Thought Pond

Remember when Winnie the Pooh got stuck in Rabbit’s doorway?

I feel like that. (And not just from quarantine poundage fears of not getting out of my office.) Wedged into Rabbit’s front door Pooh makes amiable chat with whoever comes by but isn’t free to go search out companionship on his own. Between visitors Pooh is lonely. Me too. Since it’s right there taking up space Rabbit uses Pooh’s rear half as a drying rack for tea towels. Pooh doesn’t mind, at least some of him is being useful. Also me on the days I can whomp up the juice to do a bunch of meal prep or flatten Dish Mountain right down to an empty sink. Meh, I’m here anyway and it’s nice to be useful.

 

Mick was good to have done it for so long, but I took over the grocery shopping. I drive right past my old workplace. Still can’t. When I am properly inoculated I am marching into Shoprite and hugging the shit out of every single person in there. Old friends, strangers, customers, delivery people. Everybody. Until then I’m doing my marketing at a wee Hannaford a couple towns over. The drive is easy. I indulge in a frenzy of channel hopping on the Sirius always hunting for THE song of the moment and mood. Annoying to others so I relish the solitary drive. Finding just the right song pays off with a squirt of happiness hormones, even if the song is a weepy and I’m running teary boogers and singing along in the cracked howl of a crated puppy, I’m happy.

I meant it when I said my new grocery is wee. I am grateful for Hannaford’s niche strategy, their thing way before COVID. Their shtick is their offerings are curated. They like to imply Hannaford’s won’t waste your valuable time with a slew of inferior brands so they only carry a select few brands which are the best…duh. Somehow paying $8 for a mozzarella log is a status thing. To me it pisses me off because I know the same product is on sale every other week at Shoprite for $3.99. BUT the trade-off is the store I shop is quiet. It’s clean. Fresh stock is always well within date. And decisions are blessedly simple. Instead of 80 brands and varieties of mustard there’s 4. House brand or French’s. Yellow or brown. Easy-peasy. The customers are the usual mix of good, indifferent, and lunatic, but the aisles are never crowded. I’m a polite and patient shopper so I can’t really judge the crew except to say they are polite and any standoff-ishness is due to masking and distancing.

“Wow, thanks for that vivid critique of a grocery store I will never go to, LA!”

Shushie you. What I’m telling you is I am putting my physical and emotional well-being ahead of the ‘right thing’. My whole life I’ve challenged myself. “I must make the MOST moral choice! Nothing else will do!” You know why I can’t be bothered over what other people think? It’s because I’m too busy not living up to my own standards, thankyouverymuch.

Being barricaded in my house for five months has left me with a lot of time to ponder. I ask myself questions –

• Why is the MOST moral choice always the one that leaves me MOST depleted?
• Am I truly that much of a martyr?
• Why yes I am!
• Girlfriend, you gonna cut the shit now that you see this so clearly?

Gosh I hope so.

In my pondering I figured out the way past a sticky spot with my husband. And it was on me to change. I finally mustered up the courage to really trust him. Let me illuminate with an anecdote.

Last week Mick went to his mom’s on his day off leaving me to sleep in. Kidney pain had been a 9 on and off for days. I’m currently making a new bunch of fresh water pearls and the little dears tend to tumble into the U-bend of my ureter that Khan said he’d fix but didn’t. I was miserable.

Around 2:00 Mick calls from Mom’s, he’s about to leave – did I want anything? From my muzzy greeting it was obvious he’d woken me up and immediately his voice goes tense and annoyed. Here is where I’d been misreading Mick’s tone. Martyr Girl would hear that and begin babbling apologies. Napping! So sorry! He’d get really annoyed and I’d panic and down it went. He’s hurt and mad, I’m hurt and mad, neither of us knows why.

I feel dopey it took so long to put down all my defensive armor and really listen to Mick. Believe all the times he’s told me my happiness and well-being are paramount to him. My friends, Mick was annoyed with himself. He’d woken me, what an oaf. We’re two of a kind – failing our own imposed standards all the time. Here is where I changed the station. Bam! The right song! Instead of apologizing I said, “You are so thoughtful! How lucky am I to have such a nice husband?” It took a few repetitions, Mick was still yelling at himself, but when he finally heard me he relaxed. It was so simple without all my murky stuff globbed on top. All he wanted was a little reassurance and my order from the diner. My guy does NOT get his jollies making me feel like shit. Quite the opposite and I’m glad I understand this and allow myself to snuggle into his love. Finally.

Will I get hurt? Possibly. But stiff-arming my husband to preemptively keep him far from my ouchie places is wrong. It leaves a space for gremlins to get in.

And really, isn’t 2020 horrible enough already?

 

Love you lots! ~LA

 

I Forgot The Title

I am always surprised by how tee-nouncy AOC’s voice is. Not a bad thing, just seems at odds with how fierce everything else about her is.

My office smells wonderful. Did laundry yesterday. Saving the guys any confusion the rule is if it goes above my waist it comes upstairs and hung in my office to air-dry. My fabulous son once asked if this rule included ‘those giant granny panties’. I rapped back, “Oh? My granny panties are funny? Mental picture, bub…Mom in a thong!” That learnt him.

Raise your hand if you hate your chin/neck area in pics? Let’s see…one, two, five, seventeen, eleventy-four hundred…infinity. Everyone. So let’s call a truce and make peace. Double-chins, pelican neck, jowls – I’m currently rocking the whole trifecta. What used to be on my face is sliding under my chin and piling there like a bad sock that rides down and bunches up in your shoe. The dopey thing is I don’t notice anyone else’s. Except really doofy ones on purpose.

The other day Daryl sent me a couple pics showing me her haircut, the first since January. The cut was cute and it was so great to see my friend’s sweet face. Just down the road yet always out of reach. Then before I could tell her so here came the disclaimer and apology for her ‘old lady’ neck. Grrr. I wouldn’t care if her neck folds laid on her chest like an ascot, you know? But I get her anguish. I have it too. I usually stop the self-deprecating apologia text but I think it.

The thing is if everyone’s stuff slides down like tired socks then isn’t that normal? And if it’s normal why all the embarrassment and shame? Perhaps if I had a really noisy growth on my forehead that randomly let out huge burps I’d be embarrassed. And not so much that I had a noisy growth, but that it was rude.

So. No more apologizing. No more feeling down on ourselves because our human body responds to gravity and chemistry. I’m going to work on this. Feels like a necessary permission I need to give myself.

‘Let myself go’? The only thing I want to let go of is the last remnants of the bullshit demand I deny myself anything that isn’t about looking 30 forever. 57, bay-bee. Imma do what I want! #1 – I will never, ever don another pair of Spanx and hell yes I want dessert.

And get back to me with those arguments about my health when there’s no pandemic and the North Pole isn’t on fire.

Mick and I had a wee tiffy this morning about my being part of Wall of Moms. He’s scared spitless something might happen to me. I understand. I’m not wild about the idea of something happening to me either. I explained I was there to learn. In Portland the WoM is there to support the Black protesters and help guard them from Trump’s goons. There’s many, many takes and BIG feelings about purpose and methods and intent. Much of the feed is simple info on where and when and soliciting donations. How-to’s on tear gas and pepper spray removal. Woven in is this amazing discussion about white savior-ism, social debt, and honest anguish about where the hell have we been all these years? That last one is tough because I sort of thought I had been here but realize I hadn’t been in any significant way. This is a lot more embarrassing than my jowls. One is collagen and the other is character. Ouch.

Listening and learning is where I’m at. My brain and heart are delighted with all this activity. So many new ideas! Not all of them are great. Priorities conflict. The situation in the street changes all the time. Nothing about change is tidy. Nor is the inside of my head. Sherlock had a mind palace, I have a mind Husky.

Full of antics and surprises. Never know where she might go or what she’ll drag back. She likes to chase scent trails, that one. Heedlessly. This happens a lot.

I don’t really mind I’m on the roof, but I am really irritated because I can’t remember why I went up there in the first place.

I miss earrings. I know some people manage earrings and a mask just fine. I am not one of them. The mask and glasses combo is enough. No point in wearing ear decor at home, even on the rare occasions I get out of my housecoat to wear real clothes, I have headphones on. All day. With the central air broken my entire house drones with cooling devices. Window units. Oscillating fans. Ceiling fans. I can’t hear a fucking thing anyone says. (Same thing in public. Can’t lipread masks. I nod a lot.) My cans keep me from going bonkers from the droning. Plus providing sound on the computer. Of course I use subtitles too. But who doesn’t? Even if you’re not hard of hearing.

 

Love you lots! ~LA

Hey! Watch This!

I don’t do well with linear projects. After a life castigating myself and letting others chide me for my supposed ditziness I’ve embraced my curlicue approach to things. When Mary the Clown put up a 30 day movie challenge I followed her daily selections with delight. She and I love the same kinds of movies and she picked some real good’uns. I want to join her but in my own way.

Today is the first in a multi-part series in my version of:

Mary’s Many Movie Challenge 

The last movie I watched: ‘Maleficent Mistress of Evil’. I rented the first one on a whim. Not keen on Disney’s live-action money grabs, er, live-action remakes. But I needed something new and shiny and a zillion miles away from real life and from the trailer it looked like Aurora was no passive victim of fate, yay! Maleficent is an interesting character, so much inner conflict and spiritual growth. Angelina Jolie did a fantastic job. Through all the make-up and CGI she was still able to put all of Maleficent’s emotions out there. Remarkable. If you like Disney anything I think you’ll enjoy the Maleficent movies.

A favorite fantasy movie: I spend a lot time among the fey and fanciful, but that gloomy Celtic/Arthurian stuff from the 1980’s bores me to snores. Everyone is named ‘Gwnyyfddl’. The movie adaptations of those books are drippy. In all ways. Soggy stories, limp characters wearing tattered linen rough-weave, and between the mud, river crossings, and moldy castles by rights everyone should have trench foot. Anyway. I am a huge fan of the Guillermos. Director Guillermo del Toro and cinematographer Guillermo Navarro have made some of the most gorgeous films ever. Kurosawa and Nakai are my all-time faves, but the Guillermos are close. My pick for a fantasy movie is ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’.

Magical realism at its finest.

A favorite action/adventure movie: ‘George of the Jungle’. Yes, the one with Brendan Fraser. This flick is a hoot! It’s silly and fun and even a little romantic. Plus Brendan Fraser in a loincloth? Yes, please, thank you.

Uh huh. ‘Nuff  said.

A favorite horror/suspense movie: Not a biggie with me. I don’t like being frightened. Loathe jump scares. Slasher movies are pornographic in the true sense of something being obscene, depraved. Why are people entertained by cruelty and gore? Isn’t life hard enough already? So not being a fan of this category my list is limited. One that genuinely creeped me out and in no way seemed gratuitous with its frights was ‘The Others’. Tense and spooky and the pacing is excellent. If you’re in the mood for something of a mindfuck and haven’t ever seen this movie do so, you won’t be disappointed.

See? Spooky.

A favorite drama movie: This is too broad. What is a drama? Any movie that’s not a comedy? Or should I assume it’s ‘movies where the lead actress looks like shit on purpose and spends most of the film sitting at a tatty kitchen table making bitter speeches and gets an Oscar for it’ type of drama? Costume drama? Courtroom? Gah.

• Social commentary drama: ‘The Long Walk Home’.
• Costume drama: ‘Dangerous Liaisons’ Malkovich and Close are sooo evil together!
• Classroom drama: ‘Stand and Deliver’.
• Terminal illness drama: ‘It’s My Party’. AIDS ahead, be warned.
• Military drama: ‘Mr Roberts’.
• Meryl Streep drama: ‘Out of Africa’.
• Tom Hanks drama: ‘Apollo 13’.
• Best Melodrama: ‘Stella Dallas’. Just rips my heart out and stomps on it.

 

I can and will talk about movies anytime anywhere. Lots more to come. Thank you, Mary.

 

Love you lots! ~LA

Running Along

Ferris was a dick but he was correct: ‘Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.’

I have withdrawn to an astonishing degree. Only a small part is due to disinterest. Mostly I feel an anxiety that is monotonous in its constancy. It’s as if I am forced to listen to a disagreeable radio station full of clanging alarms and the same six songs, one of which is that fucking Lee Greenwood mawk – the official anthem of Rednecktopia – in endless rotation.

In my life before Mick I was usually an anxious mess but it sourced from my own screwed up choices. Out There was where I found my respite. Over and over I flung myself out into the world and was met with kindness. *(With the exception of a few British people I deeply offended by speaking to them.) (On Amtrak mostly, who knew talking to Brits on trains was this big social blunder? But a lesson learned so well that when I went to England many years later I didn’t talk to ANYONE who didn’t speak to me first.) (Which was really hard, btw, I am a human Golden Retriever.) (Speaking of retrievers when we were in college the ex’s younger brother taught their mother’s Labrador to sit up and drink straight out of a beer keg.) (Along with being cruel to the dog it was tough for us too. We’d show up after working the late shift to snag some beer and always ended up helping load the drunk, 97lb, drooling, farting dog into ex-BIL’s VW.)*

Over on FB many of my suggested friends are former coworkers. I do not friend them. It’s part of my withdrawal into this severely proscribed world I’ve built for my mental safety. I’ve been interacting on the internet in a meaningful way for 20 years. The past few presidential elections have been utterly bruising. In a sad way the political strafing never lets up anymore. (See above: Lee Greenwood) The oppression by the offensive, the under-educated, the ignorant, and the mischief-doers who don’t believe in conservatism but they bathe in our brokenhearted tears because tears are delicious to them has become so wearying I had to insist on making this space where hate and glee about others’ pain is not the spice of life.

I DO NOT ENJOY PAIN OF ANY VARIETY.

So much pain is dished under the umbrella of ‘humor’. I’ve watched conservative attempts at comedy. It’s the most tone-deaf heartless crap! They’ve tried SNL rip-offs and animated shows for adults but the gist of all the ‘jokes’ boiled down to racist, sexist, ableist garbage. “Then the crippled Negress with no arms asked for a hand-out! And I said, ‘Hand-out? You don’t even have elbows!'” Hilarity ensues.

Yuck.

Look, I am not against lowbrow humor. Hell, Shakespeare made fart jokes. So did Mel Brooks.

What do fart jokes have to do with friending people on FB? I’ll tell you. Far too many of my former coworkers are Trump fans. And fierce in defending ‘My Personal Experience Is The ONLY Valid View’. It’s how they formed the foundation of their disbelief in white privilege. Such an odd dichotomy made of well-earned pride in hard work and deep distrust of anything and anyone outside their tight parameters. My ex-coworkers don’t like being the butt of the joke more than anyone does and are always bristled up against disrespect and slights. But I have zero interest in hearing from Trumpsters. Even if I’ve worked with them and gone through any number of crazy holidays and even nuttier customers side by side. I am so very tired of being polite to the hateful.

Look, when I cast my primary ballot this year it was for the Biden elector. And an all progressive Democrat slate of judges, supervisors, and state assembly reps. It would have been regardless, but this year feels especially vital.

It tears me up to exclude people I used to interact with every day. I miss a lot of them. But (and there’s always a ‘but’) but I’m done. If you haven’t decided who you’re voting for already then you’re hopeless. What could possibly come to light now that would decide you?

And no, Trumpkins, there are no shades and gradients this time. If you are a Trump supporter you own ALL OF IT. The children in cages. The destruction of families. The race baiting. The flouting and outright disrespect for the Constitution. The emoluments. The bounties on American soldiers! The grandiose magical thinking. The insults and the outrages. And not just Trump’s disgusting antics, you own McConnell and the whole brain-dead dimwit brigade of the national AND local GOP.  You own the COVID-19 rampaging through the US and the deaths, long-term handicaps, and complete collapse of the American economy and the healthcare system. You OWN this.

I don’t want to hear any more ignorant hateful bleating from the Right. You fucked up. It’s been thoroughly proven our country needs leadership. Sound. Stable. Educated. Compassionate. Thoughtful leadership. A leader who puts people above his personal adulation.

We’ve ground our way down to the disgusting bottom of Reaganomics, capitalism and cronyism. It sucks here! And this stacked deck benefits about 26 people. Zuckerberg, a couple of Saudis, the Waltons, et al. Time for this lopsided cruel perversion of ‘freedom’ to end.

The times I have left my house since March 8th is still in the single digits. I am serving a reasonably comfy but indefinite term in quarantine. I would like to go out. But the world out there is scary and stupid and totally not fun. Unless I throw it all to the wind and go bareback, of course.

What? No mask is par with no condom. Both have life changing consequences. Health risks. The other people you buddy up with sans condom/mask may get sick and die. Whatever. And in the meantime before they are diagnosed your unknowing carriers may infect an exponential number of other people. People who might be doing all the correct things but they are going to get sick anyway because of “My free-dumb!”  you.

I was here during the AIDS epidemic in the 80’s, my friends, and this feels all too familiar. Like with HIV, I guarantee Big Pharma is working on a maintenance drug rather than a cure for COVID-19. Much more profitable.

Bottom line:

• I’ve yet to receive an unemployment check.
• Every doctor I employ has told me my peculiar kidney and auto-immune and all the other ‘My stress eats my body’ issues puts me in the high risk category. Huge surprise…not.
• And that I should stay home and limit my contact with others.
• Whee.
• I have ZERO desire to joust with Trumpkins.
• Can’t fix stupid.

I am sure where I stand politically. Nuance be damned. Biden or Bust.

Mask Up or Fuck Off.

Bill Gates does NOT want to inject you with nano-technology that will track your every move. You think the Earth’s power-brokers truly give a warm crap what you watch on Pornhub?

Wash your hands.

Yes I meant what you’re thinking.

Gads, the stupid is giving me hives.

Time to go.

 

Love you from afar, ~LA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brown on the spectrum.

To the mother of the sons whose behavior I complimented and you snapped at me and sent me on my way with my fee-fees all hurty.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry I hadn’t a clue about how loaded my compliment was. I am sorry your mothering experience had to be so complicated and pained. That instead of being free to beam and agree and be proud there was all this sideways shit you had to deal with and shit you had to put on your kids because they were brown boys in a mostly white world.

The pressure! The onus on you to ensure your sons’ impeccable behavior, a stalwart against sneers and blanket condemnations of all black children everywhere. Add in knowing that public misbehavior was dangerous and possibly lethal? My God, the weight of that!

My younger son’s behavior issues were legion. I sometimes make funny stories out of the most outrageous episodes, the one about Wolf and the Cheese Lady is a classic. You know what never ever crossed my mind when my offspring whacked the glasses off the cheese lady’s face with his plastic sword yelling, “Hassaaaahnn…CHOP!” as his big brother schooled him to? It never occurred to me the police might be called. That I might have to explain and soothe affronted white people and there might be hassle and mess and… nope. I apologized, of course. Profusely and sincerely. Now the cheese lady might have just put her specs back on and chucked a black kid under the chin as she did to my blond moppet, she was genuinely nice. What I’m saying is that police weren’t even on my radar. Betcha it’s a worry for every mother who isn’t ‘Barbie and her Precious Moments Baby’ as my kid and I were.

The clueless privilege!

My kid was fucking awful. Often in public and we left many, many uneaten dinners, half-filled grocery carts, crying kids and their disgusted frightened parents in our wake. Yet the single time the police got involved was when my wee darling dialed 911 from the school’s outdoor payphone and they responded immediately. He got a stern talking to from the fuzz and I got a phone call from the principal afterward. That’s it. No cuffs, no taser, no ride to the cop shop.

Do not even pretend it would be the same for a black child.

Obviously I’ve been doing much thinking. And reading. And more thinking. Been working out where best to put my oar in.  What do I know well enough to be a real help? And since it seems likely I will be stuck in the house for a very, very long time (that’s a different entry) what am I able to do from here?

This. This I can do.

frontpage

The history of police and POC with autism is horrible. People on the spectrum rarely do well with authority of any kind and dealing with police is especially dicey. Adding being black to the situation is lethal.

I have a lot more investigating to do to find where the local resources are and how best to put people who need help in touch, but it’s a start.

Find the place to put your oar in and start paddling, dear ones, there’s so much work to do!

 

Much love, ~LA

Going Blue

I went into a building that wasn’t my house yesterday. A grocery store. For the first time since starting quarantine on March 8th I went to a grocery store by myself. It was frightening. It also wasn’t my former place of employment. I am not ready for that. (Yes, I was fired. I had to be to collect unemployment. Fear of COVID is not a valid reason to be out for more than 2 weeks in NY. My former employer generously gave all of us COVID absentees much longer but the end is the same. No work, no job. I don’t blame them at all.)

Why go to a store anyhow? Because it’s Mick’s birthday soon and I needed ingredients for his gift. A gift my son thinks is dorky as hell, btw. Not sure why, nor do I care. Being dorky and odd and exasperating is what I am supposed to be – it’s in the Mom handbook. Page 107, I believe.

We have enough stuff. Too much stuff. So my husband and I exchange other things as gifts. Experiences. Meals out. Occasionally little luxuries which are technically ‘stuff’ but are enjoyed in the using. (My guy keeps me in pricey moisturizers and lovely dark chocolates.) Since concert tickets, museum trips, and restaurants are out thanks to the quarantine I am making all kinds of yummy goodies as Mick’s birthday gift this year. Bacon jam. Balsamic-glazed cippolini. Marinated mushrooms. And dill pickles. Two kinds – garlic and spicy. Everything except the glazed onions take at least a week’s lead time, hence the trip to the scary, scary grocery store. (He does all the shopping now and I could hardly ask Mick to buy the ingredients for his own birthday gift, durr.)

As a total newbie in this strange new world of masks and traffic patterns I assumed people were cutting me startled looks because I was accidentally violating some new unwritten rules of pandemic grocery shopping. Perhaps. But mostly I think it was this:

My hair matches my dress and I never even thought about it until I was home again.

Yes, probably the only truly happy thing about being fired is being able to wear my hair any damn color I please again. Honestly I am still iffy about this shade of blue. But I’ve done just about every shade of pink and purple already going all the way back to 1982 and my lavender tufty. Blue is fun. I’m using Overtone. Aside from smelling like a buffalo’s armpit the product worked as advertised. Nice. The color doesn’t bleed unless my hair is wet. My pillowcase isn’t blue, but the towel I use exclusively on my noggin is. I’ve washed my hair once since I applied the Overtone and as expected the blue faded a little but was by no means ‘wash and gone’.

Please be aware of a few things: At least 30% of my hair was stripped almost white already. I deliberately chose an Overtone shade made for brown hair so I knew going in the bleached hair would grab pigment like crazy, as would the scant (dammit!) grey hairs. I was curious if I’d see any blue on the brown part and sadly the answer is No. If you’re looking for color and don’t want to pre-bleach your hair I would suggest a ‘party’ product such as spray-on colors or hair chalk. You get a blast of color with zero commitment.

I know some of you are considering anime hair colors. Good for you! However……bold hair requires a bold public persona. If you are uncomfortable with people looking at you, if you fret about being mocked and/or judged, if you are self-conscious to the point where you mentally gnaw at things afterward and never get to sleep until 3:00 am, um,

DO NOT COLOR YOUR HAIR SOMETHING ‘UNNATURAL’.

That, my darlings, is a recipe for disaster and neurosis.

I’m plenty neurotic, but being stared at and whispered about isn’t a biggie for me. See above about being honestly oblivious to the hair/dress thing. Obliviousness is woven into my DNA and it’s saved me a lot of grief. Truly the last time I can remember being out of my element and feeling like a doughy nothing was a friend’s bachelorette outing in NYC. I was delighted to lay a big old squeezy hug on my friend and was so pleased to be included in her plans! But talk about being an oddball! Every single thing about me was off and somehow wrong. To be thrown into a group of astonishingly accomplished women who were at least a decade younger and had been friends since college I felt like an elderly hippopotamus who’d wandered into a combined Mensa/Nobel prize committee meeting during the Olympics. World-class athletes! Doctoral candidates! Multi-lingual, published, traveled women who’d been going and doing all while I’d been here in my dumb pokey town dealing with a kid who bit, shit, spit, and drove me to tears at least twice a day. Accomplished? I was lucky if I’d showered and had a cuppa before being summoned to deal with that day’s Wolf mess. I had nothing on my CV and spent several weeks after the party shivering with self-disgust and weeping from humiliation and embarrassment. (NOT my friend’s doing AT ALL. I bring it up only so y’all understand that I get feeling awkward and am warning you to be prepared spiritually if you’re going to go public wearing cartoon hair.)

Okay, you’re girded up. Your life status allows you to color your hair something from the Rainbow Brite collection.

Unless your hair is already blonde, white, or grey you will need to do some prep work. The more natural pigment you can remove from your coif the brighter and more lasting the new color will be. This means bleach. Scary, smelly, stings like a motherfucker bleach. My pigment is concrete and has made seasoned hair dressers blanch. The shit won’t budge so I use the hair stripping version of a nuke – 40% peroxide, left on for a nutty amount of time, aided by applying heat. Twice. Don’t do this! You WILL be bald. I literally have over 50 years experience in nuking my hair and have fried it many times. Like ‘break off at the scalp’ fried. So go easy. Start with 20% peroxide. You can always wait a while between bleachings and try again. Remember to condition!

Now you’ve lightened your hair several shades and damaged the cuticle enough so your strands are open and porous. You’re ready for some brilliant color!

Almost.

Most semi-permanent or permanent color kits fail to make this next step important enough – you MUST put a barrier along your hairline and on your ears! Vaseline. Rub a thin layer along the skin at the edge of your hairline. All the way around. Then do the same for your ears, especially the tops. This is the most common mistake of home colorists. Their hair looks good but their ears are dyed and they have streaks running down their necks and foreheads.

Wear gloves!

Both with the bleaching and the coloring your hands will bear the brunt if you don’t wear gloves.

“LA, you’re scaring me!”

Good. I mean to. Not because there’s anything truly dangerous about dyeing your hair a wonderful shade of apricot or kelly green, but because lack of preparation and understanding leads to disastrous results and much unhappiness. I love cartoon hair colors and it irks me to see them done badly.

Like new cars a bold color job starts to lose value the second the deal’s done. Before coloring you should think whether you can handle new growth, your mop fading into odd shades, nosy questions from strangers, and 2:00 am trips to the can where you flip on the light, catch yourself in the mirror and go, “Holy Mother of God my hair is turquoise! With grey roots! GAH!”

If you can handle all that…YAY! You’re ready.

Have fun. Send me a pic.

 

Much love, ~LA

From a Mom

I am confused and a little overwhelmed. I also know I’ve come a fair piece from the butt-hurt woman from 20 years ago who got squiffy about a black woman’s objection to Sebastian’s rag doll. I knew he’d picked it from the bin of dollies at the Dollar Store because the doll looked quite a bit like a girl his big brother had a crush on. At track-meets Ms Crush would come over and make a fuss over Sebastian and answer my elder son’s ardent glances and lame small talk with shy smiles and lame talk of her own. I was thrilled when Sebastian pulled that doll from the bin. With her brown felt ‘skin’ and tumble of yarn corkscrew ‘hair’ Seb was showing he recognized someone! At 3 my son was still a wordless mystery and this confirmation that something was getting in there buoyed my heart immensely. Unfortunately not long after a woman at the grocery sneered at my son’s (wonderful!joyous!gratifying!) doll and demanded to know why I let my child play with a ‘pickaninny’ doll. Man, was I pissed off! And yeah, part of it was how she didn’t understand just what a HUGE deal that doll was about Seb’s comprehension. Also I had my suburban feminist panties in a bunch – hello? my SON is playing with a doll! But a lot of it was because that woman had the audacity to question my oblivious ass about being a racist. “Excuse me? My elder son is currently swooning over a black classmate and the younger one thinks she’s the bee’s knees so much he CHOSE a doll that looks just like her. Racist? Get over yourself, black lady who is OBVIOUSLY spoiling for a fight with ALL white people!”

I know, I know.

Exactly the chowder-headed response you get from a blind but ‘well-intentioned’ white woman at the turn of the millennium. That’s where I was at 20 years ago.

I will always be a well-intentioned white woman. However I am a well-intentioned white woman who grows and learns. Sometimes by accident, sometimes by confrontation, sometimes by deliberately putting my shit aside to listen and learn as cleanly and honestly as I can. That last has come on stronger over the past decade, something I can put down to Mick. Not because he’s a paragon of wokenesss, but because he keeps me safe.

Last night I slept for 11 hours. Quarantine fatigue? No. Repairing a sleep deficit from my entire life. Did I ever tell you guys my hands were tied to the bars of my crib? So I wouldn’t suck my thumb, they said. From the very start there was no comfort in sleep. Now there is. The nightmares are mostly gone, only reappearing when I’m troubled. To sleep so soundly is such a blessing. And one I wonder if I’d ever know if I was black.

I imagine being the mother of two sons whose color makes them a target. Of course I taught Sebastian what to do during a traffic stop when I was teaching him to drive. We talked some about his relative safety from profiling and police harassment and agreed about the egregiousness of such and the onus on people of color. Tsk tsk! said the suburban white people who then shrugged and went back to practicing K-turns.

This is not a mea culpa, it’s a promise. To keep on learning. To keep listening. To keep on working to make this a country where a black mom can get a good night’s sleep.

 

Much love, ~LA

Because It’s Rough Right Now

 

The past few days have been a maelstrom of really, really LOUD emotions. I seethed and wept and seethed some more. Stupid putrid people are killing me. I’ve had to suffer fools FOR DECADES and am so sick of it! So angry at the unfairness of having to deal with the consequences of their hateful behavior. Worst of all I am choking on how HAPPY they are about being hateful. The joy they take in tearing down anything decent or smart has just worn me out.

I am exhausted from being slapped across the face with ugliness and prideful ignorance.

I know I am not the only one. Of course not. But it’s lonely here in my house where I stay day after day, week after week. In some ways it feels like I’ve been fighting this battle my whole life anyhow. The fight for decency and fairness.

Here’s the thing: I don’t need you to agree with me, I just need you to stop dicking with my life. And the lives of others. How shaky is your faith? Your morals are so insubstantial that someone else’s decisions about their own life somehow invalidates yours? Really? That is sad. And unfortunately those who lack the conviction of their morals and faith are the ones running around shrieking the loudest about how everyone else needs to do things THEIR WAY.

It’s always perplexed me how much people mind other people’s business. And I do mean ‘mind’. Like that moron from Nebraska who’s trying to sue ALL the gay people. Why? Because SHE shouldn’t have to be forced to share HER country with homosexuals.

 

Good morning. I wrote the above a few days ago and it’s still valid so rather than start over I’m adding on.

Read here

Amy Cooper. As I watched the video all I thought was, “Holy mother of God, this woman is demanding a death squad from NYPD come and do her bidding! Look at her! She’s openly threatening that man with her power to bring Death. She’s ordering her personal goon squad with badges to come kill this guy.”

There was no misunderstanding. Amy Cooper used the code and hit every activation button. I was shocked and sickened by her…and seriously scared for Christian Cooper.

I’ve mocked it and said things like, “I’m a suburban white woman, I fear no one.” It’s amusing in a sour way, because it’s fucking true. As time clicks on and I have to spend less and less of it dealing with my own inner messes I have eyes and energy to look outward and I am so aware of how much privilege I have.

Privilege = Power = Responsibility

This is how I’ve always seen it. Early exposure to Eleanor Roosevelt’s views via a beat-up copy of ‘This I Remember’, swirled with growing up among Holocaust survivors whose tattooed forearms were a mute blunt reminder of what power without responsibility always becomes: Evil.

What Amy Cooper did was evil. And wouldn’t you know the apologists are out in force saying she’s ‘paid’ and too much! Out of a job, had to give back the dog, poor thing! Yeah? I think Amy Cooper should be rotting at Riker’s playing COVID roulette awaiting charges of attempted murder or soliciting murder or whatever they can stick on her.

 

And it’s another day and again I am sick and weeping over another Black man murdered by police. The callous execution of George Floyd is EXACTLY why what Amy Cooper did was so heinous.

Being a glamazon I am privy to a lot of talk that my more obviously hippy-ish friends are not. When with SIL’s golf and tennis pals it’s assumed I am one of them and safe to cock a knowing eyebrow and satisfied smirk at. In the old days I’d charge in Guns of Righteousness a-blazin, but these days I’m stealthier. And to be honest? Much more effective. With a lethal combination of disingenuousness and Socratic method taken to an absurdist’s extreme I tan their hides, Clyde, and hang ’em on the shed. (Apologies to Rolf Harris.) Unlike arguing with idiots on the internet, the in-person skewering is usually quick and painful – at least for the bigot/misogynist/ignoranty. Do not mistake the mimosa in my hand for GOP kool-aid, you imbecile.

Do better, white people. Do A LOT better. NOW.

I know this smacks of white savior-ism but I feel like if white people could get together to take on racism as they did to take on Voldemort and the Death Eaters it would be outstanding. Throw up barriers, ready your wands, push the vulnerable people behind you, and finally, finally make a stand for what is right.

There are many wrongs to right, so much scary stuff going on that even to this crystal ball reader the future is one big roiling murk of uncertainty and fear, yet it’s not impossible to do good things during chaos. Hopeful things. Acts of kindness – random and otherwise. And no, you don’t have to run rings around people and hoist them with their own sad little ugly petard as I do. It’s enough to look askance at someone who’s just laid a turd with their mouth, say quietly, “That is unacceptable.” Then just turn and walk away. Take a leaf from Tison at Costco.

That guy did good.

Now we all do like that.

 

Love you lots, ~LA

 

Simon Says

This is my friend Simon. He writes books and is VERY good at it. You should buy them and read for yourselves.

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Simon supplied the following meme. For which you can thank him by buying his books and then leaving good reviews on Amazon. If I were better at links I’d make this easier for you, but come on, how difficult is it to do a search?

My favorite. Thanks, Si.

What was the last thing you put in your mouth? My right index finger. The nail broke earlier and I am enjoying a wee nibble before filing it smooth and repainting it. Nail biting like all my other self-destructive habits is mostly gone, but a nibble once in a while is fun.

Do you sleep naked? No. Not often. Panties and sometimes a nightie if the room is especially cold. Not sure why underpants are necessary but they are.

Worst physical pain you ever have had? After kidney stones? Bleeding ulcers. Horrific pain! And vomiting blood is revolting. One night during college it got so bad I went to the ER and was given actual novocaine to drink in an effort to quell the spasms. A very odd sensation. Though that trip to the Fort Hood ER got me a funny anecdote. While there two MPs were brought in with gunshot wounds. Both had bullets in the left thigh. The dopes had been assigned a speed trap on a quiet road. Bored they decided to play quick-draw while still sitting in their vehicle. Yup. They both shot themselves playing gunslinger. In the car. Brilliant.

 Favourite place you have been to? As I tried to pull a single memory out I realized all the choices involve water. Rivers. Great Lakes. The ocean, of course. Even playing outside during torrential rainstorms. I’ve been awed by many places and wowed by works of art and always grateful to see them, but it seems my true happy place is in or on or near the water.

How late did you stay up last night? 2:30 am. Too much coffee. Plus with both guys working overnights I’ve drifted into being a day sleeper too. We all wander downstairs sometime after noon. If needed the guys clean the kitchen while I menu plan. I cook. We eat. Hang around talking for a while. Then we split up to do our own stuff. Meet again for late afternoon snacks. Chores are done whenever. I make lunches for the guys and stash them in the fridge. It’s quite peaceful even with Mick being het up about something every damn day.

If you could move somewhere else, where would it be? I love where I am so can I make up a new country and send other people there? I want to carve off a goodish chunk of the northeast and cede the outlying places to the Trumpkins. Let them all infect each other. And shoot each other. They can worship their shitty hateful version of Jesus and use their bibles to administer civil law. No one in Trumplandia would get any of our tax money or our books or our medicine or any help whatsoever. Be free, little Trumpkins! Immigrants from Trumplandia must surrender their guns at the border and show true need for being where decent people are and prove how unfit they are for life in Trumplandia such as being literate and kind. For citizenship in Smartlandia you must donate to NPR and spend a year in national service caring for the elderly, maintaining parks and public spaces, or monitoring the borders and distracting Trumpian illegals from entering. I believe waving shiny things and painting Wile E Coyote tunnels on mountains will suffice.

Two of your favourite movies? I talk about movies quite a bit and my absolute faves are well known so perhaps I can surprise you with: ‘Mystery, Alaska’ and ‘RoboCop’. The former is grittier than you’d expect. Not ‘Taking of Pelham 1-2-3’ gritty, but real and true all the same. The original ‘RoboCop’, thankyouverymuch. No remakes! Blech. ‘RoboCop’ has a lot going for it. In its center it’s a very human and humane story. Puts it leagues beyond the basic dystopian shoot-em-up.

What is your favourite season? It used to be ‘white sale’ season. But retail doesn’t work that way anymore. Early exposure to my Oma’s old country bed linens started a love affair with domestics. Sleeping at Oma’s meant flopping onto the huge feather bed and disappearing into floofs of damask. Billowy mounds rising around me scented with line-dried freshness and hints of Niagara spray starch. Oma had duvets way before they were cool here. And sheets she’d embroidered with rosebud chains. And weighty crackly pillows filled with the plucking of years of Sunday chickens and holiday geese saved by my tantes while they waited for their mother and my da -the last of the family to come to the US – and presented as housewarming gifts. The house itself was a gift from the uncles. It was a small Nile green stuccoed cottage on a corner in the German neighborhood of Spring Valley. (Which abutted the Jewish neighborhood so the German speakers and the Yiddish speakers could easily share merchants and such.) Oma’s house with its steamy crowded kitchen and backyard with the garden and the fruit trees and the old wooden table where Oma sat on nice days peeling apples, prepping veg, and teaching us how to read bones and tea leavings and do the basics of nature-based healing is the place of my earliest memories. It seems like I wandered far from the question but what else is a meme for if not to be a writing prompt?

 If you could have any career what would it be? Well duh! I’d be the Oracle of Smartlandia! I am an idea person. But also practical. I’ll sit in my temple (which looks a lot like my office but tidier and has a table for my cards and scrying tools) and see people who need help and I’d advise the government. Sounds ideal. Hella better than dying a COVID dog’s death at Shoprite.

If you could talk to ANYONE who would it be? This question caused a big snarl of competing ideas! To what purpose am I talking? Can I talk to someone who’d change history? What if I had lunch with the director of the art college that rejected Hitler? What if I talked him into accepting Adolph as a student? Can I have brunch with the Virgin Mary? And between mimosas clue her in to how badly her Son’s message and legacy will be perverted? Can I have a chat with 19 year old me and change my own life? (I cannot say it would definitely be better, but it would be different.) This question honestly hurts my brain. And heart a little.

Are you a good influence? I certainly hope so. I’d like to believe people come away from being with me feeling better about themselves, the future, their abilities, etc, etc. Being a mom showed me that my kids would be who they are with and more especially without my ‘help’. I’m not in charge of a damn thing about my children except this:

So it’s nice when somebody makes the time to tell me my actions are a comfort or a help. 98% of my life I’ve been called out for being a problem, net loss, bother, shame, yadda, yadda. I appreciate hearing when I’ve done a mitzvah. So should you.

Attention people who cringe at getting compliments – get over yourselves. Throwing my kind words and gratitude back at me with:

 

It’s insulting! Stop it. Your perverse false modesty is telling me that I am a liar, a fool, and stupid. Gee, thanks.  Don’t understand? Then imagine the following: You cook a nice meal for your friend because you love her and she’s just finished a big project of some kind and you are proud of her. She comes over and instead of eating and being pleased she throws the food on the floor, wings a plate at your head and mocks you for offering a meal to a nothing like her! How DARE you celebrate her success and your feelings toward her? Are you some kind of IDIOT?

So. Cut the crap and learn to accept compliments and praise graciously. No matter how undeserved you think they are. Capice?

And that, my darlings, is where I will finish up. Except to thank Simon again and to encourage you to check out his work.

 

Much love from a meme maniac, ~LA

Mama Has A Rolling Stone

I’ve decided what to do about diners. Specifically how to support my waitress pals. When I think about the impossible and inhumane position they’ve been put into I get furious. Enraged. Understand this: There is NO safe way to table serve food. None. Servers are literally being told to work or else. Enslaved by the nifty little goodie tucked into the last stimulus bill that says recalled workers who refuse to go back and either quit or get fired for ‘non-compliance’ are INELIGIBLE to collect unemployment insurance. That’s correct. The price of being an American with a tip-based job, and in most cases hourly retail workers too, the price extracted from the least paid and the hardest working is ‘Do Your Job or You Starve’. To add insult on top of death sentence there has been ZERO discussion about raising returning workers’ wages.

All you heedless selfish “Open Up!” people have chosen to be executioners of fellow Americans. Hope you can live with that, because the line workers and waitresses and hairdressers are surely going to die from it.

There is an economic jackboot on the neck of your server as well as the inevitability of COVID-19 infection. Then if she lives or dies is up to the crapshoot of whether the local medical personnel have space, time, equipment, or even their own protection, and waitressing is known for its generous benefits and health plans! Plus remember she’s been told to work sick or well so along with that plate of super nachos you’ll be getting your own dose of virus down at the Buffalo Wild Wings. Be sure to order extra guac with that death, okay?

How can anyone not understand this? What fundamental computation skill is missing? Surely the delicious joy of being an utterly ignorant shithead who says and does everything with a twisted scoring system of pain doesn’t match the ‘thrill’ of STAYING ALIVE, does it?

You and a lot of innocent people around you are going to die for your hate-boner, you ignorant pig.

Yes. I am that disgusted and angry.

See that? That’s a kidney stone. It’s not very big is it? Yet it causes a horrific amount of pain and no little damage to my innards. The selfish fucks and the easily manipulated ignoranties that follow them are like kidney stones. So small, yet so destructive.

Besides shouting about this in every available venue I am going to help financially. Decided every time I would have gone to the diner pre-plague I will put aside the tip money. Let it pile up for a bit and then drop it off at the diner. Ask whoever gets the envelope to share the contents around. It won’t be much, I’m in the same financial bind of grocery shop or die, but at least they’ll get a tip from a table they didn’t have to serve.

Tend your neighbor by NOT making them tend you. Pass this on safely.

 

Much love from a very sad, mad, and ouchie, ~LA