It seems that, despite the gravity of pandemic and insurrection and everything else that gives us pause these days, people are looking for distraction. The veritable meme-palooza featuring Bernie Sanders in mittens proves to be evidence of that, and it goes even further. In true capitalist economy fashion, the mitten market is burgeoning – an Popular Mechanics article fascinated me, since I wasn’t quite seeing an obvious connection between Popular Mechanics and mittens, but one was made: (https://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/outdoor-gear/a35280484/bernie-sanders-mittens-vs-gloves/)
Following the article discussion, there is a sampling of mittens for sale, with prices ranging from $50 to $115, which I found … amusing.

There is now a debate in the country, courtesy of Bernie’s mittens, about whether mittens or gloves are the best option for cold weather. The article above discusses fill material, shells, dexterity considerations, and hybrid 3-fngered options that allow use of the index finger and thumb. I suppose that would sanitize the time-honored tradition of “giving someone the finger”. A quick search on mittens, mittens vs gloves, gloves, and Bernie Sanders mittens yielded double-digits of pages with similar content, some way more technical than Popular Mechanics, some offering guides on how to make your own mittens, and more than one explaining how Bernie’s mittens were made and how he came to have them (the poor woman who gifted him with those has been besieged by potential customers…but she’s not in business and really wants to be left alone, thank you very much).

America, America…crown they good with brotherhood…and crown thy hands with…mittens. Or gloves. Or both, if you want to guarantee your hands will spontaneously combust. Your choice. Some of us don’t have access to either, so we do what people have been doing for eons – blow into your clenched hands, put your hands in your pockets or under your armpits, sit on your hands, whatever you have to do. If you’re in a situation where none of that works, and you need industrial strength mittens/gloves, you know what to do or you would have another job. I’m from Louisiana, and we don’t generally need to consider the subject of hand warming quite so seriously. Conversely, we spend quite a lot of time figuring out how to navigate 100% humidity and heat index of over 100 degrees, so if people need to know how to keep cool while still complying with laws requiring clothing of some kind, we can talk.

Anyway, we need distraction. We’re into crisis fatigue, and I would venture to guess people are finding ways to disconnect from the avalanche of information we’re getting lately. There are daily press conferences, often multiple, on the pandemic, the mechanics of the virus itself, the vaccine, how to get the vaccine, screwups with vaccine distribution, stories about people with the virus, people who have died from the virus, and most importantly, who said what about any of these subjects and who disagrees with that. If you want a break from the virus, there are other subject matter areas – the insurrection, the impeachment trial, people who have been arrested for the insurrection, who is to blame for the insurrection, participants, replay of videos from the insurrection. If your eyes are not rolling around inside their sockets yet (and making that little bongo sound from the cartoons), you can check out the really minor stuff, like the millions of people out of work, the overloaded systems for unemployment benefits, evictions, homelessness, other health care issues, school re-openings, hunger.

The President is signing executive orders so fast he’s likely to start a small fire on the Resolute Desk. He was sitting with nearly a foot-high stack of them on the corner of the desk, determinedly explaining each and every one, signed it, then reach up for the next one. He has not been playing golf. He has not been Tweeting. He’s been engaging in the time-honored tradition of work. He signs executive orders, which are the result of some consultation and planning, I would imagine, then gets on the phone with the Russian Prime Minister. I hope he has time to use the bathroom and maybe have a glass of water or something. If he’s trying to let people know that he’s working, I think it’s a successful effort.

I find it reassuring and comforting to see the President getting down to work. It feels as though he’s sure of what he’s doing, and providing as much transparency as is prudent, letting people know a lot about what’s going on in the White House. It’s nice to see, even though I know there are still a LOT of people who have nothing good to say about this new administration, and want to see everything revert to the previous chaos. I cannot understand that, but maybe that’s a good thing. I fear that if ever I do understand illogic of that calibre, I will have lost my hold on reality. So, no rush on that.

What I do understand, though, is why people are going slightly ballistic about their inability to have their hurrs cut or their nails did. When you feel like everything normal has been taken away, you’re going to rebel. Especially if you ain’t grown yet. Before this “lock-down” of the pandemic response, I was not someone constantly out of my domicile looking for new things to do. I spent a fair amount of time at home, accumulating more useless crap in my living space and reassuring the dog that she had enough treats for the apocalypse. What I am missing, however, is spontaneity. If I chose to stay home on a rainy day, or a sunny day, that was fine. But if I decided to call a friend for a late lunch at a favorite restaurant or watering hole, that was also fine. That’s what has become difficult, if not impossible. Some establishments are simply closed, but even if open, I need to plan a bit for the excursion. I need to make sure I have a mask handy, and my personal choice is outdoor dining, if possible. Most of the time, it’s easier to just have something delivered to my apartment or pick it up and bring it home. Many people are unwilling to make those changes in routine, and that drives me slightly cuckoo. So, I get it.

What I also get about this “new normal” is that I’m fortunate to be have choices like having food delivered or sprinting into a restaurant to get take out, as opposed to being food insecure or going hungry, as many do ordinarily but even more so these days. I’m just not willing to risk my health or someone else’s just to say the gummint can’t make me do something I don’t want to do. Arguing about rights in this context is just silly. To live in this country, there’s an implied contract of protecting the common good, so I’ve got news for all those unmasked rebels – the gummint makes us do stuff we don’t wanna do EVERY day. We have to wear clothes, we have to comply with traffic lights, we pay sales tax on stuff we buy (even the haircuts and the nail salons), we pay property tax on cars and houses, on the gas that makes the car go, the power that runs your computer so you can spew your hatred on Parler or Twitter or wherever else you go. Your gun wasn’t even free – if you bought it legally, there was probably sales tax; if you licensed it, like you’re supposed to, there was probably a licensing fee. Even if you stole it, somebody somewhere paid all that. We pay for practically everything we touch, even if it’s naturally occurring, like water. All of that is what makes it possible for the ambulance to show up when your drunk ass falls down the steps or crashes the car into something. So. Think on that for a minute, Ace.

I’m just trying to figure out why, with all of this gummint intrusion, people are choosing to die on the hill called a mask. It’s a piece of fabric a few inches wide, and this is the biggest issue in your life? I suppose I should understand and be tolerant of that, since thousands of people (some close enough for me to reach out and touch) are still willing to take a stand on a slightly larger piece of fabric that protects nothing but the memory of a failed domestic war effort of more than a century ago. But that’s another story. I suppose if you just need to be mad about something, anything will do. Anything. Black President in the White House? Be angry. Be very angry. And people are very, very angry. There are hilarious stories, fortunately not lately, where people assaulted fast food workers because they were out of chicken nuggets. A man was murdered in a Popeye’s drive-up line in a dispute with another driver over the chicken sandwich (which I found tasty but definitely not worth shooting someone). And of course, there are brawls and murders every football season over a score, a play, a penalty that should or should not have been called, who’s the better team. I will say that alcohol is frequently involved in these extreme situations, although I can’t vouch for the chicken nuggets altercation. People, people, people – calm the eff down, or up. Meditate, do yoga, go to the gym, punch a bag, lift weights, throw a ball, do something. If you really DO need to kill someone, please make it for something worth your while, like self defense or something. Not fast food. There won’t be any fast food in prison, so please hedge your bets; just some unsolicited advice. No charge.

I was telling some people earlier that I was still very unsettled about being out in the general population these days. Homeland Security issues a bulletin today, saying the threat of domestic terrorism was elevated. I could have told them that. There is a prickly feeling in the air, and it’s not a cold front. There are psycho Congresspeople who want to kill the Speaker of the House, the former Vice-President, or any Democrat who is not nailed down. They are open about this, loudly proclaiming their rabid opinions whenever there’s someone around to listen. It would be wiser if more rational people didn’t listen, but there’s a kind of morbid fascination to witnessing the zombies. I believe they really are dead people, no souls, no brains, fighting their own rigor mortis and decay. They are lost, but dangerous, so I suppose they will need our attention until they begin to literally fall apart, as zombies are wont to do. The rot smells even at this distance, so there’s another reason for me to keep my distance.

I’m hoping it snows tonight, although most predictions say it will only be for a minute. It’s been abnormally warm so far this winter, but I’m still hoping for a good snow. I hope it holds off for a bit, though – I am considering making an order for mittens and a folding chair so that I can enjoy a day like Bernie. Maybe I’ll wind up as a meme, too.

I nearly spit out my coffee when I heard a CNN host report that conservative news outlets are reporting that when the new POTUS is speaking of “unity” he is really calling for more divisiveness. What is now being called “MAGA media” acknowledges there is a need for unity, but claim the existing divisions in the country are the result of the radical left faction and its push for things like voting rights and impeachment of a President who incited an insurrection. Radical and patently unfair stuff like that. I did not realize that a dog could hear a non-existent dog whistle. I would imagine that constitutes auditory hallucination, but I’m not a medical professional so what do I know? When in doubt, make up a conspiracy if there’s not one. If all you have is old news, just repeat it until people believe that’s what is happening now. I just hope the DSM will include this kind of stuff in its next edition. With pictures. (I’m probably going to need to edit this post later, because I’m gonna probably go on a caffeine-high rant in a second, which means it will consist of many words, some of which may not connect to anything in particular.)

After cleaning up the coffee dribble, I listened to CNN interviewing Charles Blow, a NY Times editorialist. His new book is The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto. It talks about a variety of issues relevant to Black empowerment, such as voter turnout and employment. He also speaks about white allies, saying “…holding a placard and then returning to brunch” doesn’t quite cut it. Martin Luther King, Jr. had also begun lobbing comments toward whites before his death, saying that white moderates were somewhat disingenuous in the struggle for actual empowerment of Blacks. From some of what I heard Charles Blow saying earlier (sporadic, since my coffee intake had been involuntarily reduced), the only people who are going to be totally invested and totally committed to total empowerment of the Black community are its own members.

I’ve heard this before, and I wrestle with it. Sentiment like what Blow iterated remind us there’s always a line drawn between the races, no matter how much welcoming, tolerance, friendliness, like-mindedness there is between us, there’s always a line. We can agree on concepts of ideals of justice, practices of government, the practical manifestations of prejudice and systemic oppression. We can be passionate about all of this, fight together in the streets, sit at the same table when hashing out policies, break bread together, make music together, make money together. But…there always seems to be a line in the sand that cannot be successfully crossed. I don’t know any more whether or not that is emotional, or experiential. It’s frustrating.

In any group, there is always “group dynamics”. There are introverts and extroverts, leaders and followers, jokers and thieves. Always. When there are gender, sexual orientation, ethnic and racial dynamics, things get a little more complicated. The male of the species continues to do what they’ve always done, and require very little invitation to demonstrate their dominance, regardless of sexual orientation. There has been a lot of progress on that over the years, but men naturally take up more space in groups, whether it be how they sit or stand with legs widespread or simply their physical size. The natural frequency of their voices carries further, and they are often more easily heard. Black men, brown men, Indian men, Russian me, European men, Asian men…it matters not. Additionally, I contend their auditory organs are somehow deficient in a mechanical sense, because they often don’t fucking listen to voices that transmit at lower frequencies, but I digress.

Beyond all of that, race and ethnicity further complicates group dynamics, as cultural norms outside the United States are some brave new world for many of us in this country. Inside this country, however, race and skin color are such weighty issues that we can barely carry that baggage any longer. My biggest issue with it is…when I’m in a group where I’m the numeric minority and we’re “interacting”, if I get shut down, is it because I’m just an asshole or is it because of cultural norms? This can make a person nuts. I CAN be an asshole, but so can a lot of other people. Am I imagining that a white male who is being difficult is getting more air time? Am I imagining that he and I are behaving in roughly equivalent fashion, but I get shut down and he does not? Have I not been honest with myself about my behavior? Am I second-guessing myself again, and need to be more assertive? By the time I’m done with asking myself all these questions, everyone is heading out for coffee after the meeting, which ended 10 minutes ago. If I WAS supposed to be assertive, the time has passed.

So, maybe I’m just such a dysfunctional specimen of society that I’ll never get this correct. But…what exactly would be correct? My recovery program teaches me that I should do the next right thing, do the best I can, and if I err, make amends and try again. OK, that’s great, but everybody doesn’t run their lives by the principles of a 12-step program. Some people really don’t give a hoot, and don’t ever ask themselves whether or not they have taken up too much space (and that is gender non-specific). Some of us are just wired like that, and that’s just how it is. So, when skin color gets thrown into that mix, we all (and I do mean all) wobble between self-righteousness and incompetence. I believe that I have worthiness and dignity and deserve respect…but when I’m dealing with other people, I’m more concerned with whether or not their actions are informed by their agreement with those attributes. But how do I know?

A lot of my experience has been that people say things they don’t mean, that people pledge their allegiance to lofty ideals that sound golden, but their actions don’t match up with what they say. Christians justified slavery in Europe and America by claiming they were doing God’s work, and their brutal treatment of slaves was not in conflict with Christian teachings. I’m not aware of where the word of God commands anyone to make one person the property of another, deprive them of freedom to leave, and whip them into a bloody pulp if they attempt to employ their human agency. But, literacy and reading comprehension are not the strength of everyone.

Back to the heavy baggage of race, this experience of the disconnect between what people say and what they do is, on the surface, simply an issue of trust. When I don’t trust my boss in the workplace, I steer clear and give them a wide berth. I document our interactions, because I expect that if there’s a difference in opinion about a negative outcome to the relationship, the objective testimony will render…justice. When those rules are not followed, however, there’s a huge disconnect for me, as the subordinate, and the power imbalance is insurmountable. When the management structure upholds my boss in their distrustful practice, that’s not fair. THAT’S NOT FAIR! You can’t trust these people, you see…all this core values mess and human resources policy and we care about your experience here is just some more bullshit, because management is going to stick together no matter what. Right? Right. And so no matter how many other managers I might have, I never trust one implicitly, because I’ve still got that first experience tattooed behind my eyelids…and that voice in my head screaming “don’t trust them. ever. you know that it’s never going to be fair”. This is not a peer relationship.

When there is a peer relationship, and similar dynamics play out, the psychological damage can be even more unsettling. If I’m participating in a social organization, or maybe an activist organization, I have a reasonable expectation that everyone shares roughly the same interest, or goal. A KKK member is probably not going to have any interest in joining a chapter of the NAACP. Unless they have an ulterior motive, in which case they’re going to talk the talk and sound like they love Black people and truly believe they should be empowered. Things like that have happened, and we all know it, and it stays with us because it gives us a reason, justification, to withhold implicit and unbridled trust. When I am consciously aware of that happening for me, I am realize that I’m making a conscious decision to restrain myself because…if betrayed…again…the cost will simply be too great. In some case, depending on the shared endeavor, the cost might be reputational, or even financial. In all cases, the emotional toll is devastating. The expense could be financial, loss of a job, or a loan, a business opportunity.,.or a piece of your heart. The pressure and stress of feeling that you have to choose correctly when the stakes are that high is overwhelming, and for all of us – no matter what color – sometimes the more concrete choice is to offer blanket distrust. I’m not trusting anyone. It’s easier, and I’m more in control of things. If I’m betrayed, I have only myself to blame, because I knew I couldn’t trust anyone. So, there. I’ve reduced the variables in the equation, and now I can get another cup of coffee and move on.

Unfortunately, the equation leaves a lot to be desired in controlling playground relations. The biggest issue is that we can’t do most things on the playground alone – the merry-go-round needs a bunch of people to push it. If people don’t move along on the monkey bars, there’s a pile up. If something breaks, we need tools, supplies, maybe outside help. So… everybody sucks + me by myself = 0. OK, so let me find all the other people who feel the way I do, but … I can’t trust them either. So, everybody put on your game face, suit up and show up and we’ll all play whichever game proven to be in our best interest. What we want. What we believe is the way things should be.

I’m not sure the end game described is ultimately a bad thing. Product yield based on satisfaction of self-interest isn’t horrible, but it’s impractical and maybe impossible. There are millions of individual self-interest pots, and they aren’t identical. To manage that, we have … politics (by many names, but that’s a simple one). That’s how we attempt to organize the common needs, the common goals. Sometimes we forget, however, that organizing common goals to enhance the successful outcome of the individual goals…but we’ve been so busy discrediting and dishonoring and discounting those, so only the largest ones seem to be visible, seem to count, seem to have merit.

This is how we get to that 1% vs 99% dynamic – yours is worth more than mine. Your job, your talent, your kind. Your life. As long as some arbitrary attribute over which we have no control determines our value, we can’t go very far. We can’t mutate, quite literally, into some better form of live. That’s how viruses survive, and prove themselves virtually indestructible in some cases. Hatred, and its expression as racism, heterosexism, xenophobia, religiosity – those are hardy infections. They don’t change much because the chief symptom is a closed mind, and the most fertile environment is isolation and darkness. After all these years, that baggage really is too heavy, so we’ve set it down and rest on it, because we’ve been walking with it for a long time and we’re so devastatingly fatigued.

It’s definitely dark, and now it’s raining because there’s a storm moving in. The playground is empty, so nobody can play. We can play indoors, with family, but it gets pretty boring after a while. At some point, somebody’s going to venture out there into the bad weather, and figure out what other people are doing to cope with the bad weather. They may need to go to another neighborhood to find someone, and when they do, they may be amazed to find the sun is shining over there, the clouds are behind them, and there’s another playground a block over. They may find they love it when a plan comes together, and it’s a new plan altogether. Amazing how that happens.

So, this morning, as I pass by the row of medication bottles without making eye contact, I am contemplating discipline. I have an aversion to it, apparently. Oppositional defiance is somewhat energizing up until it doesn’t work for you, when it yields harmful consequences. I can’t tell where this comes from…maybe parents who illustrated both ends of the control spectrum? I enjoy placing blame on the rigidity of the Catholic religion, but I could be somewhat biased. I suppose finding the root is unimportant, but as usual, I digress.

Discipline, one of those annoying words in the English language that can be used in disctinctly different ways (discpline, distinct, different – too many words beginning with “d” for my liking, but the coffee hasn’t kicked in yet). A discipline is a course of study, a branch of study, such as engineering. To be disciplined is to adhere to a code of conduct, or follow instructions toward a designated outcome, such as *ahem* taking medication every day as prescribed, or following instructions. I am a fanatic for variation, but ironically, routine causes me to feel somewhat secure. So, I wobble between wanting the familiarity of routine, and resenting the lack of variety. If I take the same path every day while walking the dog, beginning and ending at the same point, I look for ways to vary the intermediate experience. When I reach the first intersection, or opportunity for a turn or curve, I want to make a left turn one day, and a right turn the next. Anything to make some part of the experience variable. Extra points for symmetry, and/or rhythm with which I am mildly obsessed; left once, right once, right once, left once. There’s a rhythm to that, somehow; anything except step, step, step, step, point A, step, step, step, step, point B, repeat. B-O-R-I-N-G.

Now, the bizarre point of this obsession with rhythm and variety is that…it involves some degree of risk, and with the level of constant anxiety and fear that is also part of my inner machinery, risk is not always my friend. Risk and vulnerability seem to be much the same thing, so I would very much like to feel as though I know where I’m going before I get there, and once I get there, I would like to know where the bathrooms are. This does not seem like a lot to ask of the Universe, but I am told that control is not always mine for the taking. Bleh. So, I suppose I will control what I can when I can, accept things I cannot control, control things I can, and hope to know the difference before I have bashed my head into a wall too many times for comfort.

I’m not sure if this constant push for variation and variety constitutes lack of discipline, or just a quirk. I have more quirks than the average bear, I imagine, but it’s part of my charm and I don’t see that as a bad thing. Until, once again, they stop working for me. When I pass up the medicine bottles, there are no immediate negative consequences. My inner 5-year-old is doing a happy dance, and gleefully thumbing her nose at every authority figure she has ever know. After a couple of days of waiting for the 5-year-old to wear herself out, I might be feeling the effects of not taking some of the medications. Now, one would think, I would pull up the big girl panties, put the little one to bed, and take the bloody pills. But no, I’m going to put it off. I’ll need the right drink, at the right temperature, in the right cup…so not time yet. Oh, I’ll do it when I eat…it’s better not to take medication on an empty stomach, right? BUT I AM ALWAYS EATING, so there is always a right time. Oh, I’ll do it after I eat, but…the dog really needs to go out, so I’ll do it when I get back inside. When I come back inside, it’s out of sight and out of mind, and then it’s somehow the next morning, and so it begins again.

While this silly cycle is repeating ad nauseum, the point at which discipline evaporates is, I suppose, the point at which I consciously know that I am avoiding and procrastinating and resisting the regime, the routine, the compliance. There, that’s it – compliance. I do not want to comply, I do not want to submit, I do not want to conform. Even better, and more to the point (just got a visceral fist bump right then) – conformity. THAT’S really the issue. I never want to conform. If I am one of 100 people are going to the same place, for the same reason, I want to be the one who takes a different street, or a different bus, or who walks instead of drives or drives instead of walks. Anything to be outside the bell curve.

As I’m exploring this in relation to discipline, I am wondering how much of this is simply attention-getting behavior. Hmmm. When I was a very little kid, I seemed to get a lot of attention. I was the only grandchild, I was cute and precocious like a lot of little kids, so being the only child and the only grandchild, I was a princess. I shared nothing, Everything was all mine. My mommy was ill, but there were more than enough relatives to compensate, and I thrived. Every dish was prepared with me in mind, every trip out of the house was taken with me in mind, and everyone’s schedule took me into account. As it should be. Life was good, until it changed, until mommy began to recover and daddy was told to get his act together and provide for his family. And so, abruptly to my child’s mind, I was plucked out of the lap of luxury and *poof* instant nuclear family was downloaded and activated. The only problem was…nobody involved quite knew what they were supposed to to. Not me, not my parents, not anybody. Mommy had post partum depression, so she was a little off the rails. Daddy was working (although part of his job semed to be philandering and running the streets, if you ask me) so he wasn’t even in the train yard. I was…I just WAS. I had clothes and shelter and enough to eat (goodness knows I had enough to eat, ’cause I was chubby and looked a bit like Mrs. Potato Head).

But attention…not sure I got that early on, at least not appropriately. I remember my mother sleeping for huge parts of the day, so it seems like I amused myself a good bit. I don’t think I was endangered much, although I did nearly cut my thumb off trying to cut an orange once when I was about 5, but that can happen to anyone. Looking back on it, as much of it as I can remember, I do think I got in the habit of trying to attract attention, in the same way as my high-energy dog when I’m spending too much time in bed. A lot of the response I got was – would you stop jumping around? Be quiet – I can’t hear the television. Shut up! I don’t care what you ant to do right now! Would you keep still – stop squirming!

In all fairness, it was just me and mommy for 99% of the time once we had moved away from my grandmother. I do remember going to City Park regularly, where they had a Kids Land, and swings, and I enjoyed that. There were other people there, other mothers and children, and it was a popular place. I remember going to the library with her, and developed my love of reading. They had story hour, too, and that was OK, but I liked being able to take the books home. Being out was cool, being home…not as much the older I got. The tension between the big people was something else entirely. They didn’t have a huge circle of friends, so I didn’t have a huge circle of friends. My mother’s sister was nearby, and she was a lot of fun. They seemed to get along fine, and she would take me places. I adored her, and much later, I wished she was my mother. But that’s another story entirely.

So, back again to discipline and conformity. I always felt something was out of place on me…I think I knew my home wasn’t like everybody else’s home. My mommy was a little…different. I always knew that. When I first started school in New Orleans, I had already been to kindergarten once, in Lake Charles, but I was too young and my mother said I should repeat it. She was right…I had not even been adequately potty trained when I went the first time. I don’t know how she knew to insist that I repeat the grade, but she was absolutely right. And I was still chronologically a year younger than a lot of my classmates. Regardless, it was the beginning of routine, and conformity. I remember when we learned our shapes, one teacher always made a big read circle around my circles, because where I connected the arcs one line didn’t connect evenly, it overlapped the other one and wasn’t smooth. This was apparently a problem, because it didn’t look like anybody else’s circle. Hmm. I may still do that, but I haven’t had a lot of reasons to manually draw a circle over the past 40 years or so, so…impact remains minimal. But once again, for me to remember that more than 50 years ago seems rather significant.

So, is the insistence on non-conformity attention getting? Is that my goal? Probably. I’m not sure that’s a huge issue, except when it is. Sometimes it’s inappropriate, I would admit…and now it’s like second nature, a default switch. The older I got, the more I became comfortable with the notion that even bad attention is better than no attention, and so it became my life’s work to get attention by nearly (and I emphasize nearly) any means necessary. For quite a while, I’ve had at least some discretion about not taking up too much space in certain situations, like…funerals, formal meetings, etc. But there are many times when I feel daring and throw caution to the wind, knowing that I am likely inappropriate in some humorous or risque’ verbosity, but opt for the laugh, the gasp, the reaction. I don’t have the…discipline…to resist that urge. The need is screaming loudly inside my head, and it drowns out the more rational monotonic voice of conformity, the one that says “you don’t see anybody else behaving like that, do you?”, which is my mother’s voice. So, there’s the connection, perhaps. Conform. Everybody knows what they’re supposed to do. There are rules that “normal” people follow, good people, smart people. There are rules. You must not be normal, or good, or smart if you can’t get that. What a disappointment you are, embarrassing me like this.

So, whomp, dere it iz. I never wanted to be normal. I still don’t want to be normal. Unfortunately, I frequently want the rewards that I perceive come from normalcy, like love, and companionship, and security, and family. Respect and tolerance and the understanding that even those of us who march to the beat of a different drummer still have rhythm, and can make a pleasing sound. That should not be too much to ask. My resistance to conformity, all these years, is not based on inability, or lack of will power, it’s based on a refusal to accept someone else’s rules for my life. Usually, my resistance stops at the line of crossing into enemy territory where I can’t win the battle. (wisdom to know the difference once again). But if you want to explain to me why I should not cuss as much as I do, or why I should not talk so loudly, I will probably tell you that I can talk as fucking loud as I want, and those are your rules and not mine. That usually does not win me friends nor influence people, but it has taken me a long time to find my voice and I am not going to squelch it now. I’m too fat, too old, and too tired. So, deal. Or don’t deal. The sun will rise again tomorrow regardless.

I was having a discussion about recent events last night, with some folks I normally do not engage in such discussions. I didn’t initiate that discussion, with recovery folks; it’s usually suggested to not engage in religious or political topics in our groups, in order to avoid partisan bias that could distract us from our common purpose of recovery. This turned out rather well, mainly because we were (fortunately) of like mind. All of us were appalled by the events of January 6th, mainly because of the incredibly vicious and brutal behavior of the insurgents. We didn’t really get into politically substantive issues, but agreed that climbing the walls of the Capitol, calling for death of legislators, and beating law enforcement officers was unacceptable. I surprised myself by broaching the subject of the hypocrisy inherent in the actions of the insurgents, citing a disconnect between the Christian allegiance those involved claimed, and the brutal illegal acts they perpetrated. What came to me later was that, according to the Bible, Jesus Christ became enraged that money changers and vendors were occupying the temple, his father’s house. He threw them out, disrupting business and upturning tables and merchandise. In no account does he injure the sellers or bankers, or incite his followers to do so. He destroys the means and property for the disrespectful market, and angrily proclaims they should not worship false idols, and should leave his father’s house because they have disrespected it. No beating of people with flag poles, no invectives (that we know if, anyway), no building a fake gallows outside the temple, no intimidation by hunting the offenders. How does that resemble the insurrection on Jan. 6th, or any of the other confrontations between extremists and the government (e.g. Ruby Ridge, e.g. Oklahoma City). It doesn’t. This zombie apocalypse was out of order, out of line, wrong, incorrect. There is nothing in ethical or legal discourse, history, theology, deism, theism, humanism, atheism, or common sense that can redeem the actions of January 6th. Nothing.

What concerns me more than the bad behavior of the insurrection crowd on January 6th is that, at this moment, a significant number of those who consider the results of the Presidential election illegitimate have not changed their opinion. They have not moved, have no further tolerance of other perspectives, nor acceptance of the reality of the situation. They are still as enraged as they were on January 6th, and they are still as unwilling to support anything that comes from the new administration. Playing both ends against the middle does not spell progress, it spells failure, unless you’re on one end or the other. If you’re in the middle, you’re going to have a really long day, and get bruised in the process. These folks would much rather we all sink than have the boat putter forward even a few miles, because it is better to be right than to be correct. But who gets to decide correctness?

I would contend that correctness, for our purposes in the year 2021, is more about adherence to universal law. There are some things we all have to accept as truth, like…animals want to be free. We are animals, and we all want to be free. We have an involuntary drive to be unconfined, to have autonomy. No one can argue that most animals – I personally believe all, mental health notwithstanding – will fight to survive. Until their last breath. Most animals will fight to protect their young. Desperation yields action born of immediacy and expediency rather than strategy and future success. Further, as a species, humans are herd animals. We retreat to our lairs periodically, but crave and depend upon interaction with our fellows. We establish dominance in unnecessarily complex fashion, but still find ourselves getting in line according to demonstrated power.

We are still a nation divided, and no amount of CNN special reports or AP coverage, NY Times op-eds, or lectures, workshops, and community education is going to fix that. A large number of people are simply not willing, and without the willingness, we are going nowhere. We cannot move from point A to point A.1, let alone point B. I still don’t know how to fix that, and neither does anyone else. Perhaps we can make small gains with things mentioned, but this will likel have slow and intermittent success, if any. Consistency and honesty will be required as much as willingness, and I’m not sure there is adequate capacity of any one let alone all of those things. Our sticking point is always who assumes the role of parent, and who assumes the role of child. Parent implies dominance, child implies subordination (interpreted by some as submission). No human responds well to subordination, loss of agency, restriction of liberty. Ironically, however, we willingly and repeatedly volunteer our agency to our political leaders, albeit with the proviso that we are in agreement. Does this constitute laziness on our part?

Our democratic experiment is merely one method of managing the common interest. So is communism, socialism, libertarianism. The real test of governance is defining common interest; even systems that purposely marginalize certain elements of the population have some common interest (managing the leper colonies was not done out of compassion, but to increase the quality of life for the larger population). Our democracy is no exception. Slavery was a symbiotic relationship – it was to the advantage of the dominant class to keep the slave population alive and in good reproductive health, so they were given the basic means to survive. The slaves found it to their advantage to work, despite brutal conditions, in order to ensure the survival of themselves and their loved ones. Despite the brutal inequities of the relationship, the American experiment has produced our current paradigm. This is problematic to say the least.

In the minds of many, the ends unequivocally justify the means. That doesn’t work long term, however, so here we are. Here we are, with a seemingly perpetual underclass whose unceasing cry for their promised slice of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness drives us nearly mad. Where is the milk and honey, and the chicken for every pot? What exactly constitutes liberty? What do we mean by happiness? In the context of utilitarianism, happiness is not always revelry, good tidings, positive emotion. In that context, happiness is more related to satisfaction and the associated motivation to produce, for the success of the nation as a whole. Emotional happiness is more tied to how well our individual experience meets our expectations, our sense of getting back what we’ve put in, having our needs met on all levels. If we’re not happy on that individual level, our satisfaction with the overall system wanes, and our motivation to contribute to a larger product wanes.

When there is a high rate of joblessness, there is greater unhappiness in the population, at an individual level. People cannot produce what a consumer economy requires – no money to pay for shelter, food, clothing, transportation. In turn, the system itself grinds to a halt, with no fuel. And when momma ain’t happy, nobody’s happy. Is the system our mother? You betcha. We suckle at her breast for food, sustenance, shelter, and education, for learning how to get along in the larger world. When we’re old enough to make our own way, we don’t stray far, but simply multiply under her wing and emulate the paradigm we have learned. We all uphold the status quo. We don’t have a better way to provide for our common interest, and seeing as how we’re all living under roughly the same roof on this planet, it seems far safer to keep doing what we’ve been doing. We don’t quite know what might happen if we didn’t, so let’s not rock the boat.

All that utilitarian iconography is just dandy, and sometimes we can figure out why we’re doing what we’re doing, but we always come back to the quandry of … who gets to decide what exactly it is that we’re doing to ensure the common good, the base level survival? So how does that happen? How does a pride of lions decide who’s in charge? How does a pack of dogs figure out who’s at the top of the heap? Dominance, or by any other name, power. Two male lions who see to lead the pack will eventually fight it out, and the winner is recognized as the alpha, the pack leader. Repeating – ALL the other members of the group recognize the winner as the more powerful and dominant member, and they fall in line. The alpha usually gets to eat first, gets his pick of females, and so on. Nobody challenges that unless they want to take on the dominant for a physical fight, and tht doesn’t always go well for the contender. Everybody knows the rules, and they march on. The success of the whole group is contingent on that social order, since they stick together. Too much squabbling in the ranks would be distraction, making the group far more vulnerable to predators. So, Mother Nature provided tools to give them a fighting chance at success.

We humans, especially first-world nations like those in America, like to pretend that our societal order is far elevated from the brute force and non-intellectual paradigms of lower animals, but that really doesn’t seem to be the case. When it all boils down to gruel, we respect power. It’s a universal language. Power is the ability to get work done. It is not the ability to think about the work that needs to be done, or define the work, or research the work. It is the ability to get it done. That’s the language of corporate management, but power is far less complicated. It’s the basic “Hey, you wanna do something?”; “Yeah, let’s do something. Whatchoo wanna do?”; “I dunno, whatchoo wanna do?”: “I’m hungry, let’s go eat.”; “OK, I am kind of hungry…you pick where.”; “OK, I want Popeye’s, I can drive.”; “OK, Popeye’s it is, let’s go.” Ta da. Complete. That is how power WITH someone functions, as opposed to power OVER someone. Both parties have agency, and choice, and can bale at any time. But together, we’re gonna get fed, and still enjoy each other’s company (common desire for community). Both of us are satisfied, neither assumed more power than the other, and we’re not still there negotiating while starving.

Well, that sounds great, but…this is not an afterschool special, or a rom-com with a happy ending. And stuff like insurrection is about more than fried chicken and a biscuit; it’s just not that simple. When a toddler is having a meltdown over a broken toy, or refusal of a privilege or activity, they are not able to hear reasonable tone, or promises of better times, or respond to a hug and kiss on the forehead. In many cases, they are going to want to break things, scream as long as physically possible, and say mean things. They have lost something they had, or not gotten something they wanted, sometimes both at the same time. They are inconsolable. Big people are not much different, they just have guns and cars and knives and enough muscle to change things. That’s what January 6th was about. Big people who felt as though something they had was taken away, and they were not going to get what they wanted to return that, so … they had the means, motive, and opportunity to attempt to change that. Same mental process.

The only difference between toddlers having a tantrum and zombies in moose horns and face paint trying to perpetrate a coup d’etat is the ability to cause damage. A toddler having a fit may break their toys, or a dish, throw food on the floor. When an oversized and overprivileged adult has a fit, they may arm themselves with weapons that can end someone’s life, destroy an entire building, commandeer public resources so that others can’t utilize them. They may poop on the floor (which the insurgents did on January 6th) and spread all manner of germs. They may take other people’s property. They may break laws and set precedents for dangerous behavior that will survive longer than a lifetime. What they did on January 6th was to rip the common garment of our American identity, with all its contradictions and heartbreak, and expose something underneath that is no different than a brutal and lawless anarchy, where people are allowed to take what they want, however they want to, and shit on the floor while doing it if they want to. The brute strength that enabled people to scale the walls of the Capitol and break windows to storm inside was not power, but powerlessness. That was toddlers with better weapons and bigger muscles, bigger mouths, larger bowels. They got no work done; Congress re-convened hours later and did what they set out to do before the violence. The only result was chaos, and some people were killed. What the rioters also got, what WE got, was the sickening realization that we’re all handcuffed together on this ride. What you do affects us over here, what we do affects them over there, and what they do let’s us know that we don’t know what in the hell any of us are doing. We’re very intelligent, but we’re not gods. Right now, we have no humility, and we’re operating in hubris, believing that we’ve produced this entire experience, with our own little hands, and that we can re-create it at our leisure. Mother Earth has been bitch-slapping us for a while now, trying to remind us that whoever we are, we need to be living in harmony with Her (or, as some of us heard from OUR mamas…I brought you into this world, and I can take you out). Forces way more impressive than us have the power to get work done on a global scale, with or without our approval (to wit, viruses). so, we’d best get in line behind the alpha and understand where we fit into things. And remember…

Just whistle while you work
And cheerfully together we can tidy up the place
So hum a merry tune
It won’t take long when there’s a song to help you set the pace

And as you sweep the room
Imagine that the broom is someone that you love
And soon you’ll find you’re dancing to the tune
When hearts are high the time will fly so whistle while you work

So whistle while you work

For some bizarre, or maybe not so bizarre, reason thoughts are clamoring to escape the confines of my tiny cranium. It really is tiny, not because I am tiny-brained or developmentally challenged, but simply because the physical area of a human cranium is not that impressive. I mean, seriously, not that impressive in terms of physical volume alone. There’s a lot of stuff in a relatively small space, and the more we know about how that all works, the more we know that we don’t know. What goes on in our brains is truly amazing, and if we believe that what our brains can accomplish is solely the basis of science, we’re smaller brained than I thought. But I digress.

What is clamoring for release is my thought about autoimmune disease. I have one, and naming it is not relevant nor deliverable, but that’s unimportant. Conventional wisdom on this subject has changed over the years, but there is a considerable and long standing theory attributing the mechanism of autoimmune response to a viral threat that generated a necessary immune response. The immune response was initially appropriate, but somehow went a little haywire and began confusing the invading virus with unintended targets, like joints and glands and nerves. The original threat was quashed, but the misguided immune response continued. The body has begun to destroy itself, in very specific ways, believing that its own cellular components are invaders, a threat.

On a cellular level, this is fascinating. Scientists and medical professionals have been able to isolate the specifics of which components have been compromised, and depending on that manifestation have named diseases that often become medical specialties. We love us some categories. There has been a great deal of progress in these categories over the years, however, and where some of these diseases were once sentences of death and debilitation, many are now manageable. This is a very good thing, particularly if you are diagnosed with something like Parkinson’s Disease or rheumatoid arthritis.

My point in all this is more esoteric, though. I understand the biologic mechanism of these conditions, of the errant immune response, but I strongly believe in the mind-body connection. Disease is dis-ease, lack of well being on some level. How that manifests, I believe, points to the root of the un-wellness on a non-physical level. When the disease is rooted in the immune response, I have to wonder whether a deep, non-conscious and non-linear sense of threat looms within. I’ve been pondering my own very conscious tendency to feel unsafe, to feel as though a threat of something or other is just beyond my sight, just around a turn, one step away. Never feeling comfortable, never feeling at ease. This base of operations has been with me since my earliest memories. I must always be one step ahead, uber-prepared for the worst case scenario, because there is always a threat of an ending; my hold on life as I know it is always tenuous. Always.

This sense of impermanence is not a perpetually conscious thought, and of course we are all impermanent, but I believe my body’s response has been one of constant stress, constant inflammation, constant readiness. Bracing for the blow, waiting for the attack, sure that disaster awaits. There is nobody to save me; if i am to survive I’ll need to be able to do that myself. So, my innermost mind has contrived this scenario, like one in Freddie Kruger’s world, where it’s only a matter of time before everything is destroyed. Only a matter of time. When you live in that nightmarish house of mirrors, it’s no wonder you’re stressed. And I’m stressed. I always have been. Anxiety, depression, fears real and imagined.

Every therapist I have ever seen has questioned whether or not I have been sexually abused, because I present like a survivor in that context. I have no memory of any such experience, but when you’re a klutzy fat girl who is not a raving beauty, has few social skills, and isn’t born with a silver spoon you’re abused on a sexual, albeit non-physical, level that is somewhere below intellectual comprehension. Fat people are constantly desexualized, or sexually shamed, or sexually invisible. Most people gravitate to pretty things, and the judgements surrounding un-pretty things is astounding. If you’re fat, you don’t care about yourself. If you’re fat, you’re just stupid. If you’re fat, you are making a choice to be fat. If you’re fat, why would anybody want to have sex with you? When you’re fat, you’ve found a reason to protect your innards, and what better way than with a physical barrier that provides shelter from the storm as well as a barrier for the wandering invader. I’ll have to say, though, the barrier hasn’t been wholly effective, because as I’ve said before, I still manage to grant passage to the occasional wandering rogue with ill intent.

I’ll also have to say, that my experience with being a fat woman are just that – my experiences. There are many, many deliciously empowered and unapologetic fat women that I know personally, and observe in the public sphere. Perhaps they do not have the specific combination of circumstances that I do, or their experience is simply not dysfunctional. Or perhaps they are rooted in dysfunction and have managed to orient differently. Who knows. All I know is how my own mosaic has been assembled, and since it’s mine, it is what it is. Without every piece of it, every experience – no matter how painful – I would not be here writing this at this moment, so I’m good with it. Reality is the real deal. Literally. And yeah, that’s trite, but sue me.

When I was in college, I lived in a women’s dorm, which seemed to be the best possible thing that could happen for me, since I was a budding baby dyke but didn’t quite understand what that meant. That’s another story. But, as usual, I didn’t quite know how to be with other people, and was socially inept. I had also discovered that alcohol would ease some of that anxiety, but I couldn’t quite control that, so pile on more ineptitude. I weighed FAR less than I do now, but was still “chubby” and believed myself to be as large as I am now. One day, I came back to my room, and on the little write-on-wipe-off board that I kept on the door, was a scribbled note that said “Lose weight and straighten your hair”. It was, of course, anonymous, and my verbal response (to nobody in particular, since I was alone) was “Asshole”. (Actually, there were several more expletives attached to that, but whatever.) For me to even remember that incident all these years (more than 40 at this point) is significant. That was an act of violence, and that was relatively minor. I am always waiting for that sort of assault, either explicitly or implicitly. The threat is always there, and my brain says that I have to protect myself. But there is really no protection against that sort of thing, because you can’t make people cease to be sizeist, or homophobic, or racist, or classist, or whatever their flavor of assholery might be.

So, all of that to say, when you are constantly in fear – literally in fear – of the inevitable next attack, your body reacts. The threat is real, or is it? Whichever the situation, be prepared. I believe that level of inherent stress causes my body to believe there is a threat, and it is prepared to do battle. All the time. How my body does battle turns inward, because my inner self is what needs to be protected. My spirit, my soul are under siege. There is no discernable difference between that perception of threat and a physical threat at the cellular level. So, my immune system does what it’s supposed to do – it throws everything its got to protect me. It’s just got its wires a little crossed, or its needing to have an eye examination, and the invaders are really my Self. That’s deep.

So, how do I stop destroying my Self? How do I ease this tension, this constant sense of threat, of danger, of catastrophe? I don’t know. This is why therapists have job security. Lately, I’ve been thinking part of my true healing effort is to learn how to more competently discern real threat from illusion. My recovery program tells me to inventory the past situations that cause me resentment, and to explore what is threatened by those situations or events. In so doing, I’m (hopefully) able to connect the dots and see the patterns in all of that, by identifying how I respond to fear. There is always a fear. When I’ve lashed out at others, or been self-abusive, it’s because I’m afraid of SOMETHING. Afraid of losing something, or afraid of not getting something. Afraid of being ended, being made invisible, being rendered inconsequential. That is death. And there is no return. If I am to heal from this impending sense doom, I suppose I need to generally see myself as safe, as being capable of safety for my Self. Of being a safe Self.

This is not supposed to make any kind of rational or even grammatical sense. I will probably need to work on this for a longer time period…i have just typed my way through not one but two 12-step meetings that I planned to attend this morning, but as I said from the beginning of this, this was clamoring to be liberated. Liberation is another subject entirely, but perhaps that is ultimately where this winds up. Liberation. Freedom. The cage is open.

The New Orleans Streetcar Protests of 1867

I don’t remember this at all. It’s pretty interesting, and I noted with great interest that streetcars were horse-drawn back then. I can’t imagine a horse lugging that whole contraption with several people aboard. Hopefully, they treated animals better during those times, because when there were still mules dragging carriages full of tourists around the French Quarter, they weren’t treated all that well. The mules were usually old, and underfed, and didn’t look particularly happy. Of course I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a mule that looked happy, so that may be the story I told myself. They finally dropped the mules just a few years ago, due to the heat. They should have dropped the whole carriage routine long before that, since the buggy drivers were telling people all kinds of lies to get bigger tips. One of them crashed into the back of my car several years ago, taking out the tail light. And so it goes.

Anyhow, back to the streetcar protests…I’m amazed they were able to make any headway with it. In typical New Orleans style, the issue was resolved when protesters and the establishment finally reached a stand off, and street car traffic came to a grinding halt. The police chief said called it quits, and the rest is history (I won’t give away the article, which I found interesting). From what I read, that protest briefly inspired similar actions, and there was actually some integration of public transit in several places. But, all good things come to an end, and along came Jim Crow. Protests like this one in New Orleans, ironically, inspired the Jim Crow era in their own way.

The reason I am so interested in all this is that it supports my long-standing assertion that whenever Blacks enjoy some level of success at disrupting status quo (i.e. white supremacy), there is pushback from the dominant culture, the power structure. Jim Crow was the pushback for Reconstruction, and progress in a fledgling civil rights era in the late 1800s. That pushback was vicious, and overkill (literally and figuratively). By 1890, Confederate monuments began to appear in courthouse squares, and that continued until the at least 1930. Many historians agree these monuments weren’t erected to pay homage to Confederate war heroes, but to intimidate free Blacks, to remind them of old days gone but not forgotten. Interestingly enough, many of these monuments were erected by the Daughters of the Confederacy, who seemed to have somewhat of a mission to dot the landscape with formidable evidence of the Confederate cause.

By the beginning of the 1900s, the KKK was riding high, with Jim Crow on its right shoulder. Once again, the end game was intimidation of people of color and maintenance of white supremacy, by any means necessary. Lynching became nearly an art form, and were not entirely spontaneous acts of mob violence. Some were advertised in the town newspapers, and entire families would turn out for a picnic lunch to enjoy the spectacle. Bodies were drug through the streets, mutilated, souvenirs made of body parts. I cannot imagine the utterly macabre horror of this practice, let alone bringing children to witness such things. But, this was civil society in those days.

The lynching, the killings, the rapes, the beating, the house burnings…all in a good night’s work, then off to grab a brew. The number of people who were victims of this domestic terrorism will never be truly know, but there are some records. The only point to make about all of this is that it could very well happen again, in these times, when video cameras are in the hands of even small children. And still…we have unarmed black men killed in major U.S. cities, in small towns, in rural areas, on the sides of highways. This is sickeningly familiar for some, no all. We’ve been fed a steady diet of these killings for more than a decade, and that’s only because there’s now easy access to video. The Black community, the LatinX community, the indigenous community have all been witness to police brutality and homicide for decades. It was unbelievable to the larger community until very recently, and even now, there are unbelievers. There are many who blame the victims for their own deaths. If the victim had not been doing SOMETHING wrong, there would have been no reason to be stopped by the police, if the victim had not questioned the actions of the police, they would not have been in a position to be shot. And so on, and so on, and nauseatingly so on. Unfortunately, there have been enough of these situations with clear evidence that officers went beyond the pale, went too far, committed outright homicide. While that provides some affirmation for the community, that is a bittersweet moment, because it has come at the expense of someone’s father, brother, child, sister, mother. We’d rather have those lives back, than be proven right about police brutality.

The events of January 6 showed our country what a large crowd of angry people can do. This was mob mentality, and chilling in its focus. Until it became evident there was careful advance planning to occupy the Capitol, this seemed like a spontaneous protest over political issues. Some participants truly believed they could overturn the results of the Presidential election, and could accost legislators they held responsible for that outcome. As reports continue to surface, there is no question there was a conspiracy, inciting the large crowd with false hope of achieving their goal. The advance planning had spurred thousands of people to attend this event, clad belligerently as a First Amendment exercise. The wolf beneath that sheep’s garb was sedition, and the plan was to literally overthrow the U.S. government’s exercise of Constitutional mandates.

This coup d’etat was not unlike the other recognized coup d’etat in the United States, that of Wilmington, North Carolina in 1898. A white mob stormed the state Capitol, and physically removed legislators who had been recently and lawfully elected. The crowd replaced the mayor and several members of the state assembly with its own selections, including at least one member of the KKK, and then began killing people in the streets. So-called protestors, who soon revealed themselves to be murderers, had been brought in from other states via the network of KKK-like hate groups, and their marching orders were to kill as many Black people as they could. They burned Black neighborhoods, homes, the newspaper offices, stores. Hundreds were killed, their bodies scattered in the streets and yards like twigs. They had a mission, these protestors, just like the ones in Washington D.C. on January 6h of this year. They were going to overturn an “illegitimate” election, replace the false leader, and take back their city, their state. They had to restore order, as they knew it, because Black people had been doing well in Wilmington. The rioters had no choice but to return status quo, by any means necessary. The attempted coup on January 6th follows this allegiance to status quo exactly, but was fortunately unsuccessful. I contend that was a stroke of luck, or ineptitude of the rioters, but could have turned out very much the same. In both cases, a large swath of dominant culture became so panic stricken that life as they knew it was over, their societal status disrupted, they were willing to do just about anything to return the hierarchy to the usual order. The usual order.

So. January 6th wasn’t a novel idea, it’s something that has been seen before. There were several race riots at the start of the 1900s – Wilmington, Tulsa, Rosewood (FL), Chicago, and others. Race is still a powder keg in our country, and whenever there is systemic stress – such as with a pandemic – the fuse is lit. When people have to compete for resources, or believe they have to compete, they become feral. They go into survival mode, and they become desperate. Mentality of scarcity, and a zero-sum game – those are lies we’ve been taught.

This has somehow became one gigantic rant, but there are such lies beneath all of the inequity that we find surrounding us now, and it’s making me a little crazy. OK, craziER. But there is enough for us all, we just have it doled out inequitably. There are some literal devils in the details, human ones, and we’re starting to see them…but some of us can’t believe what – and who – is being revealed. So we refuse to accept, we revise history, we return that mail to sender. When a husband cheats on his wife, a lot of the time a betrayed wife will blame the other woman more than the philandering husband. Go figure. I suppose that’s always been the case with us puny humans, but my question these days is…what exactly are we so afraid of? Why are so many people more comfortable with lies, hatred, and blame than with honesty, community, truth? Trust no one. Truly, the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls, in tenement halls. And they are definitely not whispered, and that is not the sound of silence.

Dateline, domicile central. 22 January 2021. In an unprovoked attack, my lower gastrointestinal (GI) tract waged war on my wholly unsuspecting physical apparatus (body). The otherwise ill-prepared body was unable to fight back, and the GI tract secured its first victory in a long-standing conflict. Citing multiple grievances involving spices and snacks known to be irritants, together with inadequate water intake, the GI tract agreed to a cease-fire, after a long period of active conflict. The agreement is contingent on the body’s agreement to shut down ingress and egress for the body of all substances, with the exception of water, for the remainder of the day. Both parties agreed that rest and light duty are in order for the next 24 hours, contingent upon continuous and unrestricted access to the latrine. The GI commander was heard to say, “Damn the torpedos! If trapped, we’ll fight to the end if we can’t get a good escape route! Let that be a lesson to you!!” There was no response from the conquered body. That is all.

So, it’s the day after. The day after the most historical transfer of power in our democracy. This morning, i was having the music to “The Morning After” by Maureen McGovern (from the Poseidon Adventure, which I remember mainly because Shelley Winters was in it and she did a swim scene to save the survivors and comics used that as mean-spirited joke fodder for months…fat women are not supposed to be heroes, or show their fat legs to the camera, or look vaguely competent. But I digress.). Anyhow, the song was a little sappy, or at least the lyrics were, but it hit a 70s trip switch in my brain, which is unfortunate since I don’t quite know how to turn it off. That period of time in my life is when I figured out that fat girls get no respect, even when they save the sorry asses of people who can’t do what we can do. Shelley Winters shoulda let ’em all drown. But once again, I digress.

Now that my 1972 temper tantrum is done, the only reason “The Morning After” came to mind is when I began to write this, it was the morning after one of the most historical, yet anxiety-ridden, moments in our nation’s political history. It’s now a little past morning, and well beyond a Hostess cupcake, a Rice Krispies treat, some tuna salad on crackers, and grapes, but the fact remains that a new President and Vice-President are in office now. This inauguration was fraught with dissent, division, and questioning nearly every aspect of the American experiment. In the days leading up to yesterday’s transfer of power, we saw a veritable zombie apocalypse that sought to prevent the peaceful transfer of power between the outgoing President and the incoming administration – no concession of power by the defeated incumbent, futile legal challenges that went on for months, an attempted coup d’etat, and generally very bad behavior by some of the nation’s legislators and executives. Holding an inaugural event on virtually the same spot as the recent coup attempt gave necessary pause and raised anxiety for many. Fortunately, security provisions were more than adequate, further insurgency failed to materialize, and nothing occurred to block the successful transfer of power to a new Presidential administration.

Most of us have seen a series of inaugurations in our lifetime, but this inauguration was anything but ordinary. First, the outgoing commander-in-chief refused to attend. That hasn’t been done in more than a century. Civil decorum usually dictates that outgoing leaders graciously welcome the victor, extend offers of assistance, and wish them well. Not this time, kiddies. Issues of national security and continuity of government not withstanding, the nation was faced with a nearly comical display of a a defeated septaugenarian visibly pouting, attempting to distract attention from the victor’s assumption of power, and flying away in a military helicopter to his own farewell celebration. That was amusing enough, especially since the music playing loudly on his departure was a song popular several years ago – “House of the Rising Sun”. I almost spit out my coffee because the lyrics relate a tale of a wayward you at a New Orleans brothel, and were hilariously double-entendre for the occasion…doesn’t anybody check that kind of stuff? As the helicopter’s sound faded away, pan cameras Stage Left to a doorway at the Capitol, enter the incoming President, also a septaugenarian, who has been waiting for the other guy to leave the stage (figuratively).

Then, fast forward to septaugenarian #1, who is now at his permanent departure point for the big ole jet airliner that’s gonna carry him so far away (to Florida) and … more music. This time, it’s “Gloria” by Laura Brannigan, and the lyrics are even more hilarious (if you replace the name Gloria with the departing guy’s name) , at least for my warped mind …

don’t you think you’re fallin’?
If everybody wants you, why isn’t anybody callin’?
You don’t have to answer
Leave them hangin’ on the line, oh oh oh, calling Gloria
Gloria (Gloria), I think they got your number (Gloria)
I think they got the alias (Gloria) that you’ve been living under (Gloria)
But you really don’t remember, was it something that they said

And then…for the parting shot…the final song playing is “YMACA” by the Village People. This one was almost too much, it HAD to be someone’s idea of a really bad joke:

Young man there’s no need to feel down
I said young man pick yourself off the ground
I said young man ’cause your in a new town
There’s no need to be unhappy
Young man there’s a place you can go
I said young man when you’re short on your dough
You can stay there and I’m sure you will find
Many ways to have a good time.

And…not to mention “YMCA” is something of a GLBT national anthem. My goodness. So finally. The sulking one uttered a few words, telling people he loved them or something, and that it shouldn’t be long before he is with them again, and *poof* off he goes.

Now, back to septaugenarian #2, where we’re still focused. It was HIS inauguration, after all. He’s the oldest President to be taking the oath of office for a first term. He’s been an elected official for nearly half a century. His running mate Kamala Harris is the first woman, first woman of color, first person of African descent, first person of East Asian descent to EVER hold the office of Vice President. She wore purple, as a tribute to Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress and the first Black person to be a major party candidate for President. Purple was her campaign color in her bid for the Democratic nomination in 1972. So, the incoming Vice-President was very intentional about her fashion choice, which gave me great joy. I remember Shirley Chisholm in the 70s, and she was one of my first heroes. I had the opportunity to see her speak in person one Martin Luther King Day in the 80s, and I remember very clearly her calling out the Black community, urging us to continue fighting to achieve equity, parity, liberation. She likened the community to sleeping dragons, with such great power but … asleep. If awakened and realizing the full power inherent in such a great multitude, we would be frightening indeed.

Some days, it seems as though not much has changed, but mama said there’d be days like this. I suppose it could be worse. We’ve seen worse. Much, much worse. Like anybody else, I am guardedly optimistic about the new political landscape that is now reality. I am overjoyed that we don’t have to look forward to four more years of being represented by someone who most assuredly did not have my best interests at heart. Someone who seemed to deny every cell of my being, every core value that I hold, every notion of faith and decency to which I aspire. The cognitive disconnect was becoming too unwieldy, too uncomfortable. Every fiber of my being was finding it to be an increasingly insurmountable climb to reach acceptance of the state of affairs. I found that many of us were becoming desensitized and numbed to the daily barrage of confusing disinformation, misinformation, absent information, and then all of the regular tragedies and catastrophes that constitute normal churn of 7 million humans on the planet. Too. much. I have been numb before, when life was overwhelming and my coping skills were inadequate, or nonexistent. Finding yourself numb is a maddening and horrifying sensation…you know that you should be having sensation, but there is none. Your brain cannot grasp how and why it feels nothing when there is a stimulus, and the cognitive disconnect on a long term basis can drive one quite insane. This is why kids cut themselves, to see if they can feel something and prove they’re alive. So, I understand why we’re all just a little bit nuts right now, why we’re trying to cut ourselves in a very real sense, to see if we can still bleed, to see if we can still feel something, because we know something’s happening and our brains are telling us that it should hurt, but … it doesn’t. So, hey y’all – watch THIS!

Today is the first full day of a new President and a new Vice-President. Congress is working (I hope) to confirm cabinet appointments (such an amusing term for the leaders who function closest to the President). I remarked just recently that no matter what one thinks about these officials, whether you voted for them or not, whether you approve of them or not, you have to admit the damned house is on fire. Our house is on fire. And these are the people who are running into the blazing structure, like fire fighters always do, while all the rest of us are running out. We need to stay behind the fire line, unless we’re going to do something to help. Even then, no firefighter benefits from an armchair quarterback or someone whose only experience in the high-risk endeavor of fire fighting is their ride on the fire truck when they were seven. We all have an opinion. I have several of them, at any given moment, and they are ALL very important. However. They are usually important mainly to me, unless someone has asked for them. So. Most of the time, the best and most merciful thing I can do for everyone concerned is…keep my mouth shut and post my erudite thoughts on social media. Then have a snack, talk to my dog, and play a mindless computer game. By then, something else will have occurred, and I will forget what the hell it was I so urgently needed to say. On to the next one.