The Assassination of Johnny Bravo

When I was a kid, Saturday mornings were AWESOME. Hour after hour of gratuitous violence as Tom and Jerry beat the shit out of each other and the Coyote sat on one too many Acme rockets, lessons in wit and sarcasm courtesy of Bugs and Daffy, and in between it all, doses of School House Rock and "Conjunction Junction" (30 years later, I still remember that song) in an altogether well-rounded childhood enabling me to think for myself as an adult. I learned from Charlie Brown that it was okay to be a little bit different, and the Smurfs taught me to accept everyone for who they were, that each person had value and something different to offer, and that the community as a whole survives only with the contribution of each individual.

Some years later, as a young parent, I saw those days already receding into the distance. Saturdays filled with Tom and Jerry were replaced by Power Rangers and mutant turtles but still sprinkled with the antics of Cow and Chicken, Weasel and Baboon, and the love of my life, Johnny Bravo. Now, as a (slightly) older parent (chronologically, not at heart), my children are reduced to watching "educational" cartoons; the ones that teach not only tolerance but compliance and conformity. The only time Tom and Jerry appear on my screen now is when I pay extra for it with satellite TV; and my 3-, 4-, 6-, and 7-year-old children have never even heard of Johnny or Smurfette.

When I was a kid, there were TOYS in my cereal box. Nowadays, all you find inside the box is some mystery sugar that may or may not be an edible food product and may or may not cause cancer 20 years down the road.

When I was a kid, a trip to McDonald's was a special treat. Counting the number of chins on some of the kids I've seen at the schools lately, home-cooked meals are now a special treat.

When I was a kid, a penny saved was a penny earned; and even if you wanted to splurge, you could still buy penny candies. Spirograph and Scrabble were fun, and Atari 2600 was THE SHIT. It was a family event to watch The Wizard of Oz once a year on TV. Holidays were a time for family gatherings and appreciating the premise behind that particular celebration. You earned not only those things you wanted but those privileges you were afforded.

The loss to my children is incalculable.

The Curse of the Big Mouth

THINKING BACK on some of the dumb shit we did as teenagers, I started to feel an almost desperate need to believe one idiotic (on retrospect) but thoroughly amusing (at the time) bit of teenage stupidity we succumbed to "back in the day" was not just isolated to our particular school and our particular generation. Interestingly, I got my affirmation years later.... as a parent with teenagers.

In high school, we were required to take a foreign language credit. At the time, our district offered only French and Spanish, so we were herded like good little sheeplings into one class or the other. By the end of the first week of class, we could all swear in that language; it was practically one of the first things we learned, in fact. Of course, this knowledge was not imparted unto us by the teacher but by the upperclassmen who had learned it during THEIR first week of class, as underclassmen; and the knowledge rolled on from year to year. I just had to believe it was not endemic to a bunch of hicks back in the 1980s, like a disease picked up from the water or a side effect of pesticide sprayed on the fields.

I'm the verbal equivalent of a tone-deaf musician in anything other than my native English, so it was kind of a coin toss which language to take. There I was, freshman year, in French I, the French III and IV students passing along the sacred knowledge of prior generations.... Really important shit like casse-toi, pauvre con and other stuff you could say and know you would not get into trouble, since anyone not privy had no idea what the hell you were saying anyhow. It takes the punch out of telling someone "fuck you, prick" in French when they don't understand what you're saying, but when you're 13, anything illicit is something to laugh about like a hyena on steroids. Then, of course, were the little tidbits passed amongst ourselves based on our various ancestries, like gruba dupa and lutsch meine eier.

We were really fucking weird. Unfortunately, *my* weirdness never really went away.

When I was young, I was fascinated by sign language and scarfed down as much as I could, trying to learn. The attention span of a 7-year-old, though, has a tendency to put a damper on taking knowledge-seeking activities to higher levels; not to mention the fact I had no one to talk to in Sign, so it was kind of a lost cause.

Years later, I met The Husband. Who is Deaf. Who only "speaks" ASL. Who does not read lips. Shit. I once again found myself in that favorite position of mine,the one between the rock and the hard spot: I really just wanted to fuck so I kind of needed to learn how to talk to him, if for no other reason than to communicate said desire to fuck.

Thus began my next journey into the non-English-speaking world.... And I'm not much better at signing than I am at speaking French; after almost 7 years, I still pidgin.

But this is where I got my affirmation, or at least partly. My boys were learning the language alongside me, but I needed to know the swear words. This was !vital! to learning the language, of course, and amongst the first lessons I received. No, these did not come from the books and videos I checked out at the library. They did not even come off the Internet. They came directly from a lifelong speaker of the language, a prelingually Deaf man whom I ended up not only fucking but marrying.

American Sign Language 101 gone wrong?

Back on track.... ANYHOW, we're "talking," the boys are watching and learning, and I'll be damned if they didn't pick up those dirty words out of context! Then their friends would come over and they would teach them - of course - those dirty words. THEN.... the high school (my kids go to the same schools I did, just different teachers.... I imagine most of mine are withered up and/or fossilized by now) started offering ASL as an alternative for the foreign language credit, so my oldest signed up. Having an advantage with sign being used in the home, he started that cycle anew, passing on those oh-so-important cusses to his fellow students, knowledge to be bestowed upon future generations of students....

There's gotta be something in the water.

Oh My God

I am a motherfucking genius.

A couple weeks back, I'd posted this brain-bomb after Dazd dangled an exceptionally tempting-looking carrot in front of my face:

At September 23, 2008 4:39 PM, allee

Doooooood. You chose some of my favoritest subjects today: The economy and the Depression.

Since I feel the Federal Reserve Act was a crime perpetrated against the American people, I cannot help but feel this "bailout" is little more than saying the first crime was no big deal and allowing a second to justify the first. Like we decided it was okay to knock an old lady down to steal her purse then letting the thief came back to kick her and rob her again because he forgot her wedding band. And laughing about it.

The central bank creates an environment leading us where we seem all too willing to follow - false manipulation of the markets to tweak a penny until it screams for the benefit of the banking elite followed by, unfortunately, the inevitable fast and hard blow in the form of recession that (of course) strikes the little guy below the belt just because he bought food and shelter instead of a nut cup.

The more manipulation, the harder the retaliation by the economy; much like in physics, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Factor in the natural ebb and flow of the economy and you've got a disaster waiting to happen. LIKE THE ENVIRONMENT, the economy has mechanisms of self-correction. We don't like how those make us feel, though; they don't leave us feeling all warm and gooey inside, so we try to avoid them by manipulating the system. But like water behind a dam, stuffing bubble gum in one hole doesn't keep the water from flowing, it only forces the water to find another outlet. Eventually, (and I love this analogy, so I use and over-abuse it) we experience the financial equivalent of Teton... The Great Depression.

Unfortunately, we didn't learn the lessons taught to us by history, so we are doomed to repeat it. We've allowed much more sophisticated manipulation and on much grander scale since the time of the Great Depression. Those self-corrections will be much harsher than those of the past and [sic] in turn, the results far worse. I know I've ranted my doom and gloom before, last time you dangled this subject in front of me, but I say it again. The next Depression will be far more devastating than the last - economically and socially.

This is interesting reading, if you're interested:

http://www.kwaves.com/kond_overview.htm

Okay, I know some of you think I am just a lunatic, that I drank a little too much Kool-Aid or maybe was dropped on my head too many times as an infant. You may be right, except for the Kool-Aid Part, since the only sugar in liquid form I drink is Mountain Dew. But aren't all geniuses a little weird around the edges?

Once again, I was right. Once again, I was ignored by pretty much everyone. But instead of saying "I told you so," I'll just let you in on a little secret: It's time to prepare for the final meltdown - NOW.

Have you ever watched footage of the Teton collapse? Fascinated by this event, never having learned about it in school but on (I believe) the History Channel some months back, I began reading about it, interested and wanting to know more. That was when I had my "epiphany." Our economic system and the markets of its operation are man-made constructs, subject to the same faults of engineers but also subject to falling victim to human greed. The economic version of the Teton breached and ruptured once already. Instead of taking instruction from the mistakes of our past, moving forward yet leaving the ghastly remains of our failure in plain sight so as not to repeat it, we just started shovelling even more dirt in the hole, rebuilding that same damn dam on the site of the first, burying that failure and hoping it will be soon forgotten.

Time passes, memories fade, and eventually those of the generation that survived the first rampaging flood pass away, future generations not learning from the experiences of their fathers and their father's fathers. Except someday, the water will once again leak through.

(This may seem like diverging off topic, but now you will see my true genius)

The environment, nature, Planet Earth, has series of natural cycles, rhythms, waves. Whatever terminology you prefer, the premise behind all is that there are upswings and downswings. There is a rich geological and archaeological record documenting the planet's - as in GLOBAL - warming and cooling periods dating back millennia. What causes this? Is it Man, plundering natural resources and polluting the ecosystem and creating global warming? Absolutely not. In fact, Man has little to do with it. Global warming (and cooling) results from the combination of planetary tilt and rotation, orbital deviations, gravitational pulls by other celestial bodies, and even the movement of our solar system within the Milky Way and the galaxy's course across the universe. Nothing will EVER occupy the same "place" twice in an infinite universe in which all components are in continuous motion right down to the atomic level. (Is that profound, or what?) Astrophysics on steroids.

Lesson #1: Man is but an insignificant speck when considered in context of an infinite universe. All things being equal, the entire population of planet Earth, all 6.6 billion of us - including me - is but an insignificant speck when considered in context of an infinite universe.
Lesson #2: Man is only a marginally more significant speck when considered in context of the finite proportions of Planet Earth. However, all things being equal, the entire population of planet Earth, all 6.6 billion of us, is just a really fucking annoying parasite.

We (humans) glorify ourselves, thinking we are so important that we have the ability to effect some truly horrific, radical destruction of the Earth. In reality, the worst we could ever do would be to effect some truly horrific, radical destruction of ourselves as a species. Asteroids and comets have pummelled the face of the Earth, but the Earth has endured, nature has responded and adapted, improved upon itself, strengthened and grown, incorporating and enveloping that foreign space rock into itself. Even if we nuked the shit out of each other, the Earth would endure, nature would respond and adapt, improve upon itself, strengthening and growing, incorporating and enveloping each of us back into itself. So are we really as powerful as we lead ourselves to believe?

Upswings and downswings. Any attempt we make to change the natural course of the environment will be met by an inherent self-correction. The more manipulation we exert, the harsher the correction: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Eventually, diddling around with it too much gives you the kind of situation you can watch in high-definition in movies like The Day After Tomorrow. (Yes, I know this is a movie, a work of fiction, but all creative works have some basis in reality.) We - as in humans, specifically ALL humans - got carried away and exacerbated and/or accelerated the natural cycles of the environment; and nature responded, mitigating the effects of our abuses with what was best for the planet, even if it was not what was best for it's inhabitants.

The economy is a dynamic, almost "living" entity, created by man but in many ways similar to the environment. Its very nature has endowed it with the ability to grow and adapt, giving it the same self-correction capabilities found in nature. The more we manipulate it, the harsher the correction. The meddling within the system is causing it to self-correct. Instead of allowing it to do so, further manipulation is attempted.

Eventually, just like the cracks the formed in the face of the Teton, the cracks begin to form within the economic structure; and eventually the breach will rupture and carry us all downstream. This is the ultimate in self-correction, the Body's capacity to maintain equilibrium, what is best for the economy, even if it is not what is best for the manipulators.

I saw a video clip a while back, Nancy Pelosi asking what was so great about the Great Depression? I'll tell her what was so great about it. It was a Great Opportunity for us to learn and grow and fill in the holes and gaps and cracks in that dam we insisted on rebuilding; but instead of learning, we shrugged it off - our Great Folly - and now we will pay a Great Price.

Blame it on Bush

(Up-tempo game show-type music plays, camera pans across cheering audience)
Announcer: Democratic or Republican, Republican or Democratic, Elephants and Asses are no help here in your quest to reach... The Winner's Circle! Anyone can play, but only the quickest will win! It's America's hottest new game show....
Audience: BLAME IT ON BUSH!
Announcer: And heeeeeeere's your host.... Mr..... Maaaaaaaaaatt..... DAAAAAAAAAAMON!
(camera pans across flailing audience, foaming at the mouth)
Matt: (waving arm to settle crowd, hand signal to Brutus in the back with suspicious bulge under his jacket, to be on guard) Hello, everyone, welcome, and thank you for joining us. Wow. What a great crowd. It's so great to see you all fired up. Okay. We all know how this works, it's fun to play and easy to win. All you have to do is...
Audience: BLAME IT ON BUSH!
Matt: Please welcome our first contestant, Nancy from San Francisco. Nancy enjoys scrap-booking and cooking....
Nancy: Excuse me, Matt?
Matt: Yes, Nancy?
Nancy: It's actually "cocking," not cooking.
(Audience screaming/flailing/foaming)
Matt: (chuckles) Ohhh...kay. Sorry about that. Nancy enjoys scrap-booking and cocking.... Nancy?
Nancy: Yes Matt?
Matt: You are one naughty girl.
(Audience screaming/flailing/foaming)
Matt: (laughing and shaking head) I can't do it. Really, I can't. I'm sorry, Nancy. (Laughing and wiping fake tears from eyes) Oh. My. No, I just can't. So allow me to introduce our returning champion, finishing out our last round with a grand total of $700,000,000,000 in cash and prizes.... Damien from Chicago.
(Audience screaming/flailing/foaming)
Matt: Wow, Damien. That is, that is just amazing. Wow. Congratulations, man.
Damien: Thanks, Matt. I can't tell you how great it is to be here.
Matt: Okay, folks. Let's get ready to play:
Audience: BLAME IT ON BUSH!
Matt: Now, you both know what to do. I'll read the question, and whoever buzzes it in fastest - and gets the correct answer - wins the points. Speed is what's gonna get your foot in the door, but only the correct answer wins the cash. Are you ready?
Nancy: I'm ready, Matt.
Damien: Let's do it, Matt.
Matt: Okay. Here we go. The first question:

Matt: Who squeezed the toothpaste in the middle of the tube?
Damien: ~~~BUSH~~~

Matt: Who left half a square of toilet paper on the roll?
Damien: ~~~BUSH~~~

Matt: Then didn't bother to get another roll?
Damien: ~~~BUSH~~~

Matt: Who farted and tried to blame the dog?
Damien: ~~~BUSH~~~

Matt: Who took the remote?
Damien: ~~~BUSH~~~

Matt: Who ordered the attack on the Twin Towers of the WTC?
Damien: ~~~BUSH~~~

Matt: Who ruined the American economy?
Damien: ~~~BUSH~~~

Matt: Who nailed Jesus Christ to the cross?
Damien: ~~~BUSH~~~

Matt: Who got Jamie Lynn Spears pregnant?
Damien: ~~~BUSH~~~

Matt: Who made Ellen gay?
Damien: ~~~BUSH~~~

Matt: Who caused the extinction of the dinosaurs?
Damien: ~~~BUSH~~~

Matt: Who broke Apollo 13?
Damien: ~~~BUSH~~~

Matt: Who tripped that kid that was running in the hall on the way to the bathroom and made him shit himself?
Damien: ~~~BUSH~~~

Matt: Who barfed/pissed/shit all over the toilet bowl, tank and seat, sink, floor, walls and ceiling at the bar this weekend?
Damien: ~~~BUSH~~~

Matt: Who shot JFK?
Damien: ~~~BUSH~~~

Matt: Who shot JR?
Damien: ~~~BUSH~~~

Matt: Who got a blow job in the Oval Office and made a mess on Monica's dress?
Nancy: ~~~BILL CLINTON!~~~

Matt: (Turns slowly to Nancy, motioning for Brutus to come NOW) What the fuck kind of answer is that, Nancy?

(Screen goes black, then white. High-pitched, ear-piercing tone sounds.)

PLEASE STAND BY FOR AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM THE EMERGENCY ALERT SYSTEM. ATTENTION: THIS IS NOT A TEST. REPEAT: THIS IS NOT A TEST.

THE PRESIDENT: Good evening, fellow Americans. Moments ago, two intercontinental ballistic missiles directed out of Iran were detonated here, on American soil, destroying the cities of New York and Detroit...

Har De Har Har

WELL, HELL'S BELLS.... I changed my template again. I really like this one, so I'll probably stick with it for a while. Maybe. We'll see. I don't know, and I'm feeling a little weird(er) around the edges this week. I finally got my blogroll back up in 2 of the 3 bottom bars, the third for "goodies." If I missed someone, I apologize--just let me know and I'll get you added. I also put up a few of my photos I managed to scrape off my old hard drive, from Tahquamenon Falls and Sleeping Bear Dunes. Now I just need to find my CD with the rest... And I should probably fix my scanner and start scanning in all my old 35-mm pictures from all over the Upper Peninsula. That sounds like work, doesn't it? Fuck it. (PS: Those are MY pictures, and NO you may not "borrow" them, so I guess I'm exercising my copyright privileges, and of course I know I am an asshole.)

And yes, Fiar, it's another one of those left sidebar kinda thingamajigs and NO I did NOT look at the code or source or whatever it was you mentioned before.... I'm a hardware kinda gal, not software. I was caught fleeing the scene of that crime after my brief interlude with COBOL. A college class I voluntarily took for no good reason--and paid for. I really was (beyond) nuts in my younger days... But this new stuff is all Greek to me, and most days I just don't have the testicular fortitude to take on that challenge. My big brass balls are in need of some polishing, and I'm just too sick and too tired to bother.

DOS is more my speed. It's black and white and all in absolutes--no ifs, ands, or Booleans about it.

By the way.... Fiar is so awesome, I want to have his babies. (Just kidding, buddy.... I've already got a ball and chain. But I might consider a blo.... Never mind.) He was running (actually I think it's still going, since I still see it in the footer of his posts) a contest to win a copy of the DVD Unelectable. I couldn't resist, LOSER stamped on my forehead and the only thing I'd ever won in my life being a diaper bag full of baby goodies from Babies R Us, so I entered.

Dude, I got mine in the mail Saturday!!!! *squealing like a girl* Unfortunately, I haven't been able to commandeer the TV long enough to watch it.

So that now makes TWO things I've won in my life. I'm so proud.

And right now I am exhausted. I've munched down TWO Provigil today, something I haven't done in a few weeks now, but I am just run down from this nastiness I caught and can't seem to shake. And I have a shit load of work staring me in the face, it's 2 a.m., and I don't even want to touch the stuff (which has already been sitting here for a week, no wonder the dude fires me; I just can't figure out why he keeps COMING BACK to me, since I've not been the most reliable, but maybe he just likes my GUARANTEED PERFECTION). I guess it's time to break out the caffeine. That 2-liter bottle of Mountain Dew makes a great accompaniment to my inhaler and pack of Marlboro Milds sitting on the desk....

Back in the Day

I remember back in the day... When primary education actually seemed to involve filling children's heads with knowledge, giving them a solid foundation on which to develop the skills needed to transition into a future beyond the walls of the institution; to enable them to step into society and be productive, willing and able to support themselves and their families; to allow them to grow and function within the community; to make them strong in body and mind and able to survive.

I'm only 35, but times sure have changed.

Four of my six children attend the very same public schools I did as a youth: The same elementary, middle, and high schools. Two of my children have been singled out, unable to walk those same halls of learning; and my husband and I were forced to make a choice:

Michigan School For The Deaf... or
The Hearing Impaired Program within the Saginaw County school district.

I know--and accept--that there are few Deaf families in our area. I know that this "lack of need" limits the choices available to us, but it bothers me how this directly impacts the outcome of my children's education. They are "different" than their siblings and essentially every other child in the community; in the eyes of the world beyond the walls of our home, my children are "broken" and need to be "fixed."

I want to close that gap and bring our worlds together. I want to eliminate the disparity in the "fairness" in dealing with Deaf children and Deaf adults. I know these are lofty goals and will take monumental effort to reach, but the situation my family faces is NOW, an immediate and pressing need. The "right" decision today could bring us one step closer to realizing those goals and ensuring my children's future in society, and I insisted on enrolling them in the local school program. A large part of this was due to their tender ages (our daughter age 4 at the time, now 6; and our son, currently age 3), but I admit that I wanted them "mainstreamed" into a society that has historically willfully and deliberately excluded "their kind." I wanted them to have a fighting chance at a decent education and a decent job. At the same time, I needed them to be able to embrace BOTH cultures (Deaf and Hearing) they are entitled to claim, rather than isolating them into a strictly deaf community at a Deaf school, where they are exposed only to other Deaf. This obviously poses problems with trying to open up another world to them--the Hearing world.

At the time, I felt it was the right decision. Although both children are profoundly Deaf, they (seem to be required to) use hearing aids while in the public school; neither child minds using them, so that was never really an issue. Our daughter had come from an environment where her Deafness was looked upon as only a disability, rather than a feature of her identity, and was not well educated in a language suitable for her abilities--American Sign Language. When she came to us at age 4, her communication level was years behind her chronological age and she had a long way to go to catch up to her Deaf peers, as she had only received language instruction for one year while in foster care prior to coming to us; the first 3 years of her life, she had basically none, biological mother refusing to accept her Deafness because she wanted the girl to be Hearing and not Deaf, and teaching her more than basic signs (food, eat, bed, etc.) would have been surrendering the battle--regardless of her daughter's best interests.

She loved school, loved her teacher, loved her classmates. Throughout pre-K and kindergarten, her day was split between "deaf" and "hearing" classes--exactly what I wanted. This year, however, she appears to be only in a "hearing" classroom. She said they don't always give her her hearing aids, eliminating any possibility of making use of her tiny bit of residual hearing, but she is upset because the teacher does not use ASL--my daughter's primary language--to communicate with her and she has no interpreter, so she is lost. She is upset, as are my husband and I, since this was not the program outlined to us when we enrolled her. Even at the age of 6, she recognizes the inappropriateness of this; and I, as a parent, have realized that not only is she not TRULY being mainstreamed into a hearing society as I desired, she is once again being willfully and deliberately excluded.

My husband has taken her to MSD and she is interested, so we would like to see if she can attend some of the MSD programs while still being a student at the other school and transition her gradually from one environment to the other. I imagine the answer will be "no," with the fucked up way inter-district applications are handled. We needed to get "permission" from our home district to allow her go to other school. Apparently since they live in one district and funding goes there, they have to "release" a student to reassign funding, or some stupid shit like that. I never really understood it, and the red tape is enough to piss any rational person off.

As for my "normal" children: The difference between what I learned in school and what they are learning today within those same walls is like black and white, disturbing on many levels.

In the 2nd grade, I was required to memorize and recite the multiplication tables through 12. My middle son still could not do this by the 5th grade, this exercise in and of itself deemed "unnecessary." In the same middle school he now attends, I was able to choose from many elective classes including band, art, computers, home economics (with actual cooking and sewing), drama class, wood shop, and drafting. Gym class involved actual exercise and sports like basketball, softball, football, and volleyball; we performed aerobics and gymnastics; and we made use of the school's top-notch indoor pool. I was offered advanced placement classes in history, math, social studies, English, science, and more. Now, the drafting room has been replaced by a "tech lab." The swimming pool has been closed for years. The theater and wood shop are only available to high school students. The art and home economics rooms have been divided into smaller classrooms and a teachers' lounge, those classes dropped from the curriculum. Gym class is no more.

Where I learned to cook and sew and paint in classes so many of us loved, now the students have no access and the classes and classrooms have been eliminated. Do children of today have no use for skills like cooking and sewing? No need to creatively express themselves on a canvas, with a mold of clay or fresh piece of lumber? No need to exercise their bodies as well as their minds?

Far more distressing, though is the quality of the CORE education my children are receiving in what is left of the curriculum, although this was already dubious in the latter days of my public school experience. My son, now in the 8th grade, cannot even tell me who President Taft was and identifies Kennedy only as "Ain't that the guy who got his head blown off?" He knows nothing of the rich geological history of our state outside of what I have taught him with jaunts to Keweenaw, Iron Mountain, Sault Ste. Marie, Porcupine Mountains, Fayette, and Pequaming. He has little to no knowledge of our own local history and assumed I was "pulling his leg" when describing the scheme to span Michigan's lower peninsula with a series of canals and the spectacular failure of that venture. So much history yet little more than a curiosity, hardly worthy of even a footnote, buried and forgotten.

I did attempt homeschooling once. I was forced to admit defeat when my son refused to do a lesson, telling me me "We don't have to do that in REGULAR school," after assigning 10 words from the dictionary to define and use in a sentence--an exercise we did weekly while I attended "regular school."

When conveying knowledge to my children, I feel it appropriate to turn every experience, every activity, into a learning experience--like taking them to places rich in history--a way to grow the mind and learn to look to the past while blazing the way into the future, and having a good time doing it. "The institution" only shoves them out in a quest to pass government-mandated standardized tests that teach nothing about preparing for the future and even less about learning from history, not just about it.

Where Did THAT Come From?

Striking me in the head like a ball out of left field when I'm busy cloud gazing, it whacked me a good one and made me THINK REALLY HARD. I hate when that happens, but I guess we all need a good thunk every once in a while.

I have carried an intense bias—a prejudice—against Hillary Clinton for years. It grew roots even before she took her final steps as First Lady through the White House doors but lay dormant while she occupied her Senate seat: Out of sight, out of mind. That slumber was disturbed and that insularity grew at an astonishing rate throughout her bid to walk back through those doors and once again attach herself to one of the great American icons. I could never put my thumb on WHY I felt that way about her; I could be shallow at times, having other more important personal issues to deal with besides not really giving a shit and not feeling any pressing need to analyze my "relationship" with the former First Lady, the Senator from New York. After all, I don't live there, so she's not my problem.

During the primary season, I was deeply mired in the most horrid living nightmare imaginable, and I was just plain angry—all the time. Sometimes I felt as though I were outside myself, watching some asshole invade my body, stomping and snorting like a bull on the wrong side of the fence from a cow in heat. I wallowed in self-pity, but mostly I was just pissed off—at everyone and everything, all the while dying inside at the thought of my existence as a human being—who I am, who I have been and could still be, my legacy—being erased, wiped out with a toss of the dice.

I spent a lot of time ranting against Hillary (and her look-alike wannabe, *sneering and sarcasm dripping* my very own governor, Jennifer Granwhore), poking fun at her (both of them, really, but particularly Hillary) along the way until she finally bowed out of the race. I see now that most of it was just a diversion away from the reality of my own pain...

A veritable shit storm was brewing in my life. It churned and heaved, pushed and pulled, until finally the torrent was raging past the floodgates. Much like the response to Katrina, I threw a couple of sandbags at it and ran in the other direction, shouting a mantra of "I see nothing, I know nothing." My big fat ass didn't move fast enough, though, and all hell broke loose when it finally caught up with me. By that time, I was a broken person—physically, emotionally, spiritually. I never really dealt with anything, instead tucking issues away into the "Too Bad, So Sad," "That's Life," and "Oh Fucking Well" files, shipped off to storage in the recesses of my mind.

I was nearly destroyed by the chasm that tore through my life on September 12, 2007; although healing was allowed to begin on the 143rd day, the terrorist acts directed against my person created wounds that would take years to mend—and still leaving me with a horrible, twisted scar. I was a wreck, willfully tortured to suit another's obscene pleasure.
I got angry.
I railed against the system.
I bucked and bridled.
~~I screamed and cried and pulled out my hair.
~~I sat stoic and detached, isolating myself from the world.
~~I begged and pleaded to God Almighty for release.
~~I laughed and ran in circles like a lunatic dumped rudely out the asylum window, deprived of the mind-altering drugs that life and functioning were dependent upon.

You can only run from reality for so long. She is a relentless mistress, howling in the night and stalking you through the shadows and fleeting light of your mind, invading your dreams and every waking thought, finally reaching across the distance to tap you on the shoulder and announce her arrival. She will strip you naked and flay the flesh from your bones in a gruesome testimony to her power. You have to deal with her, one way or another.

Recently those files, previously casually dismissed, managed to hitch a ride back to Central Dispatch: Plopped down in the center of my desk, open wide and demanding my attention. I was overwhelmed at the enormity of the issues I failed to deal with in my life, but I knew I must tackle them, one by one. Out of the blue, it dawned on me what it was all along that bothered me, the reason I had such a bug up my ass about Hillary Clinton.

On more than one occasion in my life (3 to be exact), my "significant other" cheated on me; while the relationships had not been marriages, it had been expressed and implied as being monogamous. I hold a promise in high regard, and I despise broken promises; if I know I cannot deliver on a promise, I will not make it, but if I do make one then I will hold to my word. I can declare, resolutely and honestly, that I have never cheated—not even on a man I was "casually dating." On the other side of that nickel, I can resolutely and honestly state that I have thought about cheating in retaliation but realizing that petty act has no meaning since he has already done the deed, was obviously not emotionally vested in the relationship anyhow, and my actions would have been moot—nothing more than further degradation of myself and my self-esteem. So I never did it. I'm an asshole, but I'm not stupid.

Here's the thing, though. Having knowledge of this foul act devastated me. Why would he do that to me? Am I not good enough for him, that he has to find what he needs elsewhere? What is wrong with me?

Or... Is he just an asshole?

In my famous manner, I picked it apart and analyzed it—methodically, rationally, and objectively. I found that the answer—and the question—is the latter rather than the former. I am who I am, and that will never change. If someone doesn't like me for who I am, tough shit. This was HIS loss, not mine. I may have been stripped of some dignity, but I still had my integrity.

Seeing Hillary appearing to do NOTHING in response to her husband's wandering dick just really pissed me off. How dare she not stand up for herself? How dare she roll over and accept this kind of behavior from a man who swore an oath before God binding himself to her for life, denigrating her with his philandering?

HOW DARE SHE?

Then I saw this video:



And I realized... We all deal with the humps and bumps in life in our own way. I have mine, and Hillary has hers. I can't say how Hillary dealt with Bill's wandering dick, obviously doing so in private (as is her right)—but dealing with it, living with it, and moving on with life. Who was I to criticize her decision to stand beside her man instead of giving him a Bobbit, stabbing him in the eye with a high-heeled shoe, or telling him on national TV to fuck off?

To be frank, I was not drawn to this video by its intended message. What grabbed me, what made me grasp the absurdity of my previous stance against her, were the still shots of Hillary Clinton, the person:
~~The young bride in the arms of a husband whose adoration of her in that moment lights his face like the rising sun.
~~The new mother facing the uncertainties of parenthood but proud of the opportunity to escort one of His little ones through this lifetime.
~~A warm and radiant and truly remarkable woman...
In many ways JUST.LIKE.ME.

I felt a connection to Hillary Clinton for who she is, what she has been and could still be.
The woman...
The wife...
The mother...
~~And her legacy.

Not the politician. Not the victim of a philandering husband. Not the butt of a bad joke.

While I cannot say that I would have voted for you, even after my revelations of late, I can acknowledge my respect for you.