Not really a Grinch

Christmas doesn't mean much to me any more.  It used to.  I can vividly recall that bubbling, sparking feeling of anticipation I got throughout the holiday season when I was a child.  I loved the lights, the colors, the movies, the rituals, the cookies, the presents, the tree.  That feeling, that excitement and joy, the weepy, gooey emotions that make up Christmas spirit were in fact themselves my favorite part of the season.

Then, when I was a young adult living on my own in Los Angeles, desperate to become a working actress, desperate to be loved, surviving on next to nothing, Christmas became a time of spending money I didn't have and time I couldn't spare on trying to think of, find, and buy presents for the first tier people in my life.  And I am just terrible at thinking of and finding the right present for anybody.  My history of gift giving is full of failures and embarrassments and letdowns.  There is also the fact that I began to be oddly repelled by 'stuff'.  I wanted to declutter my life, live more simply.  I couldn't stand going into stores and seeing all the rows and aisles and shelves and rooms jammed with stuff and more stuff and even more stuff.

I finally declared that I was simply not going to give Christmas presents any more, and requested, begged even, that people not give presents to me.  (Some still did, and some of those presents were lovely, but some just became more clutter in my life.  Several times a gift didn't fit into the suitcase I had taken to wherever the family gathering happened to be, leaving me to hold it on my lap on the flight home, or mail it to myself.  I guess I'm not the only person who isn't good at choosing gifts to give.)  I did begin to enjoy Christmas a bit more after that declaration,  I'm not so much of a Grinch that I couldn't still take pleasure in the classic holiday movies looking at light displays, singing carols.  But those bubbles, those sparkles, that poignant, happy feeling in my stomach was still missing.  Without that and without presents, Christmas just doesn't feel all that special.

Still, when I woke up yesterday, Christmas morning, I discovered that Sweet Hubby had opened our boxes of decorations and hung them around the house.  He made us French toast and sausage for breakfast.  We took a walk out in the brisk air, then watched "Miracle on 34th Street".  We Zoomed with my family for a while, then I made us chicken and dumplings for dinner.  By the end of the day, I noticed I was feeling sort of Christmas spirit-y.  Not the bubbles and sparkles of a child, but the sweet happiness of an aging woman who loves her life.  And it was good.

"Smell my fingers"

"Smell my fingers" is a much nicer game to play with Sweet Hubby than it was with the 9 year old boys who used to ask me to play, back in the innocent and often gross days of childhood.  I'll always take a sniff of SH's fingers because I trust him, and trust that his invitation means he has just washed his hands with one of the soaps I love.  I know him and know he wouldn't ambush me with a stink.

Trust is not a matter of hoping for the best, as in "I trust you'll do the right thing", which too often means "I sure hope you do the right thing, but I'm not certain you will."  Trust is actually a matter of knowing someone's character.  We can trust people to act in accordance with their character.  We can absolutely trust Donald Trump to be a liar, a bully, a narcissist, a sociopath.  Sen. Susan Collins' "aspirational" hope that Trump would grow into his position was bullshit.  She knew his character.  We all did and do.  It has been on display since before he even thought about becoming President.  It just didn't matter as much when he was a TV star and product huckster as it does now, when he has the nuclear codes and a very large microphone.

It took some time to get to know the character of some of the Republican Senators, those such as Cruz, Graham, and Rubio, who excoriated Trump's character when he was campaigning and then became some of his most devoted bootlickers after he gained power.  But now we know them,  They have revealed their characters and so we know we can trust them absolutely to abandon their principles and any pretense of serving the people of the United States in exchange for - well, I'm not sure what they thought they were getting in the bargain, not sure what made it worth it to them to sell their souls.  I have to think they have a very short view of history or they would have taken into account how their behavior is going to be logged in its annals and in the memories of those of us living through the nightmare ugliness of the last four years.  They asked us to smell their fingers, and too many of us fell for it.

So if someone betrays you, don't say you'll never trust them again.  Now you know them.  Now you can trust them as you couldn't before, because they have revealed themselves to you.  Now you know not to take a sniff. 

Beauty and certainty

I've been with a lot of men.  Men who fell out of love, men who were critical, men who cheated.  I've been with a lot of good men, too.  But not a single one of them made me feel completely loved and completely known and completely beautiful until Sweet Hubby.

I was in my 50's when we met, on the far, far side of anything that could be called youth, and, naturally enough, have only gotten older.  Now I've got a belly and not much of a waist.  My chin sags.  My hair is limp.  My eyes are small.  I'm wrinkling.  And still I know for sure, with absolute certainty, that SH thinks I'm beautiful.  He has given me that gift in word and deed and glance every day of our marriage.  If ever I began to doubt that, even for a second, my world would change and my joy would be diminished.

Every one of us needs to know, deserves to know, that somebody thinks we are beautiful, no matter what.  We are all the Beast hoping to be saved by Beauty in the fairy tale of our lives, saved by someone who sees our souls and not just our appearance.

The Snow White fairy tale sends a different message, which is powerful and destructive.  (I'm talking here about the Disney version.  The original is rather disturbing and dark.)  In the iconic moment in the story, the Prince's kiss brings the girl out of her coma, gives her back her life.  And he only kisses her because she is beautiful.  He doesn't know her, doesn't know what scares her, what she's like in bed, how bad her temper is, her favorite color or food, what kind of mother she might be.  The Prince loves this dame because she's beautiful.  Snow White isn't even doing anything.  She's not dancing nor swimming nor working nor playing tennis.  She's sleeping.  So there's nothing for the Prince to love except how she looks.  No wonder women spend hours on make up and hair and dieting and working out, and wear those ghastly pointy-toed shoes, and have cosmetic surgeries.  We get the message early on: We will be loved when we are beautiful because we are beautiful.

So those of us who don't fit the Hollywood standard of beauty - and let's face it, that's where it comes from, there and Madison Avenue - we need someone to light up when they look at us, and smile, and mean it.  It's a hard world to be happy in without that.

I am able to believe SH's appreciation of my beauty because I give the same gift to him.  I can see his grizzles and grays and pouches and hair where it shouldn't be and no hair where it should be and still, I find him thrillingly handsome, absolutely swoony good looking.  Not because, or not just because, of how he looks, but because of the him-ness of him, because he is who he is, because of his intellect and kindness and integrity and wacky sense of humor and love of color and kitties,  These are the factors which make up true beauty.  The you-ness of you.

Ordering dinner from a Mediterranean café

This evening Sweet Hubby and I decided to get takeout from our favorite Mediterranean café.  As we drove toward it, I called in our order.  The young woman I spoke to was just lovely, and it was right on the tip of my tongue to ask, "Are you Middle Eastern or...?"  But then I realized that I don't know what I was thinking comes after that "or..."  What do I think is the opposite of Middle Eastern?

It seems as though, in the broadest of strokes, the peoples of the world divide roughly into European, African, Middle Eastern,  Asian, and indigenous.  But think about how many thousands of different indigenous people there are, how many different cultures, even today.  And Europeans - are they more like  Spaniards or more like Danes?  And of course before there were borders and nations there were tribes and all people were indigenous, developing and evolving within however large a territory their tribe's world extended.  Each one speaking a different language, having a different relationship to the natural world, learning different lessons.  And now how homogenous the world has become and everyone is speaking---

It all seemed to big to grasp, so I didn't ask.  I just said, "We'd like an order of grape leaves and some hummus with pita."  It was very tasty, by the way.

My perfect, special day

Dec. 4 this year was the first anniversary of the death of our little girl cat Stachie.  Stachie of the black velvet fur and the perfect little Got Milk? mustache.  Stachie, who loved to nestle and around whom no shoestring was safe.  Stachie of the peepie-cheepie voice and the infinite appetite.  When she began to turn away from food, we knew something was terribly wrong, and the vet confirmed that her kidneys had failed.  We gave ourselves one more night to hold her and love her, and then said our good-byes.  The next day, Dec. 5, was my birthday, but Sweet Hubby and I didn't feel much like celebrating and spent the day instead quietly and in tears.

For years, SH used to give me an Anything I Want day for my birthday, bur for the past four or five years, those plans have been waylaid, by travel or illness or I was acting in a play or Stachie's death.  This year, even though I was feeling sweetly nostalgic about Stachie, I was also determined to celebrate myself and the fact of being alive.  Possible activities are restricted, of course, by COVID, so SH and I simply worked from the more limited menu.

The day started with breakfast in bed.  Actually, my day started at about 6am, but once SH was awake and functioning enough to make us a nice egg sandwich, I got back into bed to eat it.  Breakfast in bed is ridiculous, with all the crumbs and balancing of plates and what have you, and I can't imagine doing it more than about once a century, but I did like the idea of being able to say "For my birthday, my husband brought me breakfast in bed!"

It was a gorgeous, brisk, sunny day, so I followed breakfast with a 2 mile walk to a wetlands park.  SH drove there to join me and we strolled around looking at ducks and other duck-ish birds, holding hands (us, not the birds), talking about whatever.  I also got a call from my ex-sister-in-law, now a good friend and sometime traveling companion.  In fact, a lot of the day was spent fielding phone calls and texts and reading cards and emails.  My goodness but it's wonderful to have friends.

After the walk home, we played some Phase 10 (card game), had lunch, watched some Grey's Anatomy (our current series binge), and then came another highlight of the day.  My cuzzy Donna hosts a game gathering for a bunch of her friends every Saturday, and this day, not only had she coordinated everyone in the group to hold up a Happy Birthday sign, she had also constructed a Jeopardy board that was all about me me me.  Very cleverly done, and fun to play.  (Oddly enough, I don't think I won.)  My goodness but it's wonderful to have relatives.

SH got us pizzas and salad from our favorite place, and then we watched a movie of my choice, City Slickers, which he would probably never have watched on his own and which we've put into our Let Go Of stack.  Then, you know, some whoopee and then to sleep.  A perfect, special day.

One fun story from the day is that on birthday eve, I got a card from my best friend Bill in Los Angeles.  When I opened it, I had to laugh, because I had chosen the same card to send to him for his birthday in January.  But wait, there’s more.  Later that evening, I found a card SH had hidden in plain sight for me.  I opened it, and it was the same card.  I’m going to be laughing about that for a long time to come. 

It's an amazing thing to have been born at all, considering the odds.  That exact sperm had to reach that particular egg that particular time for me to be me.  Knocks me out to think of it.  Thanks, Mom and Dad, for that particular time.  I'm so very, very happy to be alive and to get to experience this complicated, challenging, amazing world.  Believe it or not, I'm even happy to have lived through the past four years, because they are going down in the books as one of the more colorful and controversial chapters in American history and I do hate to miss anything.

Beautiful inside - but wait. That's what counts.

I promised myself long ago that I would never get cosmetic surgery, and I'm going to stick to that.  But these days I better understand the women who do choose that route.  Especially now that I'm not wearing glasses, which used to hide how small my eyes are, and the marsupial-like pouch under each eye.  (I swear, I half expect a baby possum to poke its little nose out any moment now.)

When I look in a mirror, I can still see, or at least remember, the girl, the teenager, the young woman I was.  She is there and she has also disappeared into the hoary mists of antiquity.  She has given way to this very nice, perfectly fine, but sort of tired-looking middle-aged woman.  All I can say is, I feel very fortunate in this moment that I didn't become famous, as I used to want to be, because famous people are examined and judged and criticized for every part of themselves, but especially for how they look, especially women.  It's easy to say I won't get cosmetic surgery when I'm pretty sure no one cares one way or another.  If I thought anyone were looking, I don't know that I would have the courage to allow myself to age naturally and gracefully, as some European actresses seem to do.

If Sweet Hubby dies before me, well, it's a good thing I have all this personality, because nobody's going to go for me for how I look.  They used to, but even then, even when I was young and juicy and slim, I was never a first tier beauty.  I always thought I should be, because of all this personality, but I also didn't do to myself what truly beautiful women are supposed to do.  You know, make-up, styled hair, tight skirt showing off a rounded butt, enhanced breasts, dangerously uncomfortable shoes. I think I knew even then that every effort I made would just make me look like someone who was trying to be beautiful, not someone who actually was.

You know, all this talk of beauty is actually making me feel a little disgusted, and only reveals that I have bought into this Beauty Culture even as I resist it and decry the damage it does.  It seems so unnatural how much emphasis we in this country, and maybe in the world, put on the external, when we all know on some level that the external doesn't really count for anything, not anything real, not anything true and genuine.

I did have an insight last night which rather caused my head to spin.  I was feeling all affectionate and in love and decided to tell Sweet Hubby all the things I love about him.  Not all, of course; that list is infinite, and isn't really a list but an essence.  Anyway, I was going on and on about how much I love his artistic side (ceramicist, actor, director, writer, loves color and music and asymmetry), which is coupled with his eggheadiness (worked for NASA, understands computers, you know, the brainiac at school who didn't fit in because he was smarter than almost everyone else, who loves solving puzzles and problems), which is coupled with his man's manliness (loves tools, loves working with his hands, good at whatever activity he tries [skiing, kayaking, parachuting, archery, etc], coupled with the fact that he is an absolute love god.  He might not be for everyone, but he sure sends me to the moon.

And as I was going on and on about how amazing and wonderful he is, I suddenly realized that someone like this wouldn't, couldn't fall in love with anyone who couldn't stand toe to toe and eye to eye with him.  Which means maybe I'm amazing and wonderful, too.  Wow.  I may faint.

Letter to Lindsey Graham, Republican contortionist

I did actually send this letter to Sen. Graham, although I don't expect him to read it.

Dear Senator Graham,

Before Donald Trump was elected, you were quite frank in your evaluation of his character.  I find I am intensely interested in what inspired you to transform yourself from his critic to one of his most vocal champions.  Did it involve days of wrestling with your conscience, or was it only a moment, and easy?  What was the prize that made it worth the price?

Was your turnabout “aspirational” (to use Sen. Collins’ word)?  Did you hope that the gravity of the office of President would cause him to rise above his character and become more wise, more kind, more serious?  You must have recognized almost immediately, as so many of us did, that the international spotlight and the power he was given only served to exacerbate his worst qualities, and that he has still, to this day, never read the Constitution, whose principles he - and you - took an oath to protect.

I’m sure you’ve heard the speculation that Trump must have something on you (as well as on Sen. Cruz and the other Republicans who went from repudiating to praising him), some way to blackmail you into supporting him.  But I don’t believe that.  You are too eager to put on this four year show of support for it to have been coerced.

Was it the proximity to his power which drew you to his side?  After all, Henry Kissinger said long ago that power is an aphrodisiac.  Or was it fear of his power, when you saw the retribution with which he responds to every critic?  Again, you seem far too enthusiastic in your support for it to have been simply going along to save yourself.

Did you think you had taken the pulse of the country and convinced yourself you were serving the will of the people?  No, that doesn’t seem likely, since Clinton won the popular vote in 2016.  Was your rationale that a Senator must serve the sitting President, not matter what?  No, it couldn’t be that, given how gleefully the Senate obstructed President Obama’s efforts.

You must have hoped that the country would forget your past criticisms of this dangerously flawed man and accept  your praise of him as sincere.  If only it weren’t for that pesky ad produced by Republican Voters Against Trump, it’s possible that we might have.  But alas, it is recorded for all to hear that you believe the Republican party lost its moral authority to govern the people when it did not reject Donald Trump. 

Also on record is that you believe Joe Biden to be “as good a man as God ever created”.  So how will you conduct yourself in these next four years?  Or in the next several months, for that matter?  Are you going to continue to trample on your own best instincts and your own integrity by continuing to champion Trump?  Are you going to join Mitch McConnell in giving President Biden as difficult a term as the Senate gave President Obama?  There is time to recover your soul, Senator Graham.  That time is now.  It’s not too late for you. 

Those Boxes

I’ve been  using some of the time afforded by the coronavirus lockdown to go through Those Boxes.  You know the ones I mean.  You may have a collection of your own, those boxes and bins which hold photo albums, scrapbooks, letters, memorabilia, all the artifacts one accumulates through the years.

It has been rather like doing an archeological dig through the relics of a lifetime.  So many memories have been stirred, mostly happy, a few bittersweet.  Sharing rediscovered photos with Sweet Hubby has allowed him a glimpse of the person I was and the life I led before we met.

It’s a relief to get to this task at last.  “Go through boxes” has been on my Someday list for years, as I  carted them from apartment to apartment to house to house to house, adding to them now and then, but seldom taking the time to organize and enjoy the contents.  I have found myself wondering “Why did I keep all of this?”  I don’t have children to pass it to.  And I have finally accepted the fact that no one is ever going to write my biography and so won’t need research materials.  Why, then, do I find it so difficult to let any of it go?

I have finally come to see what these photos, this memorabilia means to me.  It is the evidence of who I have been, who I am, and what my life has been made of.  While I hope it doesn’t happen for many more years, I can imagine that there may come a time when I am in surroundings in which I am regarded as just another old lady, or just another patient.  The content of these boxes are my proof that I have been so much more than that and have lived a life in full.

I saw the Beatles in concert.  I trekked in the Nepali Himalayas.  I’ve camped in deserts and forests, won money on game shows, had dogs and cats and ferrets as pets, written letters to newspaper editors, traveled to England, Spain, Germany, and South Korea.  I’ve worked in a bank, a real estate office, a vehicle maintenance garage, and modeled for art classes for more than thirty years.  My heart has been broken many times and I am now in the happiest possible marriage to the loveliest possible man.

I don’t need to be famous, but I do want to be known and remembered, even if only for one more generation.  And so I have decided to put together carefully curated bundles of photos and artifacts to pass to my nieces and nephews.  They are the ones who have known me best and can keep my candle burning just a little bit longer, just as it is my honor and my siblings’ to cherish the memory of our parents.  It is the honor of every generation to remember those who came before and be remembered by those who come after.

Having realized what this memorabilia means to me and decided its fate has allowed me to take an easier delight in it all.  What a pleasure to see the closet and shelf space that has been opened up by the removal of Those Boxes.  Now I get to cross one more item off the Someday list.  Up next?  Time to tackle the garage.

More musings from Granny Owl

I walk around a lake several times a week with friends, and today I noticed that there was a lightheartedness to our conversation that is new and delicious.  We talked about all sorts of things: acrophobia, documentaries, skydiving, morning woodies, autumn, exes.  And I realized that for four years, virtually every conversation I've been engaged in has been devoted, at least partly, to Trump and his vile shenanigans.  I am certain I have never spoken anyone's name, not even Sweet Hubby's, as often as I have spoken Trump's, and always spoke it with outrage and disgust.  Now that he is so close to gone (although no doubt he will not leave the public eye soon, if ever) (but one can hope he drowns in enough lawsuits and debt to be made a minor figure), I am one of millions who feel as though a weight, a great depressive, has been lifted, and it's all right to talk about other things and to laugh with unmitigated joy again.

SH and I are re-watching Grey's Anatomy from the beginning, currently partway through the second season.  We have both noted that any time anyone has sex on that show, it's always the tearing-off-clothes-while-stumbling-breathlessly-and-frantically-toward-the-bedroom kind.  I have never had that kind of sex, or I guess it's foreplay, in my life.  Not once.  Maybe the show chose to portray sex that way because of how awkward and slow it can be to get undressed, or maybe it's to convince us that the characters are passionate in the extreme, or maybe to justify that, even though so much of the sex they're having is unwise and ends badly, they are simply too turned on to stop themselves.  But to me it's sort of annoying because it's just a Hollywood idea of sex.  Also, they're all always drinking coffee, but the paper cups they drink out of are clearly empty.  And whenever someone is drinking a soda through a straw, there is always that gurgling sucking noise, as though the drink is almost gone.  Always.  Stupid.

Lindsey Graham (and Ted Cruz and quite a few other Republicans) let us know years ago what he really thinks of Trump (xenophobic, racist, ignorant) and then did some sort of contortion and became one of his most vocal and loyal supporters.  So we know what Graham thinks of Trump.  I wonder what he thinks of himself.

I'm guessing we're all going to be thinking about the role of the Vice President in the coming four years more than we have during any other administration.  A woman of color who is intelligent and fierce and strong and vocal.  Quite a relief after the blank-eyed toady occupying that position today.  Hallelujah!

To all the people who are one-issue voters (and usually that issue is abortion): There is no such thing as a one-issue vote or a one-issue candidate.  If you vote someone into office because of that one issue, you're going to get everything else that he or she brings to the table, every opinion, every act, every  prejudice.  So you'd better be sure you're voting for the right person for the right reason.  It's like marriage.  If you marry someone because they're good in bed or have a lot of money, you're also going to have to put up with his miniature train obsession or her love of golf or his insistence on no pets or her crying jags.  I say again: There Is No Such Thing As A One-Issue Vote!

Speaking of marriage, it took me a long time but I finally learned the one and only key to a consistently and fully happy marriage.  Marry the right person for you.  If you don't, not much can help you.  If you do, nothing can get in your way.

Speaking of clear and simple solutions, I know the perfect, never-fail, six word diet.  When I just now Googled (don't you love that Google has become a verb?) "diet books", 807,000 results immediately showed up, but really, the basics of weight loss are so straightforward.  Eat less.  Eat better.  Move more. 

And another simple solution.  If you want to be a better conversationalist, listen.  Ask questions.  Take an interest.  I used to try to fill conversations with witticisms, bon mots, and show-offy factoids in an effort sparkle and be interesting but all I was really doing was performing, and that was because I was terrified of being boring and terrified of even momentary pauses.  I must have been exhausting to be around sometimes.  I was always so nervous talking to someone I didn't know, and often even to someone I did know.  Now I can talk to anyone because I learned to listen  Life really can be so much easier than we make it.

Cataract Surgery, A friendly guide to

This is my experience, of course.  Yours may vary, although I imagine mine was fairly standard.  I had mine on Tue. Nov. 3, which puts that date in the history books.  There was something else going on that day, but I can't remember what it was, some minor political scuffle.

Like a colonoscopy, cataract surgery (hereafter called c.s. for brevity's sake) is one of those procedures which sound much ickier than it actually is.  And, like a colonoscopy, it's the prep that's actually a bit more challenging and, in the case of c.s., a lot more time consuming.  It consists of putting 3 different drops into one's eye 4 times a day with 5 minutes in between each drop for 3 days pre-op and 7 days post-op.  Eye drop times come to rather dominate one's schedule, but they're painless, as long as you don't poke your eye with a dropper.  P.S. Don't poke your eye with a dropper.

The surgery itself goes fairly quickly.  One is given a mild relaxant and, off course, the eyeball is numbed, as it must be, since it's going to be sliced open, a tiny incision.  From what I understand, the old lens is broken up and sucked out and a new one inserted.  It's all rather mysterious to me; that it's even possible seems rather miraculous.  There's a lot about the current era that I don't care for (Trump, Facebook, identity theft, robo calls), but I'm grateful as hell for modern medicine, even while realizing that a hundred years from now our modern medicine will look primitive.

One is sent home with an eye patch, although I was disappointed to find it's a clear plastic patch held to the face with soft tape instead of a jaunty black one with a strap.  So there went my yo ho ho jokes.  My eyeball was a little achy, but not as bad as I had anticipated.  The patch is worn for the entire day post-op and then at night for a week.  I didn't find it troublesome nor even distracting in bed, which surprised me.

Some of the post-op restrictions are that one mustn't exercise nor bend over for a while.  I can manage not to exercise, except for walking (and thank goodness that's still allowed or I would have gone crazy already), but it's really difficult to go through a day without bending over.  Taking the laundry out of the washing machine, for example, or putting the cat bowl on the floor, or putting on shoes, or etc. etc. etc.  Still, it's important to mind the medical advice so as not to shift the new lens.

One of the biggest difficulties after c.s. is that one eye now has better vision, but the other doesn't.  What to do about that little puzzle?  I have (soon to be had!) presbyopia, which means I don't (didn't!) have clear vision at any distance, so I wore my trifocals all the time, with another pair specifically lensed for looking at my computer.  I tried first taking a lens out of the trifocals on the amended side, but that didn't work at all, gave me terrible double vision.  I figured I was just going to have to be purblind for two weeks, until the other eye is given its new lens.  However, I gradually came to see (hahaha!) that I can already see fairly clearly out of the new eye.  Full clarity of vision is not possible because of the unamended eye, but I already anticipate that after that one is repaired, I may not have to wear glasses at all.  Right now I've settled on going without glasses most of the time and using my computer glasses for reading and the computer.  It's rather annoying to have to put them on and take them off and put them on and take them off all day (if this isn't a first world problem, I don't know what is).  It's still too soon to know if I'll need glasses at all once the second eye has its new lens, but if I do, they will probably be just for reading, or will be a much, much lighter prescription.

All in all, in spite of a few days of mild achiness in the eye, the demanding schedule of eyedrops, and not great vision for a while, not to mention the fact that I'm not one of the women who take off their glasses and suddenly become beautiful, the surgery was absolutely and without question worth it, and feels like a new chapter of seeing the world.  Oh, and something else has happened that feels like a new chapter, but I can't remember what it is.

What if and slapping Rudy

What if the first moment COVID showed up in this country - and we saw it coming, remember?  We saw it arise and watched it travel - what if the federal government, in partnership with state agencies, had immediately isolated those infected, locked down the local area, and begun rigorous contact tracing.  What if the government had made sure that local health professionals were fully stocked with safety and testing equipment, and that local hospitals were fully prepared.  What if that had happened every time a new case arose.  What if there had been actual leadership?  How many people might still be alive?  How many businesses still thriving?

And speaking of contact tracing, Mr. Giuliani, I want to have a word with you.  I still remember an interview you did, with Fox of course, in which you made giggling fun of contact tracing as though it were a ludicrous idea.  What next? you asked.  Contact tracing for cancer?  Mr. Giuliani, you are a moron.  How do you not know that contact tracing is done to follow and inhibit the spread of infectious diseases?  Or do you think that cancer is infectious?  How do you not know that contact tracing has been used for a century and is partly responsible for the eradication of smallpox?  How do you not realize that the professionals who recommend contact tracing are miles smarter than you are?

You seem to take delight in mocking intelligence, even though every single significant contribution to the human race and to our lives today was imagined, created, refined, manufactured, and made available by people of intelligence.  Fabric, paper, the harnessing of electricity, canning food, internal combustion, radar, GPS, symphonies, movies, the list of astounding accomplishments goes on and on.  Do you think someone who spent his time mocking people could have created any of that?  It's as though you have brain envy, and can't stand anyone whose are bigger than yours.  You sad, little man.

Lockdown blessings

 1) I'm working out a lot during this time, sometimes 2 or 3 times a day (although I'm also eating my share of comfort food).  I've always worked out fairly regularly, but during these stressful times when I'm feeling particularly depressed, anxious, or unfocused, I tend to turn to working out, sort of "this day feels wasted but at least I can move".  And I continue to love to put on music and dance my ass off. 

2) Sweet Hubby and I have always had a strong marriage, but it's only in the past 7 months (7 months!?!?) that we've been together so consistently.  He used to go to work, and I used to travel or go out with friends quite a lot.  Now it's pretty much all us all the time.  And I've discovered that our marriage is just as strong, just as fun, just as good as it has always been, and perhaps even stronger because we are doing a good job accompanying one another through this chaotic, emotional era as well as through the years of aging.  My parents always used to say "Marry someone whose conversation and company you enjoy", but during those years when I was juicy and hormonal, conversation wasn't as important as I've come to see it is.  Infatuation is brief.  Good company can be forever.

3) We do some take-out to support local businesses, but we eat in most of the time, and I'm getting a kick out of trying new recipes from the 31 recipe books taking up space in the kitchen.

4) I've worn my hair the same for a long time, but now I'm letting it grow out and get to see how it looks as different lengths.  I always felt I needed to keep it the same so it matched my headshots, but with one rare exception, there are no auditions coming my way, so I can look pretty much any way at any time.  there may be a new look waiting for me at the end of this lockdown.

5) More reading time.

6) This doesn't seem like a blessing right now, but I believe in the long run it will be one.  Trump didn't create the fanaticism, discord, divide, hysteria, dissatisfaction, racism, xenophobia now on such noisy and prominent display in this country, although he is a master at stirring it up, giving it a megaphone and a spotlight, being the cheerleader.  And because it has been stirred up, his term in office has opened all our eyes to how many unhealed wounds we have tried for so long to ignore, wish away, hide from.  There's no hiding now.  There's no denying.  There are serious problems, inequities in our society that must be dealt with.  Let's hope they can be dealt with in a way that actually looks for solutions and healing rather than being used as a means to win power.

7) Clearing out shelves and drawers and boxes, organizing, letting go of (although it's not easy right now to know where to pass the let go stuff to).

8) Zooming with family members regularly and with friends often.  My sibs and I used to be in touch pretty much as needed or on whim.  Now we Zoom every week, a time I always look forward to and cherish.  And I take part in two game Zooms a week, a writing group Zoom bi-weekly, and another writing group Zoom monthly.  I would feel a whole lot more isolated, a whole lot more depressed without these wonderful, uplifting sessions.

There are probably even more reasons that this time is a blessing and not a curse, or not just a curse.  I try not to take it for granted that SH and I are getting through this fairly easily, without children to educate and entertain, without parents to worry about, without jobs to lose or struggle to keep.  For some people. there is probably a lot more curse than blessing.  So I try to be conscious and grateful every day.  As the man was heard to say at each floor as he fell from the top of a skyscraper: "So far so good."

On a happier note

 I've been coming up with You Might Be an Egghead jokes, sort of the counterpoint to Jeff Foxworthy's You Might Be a Redneck.  I've only thought of a few so far:

If your wife says "Let's have sex" and you think "Damn, I was going to read", you might be an egghead.

If "The Big Bang Theory" is your "Duck Dynasty", you might be an egghead.

If someone says "rock star" and you immediately think of Neil deGrasse Tyson, you might be an egghead.

To anyone who reads this, if you can think of any others, feel free to pass them along.

Dear Mitch McConnell

Senator McConnell, your unseemly haste in wanting to fill RBG's seat has revealed what a malicious, hypocritical man you are.  If you want to disillusion us all, right and left, about how our government functions, then good job.  Because your supporters do see your hypocrisy, make no mistake.  They just don't care, or are still too scared to say the Emperor has no clothes.  You and they have succeeded in making us all despise government, its blatant corruption, its - his stubborn ignorance, the stirring up of hatred and all our worst instincts.  And we despise each other, right and left.  You and Trump have fomented a social civil war that is going to reverberate for a long time, no matter how many Obamas and Bidens and Harrises try to heal it.

Now then, do I feel better for putting that all in words?  Hard to say.

Damn them!

 A friend of mine was scammed but good last week.  She's an older woman, a recent widow, and although she hasn't been financially ruined, this is scary for her.  She feels very alone as she navigates replacing her computer and credit cards, opening and closing accounts, filing reports, dealing with the aftermath of having naively let someone into her computer.  She is embarrassed that she was caught, of course, but she's from a time when people were more trusting and had reason to be.

And they know that, these fucking thieves.  That's why elders are targeted.  We're not as familiar, not as comfortable with the digital world, of course, but even more so because we still want to believe that it's possible to trust someone.  And that belief is used against us as though it were a flaw instead of a beautiful way to behave.  

Sometimes it feels as though this country has been ruined, and I often fear the ruination might be permanent.  Empires rise and fall all through history, and this is probably what it looks like when the erosion has begun.  People are so angry, so careless about hurting one another.  The gap between who has and who wants is widening palpably.  I blame Trump for a lot of this dysfunction and madness, but he didn't create it.  He and Fox have simply found all sorts of ways to stir it up, give it a spotlight and a megaphone.  There have always been scammers and there probably always will be, although their access to victims has been exponentially enhanced by the digital age.  But there is an underlying sickness in this country which Trump has exposed and which all this scamming is a symptom of.

I guess the US has to be humbled eventually.  We can't keep striding around the world in our hobnailed boots, taking what we want, ignoring poverty and starvation, propping up dictators.  We were founded on genocide and slavery, the root rot that is showing up now in the failing of so many of our systems and projects and laws.  I sure do miss Obama.  I miss my Mom.  I miss optimism.  I miss the assumption of decency in others.

Dancing, drama, and disappointment

 I was feeling pretty blue last evening.  For one thing, I've got all these medical tests to take to determine what caused the weird passing out incident a few nights ago.  Although I feel fine in my body, I feel fragile in my spirits.  And then there's all the ongoing political tensions.  I have a vivid and disturbing picture in my imagination (and may it stay there!) of bands of Republicans or unaffiliated thugs attacking Dems at polling places on election day.  Trump is a failure at most aspects of life (including, apparently, finances), but he is a master at sowing doubt and discord.

Also, my play Holy Hell, possibly my most powerful, was performed digitally last night, and it was a terrible disappointment.  There were tech difficulties, very distracting.  But more than that, the actors used a very narrow range of emotional colors.  The woman had one moment that felt like true emotion, but otherwise it felt rushed and flat.  It didn't make me cry, which is telling.  I was embarrassed that I had invited so many people to watch it, and even to donate to it.  These digital performances (7 or 8 so far) are just too universally disappointing, the one exception being the reading of Familiar Kill by a group in London.  I don't think I'm going to invite my peeps to watch them any more.  I had had high hopes for this one because the play lends itself so well to the Zoom format, but those hopes, while not dashed, were not met.  Sigh.

Anyway, when I'm blue, dancing is often a good way to get out of my head and into a sweeter place, so I put on some Peter Gabriel and danced my ass off, something I haven't done for a while.  And as I was moving, I had the thought that I probably could have been a good dancer.  I seem to have a feel for it and love doing it, almost any kind.  When I took my first African dance class several years ago, one of the drummers said to me "You've done this a lot, haven't you", and didn't believe me when I said it was my first time.  If I had stayed with it, even though I don't have a dancer's body type and even though I'm not naturally limber, I think I might have been really good.  If I had stayed with it.  If I had given it my all.

And that got me thinking that I haven't really given my all to anything.  There are a lot of aspects of myself which have never been developed as fully as they could have been because I didn't give them one hundred per cent, because I haven't given anything one hundred per cent.  Not acting, not writing, not dancing, not school, not leadership, not anything.

Except my family, my husband, and my best friends.  To them, I give everything I have and everything I am.  That must be where my focus has always been, even if I've spent a years thinking it ought to be elsewhere.  But it is here on the people I love and who populate my life.  So at least I can say I give my all somewhere.  That's something.

A Most Excellent Day

Today was one of the best days I've had in a long time.  I've been so full of anger and outrage and anxiety lately, getting too little sleep, chewing and chewing on dark thoughts and arguments.  But today wiped away a lot of that and really brought out the sun.

For one thing, last night Sweet Hubby and I had dinner with our across-the-street neighbors, outside, of course, and safely distanced.  It was so lovely to sit on the patio and chat and eat with friends, especially since I lifted not a finger to prepare the meal.  It was their gift to us for giving them passes to the Pt. Townsend digital Film Festival.  Just lovely to be together, surrounded by their many animals, gnawing on tender ribs and wolfing down homemade sourdough bread and the best cole slaw, just talking about everything - except politics.  We did our best to stay away from that, for the sake of our digestion and our hearts.

Then there's the fact that I got a whole night of sleep last night.  I did wake up once to pee and once to take a migraine pill, but both times got back to sleep and got a little more than 8 hours.  I had thought I was going down a long, dark tunnel of depression, but it's quite possible I have just been sleep deprived.

Today, SH and I took a whole day away, drove north on I-5, then south on Hwy. 9, which is a lovely drive through a rural, treesy part of the state, pretty and peaceful.  It's not very often that we have a whole day when we are actually in each other's company; so often, even if we are both home all day, we are head-down into our singular activities or side by side watching a movie together.  A whole day of talking and holding hands and being lookout for each other while we peed behind trees.  Such a relaxed, sweet day.

And perhaps best of all, today came the news that POTUS and FLOTUS have COVID.  I know it's terribly wicked of me to be over-the-moon joyful about someone getting sick, but after his months of denial and misinformation and neglect, working to convince his followers that the virus is a hoax or being overplayed, it's just superb that he's got it.  Now perhaps those ardent acolytes of his who follow his lead in denying will finally realize this is a real problem and absolutely must be dealt with.

There's some speculation that he doesn't actually have it, but is using this as an excuse to get out of the next two debates after the debacle of the first one.  But I don't buy that.  I think he'd use almost any excuse but COVID if he wanted out of the debates.  (The first was pointless anyway, with all the yelling and accusations and name calling and interrupting.  An unprecedented car crash, not a debate at all.  Poor Biden surely wanted to discuss issues but ended up defending himself against the onslaught of a caveman with not the slightest sliver of statesmanship in him.)  There is also speculation that he is using this announcement as a ploy to get sympathy votes and a rise in his numbers.  Maybe.  He must be desperate.  Good.  I despise, loathe, abhor, dislike, and hate this man and the damage he's done.  I'm glad he's sick.  

It was a good day.

Something happened but I don't know what - or why

 A couple of nights ago, I was working on a crossword puzzle, as I love to do.  Sweet Hubby came to the table to speak to me, as I love him to do.  All of a sudden, I began to feel really weird.  I had had a few puffs, no more than usual, so I thought maybe this was just the pot coming on, but the feeling kept building, taking me over.  The best way I can describe it is that it felt as though I were dissolving.  Not like in acid, nothing as unpleasant as that, but more like a fizzy tablet in water.  I felt as though I were disappearing.  According to SH, I turned my head away, closed my eyes, sort of leaned back, although I remained sitting.   

What I experienced in those few moments of - was it unconsciousness? - was an intense dreaming state, vivid and active, although I can't remember a single image now.  Pretty soon I opened my eyes again.  SH was standing over me looking rather alarmed.  I think I had been mid-sentence when I disappeared for a moment.  It must have been really scary for him once he realized I wasn't just fooling around.

I was able to walk to the couch and sit with him to talk comfortably for a while as I returned to myself.  I didn't have a headache or blurred vision, seemed to have all my motor control, no dizziness, really no symptoms, no after effects at all.  It was the strangest thing.  I find myself wondering: Did I have a mini-stroke?  What was that moment?

I'm not really concerned about this odd little incident, since there seems to have been no damage.  But I'm getting worried about myself in other ways.  I used to be able to stay up until 1 or 2 with no difficulty, but now can barely make it to 10pm, which isn't surprising given that I routinely wake up at 3:30 or so.  I know I'm not getting enough sleep.  Those early mornings, my mind almost immediately turns to the state of the world and especially of this country, and my blood turns to acid and I want to cry and scream and bury my head.  Maybe that moment of disappearance was stress related.  That wouldn't surprise me.

I need to stop looking at anything political.  I watched a few highlights - lowlights, really - of the debate and found myself feeling sick and my mood turning foul.  So I need to stay away from politics, and I need to find something to do that makes the world, even if just my world, a better place.  This level of outrage and depression simply isn't sustainable and it certainly isn't healthy. 

I just can't believe what has happened to this country.  I'm so sorry for the young 'uns who are inheriting such a mess of a planet.  Although I often wonder who will show up for me when I'm truly old and need help, I'm also glad I don't have children.  I don't know how I could look them in the face and say "Stay hopeful.  Follow your passion.  Have fun.  Enjoy your time here."  It is not normal for me to be so blue, so down, so tearful and listless.  I know there are many, many good people doing good work, building bridges, building communities, being generous, being kind.  I try to be one of them.  But kindness is quiet, while hatred and ignorance are noisy and take up a lot of room.

I have been chirpily telling people "It's our sacred duty to stay positive and lively and happy as an antidote to all this meanness."  I guess it's time to follow my own advice, which is an awful lot harder than it sounds.

What I might have been

The strongest driving forces in my life have also been its biggest impediments: the desire to be loved and the desire to be liked.  They have led me into too many unhealthy relationships and have cost me who knows how many acting jobs, not to mention the cost to my energy and sense of self.

I don't blame her, that girl I was who so longed to belong that she would bend herself into all sorts of  inauthentic shapes and sizes, until that bending became a way of life.  I understand her and, after all, she got me to where I am now, which is a pretty fucking fantastic place.  It's just that I'll never know who I might have been, what I might have accomplished, if I hadn't cared so much about what other people thought of me.  And of course the joke is that a lot of them disliked me anyway, no matter how hard I tried.  What a waste. 

Good-bye, Ruth

 RBG is dead.  I'm surprised by how profoundly that has affected me.  I'm feeling very, very low.  Of course McConnell and Trump are rushing to try to fill her seat, which would or will tip the Supreme Court to the right for decades.  The Supremes have already overturned voter protection laws, given corporations the rights of individuals in Citizens United, made GW Bush President in a contested election.  It's sickening.  After McConnell refused even to consider Obama's candidate.  All the hypocrisy and partisanship and ignorance and meanness is really getting to me today.  I've already had to warn SH that storms may suddenly come upon us, and with them bristles and weeping and ranting.

I've sent an email to a friend who is going to vote for Trump because he, my friend, wants abortion made illegal again.  I tried not to blast him too hard with my scathing words, but really, I can't stand the fact that men think they have the right to tell women that they have to carry to term children they don't want.  It's so easy for men to say "You have to" when no man in the past present or future has ever suffered or will ever suffer the consequences of an unwanted pregnancy, even though they caused every one of them.  And I can't stand that the Catholic church is against both abortion and birth control.  I am so furious today, I feel as though I could burn something down if anything pushed on me even a little bit.

I keep telling people that keeping an open heart and a light spirit is our duty during these harsh, challenging, anguished times, but today I'm giving myself permission to feel as low as I feel, to eat potato chips and drink Dr. Pepper and not exercise and cry whenever I feel like it and be as angry, as outraged, as exhausted as I really am.  It doesn't help that I slept very poorly last night.  If I wake up for any reason, the cat hollering or hot flashes or having to pee, my mind quickly starts to gnaw on something or another, have righteous conversations with villains, search desperately for haven.  Oh Ruth, Ruth, we needed you, and you never even got to enjoy retirement.

I can't stand what the Trump Presidency has revealed about this country.

At least the sky is clean again after a week of smoke.  That's something.  I'll be more cheerful tomorrow.  I promise.  But today, it's a bad, bad day.

The Curse of the Mirror

This evening as I was undressing for my shower, I took a moment to really look at myself in the mirror.  I noticed for the first time that my breasts, which have gotten heavy, have begun to sag.  It made me a little sad because they've always been just terrific.

Even in my fantasy that someday I'm going to eat perfectly and do enough exercise that I'm going to get back my 40 year old body, I realized that, without surgery, they're never going to be upright again.  No amount of celery and spinach, no number of push-ups is going to bring them back.  I found myself apologizing in my head to SH for them, because he likes them as much as I do.  Maybe even more.

And I realized instantly that SH would never say something like that about himself to me, never apologize for what he looks like, never.  He went bald quite young, but doesn't now and didn't them seem to have the slightest self-consciousness about it.  When we were courting by phone, early on he told me that he has hair on his back, but not with embarrassment, not with shame.  Just to let me know in case it mattered to me.  It probably had to some woman he was with.  He hardly ever looks in the mirror, which is why his clothes are often askew.  He just does think about, don't care about it.  That is so foreign to me.

I can remember being negatively judgmental about myself when I was a child.  A child.  I don't know at exactly what age that started, but once it arrived, it has never left.  And the thing is, I used to be so healthy, slim, muscular, athletic, with long blonde hair.  I don't know if I was so down on myself because I wanted to be an actress and felt I needed to look good on camera, or if I was just one of an infinite number of girls and women who are taught by an infinite number of teachers that we don't look like her, this model, this starlet, this gorgeous famous woman whose face has just enough of a flaw to be perfect.  I knew my legs were too short, my thighs not skinny enough, I knew my chin was too soft, my belly not concave enough.  I wasn't limber enough, or slinky enough, or exotic enough.

It's brutal, this beauty culture, which infects us all, male and female.  We're taught the perfect prototypes for our own sex and for each other's, and we occupy and exhaust ourselves trying to fit them and trying to find them to make them our lovers, as though that is what matters.

My sister, who is working very hard to lose weight right now, really committed and strong, said that she thinks I accept and like my body, or at least am not disdainful of it.  I don't know.  I guess there has to be a certain amount of unselfconsciousness built in or achieved in order to be an art model.  I did that for about 30 years.  I guess there had to have been a moment when I decided to keep doing it after I hit menopause and my belly softened and my arms sagged and, well, you know.  And in fact, I am rather proud of the fact that a teacher who taught a series of art classes on anatomy would hire me for the session on fat and age.  I think I was a fairly rare commodity: an overweight woman who was still willing to undress in front of a classroom of very judgmental-but-always-respectful young people.  Something built into me or achieved somehow makes it possible for me to be naked, even with this heavy, aging, imperfect body.  My sister is wrong, though; I make low, heavy judgments of myself daily, perhaps hourly.  But I'm awake enough to know that if I'm not going to do what it takes to look more the way I say I want to, then I need to shut up about it.  Until I'm ready to do what my sister is doing and really make changes, then I should give up any, pardon but notice the pun, belly-aching about it.  So I just manage to look as though I accept myself.  Maybe with SH for a role model, eventually I'll learn to.

"I don't like him."

I am endlessly fascinated by words.  I like to learn or make up stories about  how idiomatic sayings get started.  From what I understand, the term "the whole nine yards", for example, comes from the world of haberdashery, nine yards being the amount of fabric needed to make a three-piece suit.  And I like to think about different ways to interpret adages, such as "A friend in need is a friend indeed."  Does that mean that someone who is a friend to you when you are in need is indeed a good friend?  Or does it mean that someone who is in need will act like a good friend so as to get your help?

I'm most interested in synonyms.  They might at first seem silly or unnecessary.  "He walked away", of course, is perfectly fine.  But it paints very different pictures to say "He stomped away" or "He slunk away" or "He tiptoed away."  Because, after all, words are verbal paint.

I've been thinking about the declaration "I don't like him" and thinking of the synonymous ways to say that and how each one feels different.  "I don't like him" is a statement of fact, no dressing, no elaboration, bald and true.

"I dislike him" is more active, has a whiff of disdain, and also a slight equivocation.

"I hate him" is blunt and raw, visceral, not reasoned.

"I despise him" really drips of disdain.  It's almost impossible to say it without sneering.

"I abhor him" is dismissive; there is little juice in it.  It puts the speaker above him.

"I loathe him" is emphatic.  To say it correctly, one has to drag out that long 'o', almost as a way to distance oneself from him.

I'm not sure why I thought of all this just now.  I do think a lot about Trump, although I wish I didn't, those thoughts being counter to good health and peace of mind.  Perhaps that's why this particular examination of synonyms took shape.  Anyway, I love words and what they can do.  That's all.

Another corpse

The corpse in this case is my relationship with a friend.  Perhaps it's just in a coma.  Perhaps there will be a miracle revival down the road.  It's awfully hard to tell at this point.

The murder weapon in this case was conversation.  My friend, the first good friend I made when I moved to my current home city, is an anti-vaxxer.  I've known this for a long time, and since we disagree on the subject, we have in the past managed simply to avoid talking about it.  Because how often in day to day life does the subject of vaccines need to come up?  However, it's harder not to talk about in these days of COVID when a vaccine looks like a way out of hell. 

We got together recently for an outdoor brunch, and it was then I discovered she also doesn't believe in wearing masks.  Once again, we tiptoed around the topic.  I asked a few questions but didn't get into pushing back or trying to change her mind.  But in subsequent emails exchanges, even though we both agreed we need to avoid the topic, we just couldn't keep our hands - meaning our minds - off it.  There was a very quick escalation when she said something insulting, the first time one of us had said something to the other that equated to "I'm right and you're wrong."  I went downhill emotionally and realized actual damage has been done to our regard for one another.  This topic, which might at another time have been dismissible as "I just don't see it that way" became toxic to the point where I'm not sure we will be friends again.

It says something about the hard, divided, upsetting time the country and the world is going through that a disagreement about something that doesn't even really directly affect a friendship can still take that friendship down to the ground and bury it.  If a friend of mine had said they were voting for Reagan (in that era, of course - if they said it now it would be a whole different conversation) I might have replied "What for?" and wrinkled my nose and that would have been the end of it.  But when a friend says, as a friend recently did, that he is voting for Trump, my respect for that person instantly and irreversibly plummets.  He will have revealed that his world view, his sense of what is important, what he looks for in a leader, all of it is so distant from mine as to be virtually - no, not virtually, but completely and utterly incomprehensible to me.

I think that during this era when there is so much chaos, so much uncertainty, so much wrong, and so little feeling that we can control anything of what is happening around us, we as individuals are tending to choose our little square on the battlefield and then defending it with every fiber of our beings.  I can't do anything about Trump's madness and ignorance and mendacity, so what I'm left with is to excoriate anyone who approves of him.  I can't do anything about this lethal sickness creeping invisibly through the world, so what I'm left with is to rage at those people who won't mask up.  It's the lowest kind of victory, but the only one available to me.  There doesn't seem to be the tiniest hope of any of us changing our minds.  Nothing on earth or in the stars could make me look at Trump with less than hatred, so if I won't budge, why should I think those of opposing views will?  And since I know that, no matter how many facts, articles, videos, charts and graphs I throw at a Trump believer or anti-vaxxer she will never change her mind, all that's left to me is to stomp her into mush in my mind, focusing my inchoate rage and despair on her, or him, or whomever.

Several times in the recent past when I have eaten, I have felt an uncomfortable fullness, sort of a pain that's not quite a pain in my gut.  I wonder if I'm giving myself an ulcer with the strain and stress and unhappiness of it all.  No matter how many times I look at my own life and see that it is good and safe and generally lovely, I'm full of acid and depression lurks around every corner.  It's on me to do something about that, and when I figure out what I can to do ameliorate this anguish, I'll let you know.

The mean man and the donkey

I was taking a nice long walk recently, combining exercise with errands.  Near one house, I noticed a small flower pot by the sidewalk.  The pot was surrounded by painted stones, and there was a note inviting passersby to take one so that we might have a little more beauty in our lives.

As I bent down to pick up a pretty green stone, a young man driving by in a truck (somehow it seems significant that he was in a truck) yelled out his window "Oh my god, look at all that ass."  It was not a compliment.  It didn't shake me badly or anything, but it did lightly sour a sweet experience.  I right away called up Sweet Hubby to tell him what had happened.  After all, every creature seeks safety when it feels threatened, and SH is my safe harbor.

SH laughed and said "Did you have your donkey with you?"  I laughed right back and said "Honey Pie, my donkey goes with me everywhere."  We laughed some more about how ridiculous people can be, and SH poured some love all over me, and then it was fine and I was fine and I continued on my way.

It occurred to me that this would have been a very different sort of experience, and would have left a much more bitter taste in my mouth, if I were single now, still wanting love, still wondering why I was alone, nakedly vulnerable to the opinion of others and to my own self-doubts.  What a difference it made to know I was securely loved.

I found myself, find myself still, wondering about that young man, about how he felt as he tossed his ugly little assault out the window.  Did he feel a sly delight?  A sense of power?  A twinge of self-disgust?  Or, worst of all, did he feel nothing at all?  I think I wasn't real to him, my feelings were nothing to him.  I didn't exist except as an opportunity for him to vent some of his discomfort and inchoate rage and the troublesome fears that at least some of the conspiracy theories he reads must be true.  What happened to him that made him so afraid, so angry, so casual about hurting someone?  It's hard not to wonder.

Lessons from men and the key to love

Sweet Hubby and I sometimes wish we had met long ago so that we could have shared more of our lives.  But we also have to admit that we might not have taken to one another if we had met when we were younger.  I know that I, for one, had an awful lot of lessons to learn in order to mature as a person and be a fit partner, and so, in my youthful flailings and longings, found an awful lot of teachers.
My first boyfriend, Tom, taught me what romantic love feels like, and the astounding sensations of sex - although I also learned about my own conflicted feelings about my burgeoning adulthood.  He also gave me the opportunity to learn that if I'm going to break someone's heart, better to do it sooner than later.
My first husband, Paul, taught me that a good friend + sexual attraction doesn't automatically make for a good marriage.  The most important lesson I learned from this ultimately dreadful experience is that, if I feel strongly that something is amiss, no matter how often I'm told I'm wrong and crazy, something is actually amiss.  I might never have recovered trust in my own senses and instincts if not for his post-divorce confessions to compulsive infidelities. 
The artist Tom brought a lot of wonderful adventures, experiences, and teachings into my life.  With him, I found a new level of enchantment with nature as we camped and hiked.  I had my eyes opened to the New Age, with meditation at home and in retreats, with sweat lodges and magic mushrooms, books about Buddhism.  We became vegetarians, even though I had never thought I could give up hamburgers and bacon.  His dedication to his art strengthened mine to mine.  However, the most important lessons I staggered away with were 1) No matter how enraptured I am with someone, if my friends and family can't stand him, he is not the right person for me, and 2) If I'm quite sure I want to be married, I should not be with someone who adamantly does not.
Bob the sex addict taught me that I should end a relationship the moment I'm crying more than smiling.
There were other teachers - many, many, many other teachers.  (I am a very slow learner.)  But once I met Sweet Hubby, all the old bitterness, regrets, caustic stories, self-doubts, and resentments I'd been carrying around simply fell away and my poor old bruised heart was healed.  I very quickly realized that I am in debt to all of the men I have loved, or liked, or just, you know, diddled around with, because they were the signposts along the path that brought me to SH.
SH has taught me that the secret to healthy love and a healthy marriage is ridiculously easy.  Be with the right person for you.  That's it.  And it's ridiculously easy to know the right person, because he's the one you feel fully yourself with, fully accepted by, fully seen and known.  He's the one whose company you never grow tired of, even through six months (and counting) of COVID lockdown.  He's the one whose face you love to look at day after day.
It's not that we don't fight.  We certainly do, about matters both important and dumb.  But we never fight dirty or meanly.  We keep at it until we see what it is that we are really fighting about, and then we deal with it, and then it's over.
So my thanks to those men from the past, and to SH for the present and the future.  A crooked, hard road can sometimes lead to the most wonderful places.

Not responsible, perhaps, but accountable most definitely

We must hold the current Republican members of Congress accountable, with our censure if we cannot stomach to mete out worse.  They must be held accountable for the mess they have made of this country's standing in the world, and for the anger they have purposefully stirred up in their followers. For the damage to the environment and to the soul of America. They must be held accountable for the horrible things they have encouraged people to do, for their naked hypocrisy, for their cowardice.

I am chilled still by the memory of arenas full of people chanting "Lock her up!", encouraged and cheered on by the President.  This man advocates putting his political opponents in jail.  How did that not chill every one of us, including and especially those who were chanting?  Did that not give them pause?  Is that the country they want?  One in which a thug leader can throw his opponents in jail?  Is that truly how they believe America will be made great again? 

I'm so tired of all of this, tired of my own outrage.  I feel my sense of safety, my sense of trust, my sense of goodness eroding every day.  Humans are capable of such miracles of invention and discovery, but there is that primal, savage part of us which, apparently, it does not take much to activate.  It's terribly sad.

I can't help but be curious about what these people, villains at worst, co-conspirators at best, are going to think of themselves once they have been resoundingly removed from office.  Will there be dozens of tell-all books in which they defend and excuse themselves?  Will their senses clear enough for them to be shocked by their own complicity in Trump's mistakes, missteps, fraud, and downright malfeasance?  Or will they go to their graves insisting they were serving the country?

When a demagogue's failings are so apparent to so many of us, how is it possible for more than half the Senate and almost half the House to act as they though they don't see those failings?  How is any of this possible?

No more news for me for a while.  Just rainbows and unicorns and puppies and kittens and peaches and lullabies and friendship and sweetness and the dawning of new days. 

#MeToo-ing Melissa

I can attest that the current sociopolitical, grammatical changes being wrought by the younger generations are having the desired effect.  Even as an out-of-touch fuddy-duddy senior, I find I have become sensitive to words, ideas, images in a way I have never been before.
For example, I was recently dancing my ass off to Melissa Etheridge, that rockin' sockin' beat beauty.  And the lyrics of one song, an older one titled "You Must Be Crazy For Me" really pulled me up short.  Here are the lyrics:
'Cause when I kissed you last night
In my own backyard
You ran so fast
And you fought so hard
You must be crazy for me.
So, let's take a moment to look at those words.
"When I kissed you last night in my own backyard."  So Melissa kissed the Love Object (hereafter referred to as LO).  LO did not kiss Melissa, but was kissed, and it was in Melissa's backyard, so Melissa had what we might call the home court advantage.
"You ran so fast and you fought so hard."
So LO ran and fought.  It's troubling that the running comes first, and then the fighting.  I know, I know, poetic license, a need for the lyrics to scan and all that.  But still, it's rather a disturbing image if taken at face value.  LO ran and then fought, so we have to assume Melissa ran after LO and LO tried to fight her off.  And all this time, Melissa is assuming that LO is actually being a tease, being coy, asking for it, saying "yes" by saying "no".  It crossed my mind that Melissa might have been mocking or exposing the thinking of all those men and, so it seems, women who through the centuries have been using this twisted logic: If she (or he) fights, she (or he) really wants it.
It was not very long ago that lyrics like that would have seemed no more than something to sing to the rockin' sockin' tune and beat.  But now my ears have become so sensitized, I can't help but see through the convention to the ickiness beneath.
I'm actually seeing and hearing all sorts of songs, movies, pictures differently these days.  I watched  Disney's animated "Peter Pan" not too long ago.  It was the favorite movie of my childhood, one I watched over and over again, dreaming of flying, of escaping, of not growing old.  This time, however, when it go to the number "What Makes the Red Man Red?" I was shocked, embarrassed, and ashamed, ashamed for my country's history and ashamed of myself for having taken so long to recognize the egregious and insulting stereotyping of Native Americans, those peoples killed off by the millions by the conquering Europeans.
I also recently re-watched "Gone With the Wind", another favorite movie.  It sickened me to see Leslie Howard as Ashley Wilkes moping about because he has to work instead of going to bbq's and picnics, mourning for the good old days when the work was done by unpaid slave labor.  The word slave isn't uttered in that movie even once.  It's disgusting.
I wonder if there will ever be any real healing in this country until someone with a very big spotlight and microphone, such as the President or someone of that stature, finally says publicly that this country was founded on genocide and slavery, and that both are utterly wrong, indefensible.  I don't know if racism can ever truly be eradicated in this country until it is pulled up by the roots, which means acknowledging both its history and its ghastliness.  That's not reparations enough, but it seems like a good place, maybe the only place, to start.
And I will admit, as cantankerous as I can sometimes be about "they" having been co-opted and turned into a singular pronoun, I do very much appreciate that the young 'uns are doing their best to wake up the old 'uns like me so that we finally recognize for ourselves how unfair and out of balance this county is and has been from the first.

Lipton's 10

I am not a member of the Actors Studio of NY, I am not famous, and James Lipton is dead.  These facts rather dash my hopes of ever being interviewed by Lipton on his long-running show "Inside the Actors Studio", which is terribly disappointing.  I've always loved the fantasy of being the subject of that particular interview and interviewer, partly because, well, ego, but mostly because I have always wanted to answer his final 10 questions.
And then I realized that I can, right here, right now.  Not with the same visibility, of course, but still, the fun will be in discovering what my answers are.  So here we go:

1) What is your favorite word? I have always taken a very special delight in the word Mombasa, and serendipity is awfully fun, as is perspicacity.  But I'd have to say that my all time favorite word is Sweet Hubby's name, followed closely by Mommy.

2) What is your least favorite word?  Nigger.  Cunt.  Gook.  Libtard.  All the words people use to demean and diminish one another.

3) What turns you on?  What makes me tingle sexually is private (and also probably pretty common; no equipment needed, thank you very much).  What turns me on in other ways: The sound of wind in tall trees and scent of pine in sunshine.  Acts of heroism, most of which I see in movies and plays.  Writing a line of dialogue that comes out exactly right.  Laughing laughing laughing.  That most of all.

4) What turns you off?  Ignorance that is stubborn and proud.  And the usual things like other people's mucus and vomit.

5) What sound or noise to you love?  That wind in the trees soughing sound, of course.  The second movement of Beethoven's Seventh and the rousing chorus of his Ninth.  Sweet Hubby telling me he loves me; I get to hear that several times a day, lucky me.

6) What sound or noise do you hate?  The phone ringing used to turn me on because I used to assume it was good news or someone I wanted to talk to.  But now I associate the phone with my sister calling to say our mother had died unexpectedly, plus there are all those robocalls and scam calls, so irritating.  But my least favorite sound is a woman or child screaming.  I always feel as though I have to do something, because if it were me screaming and I were really in trouble, I would want someone to do something.  But I usually don't know where the sound came from nor what I should do.  Very disturbing.

7) What is your favorite curse words?  Good old "asshole" works for me when I want to describe somebody, although if I'm also partly amused I will call them "dirty dog dick licker".  But when I'm really pissed, I'll just say "God fucking damn it".  That's what comes out involuntarily, so I guess it must be my favorite.

8) What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?  Therapist, hands down.

9) What profession would you not like to do?  Grade school teacher.  I like teaching writing to older kids and adults, but the idea of sitting in a too large classroom trying to stimulate the interest of children who don't want to be there and have tremendous reserves of stifled energy, and of having to deliver the same material year after year just makes me sick, so hats off to all those who do it and do it well.  I don't know that there is any more important profession in the world than educator.

10) If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?   "You're my favorite." 

The Play That Wants to Be Written

I'm working on a play right now - but really, I'm not working on it so much as taking dictation.  This is as close as I've ever come to having a play appear of its own volition.  Always before, there has been a germ, a seed, an idea, picture, character, something acting as the spark plug of a new play, but in this case, scenes just keep pouring out of me - or rather, into me - without me giving the slightest thought to either the parts nor the whole.

These scenes or lines of dialogue always come when I'm dancing in the evenings.  That's when I take diction, scribbling in a purple notebook with an erasable ink pen.  The next day I'll type those pages into the computer in play format, and each time I end the session thinking "This isn't really going anywhere, it's not very good, I have no idea what to do with it".  But every time more of it comes to me, it comes on a deeper level, revealing the characters to me, making them more real and full.

The characters are Roben Lee Gunder, a rock star sensation, and Doll (Dahlia), his sort of wife.  It has never occurred to me to write about a rock star.  Just doesn't feel like my sort of milieu.  Until day before yesterday, the characters and situation seemed flat and pointless.  Then a long expository monologue for Dahlia came to me, and even though I think long expository monologues are almost never a good idea in a play, I dutifully wrote it down and then gave up on the play again.

Last night, I saw how to break that monologue up into different scenes in different settings and time periods for the characters, so that the information will still be made available to the audience, but in an active way, a way that fleshes out, not just the situation, but the personhood of both Roben and Dahlia.

What's sort of great and squishy about how this play is unfolding is that I have no particular investment in how it turns out.  I'm sort of assuming that it's not going to be very good, which gives me all kinds of freedom and could possibly mean it ends up being one of my best and most popular.  Funny how that works sometimes.  And if it does end up being no good, well, I'm still writing, and any writing is good writing because any writing contributes to the foundation I'm standing on when the play turns out all right, or good, or great.

If this ends up being something I can be proud of, I'm going to try making it a companion piece to This Almost Joy, because both of them are about characters being forced to play roles which end up diminishing their lives.

The Scarlett Syndrome

My favorite day, by far, is tomorrow.  Tomorrow is going to be wonderful.  Tomorrow I'm going to get so much done.  I'm going to write a sparkling, clever blog.  (You'll have to decide if this one counts.)  I'm going to work for at least two hours on a play, maybe even bring one to completion.  I'm going to clean out one of my filing cabinet drawers.  I'm going to do a one hour workout and take a walk.  No avoidance behaviors, no games, no eating when I'm not hungry.

Eating, oh, I'm going to eat so wisely, so healthfully tomorrow.  It will be all protein and vegetables, no sugar, no carbs.  After all, if I chow down on the Girl Scout cookies and chocolate covered almonds today, then tomorrow they won't be around to tempt me.

Oh yes, I'm going to be so good tomorrow, so virtuous, so righteous that at the end of the day, I'll be able to look at myself in the mirror and say "Good going, you.  A day well spent", instead of "Oh well, there's always tomorrow."

The trouble is, I'm old enough now to know that there isn't always tomorrow.  My tomorrows are finite.  I'm still behaving with a young woman's habits and indulgences.  I need to create new habits, new rigor, new intentionality, and I'd better start today because someday - well, it's not so vague any more.  Someday is here.

Baby Mine

I was pregnant once.  I knew it almost the moment it happened, well before it was detectable.  And I also knew in that moment that I did not want a baby, and certainly not a baby with this immature man.  I don't regret not having that baby.  A child who is not truly wanted starts life with a huge disadvantage.
I have never really wanted to be a mother.  Perhaps if I had met Sweet Hubby during my fertile years, I might have yearned to have children with him.  Except for the fact that SH doesn't really like kids. 
But even though I didn't want to be a mother, I know for certain that if I had ever become pregnant and decided to bear that child, even with the intent to give it to a better home, I know that I would have fallen in love with it as I felt it grow in my body, and probably wouldn't have been able to part with it.
I think this is why maternal connection so often seems stronger and more at ease than paternal.  Mothers are always nine months ahead of fathers in learning to truly bond with this new being, nine months ahead in starting this precious relationship.  I wonder if maybe pregnancy is too abstract for men, so when baby is born, it probably seems abstract, too.
Maybe not.  For eons men have been evolving as the protectors of their families, just as women have, and maybe the instinct has been bred into men to decide very quickly (in best cases) that this is their future, their flesh, their helpless child, themselves made new.
I'll never know what it's like to be any kind of parent, and I don't regret that.  But I sure would like to have known what it's like.

Arrangement, Design, Bun-Bun, and Aftermath

It took until I heard Joe Cocker's version of "With a Little Help From My Friends" (which was quite a while ago, naturally) for me to notice the awe with which I regard those people who arrange music, especially rock music (because that's what I listen to most and am most familiar with).  Who thought to turn that song into a waltz?  The Beatles must have been completely blown away when they first heard it.  And from that thought came this awe, this recognition of how talented those people are, composers, musicians, engineers, producers, professional arrangers, back up singers, all those who decide the sound of a song.  Who decided to bring in the drums just there just like that in "In the Air Tonight"?  The sax in "Baker Street"?  The cello in "Yesterday"?  The extended organ at the end of "A Day in the Life"?

This observation is closely related to one which occurs to me from time to time: Everything man made has to have been imagined, invented, manufactured, made commercially available, and bought.
Everything.  Someone had to think of cloth, someone had to figure out how to make it, someone had to decide how it would look.  When I look in my closet, I see shapes and patterns and colors, and everything single item took who knows how many different minds, different tools, different set of hands to be brought into existence.  The stove, the couch, the rug, the blanket, the backyard fence, the sidewalk, the car, the power lines.  Everything, imagined, designed, and manufactured.  For some reason, that absolutely blows my mind. 

I sometime try to envision the natural planet underneath all the concrete humans have added on.  I understand why humans desperately need to look at or be in nature when we can manage it.  Man made things are hard.  Convenient, certainly, but hard.  We need the softness of nature so that we can relax our eyes now and then, relax our minds, be reminded that we truly belong to the natural world, no matter how unnatural we try to make it.

Sweet Hubby and I saw a rabbit in our backyard recently, a sweet little brown bunny with short pinky ears, probably the descendant of a pet.  We stood and watched little Bun-Bun for as long as we could see her, and for those moments, we didn't think of the vileness of Trump and his enablers, didn't think about COVID, we weren't angry at anyone, weren't worried about anything, didn't feel the rush to the next thing.  We were simply with each other and with the bunny and grass and the sky, and it was so good, so very good.

I think none of us is going to come out of this period of time as the people we were before.  I think once Trump is out of office and a vaccine has been found for COVID and it's possible to open the doors of the world again, I think we are all going to be a little more tired, a little more angry, a little more scared than we were before.  Maybe not.  Maybe joy and gladness and gratitude will reign, and we will be filled with exuberance for having survived four years of - well, I don't want to go down that path right now.  But it does feel to me as though we are all being traumatized, not the way one is by the jolt of an assault or a car accident or an earthquake, but slowly and constantly.  I wonder how it will affect us all in the longer view.  I wonder what the world will look like to children and teenagers who have done some of their growing up during this time.  I wonder what my old age will be like.

A small and terrified man

Lately I find I'm hanging in the tension between two distinct states of being.  On one hand, life feels like always, calm and fine and even serene.  On the other hand, I feel a constant tension and anxiety about the virus, outrage at the Republican party, and fearful of the contentiousness and perhaps violence which I'm afraid is going to accompany the upcoming Presidential election.  Trump is sure to be a bully to the end.  He will not be gracious; he will go down (and surely, oh please oh please, he will go down) fighting and fighting ugly.

I can't help but wonder: will he, to the end of his days, always have people around him who bolster and uphold him, or will he finally exhaust and disgust everybody and finally be alone?  And even then, will he resist learning anything at all about his own lack of humanity?  What a small, terrified man he must be.  Sometime early on, he was terribly, terribly wounded, and it  squashed the heart right out of him.  I pity him if he were ever to consider, to truly look at, the kind of man he is and why so many people despise him so deeply.  I can't wish him any worse punishment than that.

The Flip Side

My friend, my very wise friend, Christine, taught me early in my marriage to Sweet Hubby to look for the positive aspects of the things about him which drive me berserk.  I was complaining, as I do, about how much I hate that he has so much stuff, while I like to live much more sparely.  "Oh no," Christine said, "you love that part of him, the part that can be sentimental and bond to things and ideas and memories.  And the very thing that bothers him about you, your looseness, your inattention to detail, your impulsiveness, these are the things he loves about you.  He loves  how you move through the world so freely and creatively."

So, the flip sides:

SH becomes deeply interested in various pursuits and will collect the appropriate books, equipment, etc.; eventually his interest moves on, but the stuff remains, taking up space.  He always seems to want more of things, while I want less or fewer. ("I know you said to buy two," he'll say if he did the grocery shopping, "so I got four!")  The flip side of this, as Christine pointed out, is that he is interesting to be around because he is so interested in so many subjects.  He has a most brilliant and exploring mind.  And he is, indeed, very sentimental.  One of our cats' bowls got broken, but SH has kept the pieces because our little Stachie drank out of it when she was alive.  As silly as I think that it, it's also very, very sweet and endearing.

SH is a very organized man, who loves to do research, to keep records and charts, to know the minutest details of whatever topic is at hand.  When we were looking to buy a new refrigerator, for example, we would go to an appliance store and look at various models; I would say "Let's get this one", but SH would want to go home and do more online research.  I had to keep a rein on myself so that I didn't do a lot of eye-rolling and harumphing.  Let's just choose one and buy it already!  The flip side is that, when we do make a purchase, we can both feel assured that we got the one which truly suits our needs and has the most stellar reputation.  And his penchant for chart-keeping, such as the one he uses to record his nightly dental care, has inspired me to floss and rubber pick my teeth every night, rather than just whenever I thought of it (which wasn't often), as used to be the case.

SH has lots of t-shirts, more than 50, more, in my lofty opinion, than any person needs.  And he wears them until they are pretty ragged.  When he was still going into an office to work, he would sometimes wear a t-shirt that was almost threadbare, with a limp, deflated looking collar.  I really hated that, maybe partly because I thought his co-workers would think I wasn't taking care of him.  And he sometimes buy new shirts without getting rid of any of the old ones, which made me even more wiggy.  The flip side is that his t-shirts are colorful and interesting, and I absolutely love that he uses things until they are truly used up. 

When he wears a buttoned shirt, sometimes he walks around with on side of his collar flipped up, or the shirt mis-buttoned, or what hair he has standing up in odd places.  This is one area in which he is much looser than I am.  I can't stand that sort of dishevelment (and have even been known to turn down a stranger's collar or hem when I can do it without seeming dangerously wacko).  The flip side of this is that SH is the least vain person I have ever known.  He started balding quite early, but wasn't and isn't in the least bit self-conscious about it.  I lived in Hollywood for decades among people for whom appearance is everything, so it is wonderfully refreshing to be with someone who cares more about what's inside than out.  Another perk is that he also isn't judgmental about how I look, which is lucky for me.  We met just as I was hitting menopause, with the accompanying weight gain, changes in skin texture, etc.  I certainly wouldn't want to be out dating at this time in my life.  But when SH looks as me, I know he sees who I am and not how I look.

There are many more instances, but we'll consider the picture painted.  I'm ever so grateful to Christine for opening my eyes to look for what is good underneath what is bothersome.  Because who wants to spend a marriage being bothered and critical, when it's so much more fun to appreciate and adore?