of, like, not dying! from a nonmalignant brain tumor! in my frontal lobe, 35 cms. in diameter, had been there for between 17 & 34 years, they said. donated the tissue to UF’s mcknight brain institute thingie, took a month to cry, woke up, started asking for stuff i’d forgotten i enjoyed because i just thought i was tired all the time, my husband dumped me, that’s okay, he needed dumping his own damned self! so, here i am, 53, alive, happy, energetic, writing TONS, making new friends, etc. etc. etc. and, like getting my ENTIRE FUCKING LIFE back in order, which hubby darling had let slide during his ten years of freeloading off me! like, everything he wanted got done, and basically nothing i wanted got done. so, there was that little tidbit. but, to get back to the point, like, dude, i am totally alive & enjoying myself! for the first time in probably 20 to 25 years!!!!! or whenever that frontal lobe thingie started affecting me. how big does something in the most sensitive, the most HUMAN part of the brain have to be to affect you? probably not all that big. so, you can see how by the end of that little “episode” i was SORT OF TIRED. not tired now. and single! and happy! and, i have a really super hot boyfriend! who is NICE TO ME! who wants me to succeed at what I THINK IS IMPORTANT. so, like, damn! things are looking up!!!!!!
Category Archives: notes
my tete a tete with officer charles owens, a nonfiction note
“What can I do for you, officer?”
“Why are you so hostile?”
He asked for my license and registration and proof of insurance, which I gave him. He walked back to his vehicle and did whatever police officers do, I suppose run my driver’s license number to make sure I wasn’t wanted for some crime or something. And to make sure the vehicle wasn’t stolen, I suppose. And to make sure I had insurance, because that was something else he could have given me a ticket for. I do give Ofc. Owens points for being thorough. Just not any points for being correct.
“I’m giving you a ticket for careless driving.”
“How was my driving careless?”
“I heard your tires squeal.”
“But the road is wet, it has been misting for at least the past hour, maybe two.”
“The road is perfectly dry.” The mist swirled around his head as he spoke those words. I thought to myself, doesn’t he notice it?
“Is this the best use of your valuable law enforcement time? Giving a woman driving home alone at one a.m. in a white Toyota minivan a ticket because you heard her tires squeal on the damp pavement?”
“I smell beer on your breath.”
“Well, I did have one with dinner, about four hours ago, I haven’t brushed my teeth yet. I suppose that’s it. Would you like to perform a field sobriety test?”
“No.”
“Would you like to do a breathalyzer?”
“I’d have to call the van. Do you want me to call the van?”
“Sure, let’s have a party! No, that’s okay, you don’t have to call the van.”
Further discussion, about the ramifications of the ticket, etc., how to contest it, etc.
“Oh, you have a dog? What’s his name?”
“Justice.”
“Can I meet him?”
“No.”
“Can I take your photograph?”
“Yes.” I did so. It wasn’t the greatest, as his eyes were closed, but under the circumstances I did not think it wise to ask to take another. Ofc. Owens was clearly having a bad night.
When I first saw Officer Charles Owens, he was sitting inside his police vehicle, parked in the Lloyd Clarke’s parking lot, apparently conferring with another officer in another police vehicle. They were both inside their vehicles, each with the driver’s window rolled down, the vehicles thus facing in opposite directions. I am not certain, but the other officer may have been a female, as it seems I remember seeing a ponytail.
When Ofc. Owens first noticed me, I was turning left on to 13th Street from 16th Avenue. I had been hauling heavy vanloads of farm equipment earlier in the day, from Gainesville to Micanopy, and now my van was empty, and much lighter. After all the farm transportation, I had taken a friend to dinner and then dropped him off at his home and stood in his carport talking with him for half an hour or so, and the entire time I watched mist coming down.
I was very tired, and traveling by myself, back to an empty house, a situation I had not found myself in, in decades. Due to the mist, when I pressed on the accelerator, the wet road caused a slight squeal from my tires. I did not veer from my carefully steered path, I did not speed, nor was there any other car in the intersection, or even anywhere near the intersection. At that hour on a Wednesday, the roads were practically empty.
Officer Owens’ car was the one pointed with its nose facing south, the direction in which I was traveling, so he immediately pulled out of the parking lot and followed me, his lights flashing. I pulled over as soon as I realized it was me he was following, and turned right, on to 10th Avenue.
I was then two blocks or so from home. I rolled down the window of my car after he approached my vehicle, and asked him, in what I thought was my nicest and most cooperative voice, what I could do for him. I was exhausted and getting divorced in two days, but I did my best to be polite.
The first thing he said to me was why was I so “hostile.” I told him I wasn’t feeling hostile in the slightest, but that I was very, very tired and just wanted to get home, and being a female driving across town, alone at 1 a.m., was not something I enjoyed. I was, however, annoyed, because I thought his stopping me was entirely unnecessary and a waste of valuable taxpayer resources.
I started to tell Ofc. Owens a couple of pertinent facts that might have affected his decision-making processes, such as the fact that I was being divorced in two days, by my husband of ten years, after almost dying from a brain tumor the previous April, a tumor which had been wrapped around my optic nerve and the major aorta in my brain and had been in that site for between 17 to 34 years, and had made me feel horrible for at least the prior 5 years. I was getting divorced, as far as I could tell, because my husband preferred me half-dead and didn’t like the fact that I was not in that state anymore, and actually wanted him to get off the couch once in a while.
“I don’t want to hear any of your personal information,” he said as soon as I said my first word on those topics. I complied, and did not insist to be heard.
I live at the corner of 8th Avenue and 15th Street, and I am well aware of the driving skills usually displayed on 13th Street. Careless driving is not what I do. I am an excellent driver, and the only accident on my record was one in which my then-teenaged daughter’s car was parked in the driveway of my home, and a drunken college student plowed into it, and into the tree next to the driveway, and sped off with such haste that the smell of burning rubber could be smelt for hours afterwards.
The insurance company told me that even though my car was unoccupied and parked, I was being charged with an at fault accident because the vehicle was in my name. I was told there was nothing I could do about it. I live in an extremely loud, noisy and “party” neighborhood, which I nonetheless love and tolerate because I like to be in the middle of town. Needless to say, I know the value of the police force and respect what they do highly. However, Ofc. Owens made a bad call. It happens. Everyone makes mistakes. One was made here. I was not driving carelessly. End of story.
Filed under humor, legal writing, mysterious, notes, science
desiderata, in french, hopefully an OK translation, not by me
Desiderata
Aller tranquillement au milieu du bruit et la hâte et n’oubliez pas quelle paix il peut être dans le silence. Aussi loin que possible sans cession être en bons termes avec toutes les personnes. Parler de ta vérité calmement et clairement ; et écouter les autres, même le mat et l’ignorant ; ils ont aussi leur histoire. Éviter des personnes forts et agressifs, ils sont des déboires à l’esprit. Si vous comparez vous-même avec les autres, vous pouvez devenir vaniteux et amère ; pour toujours, il y aura une plus grande et la petite personnes que vous-même.
Profitez de vos réalisations ainsi que vos plans. Garder intéressés par votre propre carrière, si humble ; C’est une véritable possession dans les fortunes changeantes du temps. Faire preuve de prudence dans vos relations d’affaires; pour le monde est plein de fourberies. Mais cela laisse ne pas vous aveugler sur quel virtue est là; beaucoup de personnes recherchent de grands idéaux ; et partout la vie est pleine d’héroïsme.
Soyez vous-même. En particulier, ne pas feindre d’affection. Ni être cynique sur l’amour; pour face à l’aridité et le désenchantement, il est aussi vivace que l’herbe.
Prenez avec bonté le conseiller des années, remise gracieusement les choses de la jeunesse. Nourrir de force de l’esprit pour vous protéger d’infortune soudaine. Mais ne pas vous affliger avec dark imaginings. Beaucoup de craintes naissent de la fatigue et la solitude. Au-delà d’une discipline saine, soyez doux avec vous-même.
Vous êtes un enfant de l’univers, pas moins que les arbres et les étoiles ; vous avez le droit d’être ici. Et s’il est clair pour vous, sans doute, l’univers se déroule comme il se doit.
Par conséquent, être en paix avec Dieu, tout ce que vous lui faire concevez et quel que soit vos labeurs et aspirations, dans la bruyante confusion de la vie, maintenir la paix avec ton âme. Avec toutes ses trompe-l’œil, corvées et rêves brisés, c’est toujours un monde merveilleux. Être de bonne humeur. S’efforcer d’être heureux.
Max Ehrmann, (1927)
Filed under for children, health, humor, legal writing, mysterious, notes, poetry, prose poetry, recommended reblogs
Jack, the Triple War Veteran, a nonfiction
Jack, the Triple War Veteran, a nonfiction
I met Jack, the 91-year-old, 52-years-of-service-including-3-wars, Army veteran on May 31st, 2013, approximately two months after I “woke up” from what was [then] my life, when I went to go fill my mom-mobile (white minivan) with mid-grade gasoline products (it may be only a mom-mobile, but i have a NEED FOR SPEED) at the Gate convenience store/gas station two blocks or so from my house. I saw him sitting over by the vacuum/air/water station, on the round, concrete base of a streetlamp, his sleek, black, wheeled walker/chair thingie so piled up with odds and ends of clothes, shoes, and bags of snacks that it looked more like a shopping cart from across the parking lot. His hair and beard were striking: long, silvery white, shiny and silky and clean. He looked like a very trim, fit Santa Claus, and when I first saw him, I would never have guessed he was 91 years old. I approached him because I am what some people call a “bleeding heart liberal,” that is, my heart sort of sags and melts when I am confronted with people having needs that, to them, loom insolvable, and in actuality can be solved with a couple of $5 or $10 bills.
“Sir,” I said, “I don’t want to offend you in any way, but do you need anything? Can I do anything for you? Anything at all? Do you need a few bucks, maybe?”
“Honey,” he said. “I’ve been saving my money all my life!” He took his wallet out, showed me a bunch of folded bills, and pulled a big stack of quarters out of his shorts’ pocket. Jack was born in West Virgina, called himself a good, old hillbilly.
“Jack’s a great name,” I said. “One of my grandpas was named Jack.”
“They named me after the dog!” he said.
“Well, they must have loved that dog,” I said. “It must have been a terrific dog!”
“They still named me after the dog,” he said. I have named pets after people, and wanted to do the reverse, just never had the actual opportunity. (Wait for it!)
“I went to West Virginia once,” I said. “I was in Morgantown.”
“The University of West Virginia!” he said.
“I know, it’s a beautiful town,” I said. “And the state is beautiful, all those green hills.”
Turns out, he’s hanging out at the convenience store to get away from his daughter. “She wants me to be the child, and her to be the parent, now,” he said. “I’m too old for that!”
“I hear you,” I said. “Does she know where you are?”
“I don’t really want her to,” he said. “She lives right down the street, in a house I bought her back in 1972.”
He named his first rifle Miss Betty….
He was with Patton in N. Africa, at just 18 yrs. old, he was for a brief time Patton’s assistant? Patton’s army was chasing Rommel, he and Jack started arguing over which way Rommel should to go; they disagreed (he & Patton) but Jack turned out to be right. In a rage, Patton grabbed his (Jack’s) rifle once & shot into the air with it. Yes, I could see General Patton doing such a thing. Hahaha.
His daughter, whom he is on the lam from, is nicknamed BooBoo: she got that nickname because as a baby she’d hide behind cabinets, furniture, poke her head out & say Boo, Daddy, Boo!
He is not married now, he likes it that way, nobody telling him what to do.
When I told him how nice he looked, how he didn’t look 91 at all: “I take care of myself! I’ve got to! People say I’m a loner, but it’s three of us: me, myself and I.”
God’s on his right shoulder, sometimes God tells him things, what to do or not to do: sometimes he doesn’t listen, does what he wants, not what God says. Later, he hears God saying, I told you so. God has blessed him. Every time we shook hands, me trying to exit stage right because my own 15 year old BooBoo was at home waiting for me to get back, he said, “God bless you,” and I said, thank you so much. His eyes, the pale clear blue of a child’s, the twinkle of a child’s, the mischievous, rascally soul shining out of them. But a good, good man. Stationed all over the world and the United States of America. The state of Florida was the site of his last posting. He got misty-eyed thinking about one of his predeceased children, another daughter, however, he did not mention her name, and because of aforementioned misty-eyed-ness, I did not ask.
They once had a terrible episode of anthrax on the farm, when he was a child? The cow had to get shots from the vet, they couldn’t use the cow’s milk for 6 weeks, then it was OK. That cow gave so much milk, she had to be milked three times a day, not just two.
He wore dog tags, wouldn’t let me look at them: “the last person that sees these is the one who’s supposed to bury me.”
“Well, I certainly don’t want to be the last to see them, then,” I said.
A student buying beer stopped & handed him a tall cold water bottle. Jack thanked the boy warmly, saying “God bless you,” then after the boy walked off, he handed me the bottle.
“Aren’t you going to need this?” I asked him, concerned.
“I’ve got everything I need right here,” he said, pointing to his loaded “sulky,” a plastic grocery bag hanging: was that the water? “Besides,” he said, “that’s too cold. And besides, I really like beer.”
“But you might need this water later,” I protested.
“Look,” said Jack, “he gave it to me, I’m giving it to you. I’m just in the middle.” I had to accept, gracefully, so I did, but I still felt a bit guilty. The gift was Jack’s, but he wouldn’t keep it, he had to pass it along to me.
The store clerk, a young African American lad, came out to check on us; I think he wanted to make sure I wasn’t endangering Jack. Jack handed him a huge pile of quarters, asked if he’d bring him out some beer.
“What kind?” the young man asked.
“O.P.,” Jack answered.
The clerk was confused. “What’s that?” he said?
“Other people’s,” laughed Jack.
“I think he means it really doesn’t matter what kind of beer you bring him,” I said to the young man. So he went inside with the money, came back out with a boxed six-pack & Jack’s excess change.
A woman, with a hard-lived look, came over to talk to us. She knew Jack already, addressed him by name. She was also a veteran, Operation Desert Storm. She asked me if I could spare some gas money. “It’s the end of the month,” she explained, “and I’m coming up short. I just have to make it a few more days.”
“Sure,” I said, relieved that I could at least give her something, fulfill the impulse that had brought me over to Jack. I went to my purse, grabbed a ten dollar bill. While I was doing that, I saw Jack getting his money out to give her some, too. He brought out a fiver. Jack and I handed her the money, she shook my hand & thanked us both, and went to pump her gas.
Jack was dressed like a cool surfer guy; shorts with a nice braided belt, no shirt, his dog tag necklace, a pinky ring carved out of some sort of jade on his right hand, a couple of funky/hipster/hippy bracelets on his left wrist. Quite fashionable looking, and I couldn’t get over the condition of his hair; silky & clean & shiny & sparkling silver, and the same with the beard, it grew to a natural point just below his breastbone. The only long beard I’ve ever seen that looked beautiful! His skin was amazingly smooth & healthy looking, considering the amount of sun exposure he must’ve seen! I mean, he was 91 and he had very little sun damage, not many wrinkles, though of course a bit of sagging around the jowls. No frown lines! His only physical flaw was some missing teeth; it was apparent he could have had dentures or a bridge if he’d wanted them, but I think he was more comfortable without.
When I was leaving, I blew him a kiss.
“I’d rather have the real thing,” he chuckled.
“I can’t,” I said, “I’m married.” We both laughed then. If I had known that day, May 31st, that my husband was going to dump me, unceremoniously, in front of the yard man, in the side driveway, I certainly would have kissed him (Jack!), full on the lips! Like, a billion times!
[If he’d had all his own teeth, not only might I have given him a closed-mouth smooch, but I probably would have tried somehow to fix him up with my former mother-in-law who live[d] in my attached guest house (that I built for her & her husband, who died 3 years ago, but who would be 91 now) (who was the only decent person in THAT entire FUCKING FAMILY). Said former “mother in law”
was, and is still, an ignorant idiot and would have been put off by Jack’s missing teeth. Plus, she is, as we used to say in middle school, “mental.”] *ahem* NO FURTHER COMMENT PERMITTED, BY LAW. Did you know, that for IRS purposes, you can NEVER GET RID OF AN IN-LAW? Once an “in law” for tax purposes, always an “in law.” The law presupposes that divorced persons might still have attachments to one another’s family members. Hahahahaha. Isn’t that FUNNY?????
Oh, P.S. I, myself, now have a dog named… wait for it… JACK, a rescue from the Dixie County, Florida animal rescue organization, a sweet one-year-old weimaraner/yellow lab mix! Jack the dog’s eyes are yellow/green & deep….
Oh, and P.P.S. And you’re not going to believe this! On the way to present this piece at an “open mic” at Coffee Culture on 13th Street in Gainesville, Florida, the fabulous Tristan Harvey, emcee & manager of the joint, in any case, ON THE WAY TO THE FUCKING OPEN MIC, i ran in to jack, on the way! it was raining, i pulled over & asked him if he needed a ride. he said no, i said, isn’t your name jack, and HE LIED BECAUSE HE THOUGHT I WAS THERE CAPTURING HIM to take him back to his daughter!!!!!!
GODDAMNED TRUE STORY. BELIEVE IT, OR NOT.
um, but if you know what’s good for you, you’ll take my written words as GOSPEL TRUTH.
Filed under health, humor, legal writing, mysterious, notes, poetry, prose poetry, science, short stories
Friday, June 14, 2013, 3:24:22 AM
http://doingisbeing.com/category/conscious-health-care/
“we are all the universe manifested through a human nervous system and becoming self-aware; going beyond your ego-encapsulated identity; the secret of healing is the secret of enlightenment; healing is the return of the memory of wholeness; when you’re holy, you’re healed; when you’re healed you lose the fear of death; the best way to reach enlightenment is through the yoga of meditation; cosmic ideas; when you hear them over & over again, at first you may not understand them; but they cause a shift in your consciousness & everything changes.”
Filed under health, mysterious, notes, recommended reblogs, science
probability is not certainty
uh, neil degrasse tyson, i hate to burst your bubble, but probability is not certainty. the mathematical difference between 99.99 & 100 is infinite; remember zeno’s paradox??
“In 1977, physicists E. C. G. Sudarshan and B. Misra studying quantum mechanics discovered that the dynamical evolution (motion) of a quantum system can be hindered (or even inhibited) through observation of the system. This effect is usually called the “quantum Zeno effect” as it is strongly reminiscent of Zeno’s arrow paradox. This effect was first theorized in 1958.”
us poets & writers call it “the butterfly effect,” don’t we?
he didn’t know he would die on december 19, 1979. a beautiful letter, regardless. my daddy. i loved him.
Thurs. 9-27 (1979)
Hello my beautiful daughter,
I haven’t checked my mail at Steve & Etta’s in a couple days, so I don’t know if you’ve written or not. When I wrote you last and asked to hear whether you’d gotten it, that seemed important. When I’ve thought about it since, it hasn’t. That is, if you’re supposed to get my letters, you will; and if I’m supposed to/need to hear from you, I will. I love you, and one of the things that means is that I enjoy expressing myself to you. Don’t get me wrong: I also really like hearing from you, hearing you/listening to you expressing yourself to me. That’s what I want, and what I get will be what I need.
I hope you’re enjoying yourself and learning and growing. I know you’re doing the latter two; the first is the only thing I’m unsure about.
Things are really interesting & exciting for me: seeing some patterns in my life, some big ones, for the first time ever. They are really far out: mostly they have to do with my history of relationships with women (including your mother & going back further than her) and how I use/have used those relationships to work out my feelings about my mother & her inability to give me love, affection, respect, hugs, kisses, TLC… that kind of stuff. (I’m unclear about how much of this I “should” be sharing with you… when, if ever, should I relate to you like a peer? Or: when a father tells his child about his own emotional/psychological struggle/growth/insights/development, is that OK? I guess I should go with my feelings and it feels OK to go this far; I’ll go as far as it feels OK to. Part of my desire is for you to maybe learn a little something about your own psyche, and to know me as well as you can… given our… the way our relationship has gone (off the main point: I want you to know that I am not threatened or bothered at all, any more, by your relationship with your stepfather. I accept that he was your father, is your father, in many ways. And I think it’s beautiful that you have two of us. How many young women have a straight dad and an unconventional dad?) At any rate, the genesis of this recent big insight was George Oliver, from whose apartment I called you the other week. I was talking to Geo. about my feelings of longing for Barbara & he told me that what I was saying sounded just like what I’d said & been feeling right after separating the last time from your mom. That blew me away, because it was real true. In essence, my largely unconscious/subconscious need/wanting to “get back at” my mother for what some part of me sees as her deliberate refusal to give me what I wanted, love, has led me over the years to play the game with women (who I’ve viewed as mother-surrogates) of “when I’ve got you, I don’t want you; when I haven’t got you, then I want you back.”
All this realization is so new I’m still trying to get my mind around it. I’m pretty sure I want to stop playing it: it sure doesn’t feel good for those involved, myself included. (I realize that, at some level, it had to be satisfying some real deep need in me; otherwise why go on doing it for 30 plus years?)
Exciting and scary times. The prospect of opting out of the game is exciting. And scary: the game-playing part of me says, “gee, what will I do if I don=t play that game?” or “But that’s all I know how to do!”
Incidentally, I have no regrets about having come down to Florida & having been there 3 & 1/2 months. It all needed to happen, I’m sure of that. And our time together was beautiful.
And something else that needs to happen is going to the first part of next week: I’m heading south again. I’ll be driving in the van down Baja California to La Paz & taking the ferry across to mainland Mexico again. I’m going to revisit some of the places I raced through (e.g. 3 hours in Oaxaca) and visit some of the places I chose not to make side trips to. And drink in that delicious tropical sun & sea for a while. I guess I’m feeling that I’d rather go to Europe in the spring, warmer weather. (Sat.) A feeling that’s really been reinforced by the last couple days in LA, real cool here, rainy & overcast on the beach today.
My current thinking about my travelling is that I’ll do Mexico again until Dec. or Jan. then go to the Caribbean. I’d love to visit Jamaica, St. Martin, Puerto Rico, etc. And then in summer go to Europe. Rather than going to London now, then immediately to warm weather in Africa then going back to Europe next summer. But, it’s real hard to stay definite.. I don’t know what this does to our talking about travelling together, but if we’re supposed to, we will. And I would love to see the Caribbean with you.
I don’t know whether I’ve told you or not: when I came out here in Aug., my first stop was San Diego, where I talked to my Aunt Cecelia (who also was my godmother) & the lawyer that drew up my mother’s will. Cecelia, after hearing that I felt humiliated, hurt and angry about Mom’s will, said that Mom had felt all those same things & ways about what I’d done in living my life. Which is no doubt true. And sad, that my efforts to live & be happy were taken so personally by her, and that she chose to be so upset about them. There’s a lesson there, for sure.
I will write you from Mexico and I’ve decided to assume you will get my letters & stop worrying about whether Gail might intercept them.
My thoughts are with you a lot. Know that I love you. (The thunder outside seems to punctuate my writing with an exclamation point after that sentence!!) Allow yourself to be who you are; remember that if you were supposed to be different, you would be.
Dad
Incidentally, I asked Sheila’s lawyer how long before I get my money from the estate & he said he couldn’t be definite (you know how lawyers are) but he thought it’s be sooner than 6 mos.!
(You can write me in Mexico if you want. I’ll be stopping in La Paz, in the state of Baja Calif. Sur and mail will be held for me if you send it c/o Lista de Correos, for that city & state. La Paz is 1000 miles or so south of San Diego so I shouldn’t be there until at least a week or so, more like 2 weeks, after you get this.) I’ll let you know other cities later. The next one after La Paz will be Puerto Vallarta, but I forget the state name, but you can just check an atlas.
Filed under notes
cockroaches, firelogs, and personal archives: my personal, award-winning horror movie for today
okay, i should first tell you three things: i have never liked “firelogs” OR cockroaches; i have always LOVED old photographs, sentimental papers, family archives & stuff like that. firelogs being those fake things that people who don’t know how to build a REAL fire use to build a fire. it’s a wimpy, no-good shortcut & my first husband, who knew his firebuilding stuff, wouldn’t have used a “firelog” for all the wealth in china, which is to say he would have rather gone to his death kicking & screaming. he was, after all, an indian guide with his father, used to build models of warships to have REAL WARS with his youthful, boyhood friends in the creek, and would gladly set his hours-of-work-invested masterpieces on fire just to have the satisfaction of winning!! get my position on firelogs? and see how i can see noble virtues even in people whom i couldn’t manage to stay married to? my judgment is, in other words, EXTREMELY RELIABLE & TRUSTWORTHY. i don’t say that to toot my own horn. ask anyone who has really loved me & been the recipient of my love. ANYONE, i dare you.
on to cockroaches. i would rather deal with the deadliest poisonous snake on the planet than a cockroach. poisonous snakes at least exhibit LOGICAL behavior. cockroaches are entirely unpredictable. they will fly toward you, away from you, straight up, straight down, they will hide, attack, scuttle into the woodwork, fly into the light — and they will do all these things SIMULTANEOUSLY. you leave a poisonous snake alone, you creep quietly and smoothly at the highest speed possible in the opposite direction from said snake — with respect in your heart and self-preservation in your mind — that admittedly lethal snake will leave you alone. all that being said, there are still a few people whom make cockroaches look GOOD. their names are unavailable to the public, or in fact, anyone but me. as a poet & an attorney, i keep secrets for two separate livings/careers/vocations/callings/professions. so don’t bother to ask.
next we must discuss the third topic: my family & personal archives. i am very careful & protective of these. i don’t have a fireproof safe like my dear grandfather the tax attorney/professional trustee, but i am careful enough for my purposes. today, however, makes me question that prior assumption. i was in the process of posting to this “blog” a poem about my darling eldest daughter, and i wanted to add to the post the first picture ever taken of her, the picture that inspired the poem (well, actually SHE inspired the poem, but the picture would have helped people understand exactly HOW she managed that inspiration). so, i opened the built-in brick and cypress floor cabinet the builders of my danish modern home (1953, and they were in fact from denmark) added to store their firewood, right next to the fireplace itself, and incorporated beautifully into the design of the room. a lovely piece of work, in other words. yes, i opened this cabinet. do you want to know what i found? do you really? i don’t know that you want the grisly details. suffice it to say, roaches cannot chew through the thick plastic of the bins i have my archives contained in, the contents sorted by type, author, & era. carefully packed. tightly sealed. so don’t panic, the contents of those bins are perfectly fine. let’s just say, it is obvious where the roach problem i have experienced this season so far has been coming from (the large, american cockroach/”palmetto bug” kind, not the little horrible german cockroach kind which is easily controlled just by cleaning up ones kitchen & having a pest control service)!
roaches CAN, however, chew right through the wrappers of the case of “firelogs” i had also stored in the aforementioned fireside cabinet to keep them away from my darling kitty maynard. he smelled them once, the day they came home from the store, and tore a “firelog” bag open himself & proceeded to gorge on this “firelog” because it smelled of molasses, thick rich molasses that made anyone, animal or human, who smelled it crave molasses cake or cookies, or anything prepared with molasses, or even just a big, gnarly spoonful of it, placed in the mouth with reverence. when maynard did this, he shortly thereafter vomited the stinkiest vomit & shat the stinkiest diarrhea i have ever personally observed, and let me just say right here that i have experienced vomit, bloody vomit, diarrhea, bloody diarrhea, and every other possible combination of horrifying personal body fluids & excretions you can imagine, and had to clean them up unaided except by a steam cleaner. get my drift? of course the animal poison control hotline, which costs almost $100 just to consult, but is worth every penny, explained to me that while producing unpleasant effects, the “firelogs” were not toxic and that my darling kitty would be ok. still, after this incident, just to be safe, i thence stored the case of “firelogs” inside my solid, unbreachable (or so i thought) cabinet so that we would not have to be subject to any more foul, stinking bodily excretions, nor have to clean up same.
it took me quite a while (a few hours, anyway) to get into the right headspace to clean up this debacle. luckily, my bug man placed baits inside the chimney (which was their conduit in & out of the house to get food & water), AND closed the flue, which my ex husband & i mistakenly thought we had closed at the beginning of last winter. oops! big, big, big mistake when you are dealing with cockroaches. you must think like a tiny, flexible, numberless, resourceful invading army. you must think small, which isn’t always easy!!!!!!!!!! my grudging respect for these creatures (which god, after all, thought should be here for some reason which i will press him for, when & if we meet in person), has had to be adjusted even farther upward. it is not mythology alone which says they will be the last surviving creatures on this earth should we experience some lethal global tragedy. damn!
airplane lands at wrong airport in kansas
hmmm. I don’t think we’re in Kansas, anymore, co-pilot darling!
except we are. we’re eight miles from the airport we were supposed to land at.
don’t end a sentence with a preposition!
sorry, i’m nervous. didn’t smoke enough hay before takeoff.
shhh! the faa is probably listening!
nah, they’re busy fighting terrorism. besides, does the faa even exist, anymore? isn’t it the tsa???
oh, shut up. there goes the morning. now we’ve done it.
no, you’ve done it, Ollie.
oh, shut up!
Filed under humor
Great book: The Tyranny of Good Intentions
“That which thy fathers bequeathed thee, earn it anew if thou woulds’t possess it.” (old Anglo-Saxon maxim). The English legal system we who now live in the United States of America inherited, historically reflected “a [very strong] tradition of the defense of individual rights against the state,” (at least since “The Glorious Revolution” in 1688). You’ll have noticed by now, I am sure, that the far, radical Right has long referred to President Barack Obama as either “the Antichrist,” or “Hitleresque.” They are in fact on to something, but not the right something. A quick comparison of the status quo in effect currently, versus the situation in Germany when Hitler was “elected,” is highly illustrative. In post-WWI Germany, “German law reflected the tradition of a strong state as the embodiment of the community by which individuals would be granted such rights as were considered compatible with its interests.” (Jeremy Noakes & Geoffrey Pridham, eds., Documents on Nazism, 1919-1945 (New York: Viking Press, 1975), at p. 226-27.) Thus, Obama, even if he desired it, could not possibly have the kinds of powers Hitler wielded in the short-lived “Thousand Year Reich.” Or whatever the hell that freaky, Hitler-moustachioed murderous asshole who ruled Germany for a while called his horrible regime — which regime is an undeserved stain on the beleaguered German people, who have since recovered that fumble neatly, and in fact probably have less economic inequality than those of us in these United States of America.
“The character of this [English-inspired, individual-oriented, American] legal system ensured that it would be revered. In recent times, however, reverence for our legal system is being replaced by fear, distrust, and dissatisfaction. For example, inner-city juries routinely refuse to convict criminal defendants on the basis of prosecutorial and police evidence alone.” Witness O.J. Simpson!
“The twentieth century’s belief in government power as a force for good has encouraged the practice of chasing after devils. Like a national emergency, a righteous cause can cut a wide swath through the law to more easily apprehend wrongdoers. In recent decades, both conservatives and liberals cut swaths through the law as they pursued drug dealers, S&L crooks, environmental polluters, Wall Street insider traders, child abusers, and other undesirables. Impatience, frustration, hysteria, political scapegoating, and greed have caused police, prosecutors, victims, and the plaintiffs’ bar to grow weary of laws that protect those accused of crimes and negligence. The question is raised, “Why should the guilty have the benefit of law?” Sir Thomas More’s answer (as presented in A Man for All Seasons) is that when the law is disregarded to better pursue the guilty, it is also taken away from the innocent. What are we to do, he asks, if those chasing after devils decide to chase after us? If the law is cast down, what protection do the innocent have? A little liberty taken here, a precedent there, and the Rights of Englishmen become history, a clear-cut area where once mighty oaks stood.”
The Tyranny of Good Intentions, How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice, Paul Craig Roberts & Lawrence M. Stratton, authors, ISBN 0-7615-2553-X, FORUM press, an imprint of Prima Publishing, 3000 Lava Ridge Court, Roseville, CA 95661 (copyright, 2000).
the spookiest thing, for me, as a person?? this was all written & predicted well before 9/11 or the Patriot Act, or two bizarre wars which we are still sort of in but sort of not, before Obama, before the “Tea Party,” the current crop of mad hatters & dormice… before any of it. why aren’t we calling these guys to hear what they have to say next??????
Filed under legal writing, notes
Kimberly Townsend Palmer 