MYSTERY DELIVERIES

 SOMEONE SENT ME THREE JARS OF DELICIOUS SALSA.

You know how Amazon is, no identifying paperwok comes in the box.

I contacted the usual suspects, my family and close friends. No one of them sent it, or they started to pretend they did when I said how yummy the salsa was. 

Then, I ordered a baseball cap with a ponytail already attached. It came, sans ponytail. I told them of the mistake, and they sent me two more--both without the essential thing, the hair.

I re-ordered, and this time two different styles, figuring maybe they were just out of the one I initially chose,

Three more empty caps were delivered.

Then, some special coffee I had ordered for my brother as a housewarming gift, apppeared at my door, instead of his.

Normally, I look forward to the packages because I don't remeber what I've ordered by the time it gets delivered. So there's that little frisson of potential joy upon opening.

As for the coffee, after I fired off two scathing emails to the producers, I realized I had not given them my brother Robby's address. Oh well.

Most recently I got a myterious 3-pack of Psyllium Husk Caps, 500 mg.  Not really the stuff of joy. And what can I do with them? a bit indelicate to offer them to friends. Perhaps I can mitigate with an Xmas bow.

CRIMINALIZING MOTHERHOOD

My friend Lori and I had fun imagining some aspects of what a matriarchy would be like. Only women having guns, for example, or abortion as a a crime prevention tool. And maybe a party, or maybe vasectomy parties. But nothing prepared me for this new anti-choice initiative, as discussed by the Supreme Court following the Texas legislation. Thay legislation, as you recall, limits abortions to 6 week old pregnancy. Most of wouldn't even knowwe were pregnant at that point.

It is well-known that Americans hate children. No other developed country makes it so hard to take care of a family. hardy any child care, same with leave for the birth of a cjild, even though study afte study shows that early months with a baby allow both it and the parents to thrive. 

All this is well-known. 

The only time a child is cared about if before its a child, while it is still a fetus. 

This is well-known.

Although that also pointsa  to another American hatred, women.

Prior to Scalia's death,

Clarence Thomas went 10 years without asking a question during proceedings. This week, Thomas broke his usual silence to ask a question that has pro-abortion activists livid. ” Does a mother have a right to ingest drugs and harm a pre-viable baby? Can the state bring child neglect charges against the mother? “ he asked.

Who accuses? Who reports? IS a mother-to-be's time to be spent looking over her shoulder, defending her choices or go to jail?

Who would ever want to be a mother?

THE EUROPEAN UNION--WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?

 I WATCHED IN DISMAY

as Brexit became a reality. This, even before I learned of the huge role Russia played in putting out the falsehoods and other disinformation that lay at the basis of the UK's lamentable choice. 

I blamed, and still blame, the EU itself for not explaining the reasoning behind its existence to everywoman. It shouldn't take a degree in political science to understand the basic tenets of peacekeeping and prosperity-making that is the underpinning of the organization. The lack of PR is astounding, especially now when social media makes it so cheap and easy.

AND HERE WE ARE AGAIN--missed opportunity on an even grander and more tragic scale. 

Where was, is! this august body of world leaders, supposedly dedicated to the common good, during the refugee crisis.

People are dying of the cold, starvation and disease. What better opportunity for a united front for humanitarian aid and beyond. Yet they bicker and deflect as if people weren't dying. They act like babies pushing away the pureed vegetables. While they ought to lead the way.

REALLY.. SHAME ON YOU. WHAT ARE YOU ALL GOOD FOR?

DEMOCRACY--WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?

 

DEMOCRACY—WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?

The thing about democracy is, it isn’t a thing. 

And we can never really have it.

The very wonders that are in the definition are not achievable. They are goals. 

It’s a process, that never actually becomes a thing, even itself.

We aspire to it, or not.

And we are heading toward it, or not. We try for it, aim for it. Yet ultimately fail.

But that fail is still trending toward it or away.

Its an arc, with a long, mostly gentle, incline. Then it gets to whatever height it gets to, and starts to devolve, descend.

Gently, or not.

When I hear politicos say they want to “bring democracy” somewhere, like dessert to a dinner party, I cringe. Do we have it to give?

Anyone can look at our nation and see that, as a bastion of democracy, we suck. The hubris involved in thinking we can create it elsewhere would alone be enough to guarantee our failure, if hubris caused failure any more. (In Greek tragedy hubris meant excessive pride toward or defiance of the gods, leading to nemesis. And that certainly seems to be where we are headed today. To nemesis. In fact, we may have met nemesis already—Trump.)

As the Greeks before them, the founding fathers (you notice no mothers, let alone LGBTQ) required a certain level of education and property ownership for citizenship. Skin in the game, in other words. And the ability to comprehend and VALUE the structures and systems that support democracy. or at least them.

BUT TO ANSWER THE QUESTION, democracy is something, however unachievable. We try to move toward equal value for every life, equal opportunity for every child. We do this by understanding what creates these equalities. 

We have a long way to go, but...

IT'S NOT TRUE THAT ITS GOOD FOR ABSOLUTELY NUTHIN'.

WHOM TO THANK?

 I AM SO thankful. Various current problems and reverses notwithstanding, there is a lot of good in my life. Also, I know that gratitude is helpful in maintaining good spirits and equanimity. Particularly in the face of difficulty.

BUT I AM AN ATHEIST.

No, not a namby-pamby agnostic, but a true non-believer. Of course, having been brought up Catholic, more or less, I have plenty of residue and issues. 

So, whom to thank?

Do I thank my crazy, dysfunctional addicted parents for bringing me up the way I am?

I can't thank god, or godess, or godesses--although I do like the image of lots of godesses on high, deciding on our fates. But only the good stuff.

Do I thank the benefactor of my life that got me out of Dodge? That would be Sister Charlotte Marie, my High School Principal at St. Mary's Girls High School in Lynn, Massachusetts. She saw to it that I entered the College of New Rochelle, a scant half hour from Manhattan, after I delivered my daughter to Catholic Charities and her adoptive parents. I never even applied to a school, thinking I would work in a diner and bring up my child in squalor. She got me to New York. What an incredible gift.

Yes. I'll thank her.

SWINGIN' 'TIL THE END--DOTTIE DODGION

 Dottie Dodgion dies at 90.

Famous jazz drummer I never heard of. She didn't like to do solos! Have you ever heard of a drummer who didn't? Well. 

She hardly ever did solos, 

and when she did, her solo approach "came from being a singer.

I'd hear the melody inside my head, so the rhythms I laid down always followed the song form of whatever tune I played."

Kidnapped by her drummer father at the age of 5--he had left the family when she was 2-- she toured strip joints and roadhouses with him and his band 'til she was 7.

Her mother had remarried and her step father raped her. He went to jail for 20 years.

She spent her weekends with her dad at Streeets of Paris, a strip clup in San Francicco.

Gradually her singing gave way to drumming, and she worked with such greats as Charles Mingus, and Nick Esposito. Marriages and breakups ensued.

Benny Goodman hired her and her third husband, she thoughit was just to jam. But he put her on stage. For ten nights she played with him, then he forgot to mention her name when he listed the band. The audience roared in protest,, and asked her name. After the long standing ovation they gave her, Benny Goodman's manager whispered, "Bye," in her ear on her way out.

She was fired for getting more applause than her boss.

WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO WITH ALL THE MEN?

 AM I CRAZY OR have you noticed that there is a lot less attention paid to #MeToo these days. I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking that not everything that needs to be said is said, or needs to be done is done. The depth of damage going back millenia has left women so far behind that catching up is unimaginable. And yet we have to try.

As with many social movements, #MeToo has hurt a lot of people that it is supposed to help. An example would be the so-called sexual liberation of the sixties and the seventies. It was fun, but a lot  was just more pressure, and coercion, of women to give it up for free. I remember sitting at the bar in Maxwell's Plum in NYC. A guy sitting next to me was trying to pick me up but I wasn't interested in him. After a few polite rebuffs on my part he became angry. Accused me of being frigid, and worse, a Lesbian. What other reason could there be for not wanting to leave instantly and fuck him (not sure if dinner was on offer.)? This was not liberation at its finest, and I venture to say it wouln't have happened before. Or now.

A male psychiatrist told me, when I expressed my distress at being "admired" constantly on the street, that I should think of myself as a work of art.

What are we supposed to do with the men who have been called out, or those that haven't? Are we to deny them any afterlife? Do we count any good stories, movies, legislation they wrote as tainted? Is there a possibility of partial recovery? Is a legacy destroyed?

I'm not talking about true evil like Epstein and Weinstein, but more nuanced evildoers, like possibly Cuomo--although maybe he is really bad, too. I don't have the facts.

But what about Al Franken? 

A major disaster of #MeToo, for example, was losing a good senator. 

His comments about the hypocrisy of the GOP certainly rings true. 

As we wait for the other millions of shoes to drop.

Isn't it likely that most men have incidents that would clearly mark them for public castigation if only we knew?

Someone gave me a book of Woody Allen stories. They are funny. Can I never admit to enjoying a Polanski movie? 

Remember when many vocal feminists were up in arms because Hillary stuck with Bill after Monica?

What are we to do with all the men?

Most of them have simply not been caught. Are those, guilty but unaccused, to be treated as it they are blameless? The good guys? If by some stretch of the imagination we allow that maybe they have not offended, are they, we, not gulty of collusion for not calling them out? More urgent, for not calling out the system that fostered and protected the undermining of women at every turn?

TRUTHINESS--SUCH A GOOD WORD

 

I am sure that among the many legacies of Stephen Colbert, a decent amount of attention will be paid to 

TRUTHINESS,

a brilliant coinage that I take to mean something that has some of the trappings of truth, but isn't. It works perfectly to describe most utterings from politicians. For the most part, when I hear a speech or an interview, say on NPR, of an elcted official, what I hear is truthiness. 

Most politicians have learned several things about speaking to the public.

One, to say the same thing over and over, using different words, althought they often use the same words, too.

Two, not to answer question directly or at all. They just carry on saying whatever they were saying, not even alluding to the actual question.

Three, never to answer a yes-or-no question with a yes of no.

Four, most common, to blame someone else.

These characteistics also apply to official corproate spokespeople, after a disaster, like an oil spill or deaths in a mine. Particularly when said corporations are clearly at fault. The Exxon oil spill comes to mind. To hear them (Exxon) talk, the problem was in the government cleanup response. Nothing to do with lack of safeguards that every knowledgable person knew would lead to exactly this disaster. But cost cutting and profit maximization won out over considerations of safety and environmental damage.

But I digress. 

TRUTHINESS

Why am I carrying on about truthiness? Because of Trump.

You understand, truthiness is based on a resemblance to truth, a certain plausibility.

But all that was lost during Trump. There was no relation to truth, however tenuous.

There was no acknowledgment of facts, however glancing.

There was no respect for the listener, however slight. 

The Ameirican people could have no expectation of honesty, and the Trump people, it seemed, had no expectation that they would be believed. Americans gave no hint that they expected their leaders to purvey anything at all related to the truth. 

MIGHT MAKES RIGHT

is the thing, the only thing. With Trump as Commander-in-Chief, anything goes, and anything went. 

So how could the concept, not of truth, but even TRUTHINESS survive?

It couldn't. Now, with a better president, perhaps it could be revived. With it we could poke fun at the blatherers and nothing-sayers, and the hemmers and hawers, in the good-natured ways of the past.

But what to do with the previous administration's four years of utterings? I call it 

TRUMPINESS.

CLUMSY REFLEXES

Someone commented on my good reflexes the other day. And you know what? It's true. I have great reflexes, better than ever, and they seem to be improving with age. 

I attribute it to my increased fitness regimen, which, not to bore you I will describe very briefly: 5 core barre classes a week, one 20 lap swim, and 3 sessions of live-ball tennis.

This is up from 2 or 3 classes. So now.

I still knock things over, and drop them, but because I am so fast, I usually catch them before they fall over or crash on the floor. Truly an improvement.

WHAT DO WOMEN WANT?

WHAT DO WOMEN WANT

Ah Freud. You have a lot to answer for.

Some of your stuff is so silly, yet it has taken hold.

People who would die before admitting the need for psychological counseling will blather on about Oedipus complex in all its 

Unlikely tawdriness. 

Egosuperegoid! Ego, superego??? and id? Enough said.

The unconscious--there is gold there.

I'm all for bringing the unconscious to consciousness to heal psychic wounds.

Let there be light, as it were.

But what about the women? Most of us eschew the cocaine that you 

relied upon.

Some have answered the question reasonably.

Women want, mostly, what men want:

Autonomy, equality, upper body strength and equal pay.

That said, there is a simpler more basic and happier answer to the question. 

What do women want?

Women want more dancing.

A BIG SCARE

 FOR A WRITER, little is scarier than losing one's writing. I have 2 screenplays and a novel, all brilliant, naturally, that have disappeared. 

YIKES

WHERE'VE I BEEN? GETTING VACCINATED

 WHEW! 

A thousand pounds has been lifted from my shoulders, that I didn't even know was there.

Our fabulous son-in-law hugged his parents for the first time in many many months--could it be a year? A picture was taken and it made me cry. 

I want to be doing some of that very soon.

We've been playing online poker with some tricoastal relatives. This way, twice a week, we get together and chat. Much more often than we ever were in touch before Covid. This was a good thing. Each of us used iPad, Computer and cell phone to utilize poker game app (luckily a genius nephew took care of setting it all up), and we'd play silly games (Elevator) and catch up and discuss hands and luck and so on. In fact, I think we all want to continue the games after we are re-normalized.

My adorable and gorgeous husband has set up my computer for me so I can blog more often.

Later.

BACK THEN, 2

Hunter College, CUNY, was not then, or possibly ever, a hotbed of anything. 

If we wanted to see the real deal "revolution"aries, we'd go upto Columbia, a subway ride away. There were speakers and ranters all around campus and in auditoria. Some quite famous but I forget their names. The Beatles chimed in with their song, Revolution, in 1971--can you believe the single had Hey Jude on the flip side?--, so this was a bit later. I think they were addressing the year 1968 with this song. 

Revolution

Beatles

Aaahhh!
You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it's evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out?
Don't you know it's gonna be
All right
All right
All right

You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We'd all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We all doing what we can
But if you want money for people with minds that hate
All I can tell you is, brother, you have to wait
Don't you know it's gonna be
All right
All right
All right

You say you'll change the constitution
Well, you know
We all want to change your head
You tell me it's the institution
Well, you know
You'd better free your mind instead
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
You ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow
Don't you know it's gonna be
All right
All right
All right

All right, all right, all right
All right, all right, all right
All right, all right

Songwriters: Lennon John Winston, Mccartney Paul James

BACK THEN, FIRST IN A SERIES

I have a very beautiful friend whom I met when we were both at Hunter 

College in the late 60s. Hunter, an all women's college, had a very high academic rating which was to come crashing down. First, instead of the rigorous requirements from when I entered, the City experimented with a plan to allow any and all high school graduates admission, to sink or swim. And if that wasn't bad enough to send academic standards to circle the drain, they then started letting in men.

Because it was late 60s, we never knew if we'd have class or not, as I mentioned in an earleir post. As a result, we often came to class with our toddlers on our hips, not wanting to spend money on babysitters.I was thrilled when this beauty patted a seat next to her in logic, with a handsome young bearded professor. We liked him, he liked us. In fact so much did he like us, that he offered to pay our tuition (both of us) to medical school, if we would pay him back later. There is probably something I forgot about this putative transaction. But it was beyond generaous, yet in a way, in the sprit of the age. We were planning toremake the world in a kinder, gentler, more enlightened way. It was a remarkable offer, but not unthinkable in those innocent heady times, before Kent State.  

 

  TO BE CONTINUED

RIGGED ELECTION

 IF THERE ARE QUESTIONS ABOUT A RIGGED ELECTION SHOULDNT WE BE QUESTIONING THE 2016 ONE WHERE TRUMP LOST THE ACTUAL VOTE BUT WON BECAUSE OF THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE?

COVID, GOOD FOR THE SKIN

One of my dearest friend's mother was a skin specialist and cosmetician. When her daughter visited, the mother ran around after her, dabbing fancy emollients and applying moisturizer to my friend's face, exclaiming all the while about the damage caused by dryness, and more laments, many more..$5 version

It's interesting that her mother chose skin care, eventually opening several fancy spas around the country and creating a skin care line. Mom had been in medical school, in the 40s, on her way to MD-hood when she got a horrible case of acne. 

Now, in addition to being very smart, she was beautiful, and acne was not in the cards for her. Being almost a medical professional, she had access to the best , but after much money and time was spent visiting lots of the "top" doctors around the country to no avail, she returned home dejected. And still with spots.

Being a scientist, she was dismally disappointed and flabbergasted that there was no help for her in her chosen profession. Today, we'd probably have quickly hit upon stress as a serious factor in the outbreak, especially for a young woman trying to buck the misogynous tide of Med school. 

One day, pondering her future both as a doctor and beauty, she saw a cosmetologist's office. Figuring she'd try anything now, she went in. After a few treatments, she was back to her blemish-free self.

And out of med school. She had found her true vocation, and made a huge success of it, remaining beautiful way into

her 80s.                   $1,200 version

 

Now, thanks to in-sheltering and so on, I find myself wandering around my place, frequently ending up in the bathroom, and applying fancy emollients to my face.

It's barely a lining, but it is silver.