Shaking off 2017

Shaking off 2017

Southern California experienced a small earthquake registering 3.1 centered near Ontario about 5:36 p.m. local time. This seems to me a very appropriate way to shake off a year that held a great deal of sadness, disappointment, frustration, anger, division, and a whole host of other emotions for many people. While I am aware that there are people who actually liked 2017, and that there were actually good elements and stories from 2017, this year for me has been mostly bad and I am looking forward to putting it and every year prior to it behind me.

January launched a new presidency, and with it, all the promises, good and bad, of a new administration. The agenda of the new administration is to derail every accomplishment of the Obama administration, including healthcare and net neutrality. The guiding force of this administration is hatred and division. Trump and his followers hate Obama. This cannot be disputed. While it can be debated that not all of Trump’s followers are racist, bigoted, and misogynistic, it cannot be debated that the one common thread they all hold is a hatred for Obama and they are willing to allow this hatred to completely undermine the sanctity of the presidency and all that it stands for. His supporters have become a brainwashed group of lemmings turning a blind eye to Trump’s numerous golf trips, outrageous statements, excessive tweets, unhinged ramblings, and war against the poor. 2018 needs to see democracy at its finest with record voter turnout, particularly by the marginalized.

On February 16^th, a speeding, distracted driver failed to realize that the light was red and vehicles were not in motion. His actions caused a great deal of trouble for persons in two cars, especially for someone I love whose life is likely to never be the same. He has been in constant pain and discomfort, with developing problems ever since this accident and another similar accident in May, in which I was the driver and we were again rear-ended at a red light. Drivers really need to pay attention. Get off your fucking cell phones and other electronic devices and look at the fucking road in front of you! Do not run red lights and stop signs. Pay attention or get off the fucking road!

In March, my oldest daughter turned 18 and shortly afterward decided to move in with her father. I can probably count on one hand how many times I have seen her since then, even though her grandmother was dying of Alzheimer’s. She didn’t even go to the rosary or the funeral service. Despite the fact that I spent hundreds of dollars to send her on three conference trips for HOSA (Health Occupations Students of America) to Sacramento and Anaheim, special clothing and supplies and unending encouragement in her endeavor to be a doctor (even though I knew the actual likelihood of being a doctor was slim due to learning and emotional problems), she is telling people that I tried to kill her. This could not be further from the truth. The incident she refers to occurred while I was driving and she was fighting with her younger sister. After numerous times telling them to be quiet, I yelled “shut the fuck up!” She proceeded to call me a whore because I slept with her father (whom I was married to) more than once and had more than one child. In my attempt to smack her in the mouth, I missed and hit her in the neck. I do not advocate violence and I am sorry that I missed her mouth and hit her in the neck, but I think most people can agree that she was way out of line even if they can’t agree that attempting to smack her in the mouth was the appropriate reaction.

April, May and June were, for the most part, the best part of 2017 for me. In April, I auditioned to be in Annie after 22 years of not really doing any theatre except for teaching/directing. I had been largely discouraged during my 14-year marriage and had not ventured to do anything I was previously told “no” to since being freed from this marriage. I was cast and had a great deal of fun rehearsing and performing in this musical for the third time in my life. I cannot pass the month of May though without noting the unfortunate suicide of a musical great, Chris Cornell.

In July, we lost another musical great, Chester Bennington. While I did not know Chris Cornell or Chester Bennington personally, I loved their contribution to music and their music, as well as their magic, will be forever remembered. Someone I did know personally also passed in July, very near the time of Chester’s death. Her name is Shay Rogers. She and I used to work together many years ago and she was a delightful person to be around. I will always remember her for giving me tickets to see numerous races at Irwindale Speedway. Leukemia took her way too early and left two children without their mother.

In August, I began working as a privately contracted music instructor, an occupation that I never thought I would have. My father told me I would never make any money with music. My ex-husband seemed to share that belief. I had pretty much hung up any notion of doing music as anything more than a mere hobby and I had completely given up on being on stage.

In September, I lost my mother to Alzheimer’s. Just typing these words brings tears to my eyes. I had tears in my eyes this morning too as I thought about my mother while I took a shower. Today was not really a good day for me as I have been recovering from the flu and did not feel very well today. To add insult to injury, I was unable to take flowers to my mom’s gravesite for Christmas because of the flu and I felt guilty that as of today, I still hadn’t made it to her gravesite. I hope to go tomorrow. Her service was held in October and her birthday would have been in November, which brings us to December.

On the whole, this month was a pretty good month, even with the flu. If anything, the flu afforded me an opportunity to take a break and rest. I have been going non-stop for the past two and a half years and I needed to be able to just do nothing but watch television and rest. I came up with an idea for a Disney movie during this time. I may have been delusional, and this idea may be delusional, but what Disney movie isn’t a little delusional? Before catching the flu, I saw the hottest musical of the decade, Hamilton (unfortunately, this is probably where I caught the flu). The worst part of the month was not the flu, but the decision to let my youngest and only son go live with his father. This decision did not come easily, but came from the desire to not have him be in the middle of a bitter custody battle and to honor his wishes. I have always tried to do what was in the best interest of my children. I have been far from perfect in this endeavor, but when it came to them spending time with their father, I have only once interfered and it was because of the crap their father was telling them about me (he still does talk a lot of trash).

This year has had some ups and a lot of downs, but it has taught me some things. I have learned that fear is the only thing standing in my way now. I have overcome fear at times to do things I wanted to do like Annie. I have learned that my naysayers no longer have any power over me. I learned they never should have had any. I realized that I have lost a lot of friends over the years because they have moved away and forgot about me, while I never forgot about them. I have come to expect that, but moving forward, I am going to just forget about them too. In the event that I ever get lucky and become famous for writing or something and they come out of the woodwork, I will definitely forget them. The only people that will matter going forward will be the people who have always been there for me. These are the only people who should ever matter. This year, like every year before it, is behind me. There were lessons to be learned that should be carried into the new year, but the years themselves are gone. Out with the old, in with the new.

A Better Life

A Better Life

I guess when you call Santa a Republican, you can expect a lump of coal for Christmas, or perhaps the flu. When I wrote “If Santa is Real, He’s a Republican,” I thought my dry cough was perhaps just allergies because I forgot to take my allergy medicine the day before. I had also ignored my achiness that morning because I am achy every morning, some mornings more than others. Christmas morning would prove me wrong. For Christmas, I got the flu.

I have been relatively bed ridden and house bound for about three and a half days. In an effort to contain the disease as much as possible, and also because I hurt too much to move anyway, I spent the majority of this time in bed. Since this entry is not intended to be about how awful the flu is, I will just summarize by saying that I was absolutely miserable in every way, ran a fever ranging from 100 to 103 and was too delirious to do anything more than eat, drink, and binge watch television shows. I left the house only to go to the doctor and the pharmacy on Tuesday and again to the pharmacy yesterday.

While having the flu forced me to have to cancel a week’s worth of appointments and will cause me to have to wait until February to see my rheumatologist, in the end, it was worth it. I was honestly not going to get a break any other way. Yes, I would have preferred a much less miserable vacation, but a vacation is simply not possible for me. I have been going non-stop for two and a half years now. Every day I have something to do. When I try to take time for myself to get my hair or nails done, get a massage or simply even to eat, I am disturbed (see “Things Fall Apart” in my other blog When Parents Grow Old and Get Crazy). The flu was the universe’s way of giving me permission to rest.

I began to feel a little better yesterday. Today, I decided I could begin to do a little more and incorporate myself back into the world a little more. I began by watering just the back yard. While I was watering, I thought about my old dog, Wyatt. He was actually my brother’s dog (I was never allowed to have a dog, just my brother), but my brother didn’t take care of him, so he became my parent’s responsibility. He lived in the back yard his entire life. My brother got him drunk once and poor Wyatt puked everywhere. My dad used to sit on the patio and hit him with the fly swat. I would play with him, talk to him and feed him my leftovers (assuming that my leftovers were not pork or something that would make him sick). He likely associated my brother with abandonment, my father with fly swats and me with play and food. When he died, I felt bad that his life wasn’t better and that he hardly ever saw anything besides his yard and his dog house. I felt the same way after my mother died.

My mother was born and raised in Mississippi. Growing up, she was always poor. Alcoholism, drug addiction, smoking, mental health issues, marital problems and abusive husbands were common within her immediate and extended family. So, the fact that she smoked for half her life, had mental health issues and married two abusive husbands is not that surprising given her circumstances growing up. She was a beautiful woman when was young, though. She was intelligent until Alzheimer’s stole her mind. She could have done so much better. Her life should have been better.

I broke the cycle of being stuck with an abusive husband. I have a new cycle I wish to break. I don’t want to die wishing that I had lived my life better. For the rest of this year, I am going to rest. I am going to finish getting better. I am going to take a freaking break. In the new year, I am going to live my life better. I am going to take better care of myself. I am going to work harder to get what I want. I am going to learn to tell people no. I am going to start delegating minor responsibilities. I am going to learn to be more efficient in taking care of the responsibilities that I do have to tend to. I am going to manage my time better. I am also going to take breaks, even if it means turning my phone off and pissing off a few people. They get breaks. Why shouldn’t I?

Some people want to leave behind a legacy. They want to “build something that’s gonna’ outlive [them]”. While this would be nice too, I am willing to settle for at least living my life well. At this point, I have spent half my life living well and half my life in some modern adaptation of Tale of Two Cities (“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...”). I only have one more quarter left. I cannot afford to waste all of this time not living my best life possible.

References:

Dickens, Charles. Tale of Two Cities. 1859.

Miranda, Lin-Manuel. Hamilton. 2016.

If Santa is Real, He's a Republican

If Santa is Real, He’s a Republican

Over time, the Buddha has remained a symbol of peace, compassion, tranquility and love. The four noble truths and the eightfold path has never changed and Buddha has never wavered in his pursuit of nirvana through the eightfold path. The same has been relatively true for the Dalai Lama. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for our view of who Jesus is, or for who Santa is.  On the eve of Christmas, when Santa is supposedly flying all over the world in a sleigh pulled by reindeer, I wish to opine why the myth of Santa Claus should have been left on the folklore shelf a long time ago.

When my children were babies, I wish that my husband at the time would have shared my view that the myth of Santa should be shared as merely a work of fiction. In time, children grow up and realize that Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy are all fictional and they begin to wonder how much of what we tell them is actually true. If you have a father like mine, who has spent so much of his adult life telling lies that in his old age he can no longer remember what is even true anymore, you are even more so skeptical of what is true. In the event that you attempted to raise your children as Christians, your perpetuation of the myth of these fictional characters potentially places your children’s faith in God in danger.

Most parents wish for their children to be honest. Why then, do we lie to our children? Sure, there will be times when telling a little white lie might be necessary for their own benefit, but I fail to see how telling them that Santa is real is going to be at all beneficial unless you are wealthy and your children are incurious and dull.

The astute child, in time, will realize the improbability of flying reindeer that are able to navigate a large enough sleigh to carry a portly old man and millions of presents all over the world in a single night. Furthermore, this rotund old man has to be able to shimmy down multiple chimneys quietly in order to leave presents. I wish to be a fly on the wall of the Christian home that tries to explain that this is all possible through magic while at the same time explaining why magic is supposedly bad.

Beyond the impossibilities and contradictions of trying to pass this myth off as true is the harsh reality of inequality. If Santa is real, then he is a Republican. He does not favor the unemployed, the unfortunate, or the poor. He delivers more presents to the wealthy families than he does to the less affluent ones, and still others receive no presents at all. Wealthy children are not necessarily better behaved than poor children, and yet they receive more presents. How do you explain to poor children that behaved all year that Santa favors the wealthy kids more than he does them?

Yes, my opinion is based in leftist ideology, but it does not originate in someone who has always been poor. Quite the opposite is actually true. I have been on both sides of the economic fence over the course of my lifetime, but I have always been acutely aware of inequality. I knew there were children who received fewer presents than me when I was a child, and now that I am an adult with children of my own, I, as well as my children, know children personally who would not receive anything at all if not for the kindness of others. Children should be aware of this reality. Their parents should get the credit for anything they receive, not a mythical being. The parents are the ones who worked hard, went shopping, wrapped presents, etc., not Santa. They should know that individual circumstances control how packed the Christmas tree is, not favoritism. They should be aware that other children are not as lucky as they are. What better way to teach gratitude?

Net Neutrality and the Politics Pendulum

Net Neutrality and the Politics Pendulum

I joined Facebook and Twitter in July 2009. While a great deal has changed in my life since then, I have admittedly not noticed too many great changes in my access to either Facebook or Twitter. I cannot recall when I first used You Tube or first subscribed to Netflix, but I have experienced a few price increases with Netflix. I imagine this is what it will be like with the repeal of Net Neutrality. Since Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are no longer required to treat all content providers (Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, Netflix, etc.) equally and can logistically charge some content providers more due to volume or bandwidth demand, there is a possibility that the price of Internet access will increase as well as the cost of certain services such as Netflix. We have enjoyed Net Neutrality for a mere two years now and I can assure you that Netflix has already gone up in price in that time and will likely do so again. The underlying problem is greed. Internet Service Providers and content providers alike wish to make more money and charge higher premiums. The latest decision to repeal Net Neutrality makes this easier for them to do and pads the pockets of the already wealthy. This, unfortunately, is the political climate that we are in until we hopefully do something to reverse this direction in future elections. At the moment, what used to be indirectly a theocracy has become an oligarchy, with big money and big corporations at the top of the leaderboard. Ajit Pai, the villain of Net Neutrality, is a former Verizon executive whose primary role in this game is to repeal Net Neutrality, which he has done. Ahead of this victory, he ended subsidies and programs which made Internet affordable and accessible to low-income individuals. That said, the price of Internet service, as well as the price of content such as Netflix and Hulu are going to go up in price anyway, regardless of whether or not we have Net Neutrality. If we learned anything in Economics class, it is that supply and demand, as well as inflation, drives up costs. The added element of greed drives the cost up even further. The larger issue is whether this repeal will affect access to information.

If the repeal of Net Neutrality results in the increase of price for Internet service or specific services, then the access to these services will be limited to those persons who can afford them, leaving the less affluent in the dark. While it may be true that this could potentially limit access to the less affluent because Internet could become less affordable, it is not necessarily true that information will be more censored (it already is censored) or that speeds will be slowed for any reason. Content providers like Twitter, Facebook, Netflix, etc. can already afford to continue the speed of the service they provide. It will be up to the consumer to afford the more premium packages (note: these ‘packages’ will not include separate costs for each content item as believed by some) that will deliver the same level of Internet access they presently receive. It is worth noting that the potential increase in cost for Internet access, as well as the potential for different Internet packages, is still hypothetical and would likely be gradual. Also hypothetical is the fear that actual access to information will be censored, even for those persons who can afford the premium packages. I am sure that the oligarchy would love nothing more than to censor the information that we have access to, or censor our ability to coordinate online, but the reality is, they already do.

Recently, my daughter used her school computer to research depression and suicide. Exactly one day later, I find myself in the counselor’s office. Not too long after this debacle, my son has a history project to do, but is unable to use his school computer to research the Battle of Yorktown because it contains the word “battle”. Just as school districts are able to spy on our students’ search histories and prevent them from looking up certain things or accessing certain websites, our government can and does do the same already. They have been doing this for years, hence the need for whistleblowers like Edward Snowden, who ousted the government for this practice back in 2013, two years before Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality came to be for a number of reasons, including this leak of information by Snowden. The average consumer is upset about the repeal of something that made no difference to them prior to 2015, and amongst these consumers are people who are either divided about or in favor of indicting Snowden. Second, Net Neutrality did not significantly increase our access to information, but it may have made our access to that information more secure. Third, believe it or not, there was a time when the Internet itself did not exist. Yet, despite the lack of the Internet, we were still able to access information, in much the same way that my son was still able to research the Battle of Yorktown for his history project. The oligarchy is not large enough or strong enough to overpower the will of the majority, which we still are. They may have repealed Net Neutrality without the vote of the majority, but they cannot continue to control the future. They cannot keep us from reading books or from educating ourselves. They cannot keep us from organizing. They cannot prohibit us from gaining access to Internet through a variety of methods, including some of those methods that have been shared on Twitter since the repeal of Net Neutrality. They have failed to censor Edward Snowden or the recommendations he has made for safer usage (such as The Tor Project). They can make it difficult for us to vote, but ultimately, they cannot stop us, just as we saw in Alabama.

The politics pendulum has been swinging back and forth since George Washington resigned and will continue to swing back and forth. Right now we are in the midst of a giant upswing on the Republican side with the lowest approval rate and the highest percentage of greedy deplorables of any administration in history. What happens when the pendulum swings high on one side? What are we doing with our time to prepare for the next upswing? Merely complaining about the present upswing does not adequately prepare us for what happens next. There is work to do.

The repeal of Net Neutrality is not the end of the world, but it is not good news either. Net Neutrality equalized fairness to individual content providers, increased access to consumers, and improved security and access to information. The repeal, like Trump’s election, was not secured by a popular vote, but by a much more sinister movement in politics, government, education and media. Some people are merely accepting and succumbing to voter suppression, government lies, party loyalty and deliberate attempts by Trump and his administration to delegitimize the media and jeopardize the freedom of press.  They are just accepting that this is the way it is. They are tired of hearing the comparisons to George Orwell’s 1984. The oligarchy wants you to be tired. They are succeeding with these people. We still have access to information and should be spending our time educating ourselves and protecting our democracy. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights were written in order to ensure and protect our democracy, yet it seems like not too many people are even familiar with what either of those documents say or why they were written the way they were. Our displeasure at the separation of church and state, which was put in place for a reason, gave way to a theocracy, which gave way to party loyalty, which ushered in our present oligarchy. Our own apathy is at fault.

If there were no Internet, or if Internet were somehow severely impacted by the repeal of Net Neutrality (which I do not see being the case since we had very few complaints about our access prior to 2015), I would have a great deal more time to read, write, and create, and when elections came, I would vote.

Late Night Insomnia Musings

Late Night Insomnia Musings

(written the night of Wednesday night / Thursday morning)

I thought being tired at 8:30 tonight was a sign that I was getting old. I quickly got over that and went to bed early anyway.

Four hours later, I was still awake. I had heartburn and flatulence. Emergency personnel had a busy night too, as there were numerous sirens rushing to and fro in the four hours I tried to sleep.

I turned off the Christmas lights, went to the bathroom and then proceeded to scroll through Facebook. I was going to make a comment on some post about national parks like Yosemite and Joshua Tree being more expensive to get into, but then I realized the thread was filled with a bunch of Republicans blaming Liberals for the increase. I’m going to leave that at that and say this is why we can’t have nice things.

This deciding not to engage in a hostile territory got me to thinking about AOL and chat rooms. We would bounce in and out of chat rooms looking for people to connect with and sometimes we would end up in hostile territory. We would enter a room and test the vibe for a minute before deciding whether to engage. What happened to chat rooms? It seems like the new way to connect with people is through conflict. We can post or like stuff all day long on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, but it is seemingly only drama and conflict which evokes discussion, and generally not amicable or constructive discussion. I want to chat with people productively. I want to chat with people about Hamilton or the random shit that goes through my head at midnight. I do not want to be vulnerable to attack just because I said that if rates at national parks increase, I will likely never see Yosemite or Joshua Tree.

I have had a very busy week. I began the week with an energy deficit caused by a three-day battle with endometriosis. I was extremely busy yesterday (Tuesday), going non-stop from 6:30 a.m. to about 7 p.m. I woke up this morning (Wednesday morning) at 5 a.m. to start my day. I am not tired because I am old. I am tired because I am tired and all the heartburn, flatulence, emergency sirens and insomnia aren’t helping the cause.

Upon publishing this musing on Thursday, my tummy problems never got any better. I am ending the week with a whole new energy zapping predicament. Yay! Bring on Christmas break, please.

Topsy-turvy Land

Topsy-turvy Land

This morning, my son came into my bedroom with a (relatively new) tube of toothpaste and asked if there was another tube already opened. I replied, “that one is open, isn’t it?” He checked it, said yes, and walked off. A few minutes later, he reappeared and said that his dad had got him to brush his teeth. I responded that I have asked him many times to brush his teeth, but he never listens to me. “Yeah, but you don’t yell at me or lecture me for an hour about why I need to brush my teeth,” he said. I asked him, “Really? That’s what you want? Someone to yell at you and lecture you?”

Two out of three of my children have chosen their father over me. He is constantly criticizing me to our children, while I rarely do that to him. They all agree that he yells too much, while I hardly ever yell. He lectures, while I prefer to use a more pragmatic approach which explains consequences of not doing what I asked. Despite these personality differences, and despite psychological research which tells us not to yell, lecture and demean, two out of three of my children prefer exactly that.

Human behavior is never going to be an exact science. We can research behavior and responses to various stimuli forever and never come any closer to understanding people. Decades of evolution and progress has not really brought us very far. Two of my children need to be yelled at and lectured. Racism is still rampant throughout the world. Government at the local and national level is run by sexual predators, pedophiles, racists and inexperienced cronies. As a nation, we have gone backwards. Just as we were making progress with affirmative action, cultural appropriation, cultural sensitivity, and women’s rights, we have begun to once again normalize racism, sexism, and mediocrity. One third of Americans get their proverbial panties in a bunch when you bring this to their attention. One third of my readers have either already stopped reading this entry once I got past the story about my son, are wondering why they didn’t stop reading when the other lemmings stopped reading, or are going to read to the end in spite. This is the state of our nation, though. We live in Topsy-turvy world. Here it is OK to yell at your children, talk bad about their mother and lecture them. They like it. It’s alright to be a racist bigot. There are many others just like you who also hate people of color. There used to be a time when getting a blow job by an intern would get you impeached, but if you are a wealthy Republican celebrity, it will get you elected, and then you can endorse a pedophile. As children, we are taught that only the best and the brightest get to be President. We look up to our local and national leaders. The global respect and admiration for the president is now gone. The world does not take Donald Trump seriously and two-thirds of Americans don’t either. Local and national government has become a running joke instead of something to be desired and aspired to.

The Vice President’s son at my former place of employment told me that I should “stick with my own race and age group”. Such comments, in tandem with the aforementioned predatory behavior of our local and national leaders and their blatant racism, would have at one time resulted in termination of employment. Instead, it resulted in the termination of my employment. To get ahead in Topsy-turvy land, you have to yell and lecture. You have to demean, demoralize, and exploit women and persons of color. We are currently playing an endless game of “opposite day” that I am not sure we will ever be able to completely stop and reverse when we finally wake up.