Undeclared Rivalries

On facebook, pretty much every one recognizes my daughter Francesca as Gerty the Grammarian. She will not let an errant apostrophe go untrounced.  Sometimes our communications are wordless, and yet the feeling of being judged is still present.  Recently I sent her this photo just for fun.  I titled it "Fergus Monsoon" for a variety of reasons.

Always trying to do me one better, this was her reply:

She didn't grace it with a title. 

This is not Gerty the Grammarian.









This is:  

Here's What I Remember

Fiddling, dawdling, wasting time, procrastinating.  Can't do it.   Even when I am trying to do any of those things I am being bombarded by images and words that set my mind on fire.   I picture those little fibers on the endings of my nerves getting ready to fire across that little void to accelerate a thought through my mind and body and I wonder why they are not all burning up and shriveling and crumbling to ash.  How can I think at all?  It is like the worst construction caused traffic jam on Route 45 that you could ever imagine topped by the dude on the motor cycle weaving through and giving everyone the finger.  Where is my gun?

From facebook and the comments therein concerning a recent court case, I segued into You Tube and Jon Stewart, who, if you ran his shows at random and continuously, you would notice a very confused person with a huge heart and a swirling mind that is making a lot of money and not really knowing why.  It's not because he is funny.

So then there was the clip of his first show after the twin tower attacks and, as labeled, it is hard to watch.

I am tired of the absolute polar opposite opinions concerning this Florida trial surrounding a young man's death.  There is no voice of reason anywhere.  It is really not much different than throwing the Christians to the lions.  Perhaps the lions didn't eat that guy because God gave him a special protection blessing for having been a good boy and saying his prayers and not having impure thoughts, or perhaps the lion could tell by the way the guy smelled that he would not taste very good so he passed him by.  Who are you to say?  What do you think you know about it?  What do you believe?  Hey.  I don't care.

The wonderful thing about facebook, and facebook's a wonderful thing.  It's tops are made out of rubber.  Its bottom is made out of springs.  Oh, no.  Hold up.  Fucking cadence side tracks me all the time cuz I have all those classical melodies fighting for space within my brain case and my heart. Anyway, as I started to say, you can block people from your facebook account if you don't like what they say or how they say it.  I do it almost daily.  Not you, of course.  I would never block you.  I love you and respect you and admire your divergent opinions, most of which I don't care about.  I only care about mine.  I only care about my power to rule, my power to change what is unpleasant into what is pleasant according to my own value system.  I continue to care although I see the whole world going to hell in a hand basket and me standing here, might as well be naked, but I'm not, and unable to do a fucking thing about it.  Just watching and thinking. What can one person do?  Vote?  My grand daughter cancelled out my vote cuz she wanted a sticker and had no clue who was running for what on which platform.  We are doomed.

Why do certain groups (and if you are one of my more avid followers, you have seen this remark elsewhere) have the power to form million man marches and elect bozos to rule the country and others just stand and watch the panorama of destruction?   Why are we letting any one take power from us?  Or are we giving them power?  I am not wondering anymore what we are doing.  I want to know why.

When I was first married, I lived in a huge courtyard apartment complex on the west side of Chicago.  I stood on the balcony of my third floor apartment and, looking eastward, I saw nearly the whole horizon billowing with black smoke.  Not Mount St. Helens.  The City of Chicago.  Set on fire.  On purpose.  Deliberately.  And to what avail?  A beloved leader died in an unfortunate way and people decided to burn buildings, break windows and steal things to mark the passing of this peace preaching man.  WTF.

And if I put quotation marks about the word people, I would be branded a racist and a hatemonger.  Again.  WTF.  Or no perhaps, in this case, fuck me.

Here is the voice of reason ringing out in the midst of all the polarizing remarks regarding the verdict in the recent highly publicized Florida trial concerning the demise of a certain male under unusual and questionable circumstances:

When someone is pounding your head into the pavement, reach for your wallet, while praying for his soul and your deliverance, and take out your FOID card and show it to him.

Is everybody happy?  Well I should say.


PHOTO ATTRIBUTION:   z3news.com

Story: I am a slow learner

I used to walk my dog every day until he got a little crippled. There was a ferocious Rottweiler around the corner that scared me. He was huge and could clear the fence if he tried. He barked and snarled like he hated us. So I started to carry a knife. Not a handy folding penknife or a lethal looking switch blade. No. Too reasonable. I selected a non-folding small fruit knife with quite an extreme taper. I put it in my pocket. I felt quite safe for several days. Then one day, I leaned down to tie my shoelace and stabbed myself in the thigh. It didn't bleed very much but did drip a little. It hurt like a son of a bitch. I hobbled home clenching my thigh. Lesson to be learned? None apparently. I had no knife when that huge blue pit bull tried to swallow Henry.

And further proof that my learning curve is in fact a straight line:  my husband has a food broker pal and Louie, who is sort of retired, helps him at food shows. Lou is a glad hander and Chuck, the broker doesn't like to speak up. So Lou brings stuff home. This amazing chocolate BRIX is formulated to go with wine. Forget that. It is damn good chocolate. I am huge on the raunchily named "mouth feel" and this stuff is incredible. It comes in a solid brick. (Get where they are going with that?) and you have to break off a chunk with something like a cheese knife. I usually put it on a saucer. I was feeling lazy and reclining. I had a super sharp paring knife. I didn't bother with the saucer. I left the chocolate in the cardboard box which was resting on my reclining body at about diaphragm level. I inserted the knife into the chocolate and met resistance. So I poked harder. Yeah. I stabbed myself again. Only a bruise this time. Excess avoirdupois.

Fugue - ing Around

I CANNOT believe the last thing I posted was that Feature and Follow thing which I never do right anyway.

I am walking around every minute I am awake thinking "me, me, me".  I am going to research whether it is possible to self-induce a fugue state.  I use this device all the time in my novels.  Every time something gets overwhelming I just have my adorable heroine go fugue-ing off, barefooted, into the Redwood National Forest, or The Great White Nowhere, or the Saint Louis Cemetery.  Myself, it would hurt my feet.  I am too constantly painfully aware of what is going on in my life.  I feel like a huge China (Ming Dynasty preferably) vase and I am aware of that tiny crack just starting in the bottom and if some one puts one more drop of water in it, Kablooey.

Obama said no fireworks on any military base anywhere.  I would have taken up a collection to have them at Great Lakes.  It is pivotal in my year.  I had a sign from Above.  The fireworks in the neighborhood had just started and I was cleaning (and cleaning, and cleaning, and cleaning) Louie's room and a halogen bulb on the hall light just out side his door blew up gloriously.  I choose to consider it a sign that God (my bud) was reassuring me that Obama was wrong.  (I used the word wrong here because I thought some of you might be offended or consider it disrespectful if I said "an asshole" instead.)  Obama is undermining our nation.  You didn't hear it here first, but I think the fireworks thing was just another step on his part -- another chip at the foundation of our Nation, another drop of water in the China vase of our beloved country.

Anyway, the news about Louie is not too good.  Physically he is coming along, but the memory problems and the personality change are obvious and I do not notice improvement.  For instance, he can't text.  And all I get is "Can you hear me?" To say I am discouraged is putting it mildly.  And my father calls at least once a day to check up.  Finally, I had Lou call him today because my father cannot hear my voice on the phone and all I get is "I didn't get that." Lou spoke to him after both my brothers tried to explain and I actually went over to his house to explain and my father has not a clue as to what happened or is happening.  "Are you home?"  he asks Louie.  "No one is ever there when I go over there."

I have no more patience and I cannot think  of a reason in Hell or on Earth or in Heaven as to why I should try to muster up patience.  When have I ever been on the receiving end of that?  I am bitter and pissed and I feel, honestly, I do not deserve this.  Misfortune?  My cup runneth over.  My mom said I was like that Little Abner character that walked around with the rain cloud over his head (Joe Mfblsztk?)

Every one, EVERYONE overestimates my ability to cope. I have been hearing that shit for too many years.  Sure I am crying poor me, but when some one says, "If any one can handle it, Ditty can" when my heart is so broken I feel like I don't even want to recover, then I feel like it is time to say, "NO.  I can't cope.  It hurts.  I am tired of it.  Stop it.  God, or someone, stop raining this shit down on me."  Yeah, I know, every one has pain in their life.  Some of you have pain that is fresh and raw and may seem unbearable.  The difference is, I have had it in spades.  I can match you and double.  And I know it is bearable.  I am just fucking sick of it.

Image Attribution: www.artsjournal.com