitude toward what are honest mistakes at worst. When no one gets shot or has any other form of violence inflicted on him (me), I believe in giving latitude. I'll have to be fair toward authority figures in general because my parents always believe that [whatever] is my fault. I didn't want to call 911 when I was scared half to death by what might have been someone looking in my window with a flashlight. It also might have been someone walking by who was using a flashlight sensibly in the dark. I don't feel safe so I would prefer to live on the second floor or higher in a place with a security door.
Joke as I may about Peeping Toms, my real fear is that I might look out my window and see my father looking in at me. It only happened on and that was in 1992. As a college freshman, I fouled up setting up my phone. We had outgoing only data lines at the time which weren't labeled in my room anyway. After a week of not being able to reach me, he showed up at the window right above my bed. He was being paranoid but I can't exactly throw stones.
The truth is that my house has so much trash that needs to be taken out on the Appalachian trail hike to the dumpster that I might get a ticket for fire code violations or something. In that moment of terror for my life, I chose keeping my problems visually concealed over having my life protected. I can even examine this further. If a cop wrote me a summons to appear before a judge, I might find some way to benefit from it. The cop and the judge would both see the extent of my disability and a door to some help might open up. The (completely made up) "Christian Fund for Helping Shut-Ins Move Their Trash Past Where They Can Walk" might appear and improve my life considerably. Sure, there would be questions about why Melissa feels so awful that she needs to take naps of varying length after work. These are not voluntary naps when they happen but are more of a collapse from exhaustion. Yes, she has a doctor appointment scheduled about this and the bloodwork is done.. The previous appointment or two was/were canceled on account of a sick doctor.
However, I am terrified that the system will share my father's opinions on me and resort to a straw man argument that I believe I should be resolved of all blame..Just thinking about the potential conflict is making me twitch violently. Melissa felt she had to call me from work while she was at dinner because she could tell I was down. I appreciated it a whole lot and was able to sleep some afterward. That ended when Madeline decided that she was hungry. I would have fed her on time except that we were out of food. I what what's going to happen. My sweet baby cat will slip up one day and yowl out, "Feed me Seymour! I'm Hongry!"
Saturday, November 7, 2015
She Takes Care of Me When She Can
I'm sitting here at my desk posting one political entry then writing and posting another, shorter one. Don't worry that it's going to be all politics all of the time because my brain might explode. (Every time I write something like that about how I feel after too much concentration, I wonder when it will happen literally.) While writing and making up for time lost to technical issues last night, I have been nursing tiny pieces of one of the world's great chocolate bars. I have loved Hershey's "Special Dark" mildly sweet chocolate since the first time my father let me try a bite of his.
As I sat here letting each tiny piece melt into my mouth, I thought of my beloved Wifey. She bought me the "Special Dark" bar and the almost as good "Krackle" bar as a small wedding anniversary gift. She bought me my two favorite chocolate bars but didn't deliver them on our actual anniversary. I can't be absolutely sure but I believe that I was in bad shape that day. It was less than a week after my most recent pain doc appointment so I was suffering from that. At some point afterward, several more teeth broke off leaving me in howling agony. Her trip out to get me whiskey probably saved my sanity. Her acceptance of my desperate methods kept me from spiraling down into guilt about it.
Now, we find ourselves in a situation that must be handled carefully. (Oh, thank God! I just realized that one entire wing of this crisis was simply a remembered nightmare. No matter how poorly we've gotten along, I'd never be happy to see my parents dead. Stupid nightmares are so impossibly realistic!) On top of the precarious situation, I found myself looking at a nightmare scenario. We had essentially no food and I had no whiskey plus the weather forecast is a weekend of cold weather and rain after our mini-heat wave. I was going to spend a few days in horrible agony while also hungry and everything my imagination could cook up.
I brought up this nightmare scenario to my beloved last night to prepare her for everything she might hear. That's when she told me that she saw this coming while I was still crushed by the last bout. She bought me what I needed when she got my medicine last week. The pharmacy and insurance company combined to make sure that I was short one day on my super-dangerous narcotic. The insurance company decided that my 28 day screipt couldn't be filled until the day I would run out. My beloved wifey had to work from before the location I'm permitted to use opened for the day until after they closed. All I could do was ration the medicine and so it worked out alright but there was residual pain.
Two days later, she saw this crisis coming and bought me whiskey that she kept hidden in the car. Now, I don't drink every day though it might seem that way so a couple of days without any is nothing to worry about in decent weather. When I'm stressed like I am over our big problem, I would be tempted to have a drink to help me sleep in the morning but it was out of sight/out of mind. She knew all of this and knew how badly I'd react to a cold and rainy Saturday.
For too many reasons to state, she is simply the best and I'm so lucky to have her.
As I sat here letting each tiny piece melt into my mouth, I thought of my beloved Wifey. She bought me the "Special Dark" bar and the almost as good "Krackle" bar as a small wedding anniversary gift. She bought me my two favorite chocolate bars but didn't deliver them on our actual anniversary. I can't be absolutely sure but I believe that I was in bad shape that day. It was less than a week after my most recent pain doc appointment so I was suffering from that. At some point afterward, several more teeth broke off leaving me in howling agony. Her trip out to get me whiskey probably saved my sanity. Her acceptance of my desperate methods kept me from spiraling down into guilt about it.
Now, we find ourselves in a situation that must be handled carefully. (Oh, thank God! I just realized that one entire wing of this crisis was simply a remembered nightmare. No matter how poorly we've gotten along, I'd never be happy to see my parents dead. Stupid nightmares are so impossibly realistic!) On top of the precarious situation, I found myself looking at a nightmare scenario. We had essentially no food and I had no whiskey plus the weather forecast is a weekend of cold weather and rain after our mini-heat wave. I was going to spend a few days in horrible agony while also hungry and everything my imagination could cook up.
I brought up this nightmare scenario to my beloved last night to prepare her for everything she might hear. That's when she told me that she saw this coming while I was still crushed by the last bout. She bought me what I needed when she got my medicine last week. The pharmacy and insurance company combined to make sure that I was short one day on my super-dangerous narcotic. The insurance company decided that my 28 day screipt couldn't be filled until the day I would run out. My beloved wifey had to work from before the location I'm permitted to use opened for the day until after they closed. All I could do was ration the medicine and so it worked out alright but there was residual pain.
Two days later, she saw this crisis coming and bought me whiskey that she kept hidden in the car. Now, I don't drink every day though it might seem that way so a couple of days without any is nothing to worry about in decent weather. When I'm stressed like I am over our big problem, I would be tempted to have a drink to help me sleep in the morning but it was out of sight/out of mind. She knew all of this and knew how badly I'd react to a cold and rainy Saturday.
For too many reasons to state, she is simply the best and I'm so lucky to have her.
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