*TURKEY SOUP… below, the continuing saga of my caregiving days from the archive, because instead of writing yesterday, I made turkey soup and turkey salad, and dang they’re good…
March 30, 2010 Flat Tires and Other Irritants
Yes, it happened again, I got a flat. I have these swanky German tires and rims (is that what they’re called??) and a general ignorance of things car (I should be checking my tire pressure regularly – as if!!!) and so yes, once again I rode on a flat until even I had to acknowledge there was something wrong. As I was on my way to my FWB’s house this was not a tragic occurrence; he loves performing manly tasks and set to almost immediately. Was it wrong to have chortled, to myself, of course, when he was unable to get the danged tire off the car? Not at all……but when a nearby friend with a t-bar and breaker bar (previously unknown technical terms I picked up last night) came by and was also unable to get the tire off you could say I was hoist with my own chortle. Sigh. Finally we surrendered and AAA was called. They sent a very nice gentleman from Hancock, N.Y., who arrived at approx. 11:30p.m. not surprising as Hancock is at least 50 miles away, and who was able to put the spare on and make me ready for my day today. Phew! I stood by looking decorative throughout, drinking my wine and mulling over my general good fortune and the ability to spare myself any hard work that might, horror of horrors, break one of my flashily painted nails. I’m going through a spring girlie-girl phase, and am enjoying it very much, thank you for asking. But darn it because of this I had to spend the morning, and a good chunk of cold hard cash, at a local tire service, a place chock full of manly men I honestly enjoy chatting up even in less than stellar circumstances. But, yeah, right, my a.m. routine got blown: writing, a long-ish slow breakfast, weights, walking or running a minimum of 35 minutes, and missing all that makes me a wee bit grouchy. And tomorrow in the early morning, take off time 8a.m., I must get my papa back to Albany Med where he will undergo more tests – stress and echo-cardiogram (did you know they can do stress tests with chemicals? I didn’t. Am I alone in being a bit creeped out by this?) – and so I think I will try to get out of bed by 5:30 and get my exercise and journal writing in so as to avoid more grouchiness. And my pot of tea, so necessary. My father seems to be making the necessary adjustments to using his oxygen. I’d like to credit myself for scaring the crap out of him by saying, “If you are not going to use the O2 and your nebulizer as instructed, we should get your affairs in order,” but I think being seriously short of breath on more than one occasion this week may have done the trick. We can only hope so. I’m feeling grouchy. Pout, pout, pout. And I’m hungry, waaaaaaaaa. Nothing edible is available in the rural hamlet I work in as the local librarian on Tuesdays, and unless I raid the larder in a local home or call and beg for grub from a very well-placed and generous feeling patron, which I just can’t do (it simply isn’t done!), I’m stuck. Arg. Flat tires stink. My next car is going to have the most boring tires and rims ever known to man!
March 31, 2010 Oy Vey!
Hello again. Life is good, although I am still running an energy deficit from Monday into Tuesday’s tire debacle. I did, however, just notice that there is no school this Friday and that means no rehearsal for the play I am directing, which blessedly means no teenagers from 7:30 p.m. Thursday until 5:00p.m. Monday night: there is a God!! When I am running an energy deficit I find adolescents very trying. They are like blood sucking vampires and, regards anything but themselves and their high octane lives (and accompanying drama-rama), rather indifferent to the rest of the planet including their long-suffering director. Gosh, talking about a drama-rama and drama queens, I definitely sound like one…..when I am running a deficit of energy I tend toward the over-dramatic. At such times I also find it hard to deal with my sisters, especially when the sister in question is being hostile. This morning I drove my papa to Niskyuna (a ‘burb of Schenectady, N.Y.), my younger sister’s home, as he is having a stress test and echo-cardiogram this afternoon at Albany Med. He insisted on not taking his oxygen along and added that he was not to have any nebulizer treatments until after the testing. Okay, fine, it’s your life although yes, tbh, I did have some concerns about him corpsing up in the car on the way there…several times nudging him to make sure he was breathing, period, only to find he was merely sleeping…. Upon arrival I was met at the door by my most excellent younger sister who is a nurse and mother of four (or should I rather have said that she is a wife and mother of four who happens also to be a nurse…you decide…) There was a frisson of tension in the air (what TF did I do, I just fucking got here!?) and after making sure my dad was in the house I got ready to make my goodbyes, “You didn’t insist on his bringing his oxygen?!”, “No, I did not; I am not in the business of holding a gun to his head.” I could have added, and did when describing the scene to my brother, “Call me if he dies and I need to pick up the corpse but please don’t let it get cold or I won’t be able to get him in my car…”. I’m a sentimental fool, aren’t I? I love my dad and yes, my sister was right when she said his going without oxygen is not just an issue for him when he is in her company all day but, and, however as the child who has been taking care of my mother (now 2 years deceased) and father for the last decade, I find it hard to sympathize. She can, in other words, deal with it and as a trained professional, who better should a crisis arise – and I doubt it will. My father made a joke about how he had to give us something to worry about and sister said “I have plenty to worry about, thank you” to him and “just go” to me and so I did, I just went. I think one or more of her children might be giving her a cause to worry as children seem to do that. I wouldn’t know for sure, not having any for which I alternately give the deepest, most heartfelt thanks and otherwise, on very rare occasions, weep with a some regret. But still I felt guilty until I got almost out of Schoharie County on my way back home. Thank goodness for my bro who, champ that he is, said – when I told him dad refused to take his O2 and Peg was angry “How is that your problem?” Exactly. I love my brother. I love my sisters too, only – they require more work.
*A continuation of my dairies from the last months of my dad’s life, when I was doing all of the caregiving, as well as trying to love him, take care of myself – and let go. Thanks for reading.
February 9, 2010 Small Steps
OMG I feel like a million buckeroos….. why? Well…..because. Because for the past month I have been making incremental progress in the areas I really, really, really need to make progress in, such as writing, and exercising hard every day, and blogging and being present and, and, and. And because I made soup Sunday and have been nurturing myself in all the ways I most need, one side effect of which is that the cold (yesterday it was windy as heck and freezing ’round here) hasn’t been affecting me as it can and usually does, making me tighten up, which in turn makes me feel crappy and colder (vicious circle type thing) and makes exercising and writing and happy-ing impossible. Not happening this year. Yippee. And my dad returned to bowling last night and … better yet, he bowled a 221. We had agreed he would call afterwards to let me know how he was as it was his first night back out on the town post-illness, and the glee in his voice over the high score, and his feeling well enough not only to do it, but to do it well, made me very, very happy. I did something brilliant today as well, simple and brilliant. My darling brother, the pharmacist, ordered and received a thingummy which measures the oxygen levels in the blood for my dad. When I went into the store to pick-up my paper he said to me ‘oh this is in, are you seeing dad today?’ Usually, almost always, I would have said oh yes of course and, most likely making myself late for work, I’d have dropped everything to stop in with said thingummy to see my dad. But today (for no specific reason, but for which I thank you mother-father God) I simply said, not going there, won’t see him today. My brother made no fuss and will drop it off later; he lives the equivalent of one city block away from my pop so it’s not a hardship but oh! How do you spell relief? Delegation. Brilliant and yes, I know, it’s so not a big deal, but yes, yes, yes, it is for me, for me, for me. When in the midst of my NYC actor days I had a date book in which I kept a list of things to accomplish every day: exercise, mail to 5 casting directors, drop a picture here, go to this or that audition, call or write so and so – etc., etc. I loved that because it kept me on task and I have resurrected the habit and hello!!! I love it again. I’ve also been thinking more about that former student of mine, a boy who cried on my couch the other night, telling me he is gay, coming out, preparing for telling his parental units. Of course, he knows I adore him, always will, but still, what courage he showed in opening up to me and how inspiring to me when I can be such a massive weeny about opening up when it really matters. Opening up almost always matters, but. Thrice bitten, five times as shy or something like that. Asking for what I want and need has always been excruciatingly hard. My student is, like me, a third child and we both saw enough of whatever from our older siblings to want so much to avoid all the pitfalls. In family systems psychology, they say the first child understands and lives out the explicit rules the second child understands the implicit rules and lives them out and the 3rd child sees the multiple triangulations he or she is born into and, seeing both the implicit and explicit rules, attempts another way – hah!! Often, we are stuck, knowing all the potential complications, we choose – nothing. Food for thought. Still, life is good!!!
March 28, 2010 Smokey Treats
Here’s the deal: I used to smoke, occasionally, and I know (we all know, right) that they are very, very addictive, an addiction I somehow skipped even while I enjoyed bumming a smokey treat once and a while. But. Watching my father struggle for every breath is just about killing me and any fun or glamour that ciggies ever had for me. I’m angry at my father, which I will have to work to let go of as I don’t know how much time, given the state of his health, I have left with him. I am angry because he tried and tried, and failed and failed more often, to quit smoking despite the very real and very obviously negative side effects. I am angry because I do not want to worry about him being unable to breathe and succumbing to heart failure every single waking moment and yet here I am doing just that. I love my dad and it is uncomfortable being angry with him, but there y’go. To breathe is to live and not to be able to – is simply unthinkable. The doctor, the new one, a pulmonologist, recommends he do O2 24/7 and he won’t; the doctor also recommended he use his nebulizer 4x per day and he wants to use it only when he is struggling for breath, maybe once or twice a day. ARRRRRRGGGHHH. As I said to him yesterday, it is now up to you whether you live or die and what is true is he is not sure what, if anything, he has to live for right now, as being in pain and struggling to breathe is not much in the way of quality of life. Except – he lives his dog. Still, my dad feels useless, the man who was always useful: doing, working, making – that man feels useless, a burden, and – he is alone. No one to care for, to do for, no one who needs him more than anyone else, other than his pup – who he can’t walk very far with, anymore. He is struggling with all of this, and this too is a kind of disease. I must trust him to do what is best for himself; I must trust the process of life as a whole. I must let go of my anger at him and I must let go of him, period, and continue to live my life, which is rich and good. I hate cigarettes.
Thank you and major snaps to my first respondent, who sent the following, anonymously re: The First Time:
My first time having sexual intercourse was a letdown. I remember lying there, in my boyfriend’s dorm bed during freshman year of college, thinking what a bore it was, wondering what all the fuss was about and that I’d stick with the oral or manual variety any day of the week. I felt kinda sad and somewhat puzzled, especially when oral sex was just so divine.
I felt like I missed out on so much because I didn’t understand how orgasm happened during intercourse and until I was in my forties, guys didn’t either. I thought there was something wrong with me since I didn’t get it right.
I had one or two almost moments with women but it never got beyond the attraction phase.
*This response reminded me of the Peggy Lee song, Is That All There Is. I suspect more women than not are underwhelmed initially by sex, but.
Bookmobiles. Ever use one? I did, as a child, living on a farm 8 miles outside town and 12 miles from the nearest library, in the tiny hamlet of Arkville. Oh how I loved the scent of the thing, the sounds, the sight of other readers often lined up outside and on the retractible steps, parked on the edge of the firehall lot, filled with my favorite things: books. Heaven. I always came down those steps with my arms chock full, a pile of novels – no limits on check outs! – to devour over the next three weeks or a month (not sure how often it visited us, but I think it was monthly), a bounty that was pure wealth to me, absolute riches.
Long and narrow, I had no idea that, fast forward a few decades, I would myself be a librarian, but doesn’t it make sense? Book nerds all, although I also encountered some of the most controlling women ever, like ever And, some of the most intelligent, humorous, generous, and kind women I’d ever met. There were even a few library dudes. A very few, one of whom became a woman during my tenure as a librarian in rural upstate New York, a decade plus ago. Beth. Very sweet lady and very good at her job, which was assisting rural libraries into and safely through the late 20th into the 21st century of technology.
Reading was and is my refuge. I can still remember where and even how I was sitting on the couch, legs curled up beneath me, near a west facing window to catch the winter light, as I finished Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre. Mind officially blown, heart pounding. I had no idea books could do that, for although I had loved the Little House books, and related to the characters, this was on a whole other scale of emotion, connection, and internal combustion as not just my heart and mind were in tumult, my skin was on fire, my senses heightened – boom! Jane Eyre. What a different, fascinating, complex story, dark, mystical, scary, romantic but gasp aloud shocking (I was eleven, y’all), foreign and familiar – his wife is in the attic, and mad as a hatter? OMMMMMMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG.
These photos are courtesy of the Library of Congress, and I thank them for the reminder, not that I’d forgotten, exactly. In the age long before the internet and even cable TV, which didn’t make it to the farm until after I graduated high school (we only got one channel, CBS, during my kid-hood and even then it was a tad slanted toward an older audience), books and more books by authors like Mary Stewart, Mary Roberts Rhinehart, Judith Rossner, John Fowles, William Styron, Richard Adams, Irving Stone, Leon Uris, Helen MacInnes, Daphne DuMaurier and more were my entertainment, my sustenance, my escape, my joy.
All libraries feel like home to me, but the history of books on wheels being taken throughout the U.S., including in horse and buggy, along with the charm and character inherent to the bookmobile is undeniable.
As I am continually reminded of that other Marjorie, the one from Georgia, let me in part attempt to redeem my first name (albeit with a slightly different spelling!) with the quote above, of Marjory Stonemason Douglas. Just over 5 years ago, her namesake school in Florida was the site of yet another school shooting. Last week, a school in Tennessee was the site of yet another one, and this week – two days ago – there was a mass shooting at a bank in Kentucky, a state – like Tennessee and Florida – that is very gun friendly, and that ranks 13th out of 50 states nationwide in deaths from gun violence per the CDC.
I am numb to it all, yet – still I rage against gun huggers and their enablers in various governmental bodies across this country. And, I will do a dance of joy if and when (knock wood) the NRA is forever bankrupt and destroyed. I also live in a rural part of New York State where I was roundly criticized for, while acting a county legislator, not voting to condemn the NY Safe Act, a law that was passed in the dark shadow of the Newtown Ct. murders of 26 children and adults, twenty of them first graders. First graders.
Thoughts and prayers aren’t working. Banning assault weapons, weapons of war, does. The U.K. suffered one – one – mass shooting in an elementary school in Dunblaine, Scotland, in 1996 and as a result changed their firearms laws. Since then – crickets. It makes me ashamed to be an American, watching legislators prioritize guns over the lives of children, of adults, of all of us. Where next? Grocery stores, movie theaters, synagogues, churches, schools, concerts, dance studios, yoga classes have all been visited with mass murder, rendering them at least in part unsafe ~ where will we be slaughtered next because the selfish, stupid armed minority have bullied the majority of us into a state of resignation?
Charlie Sykes is a conservative pro-lifer whose anti-fascist, anti-trump podcast, The Bulwark, I occasionally listen to because while a number of his positions make me wanna scream and beat him over the head with a styrofoam donkey, it’s important to me to break my bubble with the views of others (and, he’s left the GOP, good choice, Charlie!). Plus, I am a big fan of Tim MIller whose 2022 book was an excellent autopsy of the road to the transformation of the Grand Ol’ Party into the GQP/Trmp party. Plus, he’s funny. But, back to Sykes. He recently penned the following, which I share here because he is 100% correct; if these mass killings were carried out by ISIS, imagine how quickly we would act. Instead, our mind-numbing almost daily rate of domestic terror attacks barely make an impression. Shameful. ‘Murica! We can and must do better. If I were growing up now, and saw shooting after shooting after shooting as well as how intransigent legislators were regarding gun safety laws, I wold be terrified, confused, and enraged, certain that the people in charge – the supposed adults in the room – were saying, to me and my peers, you all don’t matter. Guns matter. Sorry, kids!
The quote from Sykes’ newsletter, and good food for thought:
Instead of talking about the routine slaughter of children and our fellow citizens in schools, banks, nightclubs, and grocery stores, imagine we were talking about terrorist attacks. Imagine that there had been 145 attacks from members of the Sinaloa Cartel, or that dozens of airplanes had been hijacked and hundreds of passengers killed. Would Rick Scott merely offer thoughts and prayers? Would Ted Cruz suggest that we need more locked doors? Armored backpacks? More armed guards? More bans on drag queen story hours?
*Here is the 2nd submission out of the universe I have contacted regarding this on-going project of ‘The First Time”. I invite any woman reading this, or the original post The First Time, to participate in the project, initiated toward a female centered sexual conversation and narrative about ‘the first time’ we – women and girls – had sex, because if I read or watch one more adolescent male story of cherry popping, I might start screaming, or – fall asleep, I’ve seen and read so many. BO-RING!!!
From A., mid-30s
He was sweet.
His room was warm, I was ready. At least I thought I was ready but I’m sure that I was propelled by the desire to graduate to some variation of adulthood by way of “losing it”. I wanted to be able to relate to everyone else and their talking about sex, I wanted to be desired, to be worthy, to fit in, to be relevant.
I didn’t make a sound.
I buried my face under the pillow in my pain and I pretended that it wasn’t so bad through the curtain of the pillow. He carried on as I bled and I don’t think that either of us said a thing for however long it lasted.
I bled so much I am sure this boy had to run his blankets out to the trash cans before his mother caught a whiff of it. I wonder to this day if he saved his high school money to buy a new duvet or if he had to make a grandiose excuse, maybe no one asked. I thought that maybe I had had bad timing and I just got my first period the same day as giving up my virginity and the keys to the younger realms. It was a lot. A cherry stream of blood amounting to the size of a small dead animal, into a tin can or a dumpster, and excommunicated from a memory.
After the act was over I remember feeling like I needed to go home and lock myself in my room. I had him drop me off at the top of the driveway and I ran upstairs, darting off my mother. I felt like everyone could read it and smell it on me, that if they saw me they would know that I was different now. I couldn’t let anyone see me, they would know and shame me. I didn’t want to talk about it after all. All that blood, sexual behavior, pleasure or pain. Hush, hush.
Despite the young lad’s tenderness it was rather traumatic and it took me almost a year to recover and try “it” again. I couldn’t bare to look at him anymore and I certainly didn’t want to touch him, so I broke up with him after a few silent weeks. He didn’t really do anything wrong but I was traumatized.
Blood didn’t come again during that time of keeping my legs closed, and so I started to take birth control to help induce my cycles. I felt that I had only earned this rite to womanhood with the power of the drug, but whatever, I could relate to my peers and was ready to be having “regular intercourse”. At the time I was sixteen and ready to grow up. I have always been an animal after all despite our society’s discomfort around the topic. I wanted to know what all this sex stuff was about for real if I was to be accused of being “a slut” after all.
I was eager to know, to experience, to check the box, to accomplish, to “feel good” so I started being sexual again but I still didn’t actually enjoy it. I don’t think it was really until my mid twenties that I started to understand how to enjoy sex. Partially because I was giving away my own power so therefore was attracting poor power-dynamics. Choosing the kinds of guys who would strangle me at parties while we made out, or all kinds of disgraceful things. Maybe because I was too easy, too ready and available, or because I had a bullseye on my vishuda, whatever it was was wafting from me and helping to create some pretty raunchy experiences.
*Hard to believe this journal of my father’s last months on earth was written over 10 years ago. This is the beginning. Thanks for reading, and if you want to pay tribute to a very good man, have a margarita! I turned him onto them in his last years on the brown and blue orb, and he really loved ’em.
Jan 30th, 2010
My father is sick and in the hospital with pneumonia and as a result I could not sleep last night. He will be eighty-two this July; I love him very much and last night this daddy’s girl got herself crying so hard over his eventual and natural demise I could not rest, relax and let go. Ridiculous and real, natural and foolish as I need to get my sleep so I can better support him; yet this is reality and while I feel sure we are many years from that hard and sad event, my imagination (blessing and curse) made me go there.
We had dinner this week; he was unnaturally exhausted but the evening before was his bowling night. He said he had stayed up until 1a.m. which is five hours past his usual bedtime. After bowling he goes out to the local pub with his best male friend, the one of few remaining close friends of his who is still alive, and they have a beer or two and a cigarette or two (I know, I know, I wish he wouldn’t but he is eighty and at this stage of his life…) but although he got home at 11:30p.m., he could not get to sleep. I now wonder if it was the illness already making itself known.
Last night he was immediately blossoming under the ministrations of several nurses who, as is right and natural, were instantly enslaved by his charm. My dad’s sense of humor is wonderful; he is also as smart as a whip. I have to get going if I want to fit in a visit with him before work and make sure his dog is okay. I hired a walker who will also be feeding my dad’s favorite female…Zelda Lou Miller, 7 years old with a delightful under bite and great gobs of long hair. Daddy, I love you. Do this for me, would you: get well soon.
February 2, 2010 — Another Letter to my Dad I will NOT sent. Probably.
Dear Dad –
You are not well but you will live, I gather, even if your life will be somewhat limited by your now 24/7 need to be hooked into an oxygen tank. This is very hard for me to see – you, less able, more infirm, unable to breathe without visible effort on your own – but I am pretty sure you will make the adjustment well (as will I, I hope) to this change. You have spoken, and spoken much too soon, about giving up bowling. I may have to drag your sorry ass there as to give up one of your great pleasures, and the social contact, the joy therein, would be a grave mistake, and it is early yet – maybe bowling will be possible and still fun for you. Wait and see; try it. I know it will not comfort you to hear that your sister-in-law, the bossy one who has lived in a retirement community since she was 49 years old, says that down there “people go everywhere and do everything with their oxygen tanks!” but I will tell you anyway. I know you don’t want people to see you with your tank, especially the women you especially like.
Last week I asked you about your dreams, if you dreamed, and you said you had been, lately. What about, daddy dear? My father is in them. Oh? And what was my esteemed grandfather doing in these dreams? Being a father, you said. I know you loved and respected him, and that you feared him, but I was very struck by those words, deeply. I now want you to know how like a father, and a great one, you have always been in my reality, in my life as well as in the lives of your three other children and your nine grandchildren. You do have a gruff exterior, you do like to grouse, to bitch and moan, yet you are a total softie within. You are smart, funny, and you will do anything for a laugh. You worked hard, so hard, in order that we all could have whatever lives we wanted, no college debt, and access to the best life had (has) to offer. The best life had to offer us was you: rolling us up and out of a giant towel back onto our bed as kids, telling us jokes or stories about life on the farm when you were young, playing gin rummy or spoons and puffing on your (goddammit) ubiquitous pipe, all while listening to us argue or tell stories of our own, and – loving our mom.
One of the best things you ever did for us was not take us personally. We were and are, as are your grandchildren, our own creations – not extensions of your ego. Though I have often sensed you were bemused by us (and always, always amused), I never felt our choices, our successes or failures – our lives – were taken in any way as a reflection of your accomplishments (although you could take much more credit than you do) and that has been very liberating, a real gift. You delight in our successes, you are proud of us, I know that, and you feel our failures when we fail, but you never, ever have made any of these events, circumstances, choices, good or bad, about you.
Thank you. Except for the fact that I am so angry with you right now for smoking all these years, I need you to know how much I love you, how much I respect you and always have, and that you are an amazing man. I also want you to know that I can live with your anger because, regardless of the fact that you told me I wasn’t to do so, I am throwing out your god-damned Parliaments before you get home from the hospital!
The New Ten Commandments – 2023 Version (because we fucking need new, updated commandments, brother fuckers)
1. Everything begins and ends with the Self. No outside force or person is above you, or below you; you contain the universe in each and every cell in your own body. And, you are governed by your thoughts. Control your thoughts, control your life. Remembering that ‘Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind’. – Ralph Waldo Emerson or, to put it more succinctly, per Rene Descartes: Cogito ergo sum, which in French is ‘Je pense, donc je suis.’ In English, ‘I think therefore I am.’ You do not need anyone to do your thinking for you. Read, FFS, get off the internet, and stop giving away your power to priests, ministers, pastors, rabbis, and a shit ton of other false money hungry dick-wad so-called prophets. Take all leaders, all persons in positions of authority, with a healthy grain of salt. Trust, yet verify. That’s Ronald Reagan, and I can’t believe I just quoted that old fuck.
2. Honor yourself, and then, and only then, honor your neighbor as if she were yourself. In simpler terms, be kind, forgiving, tolerant, and compassionate with yourself, and with all other beings, but especially yourself, and then, if you can do that, extend yourself to your neighbors. How can we have peace on earth if we cannot first get along with ourselves, and then, get along with our neighbors? We can’t. So be nice already, brother fuckers.
3. Don’t kill other people, and don’t kill animals or bugs or whatever else living that’s around you either, and if you must eat meat, try to minimize your consumption, because meat production is one major item on ‘the killing our planet’ list. And try to stop being such pigs. JHFC. Americans are fat. I include myself in that, so don’t get all self-righteous on my cottage cheese ass.
4. Do not – hear me now – do not perpetuate or in any way use violence in the home, or outside it. This includes keeping your fucking hands off your children, your husbands and wives and girlfriends or boyfriends, your parents, grandparents, cousins, siblings, and FFS keep your fucking hands off of other people’s children. This prohibition includes all forms of domestic violence, including emotional and psychological violence.
5. Stop participating in, supporting, or in any way committing state sanctioned violence, a.k.a. war. War is evil, and unnecessary. Here’s an idea: let’s turn arms manufactories into toy and playground equipment manufacturers, into medical equipment manufacturers, into construction parts manufacturers. 70% of the weapons used in Mexico are sold, trafficked, stolen, traded, or otherwise procured in the U.S. Arms sales are a multi-billion-dollar business, and the five largest arms manufacturers are in the U.S., Great Britain, France, Germany and Russia, and people all over the world, but particularly in the so-called 3rd world, are dying because other, incredibly sucky people in the so-called developed world, are greedy and don’t give a flying fuck about anything except profit.
6. Do not fuck, molest, or in any other way mess with other people’s children, or your own, and that includes teenagers and those in their 20s who are not yet fully emotionally or psychologically grown. Stop abusing and taking advantage of youth, ignorance, and opportunity. Treat all children to the age of 25 like goddamned babies, because – in effect – that’s what they are.
7. Don’t steal shit, especially from children and the elderly.
8. If you must fuck around (and you know you will, or that you really, really, want to), at least be honest about it.
9. Don’t be an asshole to those who are not like you. This is an extension of being kind to your neighbors. Not everyone sees the world as you do, or has the same experiences. Don’t be a dick to those who are different, and that includes people who don’t look like, live like, or fuck like you. Respect other people, even those whose beliefs and actions make you want to puke in your shoes. I’m looking at you, Evangelical Christians, so think about it, and I’ll think about how your crazy-ass beliefs make me want to puke in my shoes.
10. Do not make, create, or in any way propagate laws, policies, blogs, articles, or ANY form of written or spoken words that seek to minimize the bodily autonomy of women and girls. Just don’t.
Moj has spoken. Now go, and be nice, brother fuckers.
This week has been a total shit show in every sense of the word. Good and bad, including my dog being sick after I fed him a treat sent by a friend, still stuck somewhere in his digestive system and knock wood soon to pass through completely (N.B.: beware any doggie treats not made in the U.S. and shame on me for not checking the label before letting him have it). And now, on Good Friday because of course he did, the reactionary, conservative activist Federal judge in Texas who was chosen for this express purpose made his ruling that the longtime miscarriage and abortion drug Mifepristone is not to be sold throughout the U.S. – not just Texass, but the entire country. Okay, yes, he also put a immediate one week stay on the order to give the Biden Administration an opportunity to appeal, but FFS. Mifepristone has been used for twenty-three years, twenty-three, thus, declaring it unsafe, while also refusing to refer to fetal tissue in his poor reasoned ruling as – um – fetal tissue because it’s a human life, is likely to make my head explode. His anti-LGBTQIA stance is also well known and documented. In other words, this guy is a right-wing nut, a ‘Christian’ who hates women and anyone who falls even slightly outside the ‘safe space’ heteronormative bubble he occupies. A ‘Christian’ who hates is making (bad) law to control women’s reproductive choice, and their options when spontaneously miscarrying. Happy Easter, y’all!
And then there’s Tennessee. WTAF. The state where the KKK was born ousts two young black men from the legislature because they ‘broke decorum’, failing to similarly expel a white woman who did the exact same thing at the exact same time. You could argue that it’s nice when racists just say the quiet part out loud, but that’s cold comfort to the two-hundred thousand constituents these men represent whose voices have now been expunged and silenced along with their duly elected representatives. Their constituents aren’t the only voices being ignored as Tennessee lawmakers shun these young men – they’re also ignoring thousands of peaceful protesters demanding sensible gun safety laws with whom the ‘Tennessee Three’ marched after yet another mass shooting at a school. And then there’s the legislature’s recent ban on drag shows in public places – where else are drag shows meant to be? Underground caves open only to trolls, woodchucks and moles? Show is show, show means show, not hide, you neanderthal numbnuts. Don’t like drag shows? Don’t go to one. Sigh.
I have a cousin in Tennessee who occasionally emails me articles about TN as the superior of the two different states in which we have chosen to live. I’ve shown amazing restraint in not reaching out to him this week, asking – no, telling him to eat crow, but I may not be able to hold out much longer. He’s the guy who, when I confronted him about his and his dad’s racism, said about his dad, ‘but he wasn’t a mean racist’, which made me laugh out loud as I read it in his email defense of his unapologetically, openly racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-semitic father. You mean he didn’t lynch anyone? Didn’t burn crosses on lawns? Racism by definition is mean, as well as cruel, stupid, ignorant, and damaging – particularly as white men have used their power over and over again to turn racism into policy, and into law, embedding it into institutions of all kinds. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my Uncle Hubert, who has been dead since I was in my twenties, but Hubert (and his son, for that matter) was old school Tennessee, even down to what my cousin described as another (bullshit) example of his dad’s non-mean/soft-racism, ‘the only time I ever saw my dad weep was at his black nanny’s funeral’. Of course. JHFC. The truth is, my verrrrrrry privileged cousin only cares about one issue: the legalization of marijuana, which Tennessee – unlike New York State – has failed to do. He’s one of those white, wealthy libertarian boomer bros who is blissfully ignorant of 97% or more of what actually matters to those who weren’t and aren’t as blessed as he has always been. Grrrrrrrr. I’m fond of him, and – I won’t change him. I could, however, make him eat some crow…
Deep breaths. We can and will root out and defeat this authoritarian christo-fascist, white supremacist misogynistic nonsense. And, it will take time, and effort. I’m all in.
The good news? We outnumber the hateful by a lot, Janet P (I won’t even attempt to spell her last name) won her Supreme Court race in Wisconsin by a lot, and the progressive Dem candidate won the Chicago Mayor’s race, a young rising star who – like AOC – reframes the issues powerfully, necessarily, and with straight-talking common sense a resident of any city could understand, and support, knock wood! Yay. And, the tributes to my friend Dennis – so deserved – are pouring in, his services will be held this week over a 48-hour period that might, might give those who loved him enough time to pat their respects, and the best news of all? I knew him, loved him, and he knew and loved me. I was so lucky to be his friend. How great is that? PDG.
I include the graphic below as the complainants in the TX case like to say that abortion and the abortifacient drug Mifepristone (and contraceptive meds, in case you’re wondering what they’ll go after next) are ‘harmful’ to women and girls, are a kind of ‘violence’ toward women and girls. Fuck all the way off, you misogynistic pieces of shit.
*This is a photo of my dad in 1963, during the bi-centennial celebration of our town, outside the store he’d purchased 8 years earlier. He won the best beard contest during the celebrations, mostly, I’ll bet, because he was just irresistibly charming…I wrote this piece in 2015.
My father keeps dying on me, and it’s very uncomfortable, painful, too, as I thought I had recovered – as much as one can recover from so great a loss. But these new deaths shock, wrench, and twist me, and like a towel hung out to dry that, unpinning it from the line, is found to still contain watery leftover tears, these second and third deaths remind me of just how little time has actually passed, and how much longer the road of grief twists and winds through my heart, mind, and life, a never ending road that will last until memory itself is gone, I suspect.
He died in 2010 and I miss him every day. And now, six years later, we’re selling his house but soon, in two weeks, we’re selling the pharmacy, the business he bought in 1955, before I was born or even thought of, doors shut and long-time customers thanked, ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom. Wham! Done. Over. My heart is breaking, my grief is immense; I have been going into that space since I was thought of, since I was a bump in my mother’s belly, since forever – the smell, the look, the shape of it all – all of these things live in me, for while changes have been made, it’s another version of home. My brother will be 59 this August, and he is tired, he wants his freedom, a chance to get relief, to unburden himself of responsibility. He’s tired of dealing with regulations, tired of dealing with addicts who threaten and cajole in equal measure to get those pills. He is tired. Thirty-four years of being on his feet and just about thirty years of being an owner, the last 10 plus without the support and comradery of my dad as his regular relief pitcher. It’s enough. And so, in consultation with his wife, his lawyer and, finally, his sister (that would be me, the local sister) he accepted an offer from a major chain (ugh), and one of the longest continually running independent pharmacies (146 years! 5 owners!) in New York State will shutter its doors. And I’ll be okay. It’s just another milestone. Right? Right.
I want – I wish – to find some way to honor my brother, and my dad as well, for their service to this community in the course of running the family business. Once I’ve recovered from the shock of this, and had some time to reflect on what it really means to me, which I don’t yet know, I’ll brainstorm a few ideas, in consultation with my sister-in-law, though she hates public anything resembling fuss, as does my brother. We’ll see. The honor was in the serving, after all. No need for fuss, for public recognition. Right? Right.
And, I am concerned for him, my sweet darling bro. He has few really close friends, has given so much of his life to the business – and while he loves to read and has two grown kids whose lives and concerns occasionally occupy him, this is a huge shift. He’ll be fine; it is too stressful, this sole proprietor thing, especially sole-prop of an indy pharmacy in the opioid age. He’s a bright guy, and good – and he has at least one sister who can get him involved in all kinds of fun shit.
And, so, the business, and the house – sold off, all in the same time period and hey, it’s all good. It has to be. All good. My father. I loved him so much and what he sacrificed for us, his kids – time and dreams and fun and years and years of possibility. I don’t think he regretted it, but I certainly did, for him. His bucket list was very, very short, with only two items on it: visit the Baseball Hall of Fame, and the Rocky Mountains. I made him go to both. He and I drove to the Hall of Fame the week after he shared these longings; it’s only a little over an hour away, but, he said, my mother didn’t care for baseball, had zero interest in the HoF, so he’d never made the time. He loved his trip to the Rockies, which was made by car and train. He saw bison up close, and the mountains. He spent over a week with one of his beloved grandsons as traveling companion, and they laughed, a lot. Other items that might’ve been on the list, I wasn’t given the opportunity or time to pull them out of this unassuming man I loved; we simply were not given the time and health to achieve them, whatever they were, if they were, but we did our best.
My father keeps dying on me and maybe, maybe, it’s harder the second and third time around, because I don’t even have the immediate comfort of those last days with him – his face, his hands, his laugh, his particular dad scent, his five o’clock shadow – his wisdom, telling me that this, this moment, was what is meant to be, that in a good and just world children must and shall outlive their parents, and that all lives come to a close. And then I remember how he called me to get him some porn the night before he died, which made me – and my siblings, and his grandkids – laugh so hard, in the re-telling. It makes me laugh now, even while I twist and churn, wringing out a few more tears, and still more.
Fuck death. I hate it. I’m wrestling with change as well. The unknown.
Fuck fear. Fuck it.
It’s all good. It has to be.
*I turned my dad onto margaritas during the last decade of his life. Isn’t he cute? The photo below was taken about a year before he died.
