shhhhh...

last night the owner took me to the boonies, a place with no streetlights to turn off, nor sidewalks to roll up when everybody was done with dinner. we joined a group of "uni's" at their coffee house to see a particular favorite singer/songwriter. another wonderfully talented woman well down that long string of internet musical gems. amy speace.

i loved her. her voice, her playing, her lyrics, her genuine warmth. we met her at the break and her smile was kind, her eyes engaged.

during an intro for one of her songs she talked about renting a cabin in the woods to clear her head and to write. she realized during her stay in the forest that sometimes we write the things we are afraid to say.

she didn't go quite so far as to say sometimes we are too afraid even to write.

yes. it's been very quiet in here. but not *in here*.

the rich will always be rich

americans are going ballistic at the latest round of AIG bonuses -- $165 million contractually due to execs in the financial products division. yup, the same guys that broke the world. (that the total pay-out for 2008 and 2009 is actually $450 million seems to be getting lost in the blather) while some krazees are defending them as a necessary means of retention, ya know, keeping the really good guys on board (are psych evaluations part of this bail-out plan? cuz that's fruitcake nutso to say in your outside voice), bottom line is it's on paper. it's a legal obligation. that there seemed to be no performance standard required to receive a staggering bonus is something for another time when we visit opposite-land. the president, the treasury secretary and even andrew cuomo are all going brimstone and "up with this we will not put", but they're kinda stuck. it's like this plan was drafted on a cocktail napkin after too many gibsons in a final fuck-you gesture by the previous administration. that whole "let the market regulate itself" worked out so well, it made perfect sense to give all these recipients carte blanche, right? just push mountains of untethered money at them and it will all work out perfectly. (or maybe they had just watched that "dallas" episode where bobby wakes up in the shower and the whole season had just been a dream?)

rep. elijah cummings of maryland, a member of the house committee on government oversight, said he had been communicating regularly with AIG’s chief executive, edward m. liddy, about the bonuses ever since december. mr. cummings said he was particularly concerned that the bonuses were supposed to be paid by march 15, adding that he assumed treasury officials had the same worries.

from today's ny times:

“i assumed that they were well aware of it and would take appropriate action” before the march 15 deadline. “in light of the biggest quarterly loss in history, you would think that AIG and mr. liddy would have been able to convince folks who were supposed to be getting these retention payments, based at least in part on performance, that they might want to voluntarily not take all or part of them.” i almost spat my tea reading this. guys with history's most bloated sense of entitled hubris, working under a bail-out plan that required zero transparency and even less accountability, are supposed to suddenly do the right thing? instead of taking the money and running? on what planet does cummings live? "aw, shucks, c'mon guys. make nice? once ? please? with a cherry on top?" except the cherry is the no-strings-attached gajillion dollar pay-out and a soon-to-be life of leisure on a tropical island or swiss chalet for these execs.

yesterday iowa senator charles grassley suggested in a radio interview that AIG executives "come before the american people and take that deep bow and say, i'm sorry, and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide." now some pundits are pointing at grassley and shaking their heads over such crazy-talk from the cornfields. republicans aren't exactly known for their comic delivery and the seppuku bit is over the top only because it was reserved for samurais who had tainted their code of honor. the whores at AIG and their money bros had none, so certainly don't deserve the glory of falling on their own swords. i do seem to recall a couple of european financiers committing suicide last year when the edges began to fray, but i can't think of a single failed american ceo who has stepped down out of this whole mess. the big 3 in detroit and the money houses still standing all are still run by the same white guys who ran them into the ground, and our economy and future right along with -- as gm goes, so goes the country, eh?

as this debacle continues to spiral, i don't know who should be more ashamed. i do know that nobody involved in any of this -- nobody-- seems to have a sense of contrition. it's being played as an "oops" instead of a melt-down.

and the guys with the money? they still have it. they hire sheryl crow for parties (northern trust got $1.6 billion) and commute on private jets (ceo of bank of america --$45 billion). at the christie's auction of yves st. laurent's estate a hand-made chair from the early 20th century sold for about $28 million -- 10 times its pre-show value. one chair.

"he who wishes to be rich in a day will be hanged in a year. " ~~ leonardo davinci

not.

we can't afford that

• the metropolitan museum of art has laid off 74 people, and warns of more layoffs to come. we cannot afford art.
• the number of foreclosures in NYC rose 44% last month. we cannot afford homes.
• last year, american families lost 18% of their total wealth. that adds up to $11 trillion. we cannot afford wealth.
• the leader of china says he's "worried" about the trillion dollars in US treasuries his country holds. we cannot afford credit.
• six flags is on the verge of bankruptcy. we cannot afford fun.

but madoff is in the clink. that's something, anyway.

all men are liars

more than once, i've danced to this song at a wedding and drunkenly wondered the odds of that particular union succeeding. i mean, really? your first official party as mr. and mrs. and bridezilla includes that on the playlist?

i don't check my voicemail everyday, i look at the caller id. lots of "unavailables" and "privates" and "out of areas". anybody i'd like to talk to would call my cell anyway. plowing through the cache last week, i heard a gruff voice who only called himself a "blast from the past". now, if anybody reading this knows me, that doesn't really narrow it down much. it wasn't until the third message and the familiar whine of "geeze, aren't you ever home?" that i pieced it together.

back story:

it has been close to 20 years since we first met. with friends at one of our usual haunts i was on the prowl. i saw him and decided. mercenary that i was, he didn't really have a choice. he wasn't the first, nor would he be the last, to be surprised at how open i was about what i was after, and no surprise to me he ditched his friends when he realized he'd hit the jackpot. my apartment was walking distance, on a posh street in a swanky building.

he wasn't allowed to stay over and i didn't give him my number, but a few weeks later, aided by liquid courage, he rang the bell. his luck, because i'd just gotten home from work. "ya know, this isn't the first time i've come by. aren't you ever home?" he was cute, it had been fun, so i let him in. after a few more visits proved his dedication and capacities, i surrendered my phone number. i made no secret that there would be times he wasn't welcome and more than once i shooed him out because i had plans for which he was making me late. he was a sport about it, i'll give him that, even when he expressed a rather puritanical astonishment. i mean, c'mon, i let you come by and told you we had less than an hour before i had a date. put on your pants and get the hell out, ok?

this went on for years. whenever i asked if he was seeing somebody, he'd ALWAYS say, "not really." i knew it was less than true, but if he felt like she (or they) didn't warrant mention, so be it. whenever i was in a fit of monogamy, he politely stayed away. he'd check in every few months to see if the coast had cleared. when it had, he'd be right back over. all those years, i never once called him or visited where he lived. i never even asked. over time, i met many of his friends all of whom expressed amazement at "how long" i'd been around. lol. if they only knew what i was doing around elsewhere.

after i finally extricated myself from the alcoholic latino, b. rang me up just days after e. had moved out. i swear he was over to my house in minutes. did he call from, like, around the corner? he had been seriously involved with somebody too, but that was over now. how he'd missed me. how he couldn't believe all those years how lucky he'd been to have me. how he loved me. WHAT? since when? almost from when i met you. um, you never thought to mention it? he had wanted to get his career in motion, get settled, be more serious and then see where i was in my life. i called crock of shit. he didn't care what i believed, he was saying it now and could we be together? i was very jagged from my break-up and said i have no idea. we both were living on the north shore then, and his house wasn't far. he confessed having stalked my house more than once. um, creepy tmi, tyvm.

we saw each other more frequently then we ever had. it was strange, but in a nice way. i almost started to relax.

one morning in bed. he swore his love again. i had yet to say it. then he dropped one of the biggest bombs possible. "i'm going to get married." i nearly vomited. the one from before had given an ultimatum. blah blah. he was still talking when i told him to please stop talking. i don't care what she said to you, or "is making you do." get out. but-but-but. get out. i couldn't allow him the pressure valve of confession. (long ago, i learned the power in that little maneuver, lol.)

he called shortly after they'd had a baby. no. i do not want to see you. i was involved with the owner. i certainly didn't need another married man in my life. jeebus. he was friendly and jokey as always. i was frosty to say the least. "i still care about you." "no, you just wanna get laid." "well, i'd come over if you let me." "um, no."

best estimate, that call was about five years ago.

i don't know how long it's been since he's crossed my mind, but it doesn't surprise me that he's again sniffing around. now he's got three kids. he's been looking all over for me. he's found the google stuff, of course, but seemed surprised i wasn't on facebook. i'm not on facebook so people like you can't find me. he's been here. i wasn't home. really, no surprise to either, right? "i'd come over if you let me." no surprise there and you suck. "um, no." bitching about his kids. complaining about his wife. she's not that nice to me -- not like you always were. "we all make choices." how he shouldn't have let me go. "you never had me." but could i have had? "it doesn't matter now." he just would like to know. "it doesn't matter, and either way, i'm glad it didn't happen." he assumed that i wouldn't let him at me because i had a man. "i do, he's a good one, we've been together a very long time. that's not why you can't come over."

he was sitting in the dark, in the driveway of his rambling farmhouse. it was late. his kids and likely his wife all asleep. some of his friends still ask about me and why he hadn't married me.he was whining about the life that he had chosen and how he wished it was different. how he thought it might have been better.

please stop.

we all make choices.

he assured me he will call again. i assured him i don't care.

blinded, not by science

the vatican this week is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the publication of darwin's "the origin of the species." by having a seminar about evolution.

notably excluded from the invitee list were members of the "discovery institute", who espouse creationism and intelligent design. in fact, nobody who believes that hooey was invited. to the vatican. to. the. vatican. the organizers said they had barred intelligent design proponents because they wanted an intellectually rigorous conference on science, theology and philosophy.

most of the world is ok with it. the pope is ok with it. he is not in conflict that evolution can coexist with faith. pope john paul II articulated the church's position most clearly in a 1996 address to the Pontifical Academy for Sciences, saying the theory of evolution is "more than a hypothesis."

my thoughts on faith aren't relevant here. yet i am again dumbfounded to realize that half of americans do not believe in evolution and think the world is less than 10,000 years old. i mean, c'mon, there are not THAT many mormon science teachers. i first learned about evolution from nuns, for heaven's sake.

in a poll i read today, 44% of americans could not name a "famous scientist". of those who *could*, they most frequently named bill gates, al gore and albert einstein. none of whom were scientists and one is dead.

bush famously crushed science during his tenure. any truth supporting climate change or rational discussion of deforestation, the effects of toxic waste, strip-mining, pesticides, big-ag, nasa discoveries, blah, blah, blah (god, i'm a broken record) was subverted or buried. cnn has let go all its science people. science coverage on the tv news is nearly non-existent unless a rover goes rogue, and although my papers still have a science feature on tuesdays, i somehow suspect that's not the case in smaller towns or more shrill publications.

obama has already got physicists (climate guru) and science geeks hard at work. what worries me is how much time has been lost. an entire k-8, or junior high to senior year school career being taught only enough rote and bad science to pass standardized tests. the equivalent of a generation. our tradition of curiosity, imagination and innovation squashed by disinterest and disinformation.

of course, maybe now that hedge funds and banking have lost their get rich quick sheen, perhaps some of those bright young things might actually think to look to the stars -- through a telescope and not at the hamptons.

tax dollars hard at work

discussing obama's stimulus bill, one of our country's congressmen had this to say:

Rep. John Boozman (R-Ark.) "The American public expects for us to get in and know what we're voting on, but there are very few members from Congress that are going to have time to actually read this thing. This is not light reading," Boozman added. "It's difficult reading, it involves policy and things. Right now, because of those things, I will probably vote against it."

yes. it's really long. it's got numbers and stuff. who has time to read all that? what's he busy doing? diddling staff pages? is he kidding me? who reads most of the crap that gets passed? anybody? nobody read the damn patriot act either, but that malevolent document sailed right through both houses.

then again, i know arkansas scores near the bottom of states' literacy rates, so maybe the guy can't read at all.

and as the michael phelps bong hoo-hah continues, that town sheriff rounded up 8 kids to arrest and netted less than an ounce of pot. even stoned, that's not funny. (of course here, it's not even a crime, lol.) isn't there some internet bully the cops can stalk, or craigs' list hooker teachers in that neck of the woods? what's a boss hog to do these days?

even the pretty must suffer

this week, in resexenomics.

from the ny post:

"the perks at Fashion Week are taking a weird turn downmarket. High-powered fashion editors and retail merchants - who in seasons past have hauled off gift bags of Victoria's Secret lingerie, Calvin Klein perfume and Estée Lauder cosmetics - will be treated this year to McDonald's, Budweiser and Jell-O."

while mclattes may be steaming backstage, i have yet to see a pic of anna wintour cradling anything but starbucks in her bony hands this week.

ky is also in the swag bags, so at least the fashionistas won't have to bone in dryness. although if you're really busting the budget, i suppose you could use the jello for lube and still have a snack afterward.

the copy reads: "his excites. her's delights. together they ignite." some kind of binary sex bomb? lots of spontaneous combustion between the sheets may tax our already underserviced and overburdened fire departments, so be careful with this stuff, kids! (lighter fluid is probably cheaper anyway...)

on a happier note, pernod-ricard reported a surge in sales last quarter, up 16%. they own absolut, which, if anybody was watching, ran an advert during the grammy show, and in some markets during the superbowl. hard booze hasn't been on tv commercials in decades, but when car dealers and red lobster cut back their ad budgets, something has to fill the airspace and pay the salaries for the skeletons on "gossip girls".

can't afford a night out? so huddle in front of your amish electric heater, get your honey in your snuggie, crack a 6-pack, lube up and get down.

drunk sex may just save our economy, america. count me in.

more octo-momz drama

credit for prescience, please. :)

side-by-side pix of krazee octo-pussy and angelina jolie show an eerie likeness made possible only by blade and syringe. the yearbook photo of nadya shows a very different face than the carved and poofed one she now presents to the media's maw. she has sent fawning fan mail to the jet-setting baby hoarder. if there is justice, the state will take all nadya's kids and make angelina and brad take them. no passports required because i doubt they are as photogenic as the hand-selected benetton brood of the jolie-pitt's, but at least the kids will get 3 hots and a cot.

several years ago, she received a pay-out disability check of $160,000 after she was injured on the job -- during a riot in a mental hospital. yes.

she has used that money for her plastic surgery and ivf treatments. unemployed and with no spousal support, she receives food stamps and state aid for three of the six children she already had, who are each handicapped. she has no health insurance and the hospital that held her and still has all the infants is asking the state for over $1 million in reimbursement for this circus. california is $42 billion in the red. how soon before villagers with pitchforks and torches hunt down mother of the year and bury her flayed body in a shallow grave? suburban coyotes smell the air and are licking their chops, hungry for the rare and delicious baby-fat.

her flaks issued a statement that some church gave her a house. church spokesman replied she has never been seen at service, and has denied any knowledge of her or of giving her anything. never mind a house, not even a card. although they are very happy she didn't have an abortion. ahem. of course.

nadya plans on returning to school in the fall to get a degree in counseling. (physician heal thyself...) she will use her student loan money to support the brood. um, isn't that dough, like, for books? not pallets of enfamil? will she put all the babies in a wheelbarrow and bring them to class? who the hell will be watching all her kids?

the doctor supposedly responsible for abetting this side-show is now under investigation for implanting 7 embryos in a 49-year-old woman who is now pregnant with quadruplets. this one already has 3 adult children but wants to share new pitter-patted joy with her new much younger husband. uh, isn't 49 a bit outside the fertility window for one, never mind FOUR?

thankfully, octo-pussy now claims she is done having babies.

not to be outshone, tabloids from across the pond today published a story about a 15-year-old girl and her THIRTEEN-year-old boyfriend who just had a baby. the boy's voice has yet to drop and he is 4-feet tall. he looks like he is 8-years old, i swear. he does not get an allowance and has no idea what nappies cost but swears he will be a good father. his father has popped off 9 kids with various womenz. both kids live in council housing. an english minister is "so so very happy the children did not choose abortion". ahem. of course. and let's thrill to their decision to try to keep this baby and add to the dole that the teen mom's six siblings and single mother are on already. future's so bright ya gotta wear shades, right?

we now conclude today's trainwreck reviews. carry on.

baby hoarders

i blame angelina jolie.

this mother of a recent litter of octuplets is proving more of a freak-show each day. we now know who she is, that she and her tsunami of a womb bankrupted her parents and that her entire brood, all 14, including a set of twins, were conceived via in-vitro. she had a single donor years ago and ziplocked a bunch of frozen eggs.

no job, no husband, no baby-daddy, no visible means of support, other than her freaked-out parents, yet some doctor(s?) kept popping her up with fertilized eggs. "please, sir? may i have some more?" she always wanted "lots of kids", according to her mom, but was diagnosed infertile at a young age. stuffed up tubes or something. if there is really a hand of god at work, he was at least trying there, don't ya think?

GAAAHHH!!!!

she has hired TWO publicists and is fishing for a $2 million payday from oprah, sawyer or some such flak. "she just wants to make sure her babies have a secure future." actual quote. are you fucking kidding me? how far does $2 million go, split 17 ways, after the pampers and the enfamil stop coming for free? who will pay for the massive bill incurred by this freakish feat of science? who will pay for the special medical needs of these premature infants as they grow into delicate toddlers and teens? who will pay for the years of therapy these kids will need because their mother is a fertility froot loop?

the last mother who birthed octuplets called it a "blessing from god". if a doctor, a needle and a deep freezer are involved? uh, god is not between your legs.

with in vitro, the common practice -- and the ethical medical guideline -- is to "selectively reduce" the number of fetuses. so if more than 2 of the eggs "catch", the mother is advised to kill off the others. abort. nobody dares call it that, but the preferred euphemism really pisses me off. yeah, she could just as easily be killing off an albert einstein or a jeffrey dahmer, but who knows because the *pfft, baby, baby* is random. a doctor cannot force a patient into this option, but most women, having gotten this far and spent that much, make the mercenary decision to cull the embryonic herd. like most women, i have a conflicted view of abortion. a teen-aged girl, suffering the consequence of a broken condom must do the walk of shame into a clinic, past mary's on the half-shell and screaming haters, if she can even get to one anymore (thanks, george w.); but a well-off woman will be nestled in the quiet cocoon of a posh office having a "necessary procedure." "cup of early grey, mrs. so-and-so?"

frankly, i'm also not very sympathetic to middle-aged women who spend tens of thousands to force their wombs into submission. they either waited too long and misjudged their bodies' clocks or their husbands' swimmers are bent or laggardly, or what have you. i appreciate the egotism of wanting your own mini-me (look! i made that!), but i'm also a keen believer in the natural order of life. again, hand of god...eight is not enough, nor is apparently 17, because there is a show on cable now called "18 and counting." a website, a tv show, a blog, a book, ad nauseum, all about this conservative religious couple in arkansas that just keeps pumpin' out babies. they each were under 20 when they married. he has run for public office, apparently his only platform being that he is anti-choice. other than everybody having bad hair-dos, they seem like good parents. they are financially secure, work in their own business and none of their neighbors are talking smack about them. strange enough in this day of joe the plumber getting air-time, but everybody says the kids are nice and well-behaved.

transportation is provided by nine vehicles, including a 21-passenger bus. (which really only means they own 9 cars.) although where the hell they all go together, besides mega-church on sunday, is a complete mystery to me.

the kids are home-schooled, according to a christian program. i suppose if they were sucking up tax dollars for books and pencils and special ed classes, more folks might be squawking dirt. (am i wrong in recalling that home-schooled families get a tax rebate?) the family belongs to an evangelical christian movement called quiverful, which much like "taken in hand," teaches that the women are submissive to the men and the kids submit to both parents. like the exiled lds polygamists, the girls wear long dresses and modified mullets. quiverful holds that children are a blessing from god and that husbands and wives should gladly accept all the children they are given.

"we are just so grateful to god for another gift from him," said jim bob duggar, the dad upon birth of number 18. (couldn't he just have the one first name? jeebus, lol.)

neither the california nutcase nor this southern couple are being *given* babies. no stork is dropping them off on his busy global rounds, nobody's leaving them under cabbage leaves. i can't begin to fathom that doctors continue to enable the former (again, ego -- look what i made!!), and the duggars just won't "waste" the seed. hell, even the pope is ok with pulling out.

the duggars continue to conceive naturally, and the mother remains healthy.

ms. california is another story. is the ama on this yet?

they may seem two ends of the spectrum but both ends are whoring themselves and their KIDS out for dough. for fame. maybe to recruit more quivers.

if you can't be meryl streep or robert altman or yo-yo ma; or tom brady or giselle; or stephen hawking or stevie ray vaughan; if you aren't pete doherty, lindsey lohan, paris hilton or even amy winehouse, i guess fertility is the new option for your 15 minutes.

yuk.

pre-conceived notions

this is not my first recession nor downturn. there were mini quakes in the late 80s and the dot-com bust hit our fair city pretty hard. i gotta admit, i don't miss the hubris of those fidelity guys. (more fucking ARAUJO!!! followed by "i can't imagine making any more money." yeah. actual quote. where is he now? selling his used shirts?)

but this?

waiters do not get "laid off". business drives the schedule, so if there isn't much, and you're low man on totem pole, you're out of luck. BUT, you still "have a job", ya know? it's about volume.

today, my day off, i got a string of beseeching e-mails: "laid off." "let go." "no room on the schedule." etc. good, solid people i would love to clone. my own employer has us all in a panic with the savage paring of the payroll, and we don't have a helluva lot going on the next few months. so little the few of us remaining are full of gallows humor as to whom might be next. we all know it's "me". (the generic me, not me myself, lol) whaddya do? the best you can is it.

any mis-step might be the last.

never.

nothing.

nothing like it.

scariest times evah.

i'm glad i don't have kids right now.

knowing me, knowing you

in between tasks today, i had some lively discourse on a local board. my participation waxes and wanes with my free time and the topics running.

the recent opening of a place with a french 3-star michelin chef attached has people going crazy, lol. the project got waylaid when the original management company pulled out and that delayed the opening by about 8 months. luxury condos are attached and it sits on very pricey waterfront property.

caveat: i have not been to the restaurant. in fact, i was offered a chance to go last night for drinks, but my foul-weather gear made me feel under-dressed. my expense-account wielding companion agreed so we'll try another night.

the boards were a-twitter with talk of $20 martinis, but next to nothing about the food. (dial up your way-back machines, my friends, and i was a bartender at the place that broke the $10 glass of wine ceiling. the office chix in keds/anklets/anne taylor went insane.) the economy and the weather have kept many away, but an astonishing number had fierce opinions about a place they have never been. lmao.

the op sparked related threads. one poster and i had an interesting back and forth in all of them. he eventually linked his website. it has his picture. i know him. i laughed out loud. while polite, he always treated me as a lackey when dining in my places of employ. yet my nom de net allowed me the veil so he instead saw me as somebody passionate, knowledgeable and *equal*.

in that same set of threads someone began stalking me with the j'accuse of "tell us where you work, or your words don't mean jack." the site is tightly moderated, so all his queries did get deleted, but not before a bunch of "whoa, dude, how dare you?" replies popped up. i like to think i post in a thoughtful and passionate way -- my devotion to food and grape apparent and articulate. my defenders agreed, lol.

strange small world.

the web derailed my life once, ya know? not again, my friends. not again.

baker's dozen + 1

GAH.

the california woman who recently birthed a litter of 8 already has 6 children, including a set of twins.

i realize doctors are not ethics police and cannot force patients into choices, but, um, fertility treatments for this woman? are you fucking kidding me? she has proven sufficiently fecund, don'tcha think?

rumor has it that she lives with her parents and no "father(s) of the brood" is present.

who is paying for all this?

how long before she is on oprah?

is eight enough?

earlier today, a woman outside los angeles gave birth to OCTUPLETS. six boys and two girls, some weighing less than two pounds. delivered by caesarean, they all were born within five minutes of each other. what -- scooped out like fish teaming in a barrel?

the mother is expected to be in hospital a few more days, but the infants will be in at least two months.

doctors were quite candid about mothers who conceive with fertility drugs "selectively reducing to a viable number of fetuses." that she chose to carry all of them as long as possible was "unusual".

oh, and it was so crowded in the womb, docs thought she only had seven wrigglers in there. surprise!

forty-six medical staff were involved in the delivery.

the babies were nine weeks premature. three of them could not breathe on their own.

the mother of the *first* set of octies born in the u.s. calls it a "blessing". no. it. is. not. it's science and ego run wildly amok.

this is so profoundly wrong and garish on so many levels i'm speechless. truly.

who are these people?

the news that precipitated my recent trip home was horrible. not a thing that had ever crossed my mind in its bleakness -- it skipped the generational sequence, ya know?

guilt and anxiety battled it out in my head and heart as i rode down to ny in the dark. the years of silence, preceded by years of hurt, misunderstanding, selfishness, and confusion. i mean, everybody's family has its own brew of dysfunction so why was i so poorly equipped to deal with my own? honestly? long ago, i just decided it wasn't worth it. from a very young age i was given no emotional foundation and while still a teen, the finances dried up too. caught up in their own anger, and still playing emotional tit-for-tat, i could no longer harness the energy for it. at first it was surprising how easily they gave up on me. then... not so much.

i was alone. for real.

my mother and grandmother had always been fierce. bitter disappointed tempests who often reduced me to tears by the volume and power of their rage. rarely did i fight back, hoping to let the storm pass without adding to the ledger for future accusations. it was astonishing how tightly they held onto every hurt -- actions from my childhood, when consequences couldn't be understood because i was a CHILD living in a very confused dynamic. expected to be truthful and kind, yet party to deceit so often it makes my head spin to think about it now.

years pass. who are these people? they are my family and they are old and sad and alone and afraid.

my father cried upon seeing me, couldn't meet my eyes and confessed a very difficult relationship between he and my brother. a sibling to whom i feel no familial tie, really -- i've met him twice and both times he was a sulky quiet teenager. my father's guilt over my mother and me was apparent. but... so? let it go already. yeah, you treated us both awfully, but my mother was impossible and so complicit, right? me? it was so long ago, whatever i felt is buried so deeply i now only feel uncomfortable at his emotional displays. he stepped up for once in his life and offered to help at least cart me around a city i forget is so big. thank you.

part of my grandmother's decline is par for her age, i suppose. heading towards 90 and having had several bad falls. nothing ever broke, but years of standing at work followed by years of sleeping on the couch (still!) cannot be good long-term spinal strategy. the true shock was her brownstone actually being the grey gardens i nightmared it would be -- the cats, the smell, the rotting walls, the filthy kitchen and bathrooms, the trash, the overgrown yard and undone laundry. bedrooms that had become giant litterboxes for feral cats. my mother had been living there and her room, bathroom and even the bathrobe still on her bed were just filthy. which meant she was unwell for a very long time. she had always been a fastidious housekeeper, eat off the floor if you wanted kinda person. let's just be thankful blogger hasn't added a scratch-n-sniff widget yet.

this was my first visit to a nursing home. it was clean and didn't smell! my mother was getting her hair done. she didn't recognize me. she was in a wheelchair. she looked a million years old. her two front teeth were broken, i'm guessing in a fall, (of which i guess there were many) but that seemed impolite to ask at this point. we waited over an hour for her to be finished and then for whatever reason, my grandmother was in a huge fit was to leave. i ventured alone the next day, contrary to my grandmother's determination that i join her at some old folk's hoo-hah at the church. my mother seemed "in the moment", i guess, but only just there. she responded to my remarks, but never more than a few words. she knew about obama though and was amazed i'd met him. (even though "he is not the right color to be president.") she holds her resentment still about her mother, my father and the aunt who was the one who finally bothered to track me down. she was either confused or ashamed about some issues, like where is your car, where is your stuff and what the hell happened? i lobbed softballs, but none of what she had to say matched anybody else's accounts.

so now what? exit my own life that i've built for better or worse? in its present state, i could not live at my grandmother's. even regular weekly trips down to clean wouldn't make a dint in the dire state of the place. my perilous financial state will not allow me to rescue anything or anybody. my signature anywhere could prove to be my ruin.

part of my own disavowal of emotional quid pro quo was that there never was any "quo". saber rattling and blackmail, yup, but the returns were miserly. so i'm stuck in this tail-chase of what do i *owe* them? again, it's all on me. my phone hasn't rang, no e-mails or notes in the post. i can make my own rules, i suppose, but again, i have no play-book.

i promised my mother magazines. i will start there.

curtains

in the wizard of oz, much goes on about paying "no attention to the man behind the curtain." if that damn wizard wasn't irish, i'll eat my grandfather's shilaleagh.

"lace curtain irish" was a long-ago slam to those putting on *airs*. the first yuppies. your windows might look pretty to the street, but inside your house must still be a boozy caterwalling free-for-all, cuz god knows.

my first confessions involved curtains, not doors. the openings cloaked by heavy velvet red drapes -- obvious much?

i was a young young noodle (yes, that young) when i became aware of the curtains my family kept drawn. not asking others meant you didn't open up for others to ask you. don't say this, don't say that; i'm sure i recall only a small amount and yet it seems like a giant lead apron. i do remember heavy prepping before parties at the shore. my mom was never there. my grandmother's boyfriend's family... there was a woman whose name was "nanette", so when i screwed up and said, "nanny", i got a pass. it was many years till i wondered if that's why i was told to call her that.

well into my life as an adult, i know i don't *share* well. i guess i feel like i have too much to hide! frequently i am amazed by what others tell me. (sir bob might be a whole other post...) often i think they feel safe sharing because i don't. think about it. much like chaunce, i admit, i do "like to watch."

today i answered emails that had lingered too long, from women who have known me most of my life. friends. right? for over a year, i've been unsure of the best (?) way to explain the not-so-new dynamic of the owner and me. he's divorced now, i'm in the clear, right? ahem. no matter how i feel, their lives make me wonder what they truly think. i'm happy, he's happy, but on somebody's back? ack. they tried an intervention over the black eye, so we'll just see here.

and then? i had to tell them about peg. it was profoundly hard (then & now) to type " she's never coming out." they knew her as the sharp redhead with the jaguar, who let them skirt the truth if they got to our house on time. used to keeping secrets, i guess she felt as long as they were inside by curfew, all was cool. even when their moms called, peg never ratted out my friends. she did clue them in and make it VERY clear she would not lie on their behalf again. it worked. everybody wanted to stay at our house, lol.

recently they've all sent me family snaps. it's the holidays. i realized it's been ages since i've had a pic snapped. like -- years. for so long, i hid, and i still feel unsure about that. ( sidebar?) if there is no pic with my face, i don't exist. right? with the owner, it still feels safer to be hidden.

man vs. woman, again

from this morning's ny times:

One mother in TriBeCa, who is married, at least for now, to a Wall Street executive, put it rather bluntly: “My job was to run the household and the children’s lives,” she said. “His job is to provide us with a nice lifestyle.” But his bonus has disappeared, and his annual pay has dropped to $150,000 from $800,000 a year. “Let me just say this,” she said, “I’m still doing my job.”

since the crash, the times and its upscale sisters have all spent a fair amount of column-width on the newly spartanized lifestyles of the former masters of the universe, many of whose families were in the 1950s model of dad as breadwinner and mom at home. yes, these modern women had staff, botox and s.u.v.'s, but most of them gave up lucrative careers in their prime. hey, we all make choices, ya know?

time after time, (as if you need further proof of my masochism, i do keep reading the bits) i am dumbfounded how these women simply will not adjust or bend. they might go an extra week between blonde root-touch-ups, but won't forsake their $200 haircuts. they choose to keep buying $300 jeans and their kids' clothes at ralph lauren. why the hell are they still shopping? oh, right, cuz that was part of their job description.

but what really gets me is the blame. we face an economic meltdown of cataclysmic proportions, its depths still unknown and unfolding, and these wives fault their husbands. it's not seen as a time to pull together, scale back, make different choices, experience life as less of an acquisitional race, maybe get a job (!) most americans would view a salary of $150k as quite comfy. yo, ashley, boohoo about that in flint, michigan why don'tcha? many of these men were victims of hubris, which wasn't unique to the individual, but endemic to the institutional culture. yet their mean carbo-deprived wives see only personal failure and betrayal and not a gigantic paradigm shift. eat an english muffin (ok, just half) and step outside yourself for just a sec, maybe?

a woman who works for me is in the midst of a divorce, details of which i'm fine not knowing. the genesis of her remarks last night aren't so germane here, but the message was essentially any woman is an idiot who goes out of her way, even one inch, for her man. that he should be crawling before her at all times. she thought i was insane for taking the commuter line back and forth to see the owner. if i were meaner, i suppose i could have offered that i clean his house too and watch her have a nervous breakdown, lol.

heading back to the vipers' nest, i guess i've spent a little extra time of late pondering where and when so many women become so parsimonious of spirit, why they don't see it and why they don't put on the brakes. i watched sadly as so many people got hurt by it for so many years. souls blackened, love crushed, my own emotional development suffocated for so long.

let's hope it's enough to know i want better and i expect more, while being fully aware it's up to me to make it so.

distance

one of the more popular family anecdotes about little noodle was "the time she ran away". just past the age of 8 months, i was walking. whether it was the lure of the shoes or ambitious independence -- you make the call.

honestly, i'm sure having something that small toddling around had to have been a royal pain for my mom who frequently played single mother for stretches. she was shoe shopping (yup!) and i was being a "brat", so she put me outside the store, in the stroller, with admonishments to "stay put! i'll be right out. don't you dare move!" all that was left of the transaction was to pay, and when she did and came to fetch me, i was gone. being better behaved, the stroller had followed instructions, but i was nowhere in sight. we were in a very busy shopping neighborhood of brooklyn, on a wide avenue. she ran to the corner, screaming my name. nothing.

she dodged traffic, across the street to the police station. a childhood friend, who still carried a torch, tried calming her down and ran outside with her. they crossed the street.

he canvassed the other shoppers, people in the nearby stores. how could nobody see what happened? unlike today, with milk-carton kids, amber alerts and sex offenders, it wasn't off the charts to take your eyes off your kid for a second, so i can only imagine the panic in my young mother's heart. she wasn't yet 20.

no doubt it felt like a life-time, but i had been missing about 15 minutes when ronny (the cop) saw my hot pink beret bopping through the crowd. he ran and swooped me up in his arms, my mom fast on heels. of the 100s of adults i passed, not one thought to pick up this baby and look for her mom? wtf, ya know? or did i look that determined, lol?

best they could guess, i had simply walked a big square, all the way around the block. i wasn't crying or upset, in fact was laughing with delight.

from as far back as i can remember, i tried desperately to get away. i begged for sleep-away camp (which i got for several summers, and cried hysterically when i had to go back home. on parents' day, when they were always hours and hours late, i secretly hoped they'd not show, even though the counselors always worried about me being alone); i pleaded for boarding school (which i did not get); vacations, i went off by myself as much as they'd allow. if we had to sit separately on the plane, i was thrilled and pretended i was traveling alone. when i got a car, i would sometimes drive backroads aimlessly, just to get out of the house.

when it came time to choose a college, boston was acceptable because i could be home in a few hours if there was an emergency, and we all joked "ha-ha", that it was far enough away they couldn't just drop in on me.

as soon as i moved away patches of silence, emotional distance, punctuated the miles between my home and theirs.

the summer between my freshman and sophomore year, my mother insisted i wasn't allowed to remain in the city and had to come home. it was a long hot summer in that house and i cried often and ate little. one of the last teary exchanges ended with her saying, "you don't ever want to live home again, do you?" in my anger, i heard it as a j'accuse, don't ever even think about it, you little bitch, but she could have just as easily been dying inside knowing how bad things were between us, and that i never would.

this last stretch? i am not even certain quite how long. i know how long i have been with the owner, and i think it is longer than that.

as months turn to years, you stop wondering why and it just *is*.

then something you never dreamed comes true and you have to bridge the miles. in lots of directions.

the question remains how close do i get and still stay safe?

can't make this stuff up

“the bush administration took a lot of pride that homeownership had reached historic highs, but what we forgot in the process was that it has to be done in the context of people being able to afford their house. we now realize there was a high cost.”
~~former treasury secretary john w. snow being quoted in the ny times.

from 2003 - 2006, snow served as the 73rd secretary of the u.s. treasury. before that appointment he worked in the reagan white house, having earned a ph.d. in economics from the university of virginia. currently he's serving as chairman of cerberus capital management, which among other things, owns 80% of chrysler.

on a wire

saturday i went to see the documentary, "man on wire," about the frenchman who toddled between the twin towers in 1974. a supernaturally focused funambule, he has also crossed the sydney harbor bridge and the louisiana superdome. the world trade center caper took 6 years to execute. he spent 45 minutes in the air, back and forth about 8 times, and because all of it was so illegal, no press was summoned. there is no video, but there are photos of him 1/4 mile up in the air. there were moments when he simply laid down on the wire, surrounded by the morning.

when he at last felt finished, and fell into the impatient "octopus of arms" of pissed-off nyc cops, he was accosted by reporters and gawkers. what fascinated him then, and now in hindsight, is how the most asked question was "why did you do it?" he felt it a peculiarly american inquiry, and wasn't so banal as mallory to say "because it's there." all along, much of what thrilled him was the scheming. he watched old tommy gun/bank job movies for mind-set, lol, and spent hours criss-crossing a cable in his yard. to mimic the wind potential, his friends would yank with all their might to sway the wire he walked. he never once fell. yet he always knew that any step he took that august day could be the one to his death.

there are times in life when "why?" is a question with a simple answer. "because it's the right thing to do." however, when the query is posed in view of behavior with a negative or unpleasant impact our internal dialogue can get thorny and unpleasant. when a pattern emerges, that unresolved conflict grows like a painful cyst. my thick head can only go under so many times while i try to swim through the waves too strong. there is the fear of facing it, and deeper still, the fear of admission with the subsequent failure of self-management. which brings judgement. i am then terrified of the disappointment... the closing of the door.

and yet? i know quite well my behavior in all its feebleness is a response, not an instigation. and yet? a year later, i continue to display my insanity and weakness and keep walking into that same pointy stick over and over and over and never say "ouch" out loud. i drown the pain with an ocean and can't look for a raft. past training has taught me there was nobody around with a paddle. this is not solely talk of the owner, but my family too. there may have been some in my life to whom i could have reached out, but i was, am, always too afraid. the loathing is now so deep, i'd rather waterboard myself before somebody else gets to it -- just leave me in the drift and be done with it.

this morning, talk of emotional water wings in my near future. maybe i am not alone.

this isn't really news...

except that it involves a mom in wasilla. not THAT mom, but the mom of the kid who knocked up the daughter of THAT mom, so there is a bit of rubbernecking and epicaricacy.

the mother of bristol palin's baby-daddy is facing 6 felony counts for selling oxycontin. she's bucking convention since wasilla is known for cooking meth, but won't she make a fine granny?

this is a sad and not funny story of flat broke, bored trashy people in a miserable morass of a crap-hole town using and selling drugs to briefly escape the dull pain of their shitty lives, and it would not be news that the mother of a high school dropout who's marrying some idiot girl he impregnated was arrested for using drugs except that at some point we were all instructed to respect these folks as Real Americans. actually, the republicans were sort of right, these people are the truth of america's small towns, and that is why as a whole we decided to elect the smart, educated, well-off urbanite aspirational black couple from Chicago instead of the angry vietnam veteran and the scary PTA pageant creationist with the fucked-up trashy family.

'tis the season

gather round, boys and girls, for a troika of stories 'bout the holidays in the hood.

walking from the "t" last night, i heard them long before i could see them. f-bombs and the c-word ringing in the cold air. approaching the now-notorious bar where a girl-fight resulted in some cheek being bitten and spat to the ground, the guy was kicking the driver's side door. she was screaming. people were looking. bar patrons standing in the open door, watching. a friend came over, but quickly dodged away. don't know what the chick behind the wheel said, but her "boyfriend" then threatened to "punch her in the neck". new one, to me anyway. unless she had just had a tracheotomy or recent stitches to a knife wound, then i could see the threat.

kept walking and two short blocks away the street was jam-packed, cordoned off and lit up like a july noon. a movie crew at the police station. fake news vans all over, real and costumed cops drinking coffee. never mind the white trash domestic violence banging around the corner and still within earshot, k?

then around in the square. n-star or some such with a ladder in a hole in the pavement. hard-hats keeping warm with coffee too. detail officer in the street. also in the street, a barefoot woman slurring at the cop. she was laughing too, but he kept having to grab her so she wouldn't just collapse. legs of rubber and arms grabbing at the air, i have no idea what she was on about, but she thought it was hilarious. n-star guys just kept staring. this was about 2 blocks from the police station, and you know the cop had a radio and all those over-timers had cell phones. somebody, anybody, get that zima-crazed broad out of the street? it was below freezing -- where the hell were her shoes? "do you want me to call somebody?" i asked. nope. duty cop said he was all set. somehow, i got the feeling he didn't feel like doing drunk tank paperwork or interrupting the movie shoot. (those union guys really hate to be interrupted.)

was santa watching? cripes.

quality of life

it's measured in countless ways by everyone, and i in no way pretend that i can comprehend the life of a haitian who lives on a few cents a day and feeds her kids patties made of dirt, salt, a little cooking oil and barely potable water. ( we made mud-pies as kids too, but always knew it wasn't what was for dinner.)

i don't have to look at my ira statements, so don't. not being anywhere near retirement's edge, i don't need it for a long time. it was a pretty small amount that i know is significantly smaller anyway, lol.

last year, i spilled a significant bit of electronic purple ink bemoaning my work. many of us spend more time there than at home or with loved ones, and that's especially true for me. not a day goes by without me feeling a tinge of gratitude for how improved that situation is now.

my commute: many times, i spent more than 4 hours a day traveling to that hated place. now it's less than 20 minutes and just one train.

my income: above industry average now, allowing me to baby-step out of debt and actually have a little mad money now and again.

my employer: not trying to cheat everybody they meet or hire, and willing to give you (me) a very long rope. yes, it's one that can choke you just as fast, but if you're competent and motivated they stay out of your hair. contrast this with the constant microscopic dissection and projection of theft, laziness and incompetence i've experienced two times over now.

my co-workers: smart, fast, funny, ambitious. contrasted with so many recent colleagues whose value was simply a warm body in the building. the owners didn't want *smart*, or new thinking. do you know how many times my last boss told me, "we don't want to re-invent the wheel here"? do you know how many times my new boss has told me, "we need to be *different* from everybody else"? or better still, "what do you think"? the slothful here self-select pretty quickly.

product value: back in high-end dining, where the staff doesn't get intimidated because somebody is spending money, and the bosses aren't trying to pinch pennies in every corner. "exceed their expectations". yes, i know, the client is paying a fortune, but give them goodies not in their contract and they swoon. the chocolate bark given in bags as a good-bye favor recently made everybody insanely happy. it probably cost us $10 for 200 people, lol.

autonomy: one of my biggest frustrations with my 2 last jobs was the ball and chain the owners shackled on me. regardless of volume, unless you were there at least 10 hours a day, they felt swindled. managers falling all over each other in virtually empty dining rooms, yet nobody was allowed to duck in the office to do other work. schedule changes or days off required acts of god. often times, it was just more trouble than it seemed worth; the request was seen as such impudent audacity it brought unimaginable ire. here? unless i have an event or meetings, i can come and go basically as i please. 9-5, 12-8, 10-4, they don't care as long as your shit is done. wow. we get treated like adults rather than incompetent chattel. what a novel concept! honestly, our office is so isolated from everybody else, they barely know if we're on-premise or not.

paid time off: it accumulates per hours worked. so all these 50- and 60-hour weeks are being banked for vacation time. i fill out a form and get paid if i don't work. that simple. my last boss wanted SIX weeks' notice for vacation. for so long i knew i was quitting anyway, i just wanted the dough to live off when i left, so i had stopped caring about that lunacy.

i don't sit on a rainbow (in fact, my chair is more like a wonky grocery cart that i'm constantly coralling back into position) and ride unicorns around my job. there is much that makes me crazed and much room for improvement. BUT -- my bosses know that and want to get there, with our help. they trust me now as competent -- i sensed the switch after an initial observation period. so many have washed out (55 people since january. 55. not counting kitchen or service!!!!), they watch and see, and don't invest until they know you can cut it. that's fine by me. it's a transient business and this is one of the toughest in which i have ever found myself.

it's not killing me, so we know what that means.

:)

the ridiculous can be sublime

no secret to my tiny audience and meat-friends, that i enjoy food. making it, sharing it, eating it, exploring it, discovering it. nurture v. nature, dunno, but growing up most of my family was the same. holiday tables groaned with food, and those meals lasted hours. much of the spirit was the always animated and convicted conversation, (sell it!) where table-pounding for emphasis wasn't unusual. (only at home, yo!) dinner was always together, and pre-net it wasn't unheard of to leap up and seize the "world almanac", that stone-age data go-to. it's why i hate the tv on during meals. blabbing heads on the screen? the exact opposite of meal-time: a few moments, separate from the world, to savor and share both the food and one another.

culinary school quickly led me to fine-dining employment. the talent and vision of many of the chefs for whom i worked still staggers.

some people go bowling. (so i've heard.) my friends and i go out. in a small town like this, with an incestuous industry like mine, it's nearly impossible to go unnoticed in even the most unlikely spots. but! that's part of the fun.

on a second visit in 2 weeks' time to a new place (yeah, it's that good, i CANNOT wait to go back AND i love the owners) it was the simplest detail that blew us away. the bartender brought out a basket of rustic killer bread from iggy's. beside it, a little plate with 2 types of salt, a tiny sprig of thyme and a ramekin of spread. "this is pig butter." our eyes went wide. barely tinged green in color and the texture, of, well, i guess, lard. some on my plate and bit of bread. i don't know that i've ever had something so small be so succulent. we tried it with the salts. we dipped it in the ephemeral carbonara sauce. heaven. we had to praise the owner in a "we're not worthy" moment. it was simply rendered pig fat and extra virgin olive oil. the reason i didn't get any in the first week? they hadn't cooked enough suckling pigs yet to get the "butter" ball rolling.

2 ingredients, not even a major component of a meal, and i've been talking about it for days. we went to visit another friend's place after, and i sipped my gigondas extra slowly to savor the mouthfeel of the pig butter and see how long it would linger. (long time, yeah, love you long time.) our porky euphoria made c. swear he'd make the pilgrimage the next night.

having been at this a long time, i know plenty of people would be grossed out thinking of pig fat on their bread. only because they're not making the leap of what the hell that crunchy bacon is all about on their blt.

lucky me, for me and mine, we just want more.

not to be daunted, i need to make it. it's beginning to look a lot like christmas! have you been very good, or very bad?

buy nothing day

i mentioned this last post, have been more or less living it out of necessity for awhile, but the actual composition got me noodling.

no longer am i robbing peter to pay paul each month. my salary now keeps apace and is allowing me to actually chip away at the glacier of debt incurred through various calamities over the last 2+ years. not long ago, i actually retired a dangerous one, which felt very good. that monthly sum just gets plowed elsewhere, so it's not like i went shoe-shopping to celebrate, lol.

after i wrote about bnd, i paid close attention to how many days i went without opening my wallet. except to tap my charlie card, it was 6 days. i brought my lunch to work and i never visit starbucks -- both out of huffy principle and having tea bags stashed at my workspace. i'm not a coffee drinker, and their tea just sucks. their small (or mini-grande or whatever, i have no idea what faux-label they use) is like 16 oz and it's absurdly hot. so hot as to scald their tea. and it's like $4. my nights at work were suffiicently late and bookended by an early rise, so i never went out for drinks.

first time i spent money was for groceries, and i was on a specific mission to haymarket so my weekly needs would be less than $20. $14 got me fruit and lots of greens. a fraction of what i would have spent at my ghetto shaws.

some of my co-workers make several trips a day to starbucks, dunkins, au bon pain, and the various shops around our building. part of it is likely just to get the hell out of the office, get some fresh air or have a smoke, but those nips must easily amount to $15 a day. not my place to judge, but i'm just too aware now to piddle away my paychecks like that.

i'm not pretending that the constant vigilance isn't sometimes annoying. but it was that laissez-faire attitude (plus employers who preferrred parsimony and outright cheating over a fair wage) that got me here.

but paying down that one makes me know it's not impossible.

last time the owner took me to the movies, we were behind a dad who was taking his daughter and some of her friends to a matinee. just the tickets for them, before soda, gummy bears and popcorn, added up to $54. that's a movie, drinks and dinner out afterwards for me! perspective really helps me too, lol.

so i'm treating myself on this frigid day to a movie and a drink. my conscientiousness extends to giving my money to people i know and respect, so i'll visit a place recently opened by exceedingly talented and genuinely nice people.

light at the end of the tunnel and an appreciation for what's possible.

there may be a christmas tree in my evening as well.

life is good. :)

this new economy

black friday. a search for the term's genesis points to an article in a mid-70s philadelphia newspaper, but retail sales on that day have been a tradition at least since the inception of the macy's parade in 1924. most folks have off from work, they want the hell out of the house and away from the family, and it's considered the kick-off to christmas. anecdotally, it's the day merchants cease operating "in the red". historic analysis, however, shows the sunday just before christmas is the year's biggest ka-ching day -- black friday beat it only twice.

since i was a noodle old enough to go shopping on her own, i never understood the drive to join that stampede. news video of the mobs always made me a little afraid. even my mother, shopper extraordinaire, shied away from the mall and we mostly hung around doing house stuff.

the press has been nattering on about the tightening of purse strings in these dark and uncertain times. in what may be one of the world's worst economic disasters ever, the inanity is truly offensive: buy less stuff! buy on sale! use coupons! from the westchester moms full of faux humility and forgoing a new hermes bag "because it looks unseemly in these times", to downsizing or outright cancellation of holiday parties then finally through to the mom who works at wendy's and is walking 2 miles to work, to save money on gas so as to buy her daughter a winter coat for christmas. (who is falling more quickly through that non-existent safety net?)

friday on long island a wal-mart worker was trampled to death. the frantic mob had been camped out, (some for 24 hours -- perfect way to spend a "family holiday") and literally "door-busted" in the early morning dark to grab that must-have. in news photos it looks like the running of the bulls. the dead worker was a temp for one of the nation's biggest and most exploitative companies, which now seems to be playing a deadly sort of retail limbo -- "how low can ya go?"

in palm desert, california, two people shot each other at a toys 'r us.

trolling the net yesterday to escape mumbai, i stumbled upon "buy nothing day." BND . for 17 years, it's been a movement to not shop on black friday. how the hell is something like this not getting more media play? yes, it's full of insufferable save the worlders sloughing about in broken birkenstocks and no doubt stinking of patchouli, but this should be the time their message is heard and embraced. and manifested. we in the u.s. remain a fraction of the world's population and are its biggest consumers and polluters. there are 1.9 cars for every u.s household; the average home has 2.24 tvs and 66% more than 3; we throw away about 35% of our produce, unconsumed. rather than sitting on their fat asses inlawn chairs in a super-store parking lot, maybe those long island parents could have been home teaching their kids a different kind of lesson?

the other day, i made an off-hand remark to the owner that homeless people always seem to have money for cigarettes and dunkin' donuts coffee. he was quick with their reply that "why can't they enjoy what rich people do?" besides the obviousity of them being desperately poor, the krazee logic was astounding and saddening. if you have no place to live, you DO NOT HAVE DISPOSABLE INCOME. (although i'm running out of time here, the irony of that phrase bears some later googling.)

friday's desperation and dead wal-mart clerk may only be the canary in the coal mine of a seismic shift in our economy. those track-suited elbow-jabbers racing for a discount wii will not be the ones running to the top of the economic heap, i'm quite sure.

“an investment is by all right-minded people to be commended, because it brings comforts and necessities to the citizenry. but, if continued indefinitely, it will lead to the endless pursuit of unnecessary things.” ~~ adam smith, 250 years ago


this year i spent thanksgiving in one of my favorite ways: cooking a big spread for those whom i care the most and who in turn (i hope) care for me. i stuck to my budget. the day after, i was a good little worker bee, toiling away and tending to the happiness of others, and they were sincerely grateful for all of our efforts. win-win.

the financial squeeze got me earlier than many others and i jumped through flaming hoops to save my home. i'm no longer so alone in my income bracket weighing want vs. need with every paycheck. it gets easier, i swear. exhale, and think what really matters.

other hubris

i couldn't really place this in today's earlier post, but it's been bugging me since i heard it the other day: palin's being pranked by those canadian dj's.

taken alone, the call was funny enough. she sounded like a junior high school girl getting a call from the captain of the varsity hockey team (local jab for her, wink, wink.)

there is the complete lack of thought on the part of her staff to vet the call. she has professional shoppers and make-up people, but nobody screening her calls? her folksy informality of "hi, this sarah!", her ignorance of ANY of the give-away references that should have been her dime to the clue bus. johnny halladay, ffs!

as it's percolated for me though, what really bothered me was her in-the-dark hubris. all of france, and much of the world, is orgasming over the possibility of obama in the white house. why on earth would sarkozy call her to FUCKING CHAT?

they make me boiling mad.

record numbers of people have registered to vote this year. the last 2 presidential elections i woke up the day after to very bad news. i'll hold my breath til wednesday, tyvm. all i can do is vote.

you make the call

(wow--it's been awhile, lol.)

previously i've posted about willing myself away from most media during these last throes of the election. my residence in a non-swing state, tivo and npr limit my exposure to the worst of it. but some has leaked through:

a telemarketer in wisconsin by the name of mr. zoromski was prepared to interrupt people during their dinner hours to encourage them to vote republican. but when he got the script saying “you need to know that barack obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist bill ayers, whose organization bombed the u.s. capitol, the pentagon, a judge’s home and killed americans,” he packed it in. paid to make nuisance calls, this guy got sent over the edge.

at a town-hall style meeting, mccain told an audience member who said she thought that obama was an “arab,” “no, ma’am, he’s a decent family man.” we'll skip lightly over obama actually being an american, but being an arab precludes this? this dialogue was repeated enough to bring colin powell out of the woodwork steaming mad.

palin's flogging small-towners and branding them as "real" americans, and us city-folk as "something else". "the others". does she or her mullet-headed fans realize that nearly 80% of americans live in urban areas now? until 2002, her 1st-dude of a husband was a member of a group that wants alaska to secede from the union. very pro-america, that.

libby dole's tv ads proclaiming her opponent for her north carolina senate seat to be "godless". the woman to whom she is likely losing is a former sunday school teacher.

representative robin hayes, (also from north carolina -- besides winstons, what else are they smoking down there?) who prefaced his comments by saying it was important to “make sure we don’t say something stupid, make sure we don’t say something we don’t mean.” republicans, he reminded the crowd, were kind people. plus, he added, the liberal media had shown itself eager to distort such remarks. with the crowd duly chastened, he accused obama of “inciting class warfare” and said that “liberals hate real americans that work and achieve and believe in god.” this is the same guy who claimed the only way to victory in iraq was to convert all them muslims to christianity.

rush limbaugh: "it is striking how unqualified obama is and, and how this whole thing came about with, within the democrat party. i think it really goes back to the fact that nobody had the guts to stand up and say no to a black guy." limbaugh continued: "i think this is a classic illustration here where affirmative action has reared its ugly head against them. it's the reverse of it. they've, they've ended up nominating and placing at the top of their ticket somebody who's not qualified, who has not earned it."

in nh, a woman who'd voted early yesterday said she wouldn't vote for obama because he "is a communist."

dopy voters have always existed. slimy attack ads are nothing new, nor is negative smearing, so as disheartening as it to me (yeah, i remain a softie progressive, can't-we-all-get-along, but stay-the-hell-out-of-my-bedroom kinda gal) i accept its reality. but the willingness, the eagerness, to stoop to racism and feed people's fears makes me sick. in this, the 21st century, republicans are stirring up witch hunts, anti-american committees and dragging their hapless god through their fetid muck. the aggressive ignorance, combined with the damning of intelligence and thoughtful discourse of and by the far-right loonies who seem to be taking over the republican party make me wistful for the insight and mental agility of men like buckley and goldwater. creationism? are you fucking kidding me? (in this land of opportunity, and there's a monkey trial on tv --b.b.)

alberto gonzales is the only guy i can recall resigning from the administration under duress. even then bush praised him as "a man of integrity, decency and principle” and then complained of the “months of unfair treatment” that preceded the resignation.“it’s sad,” bush said, asserting that gonzales’s name had been “dragged through the mud for political reasons.” other than giving his cronies free reign, bush had no economic policy. lookie there! selling pencils and apples on the street corner likely won't cut it these days. although barrel-wearing might work as bold fashion statement. his fierce cowboy determination to go it alone in this increasingly connected world has isolated and shamed us in ways previously unimaginable.

there is an arrogance in the air surrounding the bushies that is suffocating. nobody has walked the plank admitting failure, and in a show of frat-brother loyalty, bush has called out not a one. a senate leader, an m.d. (!) who could diagnose a comatose woman via videotape better than her own personal physicians; george tenet’s wmd “slam-dunk,” cheney’s “we will be greeted as liberators,” rumsfeld’s avidity to promulgate a minimalist military doctrine, together with the tidy theories of a group who call themselves “neo-conservative” (not one of whom has ever worn a military uniform) have: de-stabilized the middle east; empowered north korea, iran, and syria; unleashed sectarian carnage in iraq among tribes who have been cutting each others’ throats for over a thousand years; cost the lives of over 4,600 american soldiers, with another 32,000 seriously injured troops saved only by very modern triage and 160 journalists also killed. but not to worry: democracy is on the march in the middle east. just ask hamas. and the neocons—bright people, all—are now clamoring, “on to tehran!”

“the trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.” ~~ paul valery

let's hope this is as true tomorrow as it was yesterday.

this is the most important election of my generation, and possibly since world war II. let's rock the vote, everybody.